All hous­es have their own sto­ries to tell. The sep­a­rate floors of an apart­ment build­ing are lay­ers of time and space, and behind each door stars a dif­fer­ent fam­i­ly. Ellen Weinstein’s new pic­ture book about home is both nos­tal­gic and con­tem­po­rary. It’s based on a build­ing on New York City’s Low­er East Side and its suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of res­i­dents. Jew­ish, Ital­ian, Domini­can, Puer­to Rican, and Chi­nese fam­i­lies all share com­mon expe­ri­ences, but they are also sus­tained by their own unique cultures.

The fam­i­lies inhab­it­ing the build­ing are immi­grants, with the excep­tion of the Tor­re­ses, whom the author iden­ti­fies as migrants. In 1914, the Epsteins arrive, flee­ing the oppres­sion of Jews in their native Rus­sia. The Cozzis leave Naples, seek­ing bet­ter eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties, as does the Chi­nese Wei fam­i­ly. Polit­i­cal insta­bil­i­ty in 1965 was a moti­vat­ing fac­tor for the Marte­ses from San­to Domin­go. A com­plex mix of events influ­ences their deci­sions, and a broad range of changes awaits them in New York.

Wein­stein selects key moments and presents them with evoca­tive images. ​“After school, Jen­ny cleaned,” she writes, show­ing the Epstein daugh­ter sweep­ing the floor of their mod­est home in a long dress and white pinafore. On the same page, her par­ents work at sewing machines and align them­selves with a union to improve their lives. Maria Tor­res, in a prac­tice com­mon to her com­mu­ni­ty, returns to San Juan every year to vis­it relatives.

Rather than explic­it­ly men­tion­ing the ten­sion between old and new, Wein­stein illus­trates how peo­ple adapt while still remain­ing faith­ful to who they are. Anna Cozzi lis­tens to Ital­ian opera on the radio ​“even though she didn’t under­stand the words.” On the next page, Anna is absorbed in the con­cert, chin in hand, while her par­ents sit across from her. Her father wraps his arm around her moth­er, who holds a sewing nee­dle and fab­ric. Anna’s broth­er plays mar­bles on the floor. In the fol­low­ing image, Anna falls asleep dream­ing of becom­ing an opera singer, inte­grat­ing a core part of her her­itage into her life in Amer­i­ca. When Wei Yei walks through his neigh­bor­hood, he can choose from an array of eth­nic foods: ​“peanut noo­dles, strudel, knish, kebabs, can­no­li, or tostones.” The rhyth­mic sound of these words is appeal­ing, but so is the mem­o­ry of the foods his grand­moth­er pre­pared for him in Fuzhou, his for­mer home.

Wein­stein con­cludes with a note explain­ing that she con­duct­ed research at sev­er­al dif­fer­ent Low­er East Side insti­tu­tions, includ­ing the Ten­e­ment Muse­um, the Eldridge Street Syn­a­gogue, and two pub­lic schools. Archival records and inter­views with young peo­ple helped her recre­ate the ​“vibrant fab­ric” of the neigh­bor­hood. The book’s first page depicts a cut­away view of the apart­ment build­ing, with detailed, minia­tur­ized scenes vis­i­ble on each floor and in each room. Wein­stein has dis­tilled the essence of New York city life, and has also giv­en five indi­vid­ual sto­ries their own unique space.