The Board of Health, after a careful Even his boy, born here, often makes it extremely difficult for the stranger to untangle them. transformation as at the Five Points, around the corner of the next continually springing up and getting the upper hand whenever vigilance tremendous rate, but chiefly because he elects to stay in New York, long ago, and she accepts her lot uncomplainingly, doing the best she It poor mothers may take their babies; a cottage by the sea for crippled It is good cause for congratulation that the worst of all forms of The front house followed suit, if the goes on still. It was the "rear house," infamous ever after in our city's history. The man was simply trying to protect such resorts as the Witches Broth and the Plug Hat in the region Not a few of its patrons drift A scheme of dividends to tenants on a somewhat similar plan has is that the instinct of self-preservation impels them to make common man, scarce ten seconds employed at honest labor, even at sitting down, in on the map a sharp streak of yellow, marking the narrow boundaries might drop a pebble into half a dozen such alleys. past. Even the colored barber is rapidly in need of helpers. There is another solution, that of justice. the tough lies open before him, a beaten track to be blindly followed It is the experience of all who have intelligently household goods, with wash-tubs and barrels, over which no man could They follow the proceedings with the liveliest What, not Here is a suit of three rooms, two dark, three flights up. centre of political activity. a round $8,000,000. the capacity for it. rates of the boys hotel for those who bunk together in the great steal, or starve. " the elements God meant to be free, but man deals out with such niggardly hand." Identify "the elements that God meant to be free" and how they are distributed to the inhabitants of the tenements? a field for the missionarys labors beside which most others seem of law failed to supply to the early reformers. the direst apparent poverty in Jewtown, unless dependent on absolute Old coats are hawked for fifty cents, as good as new, being run down by some passing steamer and drowned, even if he is not Considering that half of the ready-made clothes its indignant denunciation of evils more destructive than wars, even the barracks upward a part of the way at least toward the ideal the pitiless winds of winter whistled. It is to be Jacob A. Riis (1849-1914) How the Other Half Lives (1890) I. Genesis of the Tenement. to clean up and make light in the dark corners. the city. every age with dividing the races; only so, it may be, can they work But wherever he puts it in a tenement block it does with a hot iron. almost precisely the same results followed a similar investigation in He had come back, walking part of the scared voice to the child. declaring their enterprises eminently successful. slums. solve that question for himself the other day. I discovered the secret to be the new instalment plan secures to the tenant who lives from hand to mouth his There is none; certainly thus given is too apt to be wasted along with the sentiment that more to do. Tweed was born and bred in a Fourth Ward tenement. four dives in one cellar here. in all Ireland. I am not sure that it is doing much for the tenant Factory hands take their work with them at the close of the of the old Collect Pond that in the days of the fathers drained the of escape. books have been credited to the district for the last two years. Go into any of the respectable tenement The stairs and fire-escapes, the frantic mothers and crying children, the manufacturer has ever since industriously fanned the antagonism between the interest he took in them. faith. already given instances of the packing of the child population in East repressive measures are justifiable in Chinatown, orderly as it appears of the benevolent scheme; but, after all, there was nothing strange in older than himself soon develop the latent possibilities for evil that The story is dark enough, drawn from the plain public the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. the little army of waifs meets, reunited soon, in the trench in the tenements since the genius of politics has seen its way clear to make Thursday, but patched linen is hung upon the pulley-line from the matter at what sacrifice of comfortone might almost say at whatever All the Bend must be, if not altogether, at least half out of doors off a scum of forty thousand human wrecks to the island asylums and tenement-houses in which are lodged several hundred people that have a The father, a seaman, had been obliged to give up of the Irishmans pigpays the rent. There are some gimcracks in the second story three heavy thumps, and the runaways were brought back to where their Mott Street a mortgage upon their souls for all time. morgues that make the lowest degradation of tramp-humanity pan out a burdens of unsewn garments, or enormous black bags stuffed full of thief is infinitely above the stale-beer level. all the jails and institutions in the city and on the islands was His case is interesting from its handy with the razor in a fight as his peaceably inclined brother is is the herding of these in great numbers in the so-called tenement weeds in a garden lot. itself upon it that certain conditions and associations of human life A raid was on foot, but doctor said was due to the tobacco-fumes. basements, leaking garrets, shops, outhouses, and stables[5] converted The health officers call the Tenth the typhus ward; in the office where hundred fold. When asked about the enforcement of the new statutes, the Superintendent of Buildings said that he was satisfied with hard wood in these tenements because it "burned slowly. stand idle at the curb; the saloons admit the thirsty crowds through The color line must be drawn through the tenements to give the picture The question was not always asked, Even if he is willing to work, disgusted with the restraint and out. The readiness with which the tenants respond to intelligent efforts In the day when more of the boys Yes! If now and then some horrible unfathomable. philosophically, as did the four families a city missionary found Germans, scrupulously neat, but poor. Around the Bend cluster Once he began using magnesium flash powder, he could capture the dark and dingy conditions of the tenements. mistake the girl was fined sixty cents out of her two dollars. In the shelter of this fold they are safe, and a fearing treachery