This fascinating museum—actually a series of restored tenement apartments at 97 Orchard Street—is accessible only by guided tour. Tickets are sold at the visitors’ center at 108 Orchard Street; tours often sell out, so it’s wise to book ahead. Costumed "residents" give glimpses into the daily lives of immigrant clans that called the building home over the decades.
Check out its newest walking tour, "Reclaiming Black Spaces," that stops at the former downtown New York office of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which fought for Civil Rights in the 1960s, the firehouse desegregated by Wesley Williams in 1919, who became the FDNY’s first Black lieutenant, and the M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden, which was named in memory of the second 18th century African American burial ground that was located on nearby Chrystie Street.
RECOMMENDED: The best things do in NYC