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TENEMENT HOUSE REFORM IN
NEW YORK, 1834-1900.

PREPARED FOR

The Tenement House Commission of 1900

BY

LAWRENCE VEILLER, Secretary,

COPYRIGHT MAY, 1900, BY LAWRENCE VEILLER.

NEW YORK:
THE EVENING POST JOB PRINTING HOUSE, 156 FULTON STREET,

(EVENING POST BUILDING.)
1900.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE.

The First Legislative Commission — 1856 8

Neglect and Greed tlie Eeal Cause of Bad Conditions 10

Licensing of Tenement Houses Urged 12

The Movement of 1864— Council of Hygiene 14

The First Tenement House Law— 1867 17

The Movement of 1879— Mr. White's Model Tenements 21

The New Tenement House Law— 1879 25

The Tenement House Competition 1879— The "Dumb-Bell"

Plan 26

The Second Legislative Commission — 1884 28

The Law Amended in 1887 31

The Work of Jacob A. Eiis 31

The Third Legislative Commission— 1894 32

The Tenement House Act of 1895 35

The Model Tenement Competition of 1896— The City & Suburban

Homes Company 36

The Movement of 1899— Charity Organization Society 38

The Tenement House Exhibition of 1900 41

Poverty and Disease 44

The Model Tenement Competition of 1900 46

164288

105 EAST 22D STREET, NEW YORK CITY,

MAY 8, 1900.
Mr. ROBERT W. de FOREST, Chairman,

Tenement House Commission.

DEAR SIR, — In accordance with the resolution of the
Tenement House Commission, of April 26th, I beg to
transmit herewith a history of the movement for tene-
ment house reform in New York.

Respectfully submitted,

LAWRENCE VEILLER,

Secretary,
Tenement House Commission.

TENEMENT HOUSE REFORM IN NEW YORK.

The movement for housing reform in New York dates
back as far as 1834, when Gerrett Forbes, the City In-
spector of the Board of Health, in his annual report giving
the record of burials or deaths, called attention to the con-
dition of the tenement houses at that time.

The first attempt, however, to give any comprehensive
idea of the condition of the dwellings of the poorer classes
in New York City was not made until 1842, when Dr.
John H. Griscom, the City Inspector of the Board of
Health, called attention to the existing conditions.]
Prior to this time, the City Inspector had contented him-
self with simply reporting the various statistics available
as to the number of deaths occurring during the year, their
causes, and the ages of the people among whom the deaths
occurred, with a few brief remarks explanatory of the
statistics. Dr. Griscom, however, in addition to this
formal report submitted a pamphlet of eighteen printed
pages entitled " A Brief View of the Sanitary Condition
of the City." In it he calls attention to the great increase
of population in the city in 1810 and again in 1838, by a
horde of ignorant immigrants who arrived here generally
penniless, and who brought with them disease and misery.
To this sudden increase of the city's population and the
subsequent herding of these people in large numbers in
the poorer quarters of the city was largely due the
beginning of bad housing conditions in New York.

Dr. Griscom's report dwells upon the crowded condition,
and the insufficient ventilation of a great number of the
dwellings in the city, also the fact that a large part of the
population lived in cellars and basements, and in courts
and alleys, he pointing out that there were then 1,459 cel-
lars being used as places of residence by 7,196 persons, and

that there were as many as 6,618 different families living
in courts or rear buildings. The grave moral evils resulting
from the indiscriminate mingling of the sexes in the same
room are dwelt upon, as well as the fact that the causes
of uncleanliness, poverty and sickness were not so much
to be found in the " innate depravity " of the people as in
the environment in which they were compelled to live.

He urged that the City Legislature should prohibit the
use of cellars as dwellings, and that the owner or lessee of
every tenement house should be required to keep the out-
door and indoor premises free and clean from everything
likely to prove injurious to health, and that an immediate
stop should be put to the practice of crowding so many
human beings in such limited spaces, arguing that if
there were any propriety in the law requiring ocean
vessels to carry only , a certain number of people, there
was equal propriety in requiring that only a certain num-
ber of persons should occupy houses of this kind; and
that, if a law regulating the construction of buildings
in reference to fire was justifiable, one respecting the pro-
tection of the inmates from the influences of badly
arranged houses and apartments should be enacted.

In 1846 the Association for Improving the Condition of
the Poor, a charitable society organized in 1843, took up
the question of the housing of the poor people of the city,
maintaining that bad housing was the main cause of most
of the poverty and sickness that existed.

In 1853 they appointed a special committee " to inquire
into the sanitary condition of the laboring classes, and the
practicability of devising measures for .the comfort and
healthfulness of their habitations." This Committee rend-
ered a report of thirty-two printed pages in the fall of
1853, which was published in the annual report of the
Association for that year. The state of affairs disclosed
by their investigations was one which called for prompt
and effective remedies, and its effect on the public mind
should have been great, for it brought to light the gravest
social evils.

The Committee, after making an examination of most
of the tenement houses in all the different wards of the
city, came to the conclusion that "the dwellings of the
industrious class in New York were not adapted to the
wants of human beings nor compatible with the health or
social or moral improvement of the occupants."

Among the evils which, in their opinion, were respon-
sible for the prevalence of bad conditions were the fol-
lowing:

1. The crowded condition of the dwellings in which the
poor were compelled to live.

2. Too great density of population in certain districts.

3. Neglect of ventilation — a prevailing cause of ill-
health.

Nothing contained in the report of this Committee is of
greater value than the demonstration of the principle that
" the number of persons on a given area of soil cannot be
increased beyond a certain limit without endangering
health."

Considerable attention was paid to underground dwel-
lings by the Committee, it being pointed out that in 1850
there were 18,456 persons crowded together in 3,742
cellars, which " were always damp, badly ventilated,
generally filthy, and beds of pestilence and disease." As a
remedy for all these evils the Committee recommended
that capitalists and owners of real estate should build
model tenements; and also called attention to the necessity
for legislative intervention, stating that "these crying
evils cannot be remedied or essentially diminished with-
out special legislative action. Pure air, light and water
being indispensable to health and life, if tenements are so
badly constructed as to preclude a proper supply of these
essential elements, the law should interpose for the pro-
tection of the sufferers, and either close up such dwellings
or cause them to be so remodeled as to be fit for human
habitation."

In the following year the Association for Improving the
Condition of the Poor made a sociological study of tene-

8

ment conditions in the Eleventh Ward of the city, report-
ing the number of inhabitants, the number of families,
and the number of houses occupied by one, five, ten and
twenty families respectively, also the distribution of
nationality at that time.

In the following year they organized a company to
build a model tenement known as the " Workmen's Home
Association" This Company erected a large building in
Mott street, which unfortunately was not "model," in
many respects, and later became one of the worst tene-
ment houses the city has ever seen.

THE FIRST LEGISLATIVE COMMISSION, J856.

One result of the disclosures made by this Association
in 1853 was the appointment by the State Legislature in
1856 of a committee of their own members " to make an
examination of the manner in which tenant houses are
constructed in the City of New York, and report the same
to the Legislature, and also what legislation, if any, is
requisite and necessary in order to remedy the evils and
offer full protection to the lives and health of the
occupants of such buildings."; This Committee, con-
sisting of five members of the Assembly, Mr. A. J. H.
Duganne, John M. Reed, Eli Curtis, William J. Shea and
Samuel Brevoort, visited New York City on March 14th
and again on March 25th of that year, spending altogether
seven days in a personal inspection of some of the best
known tenant houses in the city.

