By Emely Curvelo The Lower east side Hester Street Lower East Side 1902 The Lower East Side was Jewish world Everything was Jewishowned or Jewishrun A difficult place to live ID: 743200
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Slide1
Tenement life in The lower east side
By: Emely CurveloSlide2
The Lower east side
Hester Street, Lower East Side 1902.
The
Lower East
Side was
Jewish
world.
Everything was Jewish-owned or Jewish-run.
A difficult place to live:
Most crowded neighborhood – By the 1900 it had more
than 700 people per
acre, making
it the most crowded neighborhood on the planet.Slide3
THE RISE OF TENEMENT HOUSING
Tenements in the Lower East Side were being built specifically for immigrants.
By
1900, more than 80,000 tenements had been built in New York City. They housed a population of 2.3 million people, a full two-thirds of the city's total population of around 3.4 million
.
http://www.history.com/topics/tenementsSlide4
What is a tenement?
A tenement is
any rented or leased dwelling that housed more than three independent families
.
Typical tenement building:
Five to six stories high.
4 apartments in each floor.
Occupy 90 percent of their lot.
Served
as
factories: A place for
women and children to raise enough money to live
How The Other Half Lives By Jacob A. Riis.Slide5
other facts…
New
York City tenements were generally of two types:
1. Small
houses
– 3 or 4
floors that may have originally been one family and were converted into three or four family
dwellings.
2. Larger buildings – constructed as tenements that were typically 5 to 6 floors with four families to a floor.
What made a tenement a "tenement" was the location and how recently the immigrants had arrived. Similar size apartments in better neighborhoods were called "flats“.Slide6
Life in the Tenements
Most tenements
contained the dirty horrible living conditions with high death rates
Early tenements had very dark hallways as lighting was only from a sky light and/or glass transoms in apartment doors
L
ife in the tenements was
hard:
1. Heating
and cooking were done by
wood
or coal burning stoves
.
2. Water was obtained outside –frozen in the winter. (heated on stove for bathing and washing dishes).
3. Privy was in the back yard. Slide7
The Tenements - Interiors
Crowded
condition are acerbated by the need to hang laundry up to dry indoors.
Lack of space – Not enough furniture.
No windows – Lack of fresh air and light.
Multiple generations lived together. Slide8
Tenements - Exteriors
Plan
of the
Chrystie
Street School and neighborhood shows the form of the tenement buildings.
Lots were 100ft deep by 25ft wide.
Drank grey area: Buildings
Light area: Yards
People sleeping in roof tops during the summer. Slide9
HARD TIMES - RENT DAY
Rent:
2 Rooms (In attic): $3-5 per month.
3 Rooms (Kitchen and 2 bedrooms): $6-12 per month.
4 Rooms: $12-16 per month
People worked in sweatshops or cigar making factories in order to pay the rent.
Legal working hours: 10
There was no workman's compensation. If the breadwinner was hurt, he (or she) would be out of work.
They would be kicked out of their homes if they did not pay the rent. Slide10
Tenements Improvements
Housing laws improved.
By 1890’s new tenement buildings were being constructed.
Rent was still $6 to $13 per month.