"The Baldizzi Apartment"

"The Baldizzi Apartment"

Lower East Side Tenement Museum, New York, NY

The Baldizzi Apartment.

A corner of the kitchen area, a room measuring about ten feet by ten feet. A table covered by a white lace cloth is nestled snug below a pale yellow wooden window frame. White lace curtains are pulled to the sides at the bottom of the window where it meets the table, set with white teacups, saucers, and a set of salt and peppershakers. Two straight back chairs are pulled in under the table; to the right, one chair is just inches from built-in drawers. Just above the drawers, at waist height, is a deep brown old-fashioned radio, shaped like an upside-down U with a round dial in its middle. It is set within an open area framed by curved cutouts, just below a cupboard-three windowpanes in each door reveal kitchen equipment and dishes.

To the right of the built-in cupboard its wooden frame gives way to a pale yellow plaster wall. A stove-black cast-iron-is topped by a surface area holding two aluminum pots and a faded blue coffee pot. Further to the right and against another wall is a white ironing board and small iron. They are a few feet below a window covered by a white lace curtain, its bottom hem crooked, drooping at the right, beside a framed picture. Just to its right is a doorway, a blue print curtain is pulled aside and hooked at right.