In their report to the Legislature made on April 4,
1856, they stated that in the brief time allowed them for the
investigation they had been able to do no more than glance
at evils of such magnitude as to imperatively demand a
thorough and searching scrutiny, and asked that their
Committee be continued throughout the summer so that
they might make a more thorough examination of the evils
disclosed by their brief investigation, stating that the ex-
amination they had made had convinced them that the
evils to be remedied were of a serious nature requiring the

attention of the State Legislature, and demanding such
action at the hands of the Assembly as would secure their
ultimate removal. They further stated that *' partial re-
turns rnnde up hurriedly by the captains of the police for the
use of the Committee show that in twenty-two districts
there are over 1,200 tenement houses of the very lowest de-
scription occupied by no less than ten families each. In
some of these, as many as YO different families reside, and
into a few over 100 families are crowded. In one building,
112 families are residing, some of them numbering Sand 10
members, occupying one close unventilated apartment, and
others huddle indiscriminately in damp foul cellars, to
breath the air of which is to inhale disease. Here, in its very
worst aspect are to be seen the horrors of such a mode of
living. Here are to be found drunken and diseased men
and women lying in the midst of their impurity and filth;
idiotic and crippled children suffering from neglect and
ill treatment, girls just springing into womanhood living
indiscriminately in the same apartment with men of all
ages and of all colors; babes left so destitute of care and
nourishment as to be fitted only for a jail or hospital in
after years if they escape the blessing of an early grave."
In many localities the Committee found many of the
apartments so destitute even of light as to render it an
impossibility to read a newspaper, even though at noon
time. TPurther, "in the houses visited by the Committee
sights were presented to them alike startling and pain-
ful to behold. Young faces haggard with want and sick-
ness and bearing that peculiar look of premature old age
imparted by early sin gazed at them from every corner;
misery and vice in their most repulsive features met them
at every step. Scarcely an apartment was ftee from sick-
ness and disease, and the blighting curse of drunkenness
had fallen upon almost every family. Here and there
might be found, it is true, some attempt at cleanliness,
some display of a love of home, some evidences of indus-
try and sobriety with their natural accompaniments of
cheerfulness and good health," "But these," the Com-

10

mittee say, "in some instances were families that had not
long been inhabitants of the neighborhood in which they
lived, the demoralization and ruin apparent all around
had not had time to do their work on them. It is to be
feared the miasmal air will creep into their existence un-
dermining the sturdy constitutions and prostrating its
victims on a bed of sickness; health failing them, want
will follow, and then must come crowding rapidly upon
them neglect of home, neglect of children, uncleanliness,
drunkenness and crime." /

J

NEGLECT AND GREED THE REAL CAUSE OF BAD
CONDITIONS.

The Committee says: " This .is no fancy sketch, no
picture of the imagination. It is a stern reality, enacted
every day amid luxury and wealth, the natural and fear-
ful result of the rapacity of the landlord in every crowded
city unrestrained by conscience, and wholly unchecked by
legislation."

(These words, written forty-four years ago, sum up the
causes of all our bad conditions in New York City to-day.
The overcrowding, the poverty, the disease, the crime and
vice, met with in New York in 1900, products of our tene-
ment house system, have not come to us because of the
narrow shape of Manhattan Island or of the lack of rapid
transit^as has been claimed by superficial students of the
subject for many years, [but because of the primary neg-
lect of the habitations of the poor of this city at a period
when they could have been cared for in time7\

Had the Committee done nothing else beyond making
this statement of the conditions of that time, our debt to
them would have been very great.

After setting forth in most striking language the con-
ditions found by them in their very brief inspection of the
tenant houses of New York City, and urging upon the
Legislature the importance of continuing the work
throughout the summer, so that a proper and well-consid-

11

ered plan of reform might be matured, the Committee
pointed out that " to the wretched condition of the poor of
New York can he traced an enormous proportion of the
hurdens imposed upon the property holders of the city,
and upon the State at large, for the support of paupers and
criminals. From the foul atmosphere of the tenement
houses spring the infectious diseases that so frequently
spread through the city, sweeping away their thousands
of victims, and not confining their depreciations to the
class in which they originate, but penetrating into the lo-
calities occupied by the wealthy, and rendering desolate
many a household. Hundreds upon hundreds of paupers
pour into the hospitals stricken by disease contracted in
those hot-beds of pestilence, the tenement houses, and
from them drunkenness mainly receives its victims, for
what will sooner drive a man to the intoxicating cup than
the absence of all attraction and all comforts from his
home?" " It is no idle assertion to say that a reform by
which the condition of the homes of the poor could be im-
proved would remove a large proportion of the criminals
from our prisons and the paupers from our almshouses/'
The practical results which the Committee hoped to
secure through legislative action, and to which they stated
their inquiries would be directed through the summer,
were:

1. Ventilation and cleanliness in tenement houses so
that the public heatth might be protected, the spread of
infectious diseases checked, and the expenses of the public
hospitals and almshouses decreased.

2. An enactment against the renting of underground
apartments or cellars as tenements.

3. Eegulations as to the building of halls and stairways
in houses occupied by more than three families, so as to
insure easy egress in case of fire.

4. The prevention of prostitution and incest, by pro-
viding that only a sufficient number of rooms, or a room
properly divided into separate apartments, should be
rented to families; and by prohibiting subletting.

12

5. The prevention of drunkenness by providing to every
man a clean and comfortable home.

It is extremely instructive to find that the Committee
had become so interested in the tenement house question,
that, notwithstanding the failure of the Legislature to
continue their work throughout the summer, the members
of the Committee, of their own accord, upon their own
responsibility and at their own personal expense, decided
to continue this work, rendering to the next Legislature,
in March, 1857, their report and conclusions. This docu-
ment constitutes the report of the first legislative commis-
sion of inquiry on this subject in America. Nothing that
has been written since that time has been of greater value,
nor have any later investigations of a similar kind been
more efficient, nor have they developed much further in-
formation or knowledge, on the whole, upon this subject.

LICENSING OF TENEMENT HOUSES URGED.

If space allowed me I would quote at great length
from this document because the conclusions reached by
the Commission are so sound, the descriptions of the con-
ditions they discovered are so able, and the whole paper
couched in language that is not only forcible but convinc-
ing. Accompanying their report, they submitted to the
Legislature a bill entitled " An Act to Improve the Condi-
tion of the Laboring Poor Residing in Tenant Houses in
the City of New York, to Establish a Board of Home
Commissioners in said City, and for other Purposes."
The bill provided for a Board of Commissioners to consist
of three citizens of New York who " should have power
at any time between sunrise and sunset to visit, or cause
to be visited, any tenant house ordinarily used as a com-
mon dwelling or lodging for three or more families tran-
siently occupying the same; and also to have power to
enter and inspect, and properly examine all rooms, courts,
alleys, yards and cellars used for such transient tenancy
as aforesaid." If in the opinion of such Board, or any
two of the Commissioners, after personal inspection, any

13

such tenant house, rooms or premises was found to he un-
fit for the purpose of residence by reason of dampness,
darkness, dirt, filthiness or too low ceilings, ill ventila-
tion, being underground, or any other good cause, the
Commission was authorized to serve a notice upon the
owner, agent, or lessee of the property, directing the
premises to be put in proper order and condition within a
specified time. And it was further provided that such
house, rooms or premises should be deemed to be unten-
antable and forbidden to be occupied for dwelling or lodg-
ing purposes until such directions or orders of said Com-
missioners be complied with. The Commissioners were
further required to keep registered lists of the different
tenant houses in each ward, of the number of tenants and
lodgers occupying each of said houses, designating the age,
sex, color and occupation or employment of each person;
also the number of children between the ages of six and
fourteen not in attendance on any school, and of the occu-
pation of such children, and the Commissioners were em-
powered to examine witnesses upon oath in reference to
this matter. They were further empowered to keep a
record of all lottery or policy shops, grocery stores, liquor
stores, etc., etc.

