This museum is the first-ever National Trust for Historic Preservation site that was not the home of someone rich or famous. It's something quite different: A five-story tenement that 10,000 people from 25 countries called home between 1863 and 1935 -- people who had come to the United States looking for the American dream and made 97 Orchard St. their first stop. The tenement museum tells the story of the great immigration boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the Lower East Side was considered the "Gateway to America." A visit here makes a good follow-up to an Ellis Island trip -- what happened to all the people who passed through that famous way station?

The only way to see the museum is by guided tour. Two primary tenement tours, held on all open days and lasting an hour, offer a satisfying exploration of the museum: Piecing It Together: Immigrants in the Garment Industry, which focuses on the restored apartment and the lives of its turn-of-the-century tenants, an immigrant Jewish family named Levine from Poland; and Getting By: Weathering the Great Depressions of 1873 and 1929, featuring the homes of the German-Jewish Gumpertz family and the Sicilian-Catholic Baldizzi family, respectively. A knowledgeable guide leads you into each dingy urban time capsule, where several apartments have been faithfully restored to their lived-in condition, and recounts the real-life stories of the families who occupied them in fascinating detail. You can pair them for an in-depth look at the museum, since the apartments and stories are so different; however, one tour serves as an excellent introduction if you don't want to invest an entire afternoon here.

These tours are not really for kids, however, who won't enjoy the serious tone and "don't touch" policy. Much better for them is the 45-minute, weekends-only Confino Family Apartment tour, an interactive living history program geared to families, which allows kids to converse with an interpreter who plays teenage immigrant Victoria Confino (ca. 1916); kids can also handle whatever they like in the apartment and even try on period clothes.

The hour-long Streets Where We Lived neighborhood heritage walking tour is also offered on weekends from April through December. Small permanent and rotating exhibits, including photos, videos, and a model tenement, are housed in the Visitors' Center and exhibition space in the tenement building at 97 Orchard St. Special tours and programs are sometimes on the schedule.

Tours are limited in number and sell out quickly, so it pays to buy tickets in advance, which you can do online, or over the phone by calling Ticketweb at tel. 800/965-4827. Note that the potential acquisition of a neighboring tenement at 99 Orchard St. may change programming, so confirm schedules.