The Museum at Eldridge Street is pleased to offer a special tour as part of CultureNOW's It Happened HERE initiative, taking place over July 4th weekend. Each day is devoted to a century of the city’s history: Thursday, July 3rd will be devoted to prerevolutionary New York; Friday, July 4th will celebrate the Revolution; Saturday, July 5th, the 19th century; Sunday, July 6th, the 20th century; and Monday, July 7th, the present and future.

On Sunday, July 6th at 11:30am, head to the Museum at Eldridge Street for a Museum and neighborhood tour celebrating the immigration, activism, and architectural history of the 20th century that made our Lower East Side home a fixture of New York's ever-evolving cityscape.

Highlights:

- Visit the Museum at Eldridge Street's historic Main Sanctuary

- From the Eldridge Street Synagogue's founding in 1887 through the golden age, decline, and restoration, uncover the unique ways the building preserves the experiences of the Jewish immigrant community who once lived and worshiped on the Lower East Side

- Venture out into the neighborhood and stop at Straus Square, formerly Rutgers Square, and learn about its history and its significance during the heyday of Jewish immigration

- Visit The Forward building and learn the role of this important Jewish newspaper and its Yiddish advice column A Bintel Brief ("a bundle of letters")

- Stop by Seward Park, the first municipally-built free playground in the United States and designed especially for the neighborhood’s children, the first generation to grow up in such crowded conditions

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