Among their other powers, they were authorized to
direct and compel the owner, agent, lessee or keeper of
any tenant house to thoroughly cleanse all the rooms,
passages, stairs, floors, windows, doors, walls, ceilings,
etc., to the satisfaction of the Commission; and the owners,
or lessees of tenant houses were prohibited from sub-letting
any part of their premises except with the consent of the
Board of Home Commissioners. No compensation was to
be paid to the Commissioners for their services, but their
expenses were to be paid, and they were to be provided
with a proper clerical force, and were required to render a
report to the Legislature each year as to the work accomp-
lished by them.

This carefully thought-out scheme for a permanent
body whose sole duty should be the care and regulation of

14

the tenant houses of the city, here enunciated for the first
time, was unfortunately not adopted by the Legislature.
There has never been made any recommendation, which
would have so reached the root of the whole problem as
this proposition of the Assembly Investigation Committee
of 1856. It was, in effect, a provision for the licensing or
strict sanitary control of the tenement houses.

Since this report was made forty-three years have
elapsed. Conditions in many respects are the same in New
York City as they were in 1857, only the extent of them
has increased tenfold. I believe that the real solution of
the tenement house problem will be found in the licensing
of tenement houses, and predict that until that step is
taken, we can expect little real benefit to result.

Interest in this question aroused spasmodically every
ten years and then allowed to flag is not calculated to
secure beneficial results or much progress toward improved
conditions. The subject is sufficiently large and difficult
to require the constant and continuous thought and study
of the best minds.

Although the labors of this Commission did not produce
immediate results, the Association for Improving the
Condition of the Poor, which had waged its fight for better
tenements since 1846, did not give up the battle. From
1857 to 1864 they continued their campaign of education,
from time to time calling the attention of the community
to the condition of affairs, petitioning both the Legislature
and the Common Council to enact laws and ordinances to
remedy the evil conditions which had been growing
steadily worse year by year.

THE MOVEMENT OF \ 864— THE COUNCIL OF
HYGIENE.

Not, however, till the first fruits of thirty years of
municipal neglect had been gathered in the terrible " draft
riots " of 1863, did the community become aroused to the
dangers of the evils which surrounded them. When in

15

those troublous times, during our Civil War, the tene-
ments poured forth the mobs that held fearful sway in
the city, during the outbreak of violence in the month of
July, then, for the first time, did the general public realize
what it meant to permit human beings to be reared under
the conditions which had so long prevailed in the tenement
houses in New York City, ,

Mr. N. P. Willis, a leading journalist, writing at that
time, thus describes the impression made upon him by the
sight of these persons. " The high brick blocks of closely
packed houses where the mobs originated seemed to be
literally hives of sickness and vice. It was wonderful to
see and difficult to believe that so much misery, disease
and wretchedness could be huddled together and hidden
by high walls, unvisited and unthought of so near our own
abodes. Lewd but pale and sickly young women,
scarcely decent in their ragged attire, were impudent, and
scattered everywhere in the courts. What numbers of
these poorer classes are deformed, what numbers are made
hideous by self -^neglect and infirmity! Alas, human faces
look so hideous with hope and self-respect all gone, and
familiar forms and features are made so frightful by sin,
squalor and debasement! To walk the streets as we
walked them in those hours of conflagration and riot was
like witnessing the day of judgment, with every wicked
thing revealed, every sin and sorrow blazingly glared
upon, every hidden abomination laid before hell's expec-
tant fire."

Heeding this warning, some few months later in the
spring of 1864, the leading citizens of New York formed
themselves into what was known as the "Citizens' Asso-
ciation" for the purpose of taking steps to improve the
sanitary condition of the city. The alarmingly high death
rate of New York at that time (there being one death in
every 35 of the inhabitants) became a subject of the most
careful thought and investigation. Accordingly, the Citi-
zens' Association formed a sub-committee known as the
Council of Hygiene and Public Health, which included

16

the leading physicians of the city at that time. This
Council of Hygiene organized in the month of April in the
year 1864, and at once determined to undertake a complete
and thorough sanitary investigation of the entire city.
The city, which at that time was coincident with Man-
hattan Island, was divided into 29 districts; an experienced
physician was appointed as sanitary inspector in each
ward, and, during a period of nine months the most thor-
ough, complete and scientific sanitary inspection ever
made of any city was made of the City of New York.
This investigation embraced a description of the character
of the soil throughout each district, the number of build-
ings, the purposes for which they were used, whether
business buildings, churches, schools, dwellings or tene-
ment houses, etc.; whether built of brick, stone, iron or
wood; the character of the streets, how paved, whether
provided with sewers, etc. The " tenant houses" were a
subject of special investigation in every district; the most
notorious ones were fully described, not only as to their
construction, but as to the character of tfre people living
in them, the sickness prevailing in them, the death rate of
them, etc., including nearly every conceivable detail. In
addition to these investigations there were recorded the
number of vacant lots, the number of liquor stores,
brothels, stores for the sale of food, the number of stables,
the influence of stables upon disease, the prevalence of
preventable diseases in the districts, infantile diseases and
mortality, and the excessive crowding of houses upon the
lots. Never was a piece of social or sanitary work better
done.

In addition to these detailed reports, the Council of
Hygiene had prepared for them a map showing the nature
of the soil throughout the entire city, as well as the under-
ground streams and water-courses. This monumental
work of General Egbert L. Viele has been of incalculable
value to the city. There was also presented a map of the
entire Fourth Ward showing the exact arrangement of
every building in each block throughout the Ward, giving

17

the amount of land occupied, the shape of the building,
the height in stories, the number of families occupying it,
the number of persons, also whether certain contagious
diseases had prevailed there during that year, and indicat-
ing also the location of the different liquor stores in each
neighborhood. Thanks to the foresight of Dr. Ezra R.
Pulling, Inspector of this District, we thus have to-day a
means of comparing conditions as they were in 1864 with
conditions as they exist now in 1900. Besides these maps
and diagrams, the report published by the Council of
Hygiene contains a numberjof photographs showing some
of the worst tenement conditions at that time, and also
some of the other sanitary evils which then existed. This
report constitutes a volume of more than 360 pages, and
is unquestionably the most comprehensive and valuable
study of this kind that has ever been made.

THE FIRST TENEMENT HOUSE LAW-J867.

