The first place to call in America for millions of Jewish immigrants to America were tennements on the Lower East Side. What was life like for them? Get a sense of this with a tour led by Randy Settenbrino, the artist, architect, and developer who transformed the last Jewish tenement on Orchard street into an award-winning hotel. Built in 1879, the Historic Blue Moon is a National Geographic recognized desintation hotel. The Blue Moon is also home to Sweet Dreams Cafe, a kosher homage to Nona Carolina’s 1930’s Trattoria Vesuvius, featuring handmade mozzarella, raviolis, gnocchi, all sauces cream, pesto, marinara. Indeed, all desserts and delicacies are baked on the premises. Included in this tour is a tasting of the restaurant's delicacies.

After the tasting, the tour will continue to nearby Kehila Kedosha Janina (the Holy Community of Janina), the only Romaniote synagogue in the Western Hemisphere, an NYC landmark, and one of the only active synagogues on the Lower East Side. Romaniote Jews, who trace their linage in Greece to the time of Alexander the Great, started congregating on the LES in 1906 and opened their synagogue on Broome Street in 1927.

Your guide for this tour , Randy, received his FBA from Brooklyn College. His brainchild The Historic Blue Moon, the last Jewish tenement on Orchard Street, was chosen by National Geographic as “One of a Hundred in The Western Hemisphere to Check into” as well as Allan Sperry’s select in “100 Best little Hotels”, Best boutique Hotel by New Yorker Magazine and City Search. Blue Moon has been the recipient of over forty major articles, NYTimes. L.A. Times, International Herald Tribune, Bloomberg, London Chronicle, Toronto Star, Wall Street Journal, & Forward.