A table is set circa the early 1900s at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

AP / BETH A. KEISER

NEW YORK — With the economy teetering and immigration in the news once again, this might be a good time to gain some perspective by revisiting a time when things were really tough, during the Great Depression.

Overcrowding, eviction, tuberculosis, poor heating, no plumbing — those were everyday conditions in lower Manhattan. And you can experience them all first-hand at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which is housed in one of those very tenements.

First stop is the visitors’ center at 108 Orchard St. It’s best to get tickets ($15 for adults, $11 for students and seniors) a few days in advance.

On the Tenement Museum tour, guide Lacy Simkowitz led the group down the block to 97 Orchard St., a five-story apartment building built in 1863 and vacant since 1935. More than 7,000 people lived there over the six decades. The interior, with oddly textured walls and original floor tiling, has an authentic feel, but imagination is necessary to get the full sense of tenement life.

Because it was built four years before housing codes, its earliest tenants had to live with no indoor plumbing, no gas heat and no light in the hallways. The four small apartments on each floor had just one or two windows each. The 20 families (and often boarders) had to vie for three outdoor privies. The first owner, Lukas Glockner — an immigrant who made a fortune with tenements — eventually modernized the building to comply with new building codes.

There are a few tours to choose from. “Getting By” focuses on two families at two stages in the building’s history: the late 19th century and the years after the 1929 stock market crash, and you can count on getting an authentic view — before it opened in 1989, museum officials tracked down several of the children and grandchildren of the families who lived there, to re-create the apartments.

First is the home of Julius and Nathalie Gumpertz, Prussian immigrants who moved into the building in 1870. Julius, a merchant and shoemaker, lost his job when the economy slumped in 1874. He left the apartment one morning and never came back. He is believed to have committed suicide.

With four children to provide for, Nathalie went to work as a dressmaker (garment district jobs were most readily available to women; prostitution provided others). Nine years after her husband’s disappearance, Nathalie inherited a small fortune of $600 from Julius’ father. The Gumpertz family moved out of the tenement as fast as they could.

Upstairs and a few decades later is the apartment of the Baldizzi family, who lived in the tenement from 1928 to 1935.

In the kitchen — a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling and vintage products in the cabinets — is a recording of Josephine Baldizzi. She was 2 when her family moved in and things didn’t seem bad in the tenements. Josephine remembers days spent playing Chinese checkers and listening to the radio.

But during the Depression, the Baldizzis had a tough time. Adolfo, the father, did the best he could, working odd jobs. When building codes became more stringent, tenement owner Glockner got out of the business and evicted the residents. The Baldizzis moved to Brooklyn.

The Tenement tour shows the museum’s relevance to the world today. The neighborhood’s chic bohemian cachet nowadays has eclipsed its immigrant roots, and it’s not unusual for a one-bedroom apartment to fetch $1,800 to $2,000 a month.

But about 40 percent of the population is still made up of immigrants. Had 97 Orchard St. stayed open, its tenants today would be Hispanic and Asian. Things would be better for them, but far from perfect. Pointing out the window, Simkowitz says an apartment building around the corner burned down a few winters ago because residents had to use portable heaters.

The tours last about an hour, and allows plenty of time for questions, discussion, and reflection. The visitors’ center has a gift shop and continual showings of a History Channel program about the Lower East Side.

For more information, call (212) 431-0233, or visit www.tenement.org.