As a result of the disclosures made by the Council of
Hygiene in 1865 came the first legislative action in regard
to tenement houses in this country. The first step was
the establishment of the Metropolitan Board of Health in
1.866, and one year later, in 1867, the enactment of the
tenement house law.; This act after defining a tenement
house as " Any house, building, or portion thereof which
is rented, leased, let, or hired out to be occupied, or is
occupied, as the home or residence of more than three
families living independently of one another, and doing
their own cooking upon the premises, or by more than two
families upon a floor, so living and cooking and having a
common right in the halls, stairways, yards, water closets
or privies, or some of thern^" provided that no building
should be used as a tenement house unless ever}r sleeping
room had a ventilator or transom window of an area of 3
square feet over the door connecting with the adjoining
room or with the outer air; that every such house should
be provided with a proper fire escape to be approved by the
Building Inspector; that the roof over the main hall should

18

be provided with a proper ventilator; and that it should be
kept in good repair and not allowed to leak, and that all
stairs should be provided with proper banisters; also that
every house should be provided with good and sufficient
water-closets or privies, and that there should not be less
than 1 to every 20 occupants, and that where there was a
sewer in the street in front of such a house, the privies
or closets should be connected with the sewer ; that no
cesspool should be allowed in connection with a tene-
ment house unless where it was unavoidable; that the
yards of all new tenement houses should be graded and
drained, and connected with the sewer; that no basement
or cellar rooms should be occupied without a permit from
the Board of Health, and that, even then, such rooms
should not be occupied unless 7 feet in height from
the floor to the ceiling, and also 1 foot of the height above
the surface of the ground adjoining the same, nor unless
there was an open area properly drained, 2 feet 6 inches
wide, extending along the front of the room, nor unless
the room had an external window opening of at least 9
square feet. It was further provided that no underground
room should be occupied for sleeping purposes without a
written permit from the Board of Health. All tenement
houses were also required to be provided with proper
receptacles for garbage and other refuse, and the storage
of combustible material was prohibited, as was the keeping
of animals, except dogs and cats. All tenements were
further required to be kept free from the accumulation of
dirt and filth and garbage at all times. The name and
address of the owner of every tenement house was also
required to be posted in a conspicuous place in each build-
ing. The health officers were to have free access to such
buildings at all times, and the Board of Health was
authorized to have vacated buildings that were unfit for
habitation by reason of being infected with disease or
likely to cause sickness among the occupants, or dangerous
from want of repair. The law further provided that
where there was a front and rear building to be erected

19

on the same lot, there should be a clear, open space be-
tween the buildings if they were one story high, of 10
feet; 15 feet, if they were two stories high; 20 feet, if they
were three stories high; and 25 feet, if they were more
than three stories high; also that at the rear of every new
tenement house there should be a clear open space of 10
feet between it and any other building, but, unfortunately,
discretion was given to the Board of Health to modify
these requirements as to the amount of space when they
saw fit. The law also provided that every habitable room
should be at least 8 feet high, except rooms in attics, and
that every habitable room should have at least one window
connected with the external air, or, over the door a venti-
lator leading into the hall, or into another room having
connection with the external air; also that the total area
of windows in every room communicating with the ex-
ternal air should be at least one- tenth of the superficial
area of the room; also that every habitable room of a less
area than 100 square feet which did not communicate
directly with the external air and did not have an open
fire place should be provided with a separate ventilating
flue. Every new tenement house was required also to
have a chimney or open fire place running through every
floor of the building, and for each set of rooms. New
tenements were also required to have proper receptacles
for ashes and rubbish, and running water was to be fur-
nished at one or more places in the house or in the yard.
Cellars were required to be cemented so as to be water
tight, and the halls on each floor were required to be so
arranged as to open directly to the outer air. A violation
of the act was made a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine
of not less than $10 or more than $100, or by imprison-
ment for not more than ten days for each day that the
violation continued, or by both such fine and imprison-
ment, in the discretion of the Court.

The Board of Health was also given power to make
further regulations as to cellars and as to ventilation.

During the same year an important amendment to the

20

existing building laws of the city was passed, and in it
were requirements relating to tenement houses. These
concerned themselves chiefly with the method of construc-
tion of such buildings with regard to dangers from fire.
Among other things, it was provided that no front and
rear tenements should be erected on the same lot unless
they were both fireproof throughout; also, that every
building of such a character should be provided with a
proper fire escape; that the hall partitions from cellar to
roof should be built of brick not less than 12 inches thick;
that the floor beams should be of iron, and that the stairs
should be fireproof. It was further required that where
the first floor of such a building was used for business pur-
poses of any kind, the first floor should be constructed
fireproof, with iron beams and brick flooring, and that all
coal bins and wood bins in the cellars of such houses should
be built of fireproof material.

It will be seen from this summary of the provisions of
the law that, while many important questions had been
provided for, the framers of the law had unfortunately
lost sight of the main feature of the tenement house prob-
lem, i. e., they had not enacted a provision restricting the
percentage of the lot permitted to be occupied by such
buildings. This was a most serious defect in the law, as
was also the careless phrasing of the provision requiring a
space of 10 feet to be left at the rear of tenement houses.
The law was so worded that this space was to be left
between the rear of a new tenement house and any other
building; the result was that, where there was no build-
ing in existence immediately behind the lot owned by the
tenement house builder, he could build his building up to
the entire lot limit. Not until twelve years later, in 1879,
was this defect in the law remedied, by providing that
there should be a space of 10 feet between the rear of
every new tenement house and the rear line of the lot
upon which the tenement was built.^

When one considers that there were, in 186Y, 15,000
tenement houses erected before the passage of any tene-

21

ment house law, without regard to the safety or health of
the occupants, one begins to realize the magnitude of the
task which confronted the newly organized Board of
Health. The reports of the Association for Improving the
Condition of the Poor for the following five years show
a decided improvement in the tenement houses of the city,
especially in regard to cellar dwellings and to the general
sanitary condition of buildings, the Sanitary Police being
able to enforce greater cleanliness than had heretofore
existed. While the new law had remedied certain defects,
and had to a certain extent improved existing tenement
houses, yet it soon became evident that it did not meet
the conditions in such a way as to secure good types of
buildings among those newly erected.

In 1871 we find the following statement in the report
of the Association for Improving the Condition of the
Poor for that year: " The tenant house system might be
indefinitely enlarged upon but space forbids. Though
greatly improved in late years., it is still the disgrace and
curse of the city, that half of the inhabitants live in this
class of houses, from which proceeds three-fifths of the
crime and three-fourths of the mortality. If we would
abate these evils, the wretched domiciliary conditions of
the occupants of these tenements must be improved."

THE MOVEMENT OF J879— MR. WHITE'S MODEL
TENEMENTS*

Between this time and 1877 little attention was given
to the tenement house problem, except in the regular work
of the Board of Health arid the city Building Depart-
ment.

In 1877 Mr. Alfred T. White, of Brooklyn, having seen
the model tenements of Sir Sidney Waterlow's Industrial
Dwellings Company in London, became imbued with the
idea that the best way in which he could benefit the
working people of New York City, or of his own City
of Brooklyn, was by providing them with decent, com-
fortable homes. He accordingly built his well-known

22

" Home Buildings'' in Brooklyn upon plans similar to
those of the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company of
London, and one year later, directly opposite, built an
entire block of similar model tenements, with a large park
or court-yard in the center. From the time they were
built these tenements have always been a success, both
socially and financially. (Wide publicity was given to this
extraordinarily successful experiment of Mr. White's, the
result being that great interest was stimulated in the
tenement-house problem. It was well that such interest
was aroused at this time, as the public attention had been
allowed to flag during the previous ten years. Mr. White
lectured before the Social Science Association, sermons
were preached in the different churches upon the subject,
and the public press gave the greatest amount of atten-
tion to this important topic.

