Friends of the Lower East Side is offering FREE walking tours of the historic LES this Saturday from noon to 2 pm. Rain date is May 9th. Meet at the SE corner of Delancy and Orchard Streets.
I've seen similar tours go for $10-$25 per person, so this sounds like a great deal.
From Friends of the Lower East Side's website:
Teeming Tenements Transformed: A Lower East Side Walking Tour
The guided tour, led by architectural historian Mitchell Grubler, will focus on the history and architecture of the Lower East Side with particular attention to the housing, institutions and businesses that were the center of immigrant life. . The tour will highlight the impact of housing reforms reflected in the changes to the plans and features of tenements over time. We will see pre-Old Law, Old Law and New Law tenements and look up at the elaborate terra cotta ornamentation that distinguishes many buildings.
Although endangered, a number of blocks south of Delancey Street still retain the sense of place that would be familiar to our immigrant ancestors. “The Lower East Side is where millions of immigrants have taken their first steps in the New World on the road to the American Dream,” wrote Joyce Mendelsohn, tour co-leader and author of the definitive guidebook to the area, The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited. The structures that housed some of the institutions and businesses which served the multitudes of immigrants will also be highlighted.
