Edward DeGrant, Pauline Levine, Redlining, and Two New York Museums

What happened to the residents of these houses-turned-museums after they moved out? Pauline Levine once lived at 97 Orchard Street, now the highly regarded Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Edward DeGrant was born around the same time in the African-American community of Weeksville. He lived at 5 Hunterfly Road, now the Weeksville Heritage Center.

As a result of race-based-mortgage-lending policies, however, Edward DeGrant was unable to buy property and accumulate wealth like Pauline Levine, a Polish-American who once lived at 97 Orchard Street — the site of today’s Tenement Museum. In the Spring 2016 semester, my students will be researching more people who once lived in the two historic sites. Did they have similar experiences? Were their lives significantly affected by redlining? How so?