The educational work undertaken by the Association
for Improving the Condition of the Poor in 1846, and
carried on so successfully by them until 1871, was now
taken up by another charitable society, namely, the State
Charities Aid Association, formed in 3873. This Society,
through its Standing Committee, " On the Elevation of
the Poor in Their Homes," in 1877, again called attention
to the need of reform, and leading architects of the city
were asked to send in plans for improved tenement houses,
so that the best intelligence of the community might be
got to work upon the problem. It appears that at this
time there were in New York City 25,000 tenement houses,
and that the excessive mortality and sickness in the city
at that time was held to be mainly due to the defective
system of tenement-house life.

On the 6th of December a conference of those interested
in the subject was called by this Society, at which Mr.
Alfred T. White described to them the very successful
results accomplished by his model tenements in Brooklyn,
which had earned 7-J- per cent., net, during the first year
of their existence; also the successful results accomplished
in London by the different model tenement house com-

23

panies there were presented. At the meeting a Special
Committee was appointed to " Consider the question of
improved houses for the poor in New York City, with
authority to secure the incorporation of a company under
the best legal advice to erect such houses. " This Com-
mittee rendered a report in April, 1878, stating that they
had not found it desirable to recommend the building of
model tenements at that time, but that they did recommend
a thorough investigation and discussion* of existing tene-
ments, hoping that something might be done toward re-
forming them, and believing that it was much to be desired
that public opinion should be enlightened as to the evils
and dangers resulting to the whole city from the existence
of many of the present tenements, and the urgent need of
a more rigid enforcement of the laws already existing con-
cerning them, and, further, a more thorough legislation
that might up-root the evil, instead of merely repressing
its growth.

This Committee held frequent meetings and made per-
sonal inspection of many of the tenement houses in the
city, employing a special agent to make a detailed exami-
nation of certain typical tenement houses.

In January of the following year, a sub-committee was
appointed to induce the clergy of the city to take up the
question of tenement house reform and to preach on this
subject on a Sunday to be agreed upon. The Sunday of
February 23, 18Y9, was set aside as "Tenement House
Sunday," and the leading ministers of the city delivered
addresses upon the evils of the tenement house system
and the necessity for ref ormA It was decided by the State
Charities Aid Association that a large public meeting of all
classes was desirable to bring home to the community the
importance of this subject. Accordingly such a meeting
was held in Cooper Union on February 28th, many of
New York's leading citizens being present and speaking.
At this meeting Mayor Cooper, who presided, appointed a
sub-committee of nine members, known as the " Mayor's
Committee," for the purpose of devising measures to carry

24

tenement house reform into effect. The following gentle-
men were members of this Committee: Messrs. D. Willis
James, Frederick W. Stevens, W. W/Astor, Cornelius
Vanderbilt, R. T. Auchmuty, James Gallatin, Henry E.
Pellew, F. D. Tappen and C. P. Daly.

The Committee rendered its report about one month
later, making it public on March 25th. They proposed two
plans, one charitable, the other commercial, recommend-
ing the formation of a company to build model tenement
houses upon a business basis, similar to the tenements so
successfully built and managed by Mr. Alfred T. White,
in Brooklyn. They further recommended radical changes
in the existing tenement house law, and it is extremely
interesting to find that they strongly urged a provision
calling for the licensing of tenement houses, the very
same provision which had been so eloquently urged by
the First Legislative Investigating Commission in 1856,
twenty-three years previously. This important and desir-
able clause, however, was stricken out by the Legislature,
and real tenement house reform was again postponed
indefinitely.

As a result of the recommendations of the Committee
of Nine, the Improved Dwellings Association was formed
with a capital of $300,000. Mr. W. Bayard Cutting was
elected President of this Association, and Mr. Samuel D.
Babcock, Treasurer. The Association was strictly a com-
mercial enterprise, but with dividends limited to 5 per
cent. Several lots of land were purchased on First
avenue from Ylst to 72d streets and an excellent group of
buildings, somewhat similar in plan to Mr. White's Brook-
lyn buildings, was erected. These are still in good con-
dition to-day, twenty-one years later, and have paid in all
that time, regularly 5 per cent, dividends, besides reserv-
ing a slight amount for a depreciation fund. The Com-
mittee of Nine also recommended the formation of a per-
manent society to carry on the work of tenement house
reform, and the New York Sanitary Reform Society was
thus incorporated with Mr. James Gallatin as president.

25

THE NEW TENEMENT HOUSE LAW-J879.

Of greater importance, however, than either of these
steps were the changes in the tenement-house law accom-
plished as a result of this agitation. For the first time the
percentage of lot permitted to be occupied by a new tene-
ment house was limited, the new law requiring that no
new tenement house should occupy more than 65 per
centum of the lot. Unfortunately, however, a clause was
inserted giving the Board of Health permission in special
cases to modify this provision. Had not this unfortunate
discretionary clause been inserted, there would have re-
sulted real reform in the character of the tenement houses
erected in this city. The result of the discretionary clause/
was, as it has always been in New York — it practically
nullified the whole effect of the lawT; and in a few years
the Board of Health was found to be permitting new
tenements to occupy as much as 85, and even 90, per
centum of the lot.

The new law also remedied the defect of the former,
in reference to the amount of space to be left at the rear
of a tenement house, putting it into clear, legal verbiage.
At the same time, the act established thirty sanitary
policemen under the supervision of the Board of Health,
and created a tenement house fund of $10,000 to be appro-
priated annually and to be spent by the Board of Health
for the sanitary inspection of tenement houses. The law
also wisely provided that no room in a tenement house
should be used for sleeping, unless it had at least one win-
dow of a size of 12 square feet opening directly on the
public street or yard, but again, unfortunately, the Board
of Health was given discretionary power in this respectj
it being added, u unless sufficient light and ventilation
shall be otherwise provided in a manner approved by the
Board of Health, "jthe result of which, was to practically
nullify this provision^ The other main features of the
law oif 1867 were re-enacted.

Coincident with this agitation for tenement house re-
form started by the State Charities Aid Association in

26

1877 was a similar movement carried on by the Associa-
tion for Improving the Condition of the Poor, which, in
1878, took up again the work that it had abandoned in
1871; in a series of admirable reports and pamphlets,
calling attention to the great importance of reform in the
dwellings of the poor, nor did it confine itself to this ad-
ditional work of describing existing conditions, but
started also a more active personal inspection of the tene-
ment houses of the city, sending complaints to the Board
of Health of violations of the law, and doing everything
in its power to compel the authorities to secure the proper
enforcement of the statutes.

This work they continued off and on from 1878 until
1884, the time of the next large agitation for tenement
house reform.

THE TENEMENT HOUSE COMPETITION, J879— THE
" DUMB-BELL " PLAN.

In December of 1878, Mr. Henry O. Meyer, at that
time the proprietor of the newspaper known as the San-
itary Engineer, and who was much interested in this
movement, in connection with Messrs. D. Willis James,
F, B. Thurber, Henry E. Pellew and Kobert Gordon, of-
fered prizes of $500 for the best architectural designs for
a tenement house on an ordinary city lot, 25 feet wide by
100 feet deep. A special programme setting forth the
conditions of this architectural competition was printed
in the Sanitary Engineer, and the following gentlemen
were appointed a jury of award to determine the merits
of the different plans: Mr. R. S. Hatfield, architect; Prof.
Charles F. Chandler, President of the Board of Health;
Rev. John Hall, Rev. Henry C. Potter and Robert Hoe.

