One Of The Most Striking Photographs Of Tenement Conditions In Early 1900s NYC (New York: apartments, lease)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In New York City, rapid growth and the imposition of the New York City street grid both played major roles in the look, density, and availability of housing for New Yorkers. Tenements originated from subdivided structures that originally had other purposes, such as single-family homes, with the usually substandard and small living quarters leased to the poor. In the 19th century, the primary housing available to New York’s low-income residents were those subdivided buildings and self-built shanties, clustered together in different areas of the city.
New houses were not often built for the poor, and the affluent mostly built single-family homes for themselves. Tenements constructed specifically for housing the poor originated at some time between 1820 and 1850, and even the new buildings were considered overcrowded and inadequate.
By the end of the Civil War, "tenement" was a term for housing for the urban poor, with well-established connotations for unsafe and unsanitary conditions. With the city's population nearing one million people at the time, there were more than 15,000 tenement buildings in New York City, not yet including the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, or Staten Island.
The Manhattan grid allowed for lots measuring 25 feet by 100 feet, and tenements tended to occupy about 90 percent of these lots, allowing little to no room for natural light or air shafts. Buildings that did not occupy the entire lots often had "rear tenements" built into the yards behind them, providing even worse conditions than rooms of the buildings that faced the streets. It was all very dense, very crowded, and unregulated—conditions that fostered disease and inhumane living conditions, which soon caught the eye of reformers.
Back then we used to import the Third World, but unlike today back then you had to assimilate. No hand outs, no freebies, and no Gov't Forms written in 15 languages. Now doing that is for suckers.
The building looks sturdy. Seems the inhabitants were filthy. Much hasn't changed.
That doesn't look like it was an occupied apartment. For one thing, the stove doesn't look like it's connected to the fireplace (which would be the exhaust.) The baby looks like it was stuck in the picture by an early form of photoshop (retouching.) As commenters on the article said, said there are many pictures of tenement apartments that were kept as neat and clean as possible.
That doesn't look like it was an occupied apartment. For one thing, the stove doesn't look like it's connected to the fireplace (which would be the exhaust.) The baby looks like it was stuck in the picture by an early form of photoshop (retouching.) As commenters on the article said, said there are many pictures of tenement apartments that were kept as neat and clean as possible.
We'll never know but it could have been a staged photo -
Back then we used to import the Third World, but unlike today back then you had to assimilate. No hand outs, no freebies, and no Gov't Forms written in 15 languages. Now doing that is for suckers.
Not quite the third world but southern and eastern Europe were awful places. Italy was a poor country with a corrupt government and a disinterested king. Russia and Poland could be a deathtrap for Jews. Unlike today's immigrants who spit on America as soon as they slither under our border, the European immigrants of the Ellis Island era appreciated America until the day they died.
My great-grandparents arrived in the US from Italy in 1895 after a dangerous 2-week trip across the Atlantic Ocean. They were overjoyed when their ship entered NY harbor.
Location: IN>Germany>ND>OH>TX>CA>Currently NoVa and a Vacation Lake House in PA
3,252 posts, read 4,271,034 times
Reputation: 13439
Looks like the person that lived there was a complete and utter filthy person and/or hoarder. The stroking condition of that room was seemingly due to the pig that lived there. I'm not sure what the OP or the writer's point is.
We'll never know but it could have been a staged photo -
That's what I think. There is no path through the floor debris. Well, maybe a little one right next to the stove.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.