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I think you are right ,7th. But tell that to some of our TV news desks.
i have my own perception of the media that i choose not to elaborate on....but to reiterate my earlier point, i really think the term tenement should be abandoned.
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i have my own perception of the media that i choose not to elaborate on....but to reiterate my earlier point, i really think the term tenement should be abandoned.
Yes with all the renovations, revitalization and gentrification taking place in NYC the term "tenement" may become obsolete in the not too distant future.
Another point I want to make that the more recent immigrants are moving into areas such as south Brooklyn and Queens instead of the traditional " tenement" neighborhoods. Those area tend to be a bit "newer" with garden style or Art Deco apartment buildings, 2 family duplexes and even single family homes. Meanwhile the immigrant area of yesterday such as the East Village and Lower East Side along with parts of Harlem are being gentrified. That is another reason that I believe one day the term " tenement" will eventually become obscure.
This topic has confused ME, too, in the past. I am from the Midwest but have lived in the NY/NJ Metroplex. A tenement was Always a walkup. It was usually narrow to conserve valuable space on the Blocks, and maybe four to eight stories tall. It usually had fire escapes with clotheslines strung between the narrow alleyways. There were Prelaw, Old Law, and New Law Tenements. The Pre Laws date maybe to the 1860s. Old Law tenements were "reformed, with the "Dumbbell design providing SOME ventilation. New Laws were Built from about 1900 to Maybe 1910. The South Bronx has some of these. After that time, in the Twenties, were the sturdy brick elevator buildings. When I took a Bus tour of Manhattan, including Harlem, the Driver said Harlem was "mostly tenement, or Slum." Not True. Those were Luxury buildings occupied by German Jews, until overbuilding and speculation caused underoccupation and then African Americans moved in. East Harlem DID and Does have Classic tenements-it was probably Always a Slum. "Down These Mean Streets" the late Piri Thomas autobiography, was set there. There are some Jewish Synagogues form the 1870s there. The El Trains of 1883, twenty years before The Subway, caused a LOT of speculation and building in Harlem and The South Bronx.
Most of the South Bronx was built after 1906, when the IRT subway came through. There were a few slums all along, but it Really went downhill after 1960.
Tenement was properly applied to a building type designed to eliminate the squalorous living conditions primarily on the LES.
The mandated requirement was a toilet for each unit...no common bog. A kitchen in each unit, and air into the living rooms, bedrooms, and kitchens. Usually this "air" was just an air shaft with tall narrow windows abutting each of the middle rooms.
The standard was a center stair with long "railroad" apartments on each side with each apartment having access to a fire escape.
Since the buildings were limited to 5 or 6 stories, they typically held 10 or 12 apartments.
This was deemed a vast improvement on what came before and thousands of these buildings were put up all over the city...many are still standing at least until the developers ball tears them down block by block.
Something is really bugging me so I am asking all of you what you think a tenement or tenement block is.
I have always thought ,maybe wrongly,that the term tenement described a fairly specific type of building and living condition. In my mind it is a building probably built in the early 1900's,maybe 4 or 5 floors with no elevator and lots of little apartments with little rooms, not much of a kitchen and maybe originally with a shared bathroom in the hallway.The classic lower East Side or Village 1890 to 1915 "tub in kitchen" type building.
Lately, I have been hearing many references in the news media,on this board and other places to buildings,blocks and neighborhoods as "tenements" when I don't think it is accurate and i am wondering why.
For instance, I recently saw TV news coverage of a murder in an apartment building in the Bronx.It was a domestic violence incident and the TV cameras filmed through the front door,into the lobby to the elevator and then to the floor where the murder took place.They called it a "tenement " building but what it was was a classic prewar apartment building with a spacious lobby, and at least 2 elevators that i saw.
Most of us have been in enough of these buildings in our lifetimes to know what they are like inside.They may be a little( or even a lot) run down but they were built as middle to upper middle class apartments in the 20's and 30's.Most of the apartments have huge,spacious rooms, parquet floors, nice architectural details ,real dining rooms,etc . Some even have small bedrooms behind the kitchen for the maid and usually had a service (servants) elevator.
I have also seen references to blocks of these types of buildings (particularly in Brooklyn and The Bronx) as tenement blocks.
My question is this.How can a building or a block of buildings with lobbies,elevators,kitchens, full bathrooms ,maybe even old maid's rooms,etc come to be known as a tenement? Is it just the fact that the apartments are run down and now inhabited by lower income people?
What images come to your mind when you read or hear the term "tenement" ? Is it correct to use the term for any building or block that is occupied by lower income people? What do you think is going on here?
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..a matter of semantics.