No less than 190 architects from all parts of the United
States, and even from Canada and Great Britain, sent in
plans in competition. These plans, numbering 206, were
placed on free exhibition and attracted wide-spread in-
terest. Many of the plans were reproduced in the papers

27

at that time, and the Sanitary Engineer, the journal
which had inaugurated the competition and had author-
ized the prizes, printed an elaborate series of articles, re-
producing the ten leading plans and describing the merits
of each in detail. The first prize was awarded to Mr.
James E. Ware, and from this time dates the introduction
into the tenement house system of New York City of
what is known as the u double decker dumb-bell tene-
ment " so-called because of the shape of the outline of the
building, which in the middle tapers in, very much like
the handle of a dumb-bell.

This is the type of tenement house which to-day is the
curse of our city. Many people have pointed out that
what was considered a model tenement in 1879 is in 1900
considered one of the worst types of tenement houses ever
constructed. Had these people studied more thoroughly
the movement for tenement house reform, they would have
found that in 1879 there was almost universal condemna-
tion of the award of the prize to this type of building. In
this connection, it is not inappropriate to quote part of an
editorial from the New York Times, dated March 16th,
1879. " The prizes offered by a committee of gentlemen
appointed by the proprietor of the Sanitary Engineer
have been conferred upon the designers of tenement house
plans. The limitations of the designs by the architects
were the shape of the lots, and cheapness of construc-
tion; they were required to plan a cheap house or houses
with air and light in the rooms, on a lot 25 feet broad, en-
closed between other houses and 100 feet deep. If the
prize plans are the best offered, which we hardly believe,
they merely demonstrate that the problem is insoluble.
The three which have received the highest prizes offer
a very slightly better arrangement than hundreds of
tenement houses now do. They are simply double houses,
front and rear, with the space between occupied by halls and
water-closets. They have all the disadvantages of double
houses, which have so often called forth sanitary censure
and even adverse legislation. The only access to air,

apart from the front, is through the courts in the small
spaces between the houses. To add to their ill effects
each suite on the second story has apparently that old
nuisance, a dark bedroom, which, under the present
arrangement, is a prolific source of fever and disease.
The only advantages offered apparently over the old sys-
tem are in the fireproof stairways, more privacy of halls
and the ventilation of water-closets. But it may be fairly
said that if one of our crowded wards were built up after
any one of these prize designs, the evils of our present
tenement house system would be increased tenfold."

How true this prophecy of 1879 .was, we to-day fully
realize, for we are reaping the evils of that system of the
prize plan of 1879, built all over the crowded wards of
this city; and, in truth, the evils that threatened the city
in 1879 have been increased tenfold. It is this plan which
has produced a system of tenement houses unknown to
any other city, which has produced the evil of the "air
shaft," a product solely of New York, and one which
makes our housing conditions the worst in the world.

After this movement of 1879 had accomplished a
change in the existing law and the building of two model
tenements, those interested in the problem apparently re-
laxed their efforts, feeling that what they had sought to
accomplish had been accomplished. Nothing of import-
ance was done in this movement from that year until
1884, except that the Association for Improving the Con-
dition of the Poor still continued its inspection of existing
tenement houses, and its system of sending complaints to
the Board of Health, trying to spur that body into a more
energetic enforcement of the laws.

SECOND LEGISLATIVE COMMISSION— \ 884.

In 1884, Professor Felix Adler, of the Society for
Ethical Culture, delivered a series of lectures upon the
terrible condition of the tenement houses at that time;
his own work and the work of members of his society

29

among the poor in the city, having given him an insight
into the wretched condition of their dwellings. This series
of lectures created great interest in the public press, and
the community became thoroughly aroused to the neces-
sity for reform in this direction. Accordingly, a bill was
introduced in the Legislature and passed on June 2, 1884,
appointing a Commission " to examine and to investigate
and inquire into the character and condition of tenement
houses, lodging houses and" cellars in the City of New
York." This Commission was composed of the following
gentlemen: Alexander Shaler, Joseph W. Drexel, S. O.
Vanderpoel, Felix Adler, Oswald Ottendorfer, Moreau
Morris, Anthony Reichardt, Joseph J. O'Donohue, Abbot
Hodgman, Charles F. Wingate and William P. Ester-
brook.

The Commission made an investigation of a number of
the tenement houses in New York, from June of that year
until the following January, making in its report to the
Legislature twenty distinct recommendations. These
included:

The abolition of all privy vaults; a change in the law
extending the requirements for new tenement houses to
all old buildings, altered to be used as tenement houses;
that water should be supplied upon each floor of every
tenement house; that every tenement house occu-
pied by eight families or more should have a janitor
residing upon the premises; that all cellars should
be concreted; that rooms and halls in all new tenement
houses should have direct light, and communication
with the external air; that the definition of a tenement
house should be so amended as to include all houses occu-
pied by three families or more; that the misuse of water
closets by the tenants should be deemed a misdemeanor;
that the Board of Health be required to make a semi-an-
nual inspection of all the tenement houses in the city:
that the number of sanitary policemen should be increased
from thirty to forty, and their duties limited entirely to
the inspection of tenement and lodging houses; that the

30

name and address of the owner of every tenement house
should be filed in the Department of Health; that there be
set aside a special fund for the use of the Board of Health;
that a registrar of statistics for the Board of Health be
appointed; that the Board of Health be required to make
an annual report of its work to the Mayor; and that a
permanent Tenement House Commission, composed of the
Mayor and the Heads of the Department of Health, Public
Works, Buildings and Street Cleaning, be appointed to
meet once each year to consider the desirability of change
in the tenement house laws; also that certain streets in
the city be opened up so as to do away with Mulberry
Bend, a notorious "slum" district; and that free public
baths be established by the city throughout the tenement
house districts; and that electric lights be placed in all
streets of such quarters.

The Commission published a report of some 235 pages
containing not only these recommendations, with the
reasons for them, but also the results of a sanitary inspec-
tion of nearly 1,000 tenement houses carried on under
their direction.

The Commission, however, did not take up the larger
phases of the problem, believing that the time allowed
them for such a study was not sufficient, and believing
that the Legislature would appoint a further commission
to undertake this work.

It is greatly to be regretted that the Commission of
1884 did not make a more thorough study of the tenement
house question and of existing conditions. They gave al-
most no attention to the buildings erected since 1879, but
contented themselves with the examination of old types
of tenement houses.

During the same year, the Association for Improving
the Condition of the Poor took advantage of the increased
public interest in the subject and published in their annual
report, in a somewhat popular form, a detailed description
of some of the worst tenement houses in the city,
illustrating these with pictures.

31

THE LAW AMENDED IN 1887.

The recommendations made by the Tenement House
Commission of 1884 to the Legislature did not, however,
result in legislation until 1887, when the Tenement House
Law was amended in several important particulars, the
main change being the increasing of the number of
sanitary police from 30 to 45; 15 of these to spend their
time in the inspection of tenement houses exclusively.
The new law also provided for a permanent Tenement
House Commission, to meet once in each year to discuss
the needs of tenement houses; the Commission to be com-
posed of the Mayor and the Heads of the Departments of
Health, Public Works and Street Cleaning. The law also
provided that, in all tenement houses where there was
more than one family on a floor and the halls did not open
directly to the outer air, such buildings should not be
used. Among the other changes accomplished was a pro-
vision that there should be one water closet for every
fifteen occupants, instead of one for every twenty oc-
cupants, as under the previous law. Also, the owners of
all tenement houses were required to file their names and
addresses annually in the Board of Health, and the Board
of Health was required to make a regular semi-annual in-
spection of every tenement house in the city. Probably
the most important feature of the law was the extending of
the provision in relation to new tenement houses, as to the
percentage of lot permitted to be occupied to all old build-
ings that might be altered to be used as tenement houses.

