Tenement walking tour .. .

For Thursday, October 23, you will take a walking tour of a typical Lower East Side tenement.

Think about some of the following questions as you take the tour:
* what are the big differences you notice between tenement apartment then and housing today?
* what physical features of the tenement so you think would most significantly affect the way of life of those who lived in the this space? How?
*where and how does the interior space of the tenement reflect life in the Lower East Side outside the apartment?

After you've finished the tour, and thought about the questions, answer the following question in a one-page, typed response: how does your tour of the tenement help to explain some significant theme, motif, or event in Crane's novel, Maggie?

Suggested reading: For those of you interested in exploring the tenement and the Lower East Side a bit more fully, you might want to read some excerpts from Jacob Riis's "How the Other Half Lives." Here is Riis's chapter on the tenement; here is his chapter introducing the Lower East Side; and here is a chapter about working-class women of the Lower East Side.