Where-To-Go Wednesday - Lower East Side Tenement Museum: Victoria Confino and An American in Paris

We were given free tickets to the Victoria Confino tour at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum for review purposes. Any and all opinions expressed here our own based on our experience.

What: Lower East Side Tenement Museum Victoria Confino Tour

Where: 103 Orchard Street
             New York, NY

Who: Ages 5 and up

 Mom's view: Visiting the Lower East Side Tenement Museum is like stepping back in history and learning about what it was like to live in a tenement in New York City in the 19th or early 20th century. The Tenement Museum offers three types of tours: building tours, meet the resident tours where actors take on the role of residents and neighborhood walking tours. We participated in a Victoria Confino: Meet the Residents Tour. Victoria Confino was a young girl who immigrated to America from Greece with her family. At one time, there actually was a real Victoria Confino, but now she is played by an actress. This is the only tour offered by the Tenement Museum that is suitable for young children. They will get to meet Victoria and see her apartment which looks like it would have looked back when the real Victoria lived there. They will also learn about her life and her family. They will even have a chance to learn even more about what life was like for Victoria by interacting with her a little to help her to do things like put coal in the stove (the stove is not on, of course). This tour is very informative and fun for children of all ages unless your children are babies or young children so young that all they want to do is run around and touch things. In those cases, they probably would not enjoy this tour. However, if you have children older then 6, they may also enjoy other tours offered by the museum as well as the Victoria Confino tour. To find out more about the other tours that are offered and what the minimum age requirements are for each or to book a tour go to https://www.tenement.org/tours.php.

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What: An American in Paris

Where: Palace Theatre
             1564 Broadway
             New York, NY

Who: Tweens and up

Mom's view: If you like a good old fashioned musical with classical style dancing, you will love An American in Paris. The show is based on the famous movie of the same. The plot is basically the same with a few minor changes.  There is a little more emphasize on the politics of the time than in the movie. In the movie, although Lisa feels obligated to Henri because her family saved her life during the war the circumstances are not really made clear, but here it is made very evident that the reason that her life was in danger in the first place was because she is a Jew. The acting is good. The dancing is beautiful. The score is full of old familiar songs like I've Got Rhythm and The Man I Love although not all of the songs were originally in An American in Paris. Most if not all of the songs are by George Gershwin, and many of them are from other old musicals. If you like a good love story, you will like this show. It is not really a show for young children, there is not really anything objectionable about it, but they would probably be bored by it. For more information or to order tickets go to http://www.anamericaninparisbroadway.com/.

And that's Mom's view. Tune in to tomorrow's Talking Topics for more about the Lower East Tenement Museum: Victoria Confino and An American in Paris.

Photo credits: Victoria Confino picture by Liz Clayman

                         All An American in Paris photos by Matthew Murphy