From 1884 until 1894 nothing was done in the move-
ment for tenement-house reform beyond the usual work
of the Association for Improving the Condition of the
Poor in sending complaints of sanitary abuses in certain
tenement houses to the Board of Health for their attention.

THE WORK OF JACOB A. RIIS.

Any record of the movement for tenement-house
reform in New York, which left out of account the work
of Mr. Jacob A. Riis, would be sadly defective. For over

32

twenty years Mr. Riis has continually waged his " battle
with the slum." Beginning in 1880 as a newspaper
reporter stationed at Police Headquarters, his work led
him frequently into the tenement house districts where
he gained an intimate knowledge of the conditions. Since
that time Mr. Riis has continuously urged the necessity
of tenement house reform, and of the betterment of all
the conditions of life for the working people of this city.
His articles in the magazines and newspapers, especially
his well-known books " How the Other Half Lives," " The
Children of the Poor," and "A Ten Years' War," have
probably done more to educate the general public on this
question than the writings of any other person. To his
active efforts are due the tearing down of the worst slum
New York City ever saw, the old " Mulberry Bend," and
also the destruction of a number of unsanitary rear tene-
ments. It was the active influence of Mr. Riis and his
work more than anything else which led to the appoint-
ment of the Tenement House Commission of 1894.

THE THIRD LEGISLATIVE COMMISSION— J 894,

In 1894 one of the New York newspapers, the Press,
printed a series of articles upon the condition of the tene-
ments, and caused to be introduced in the Legislature a
bill authorizing the Governor to appoint a commission to
inquire into all the phases of the tenement house problem.
Through the efforts of the Press this bill became a law,
and the following Commissioners were appointed: Eichard
Watson Gilder, Chairman; W. D'H. Washington, Cyrus
Edson, Roger Foster, Solomon Moses, George B. Post and
John P. Schuchman, Edward Marshall, the City Editor of
the Press, through whose efforts this legislation had been
accomplished, being appointed Secretary and executive
officer of the Commission. The Commission organized in
May of that year and entered upon an active and vigorous
investigation of the tenement houses of the city through-
out the summer and fall, giving especial attention to cellar

33

dwellings, examining in all 8,441 houses. The Commission
published in 1895 a voluminous and elaborate report of
some 650 pages showing the results of their investigation.
The report touches upon the questions of immigration,
density of population, overcrowding, different types of
tenement house plans, questions of fire-proof construction,
death rates, etc. , pays especial attention to those tenement
houses known as rear tenements, i. e., buildings built on
the rear of the lot behind a front tenement house, with an
intervening courtyard of about 25 feet between; also the
subordinate public questions of the need of public parks
in tenement neighborhoods, the need of dock parks or
recreation piers, the need of public baths, the questions of
rentals, of improved tenement houses erected by philan-
thropic or quasi-philanthropic societies, the work of the
previous Commission appointed in 1884, the evils of prosti-
tution in tenement houses, questions of plumbing and
sanitation; and paid special attention to the great danger
arising from tenement fires, making minute examination
of the fires that occurred while the Commission was in
existence, and taking a great deal of testimony on this
subject, and on other subjects connected with the different
phases of the tenement house problem. The report con-
tains a number of illustrations of different types of tene-
ment house plans, also photographs of certain bad tene-
ment conditions found by the Commission, as well as
many interesting maps and charts.

The Commission made to the Legislature the following
recommendations :

1. That the law be perfected so as to give to the Board
of Health unquestioned power to condemn and destroy
tenement houses unfit for human habitation.

2. That the percentage of lot allowed to be covered by
new tenement houses be limited to 70 per cent. ; also that
no more air shafts be covered over by the roof. That the
first floor of all new tenement houses should be fireproof
and contain no openings to the cellar ; that every water
closet should have a window to the outer air, and that the

34

floor of all water closet compartments should be made
watertight.

3. That certain dangerous trades be prohibited in tene-
ment houses so as to prevent danger from fire, the Com-
mission having found that a great many tenement-house
fires were caused by the boiling of fat in basements.

4. That the ceilings of all habitable basements should
be at least 2 feet above the ground.

5. That no wall paper should be permitted in tenement
houses.

6. That all dark hallways should be lighted by artificial
light.

7. That at least 400 cubic feet of air should be provided
for every adult, and 200 cubic feet of air for every child
under twelve years.

8. That the use of tenement houses for lodging houses
or stables, or for storage of rags, should be prohibited.

9. That the discretionary powers of the Board of
Health should be limited.

10. That the law in reference to the filing of the
owner's name in the Board of Health should be perfected.

11. That the number of sanitary inspectors of the
Board of Health should be increased by fifteen, and
increasing the number of sanitary police by five.

12. That not less than two small parks should be laid
out within three years in certain districts of the lower
East side.

.13. That no school buildings should be erected unless
the same were provided with a proper out-door play-
ground.

14. Urging the adoption of rapid transit facilities.

15. The establishment by the city of free fully equipped
public baths all the year around.

16. The establishment by the city of drinking fountains
and public lavatories in tenement-house districts.

17. That the system of lighting the streets by elec-
tricity be extended to the tenement- house districts as
rapidly as possible.

35

18. That the streets in the tenement-house districts be
paved with asphalt.

19. That a thorough inquiry be made as to the sanitary
condition of some of the public schools in the city, and
the sufficiency of school accommodations in certain dis-
tricts. Also that the Kindergarten system be largely
increased.

20. Making the punishment for prostitution in the
tenement houses more severe.

21. Abolishing the permanent Tenement House Board,
composed of the Mayor and heads of the five city depart-
ments, appointed under the Act of 1887.

THE TENEMENT HOUSE ACT OF J895*

As a result of the work of this Commission, the Legis-
lature passed a new tenement house law in 1895, which
included among its provisions some of the changes recom-
mended by the Commission. A great number of them,
however, were not adopted, the changes in the law being
a slightly increased security against fire in the construc-
tion of new tenement houses, and a most unfortunate
change in the portion of the law in relation to the per-
centage of lot permitted to be occupied. The law, since
1891, limited the amount to 65 per centum of the lot, and
had given the Building Department no discretion whatso-
ever to increase this amount; the Tenement House Com-
mission, unfortunately, not being familiar with the law,
believed that the Building Department possessed such dis-
cretion, because they found them exercising it; (the result
was that they inserted in the new law a clause that the
Commissioners of Buildings might permit as much as 75
per cent, of the lot to be occupied in special cases, the
result of which has been that every case has become '* a
special case," and all new tenement houses are permitted
to occupy 75 per cent, of the lot.

The recommendations of the Commission for the estab-
lishment of two small parks for the lower East side were

36

adopted, and the parks are now in existence, to the great
gain of the city. Also the clause requiring the establish-
ment of a suitable playground in all new public schools
was adopted, as were the recommendations for a system
of recreation piers along the river. The city now possesses
five of these piers.

While the Commission's labors did not result in any
great improvement in the character of the tenement
houses erected in New York City, yet the collection of
facts presented in their report did most certainly succeed
in creating an interest in this most important subject.

THE MODEL TENEMENT COMPETITION OF J896-
THE CITY AND SUBURBAN HOMES COMPANY.