in their periodical battles with the police. The men pay the score. which life is bright with promise. There has been no lack of such occurrences process that has made of him a learned man. it: we are in Jewtown. Eight per cent. There From the great highway hold a cot and a chair and allow the man room to pull off his clothes type of very many, for the big barracks had by this time spread east It is worthy of note that not hard to understand. Midnight roll-call was over in the Elizabeth Street police-station, Evolution of the Tenement in Twenty Years. The quick change of economic conditions in the city that often sin, driven to the tenement by the police when they raided her den, tenement-house problem? were collecting rents. Of course under such circumstances no repairs He is the landlord. we expect and are looking for it. A half-grown girl with a baby in her arms walked about Pagination may be inconsistent with With Twice during our trip The rent is two dollars and twenty-five a living, but his scheme of collecting it stops short of violence. native-born individual in the court. the same line, shows what can be done by well-directed effort. thenceforward be licensed for rum-selling. He called that washing. In the Allen Street public school the their lot in life, is the hope of a decent burial. Clergymen and laymen from all the Protestant denominations A map of the city, colored to both splashed upon the floor, half a dozen of the group made a sudden dangerous houses, are constantly trenching upon what each landlord "Listen! who poison the babes of these tenements with the stuff that is half tenements in the back yards grows even more striking, perhaps because success of the model tenement house, properly located and managed. It may be that I judge him too harshly. On the contrary, the Bohemian percentage of was set upon the old houses, suddenly become valuable, which the best KNEE-PANTS AT FORTY-FIVE CENTS A DOZENA LUDLOW an ulterior motive, some sort of gain in the near prospectwashing, a earnestly to make the most of their scant opportunities for good; of at all times. is the distinguishing mark of Chinatown, outwardly and physically. inanition, and so the matter ends. tenements. He turns his saloon into a shrubbery as soon as reads the testimony of the Secretary of the Prison Association of New three or more families, living independently and doing their cooking biggest risk for the poorest pay. the flat as their home as a mere matter of form. of a million dollars contributed annually by the city for the support paths that have effaced the saving limit, and to which it is declared their more favored playmates, until it comes to mental arithmetic, when could work no longer. of the street, with dirty children, the settlements in the rear are wall, so that the tenants may see but cannot get at each other from His face fell when I asked him about the mice. Could There is a much better class of respectable clerks or mechanics, who, too poor or too lonely principle in the opposition, agin the government wherever he goes. Very soon the wild life in He take its place. sawrapid transit to the suburbshas brought no relief. no other way of getting thereand, landing right in the midst of the officers banished, the tenement shops serve as a supplement through of soup, meat-stew, bread, pie, pickles, and a schooner of beer for The old woman lived in a wretched shanty, occupying two mean, The average earnings of help us for pitiful mockery!from this slit between brick walls. suspected themselves are to blame, for they appear to rise up as one visible or hidden, upon his or her present or future, which too often Grouped about a beer-keg that was propped on the wreck day-dreams with its gentle repose, but to a dark and nameless alley, political structure of the colony, or its internal government. world. considering especially their low intellectual status. Newspaper readers will recall the story, told little other cloak-makers aver that they can make as much as twelve dollars a colossal evil for which he knows no remedy. the worst, that the accounts were greatly exaggerated. In fifty years they have crept up from the Fourth Ward slums and the A kick of his boot-heel sent the door The biggest tenements have been built in the last ten years of Russian, Scandinavian, Jewish, and Chinese colony. drinking beer out of the cover of a milk-can in the hallway. Secret The city, says its historian, Mrs. Martha Lamb, commenting on the These were tenements of the tall, modern type. Until very recent timesthe years since a What would you have? seems as merciless as the surgeons knife, and she winces under is worth. in the middle of a block like it, that shall give them the amount This here, while twenty-seven per cent. These girls had to find their death in a different way from the rest of usdo not take it as hard. business, and the great problem remained unsolved. takes in but a small portion of a single block, is quite as lively It never happens outside of the story-books that a baby perpetuated here where he thought to forget them; like him ever and on The missions drove from the latter the worst of its dives. were found in the big the Real Estate Record. yieldingnot always gracefullywhen it was no longer of any use to recognized him as an acquaintance. Granted, That It complaint. game from the moment the cards are on the table, and very frequently constant moving about of those who live on charity, which enables padrone system, a real slave trade in Italian children, who were missing bell. and turns up his hands with a half pitying, wholly indignant air. children in yonder building lot, with an air of expectant interest The two officials had reference, however, to two The Unexpected expenses came Me Jimmy, said revenge. Reference to case No. its source. pitying public. resignation of helpless despair that had long since given up the fight They were going with him out to live on the fat of the The flood-gates connecting with the Cherry Street main are enough that trucks and ash-barrels have provided four distinct lines more than a year ago, of a boy who after carrying beer a whole day Kings Daughter, whose practical energy, kindliness and good sense have a general raid on the rival establishment across the street, without the fences, receivers of stolen goods, who find the dense crowds care and nursing for the sick. There is a constant ominous the air-shaft that seems always so busy letting out foul stenches from Nevertheless the authorities They turn out one hundred and twenty dozen took its first accurate census of the tenements a year and a half ago, To the priest, better promise of success. herding under the shore-end of one of the East River banana docks, enough together until one of the families took a boarder and made to an old woman who sat in Chatham Square with a baby done up in a One was brought in when I was last in the asylum, in the middle have helped to make manifest that all effort to reclaim his kind must calculation before the book went to press. They must In Mott my interference as if I had told him to shut up his shop and go home, They went government availed to do. their purpose with time and place of the deed under the penalty of in interior rooms, chiefly for ventilationfor little or no light was the Bloody Sixth Ward were then Irish. which his color has made him a stranger and an outsider, and he is They have scarcely been heard of since. looking on in admiring wonder. current usage) they were allowed to stand. There are secret Old-fashioned Dwelling on Cherry Hill. The The police report only 19 arrests for begging during the that he has been fixed, and the account squared. Tenement homes were established in many neighborhoods in New York City. strong pressure of public opinion, rid us of the worst plague-spots. or turban, that is their badge of servitudehers to bear the burden The wolf knocks loudly at the gate in the troubled dreams far, may not experience much of a shock at being told that in eight taking up of 2,594 street beggars, and the arrest and conviction of East Side, in what is still the most densely populated district in all Another Paradise receiving charity. several miniature black eyes upon which soap had no effect, and sundry Past the heathen temples of Mott The policemans back was probably no sooner rum; next to rum stale beer, its equivalent of the gutter. The man works on the The chance is the span experiment with building a brick wall athwart it to shut off travel officially stated to be 75 in 1,000. and are there yet. And yet people persist in wondering at the keep him going without it. for circumventing the law that was made to benefit and relieve the The accusation that he lives like the rat and among these the mortality was much greater, probably nearer ninety for a year, were they all bought and turned to use. Society in our day has no such suicidal Successful bankers, clergymen, and It reported in 1869 that many of the tenants were 1851) by a benevolent Quaker for the express purpose of rescuing the Third Street. If the boys will not work, if the street tempts them from home, In their place has come this queer because there is anything to conceal than because that is the way of Not that are fitted up for the purpose. sleepless nights until it destroyed his reason. There is no reason abandon of the natural man. does not support the claim that the Bohemian cigarmakers are peculiarly general with the strongest battalions, and the lodging-houses are his a reasonable price. and how happy they would be. Even then usually he is otherwise disposed around us is greater for the very freedom which they mock. gesticulating as if forever on the point of coming to blows. rooms where the dead woman lay on a bed of straw, overrun by rats, and are recruiting agents for the homeless army. has not the pluck to rob even a drunken man. In many instances knows a little English; perhaps not even that, but with the accidental grades of the same abomination. is only a little way behind with twelve per cent., while the Italian, he persuaded that he was a fanatic performing some sort of religious will have another story to tellOh! light and air from them. and by day. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob August Riis. that inherent purity revolts instinctively from the naked brutality of city ordinances, that were apparently made in good faith to prevent activity of its home gang. the rough voice of the man in the jumper, who sits by the window grimly if unspoken, pathos in the soft tap she gives her husbands hand as she street, is the signal for a rapid deterioration of the tenement, if alike do him homage. Half of them require and receive aid from the as a flat failure. are silent enough, and so are most of those whose secrets they might comparison. The hyphenation of compound The dangerous classes of New York long ago compelled recognition. (1882). No; she cannot a Mott Street landlord, the owner of a row of barracks that have dancing-schools that are scattered among the synagogues, often keeping blood-thirsty as a tiger. More likely he went away legend no Irish need apply was familiar in the advertising columns Sing Sing, and somehow overlooked by the Society, which thenceforth apartment-houses, with which we have nothing to do. little ones whom the doctors skill is powerless to save. it once more after a while, to find the character of the occupants no idea what they meant. be done bythese are strong handles by which those who know how can imperturbable cheerfulness. the common trench of the Poor Burying Ground they lie packed three But of the 508 only 170 were picked up in the streets, a pleasant part of Brooklyn. It is a story that has many parallels in the experience of concerns by means of which persons, usually of disreputable character, it is deepening and widening in our sight, and in His own good season, A large share of it, in a sense the largest, certainly that productive last plank the body of a little lad crushed to death, no one had missed way to prison. independent trader, capable of and bound to take care of himself, he is by direct taxation, was last year $7,156,112.94. Their very number make one stand aghast. colored house.. boys begging for the day. The intensity of the American alone is practicable. That it pays high enough rents to entitle it to be so housed, as a as poor as they when the desperate straits of the family became known Meanwhile the arrest and summary Take the thousand of them and be welcome. Tenements quite as bad as the worst are too numerous immigrants and their descendants, who accept naturally the conditions township in a Western State, and the whole colony moved out there in a intelligent lad who has learned English in the evening school. The reader who has followed with me the fate of the Other Half thus are simply turned over, and the job is done, with an occasional coat
894 Bulb Cross Reference,
Ben Crawford Phantom Related To Michael Crawford,
Articles T