The following year, in 1896, the Association for Im-
proving the Condition of the Poor, through its Depart-
ment of Dwellings, called on March 3d and 4th a series
of conferences to consider the advisability of building
improved tenement houses in New York. As a result of
these conferences, the City and Suburban Homes Com-
pany was formed for the purpose of building model tene-
ment houses in New York as a business investment.
Many leading men of the city became stockholders of this
company, and the work of building model tenements was
a few months later begun under the leadership of Dr. E.
K. L. Gould, who some years previously had conducted
for the Department of Labor of the United States Gov-
ernment a comprehensive inquiry into the question of
the housing of 'the working people in different parts of
Europe.

A special architectural competition was held for the
best type of tenement house plans, and an excellent type
of building was finally chosen. One million dollars was
subscribed as the capital of the new enterprise, and a
splendid group of buildings was erected at 217 to 233 West
68th street and 214 to 220 West 69th street. There are two
sets of buildings, one back of the other, with an open

37

court-yard 20 feet wide and about 150 feet long between
them. One group of buildings occupies a space 225 feet
long by 100 feet deep, equivalent to nine city lots, and the
other building occupies a space 200 feet long by 100 feet
deep, equivalent to eight ordinary city lots. The buildings
are divided into a number of apartments containing two
rooms, three rooms, four rooms and five rooms, and are
so arranged that every room has direct light and air either
from the street or yard, or from large open court-yards
facing the street, of a width of 18 feet and of a depth of
60 feet, or upon a large court-yard in the center, of an area
of 529 square feet. The amount of space occupied by halls
and stairs and partitions is minimized, thus securing a
larger area available for floor space. The buildings were
designed by Mr. Ernest Flagg, the well-known New York
architect, who has given much thought to the study of
scientific tenement house plans, and the buildings illus-
trate most admirably his contention that the secret of
tenement house planning lies in constructing a building
more of the shape of a square, than of a long parallelo-
gram. Every apartment is a home in itself; every room
has quiet, good light and air and good ventilation; the
staircases and stair walls of 'the buildings are entirely fire-
proof; the halls and stairways are well lighted and steam-
heated; in the two houses are nine separate entrances from
the street and every entrance has two stairways and two
dumb waiters; the partitions between the different
dwellings are deafened; every apartment is supplied with
its own private water-closet, and most of the apartments
have a small private hall; the buildings are furnished with
most modern conveniences, such as stationary wash-tubs
and sinks in the kitchen, hot water, gas ranges, wood and
coal closets, and laundries and bathrooms on the first floor.
All rents are payable weekly. The rents are about the
same as the rents of ordinary tenement houses in the same
neighborhood and average for two rooms $6.80 a month;
for three rooms, $11.40 a month; for four rooms, $14.60 a
month. The buildings are occupied by the better class of

38

working people, respectable mechanics, letter carriers,
railroad employes, coachmen, policemen, etc., the Com-
pany preferring to cater to the best element among the
workingmen.

The enterprise has been a distinct success, both from a
social and financial point of view, the profit on these
buildings having been a little over 5 per cent, during the
first year.

The Company has also built a number of small houses
in the suburbs for persons of small salaries who desire to
have homes of their own rather than to live in the city.
It has also, during the past year, completed a second
group of buildings at First avenue, 64th and 65th streets,
similar in plan to the first buildings, except that a few
slight improvements have been made in the interior
arrangement.

A third group of buildings is now being planned and
will be shortly erected, and there is every reason to believe
that the Company will extend its operation for some time
to come by erecting new buildings in different parts of the
city.

THE MOVEMENT OF J899-THE CHARITY ORGAN-
IZATION SOCIETY.

In the spring of 1898, the writer, having for a num-
ber of years been impressed with the belief that bad tene-
ment house conditions were the cause of most of the
problems in our modern cities, presented to the Charity
Organization Society of the City of New York, of which
he was a member, a plan for the formation of a society
which should continually seek to improve the condition
of the tenement houses :

1. By securing wise remedial legislation in reference
to new buildings, and by preventing the enactment of
bad legislation.

2. By securing the enforcement of existing laws in
relation to tenement houses.

39

3. By stimulating the building of model tenement
houses on a large scale, and

4. By gradually improving old bad tenements in the
city by altering them to suit the needs of the tenants.

Some few months later the Charity Organization So-
ciety decided to take up this work, and a standing com-
mittee of the Society, known as the " Tenement House
Committee of the Charity Organization Society," was
formed for that purpose. The Committee was composed
of the following gentlemen: Mr. Frederick W. Holls,
Chairman; Felix Adler, Constant A. Andrews, Robert W.
de Forest, Edward T. Devine, John Vinton Dahlgren,
Ernest Flagg, Richard Watson Gilder, George B. Post,
Jacob A. Riis and I. N. Phelps Stokes. The writer has
had the privilege of acting as Secretary and Executive
officer of this Committee since its existence.

The members of the Committee devoted themselves
during the first six months to the work of framing a
series of tenement house ordinances, which should be
supplemental to the existing tenement house laws, em-
bodied in the Greater New York Charter?; As they had
been advised that it was not within the power of the local
authorities to enact ordinances which should conflict with
the provisions of the existing law, the Committee were
necessarily obliged to limit themselves to only such recom-
mendations. They accordingly submitted to the Munici-
pal Building Code Commission a series of fifteen tenement
house ordinances, with a statement setting forth the rea-
sons for them, and the advantages to be gained thereby.

The proposed ordinances provided that in all new tene-
ment houses no air shaft should be less than 6 feet wide in
any part, nor less than 150 square feet in superficial area;
that no new tenement house should exceed six stories in
height unless it was fireproof; that all living rooms in
tenement houses should contain at least 600 cubic feet of
air space; that for every new tenement house containing
twenty families or more, there should be provided at least
one bath tub or shower bath in a separate apartment for

40

the use of the tenants, and where there were more than
twenty families in any such house, there should be pro-
vided additional bath tubs; that every tenement house
thereafter erected or altered, four stories or more in height,
should have the first story made fireproof; that the walls
of all tenement houses thereafter erected should be carried
up 3 feet 6 inches above the roof on all four sides, so that
the roof might be used as a playground; that no wooden
building of any kind whatever should be placed on the same
lot with a tenement house within the fire-limits of the city;
that it should be mandatory upon the Corporation Counsel
or his assistant to immediately file a Us pendens in the
County Clerk's office upon receipt from the Department of
Buildings for prosecution of every violation of the tenement
house laws, ordinances or regulations; that in every new
tenement house the stairway connecting the cellar with the
first floor should not be located in whole or in part under-
neath the stairs leading from the first story to the upper
stories; that no closet should be constructed underneath
any staircase in any tenement house; that every new
tenement house and every existing tenement house in
which the halls were not light enough in the daytime
on all floors to permit an ordinary person to easily read
without aid of artificial light, should have every door lead-
ing from the public halls to rooms provided with ground
glass panels of an area of not less than 6 square feet; that
in every new tenement house all interior shafts should be
fireproof and provided with fireproof self-closing doors to
all openings. It was also asked that the following provi-
sions of the existing building laws be continued in effect,
viz., that the bulkhead doors of all tenement houses should
at no time be locked, but might be fastened on the inside
with a hook or bolt; that in all tenement houses where
wooden stud partitions rest over each other, the space be-
tween the studs should be filled in solid with fireproof
material to prevent the spread of fire from floor to floor;
that the cellar floor of every tenement house should be
concreted with concrete not less than 3 inches thick; and

41

that where a kitchen range or stove was placed within 12
inches of a wooden stud partition the woodwork should
be cut away and filled in with fireproof material.

These ordinances were printed in a small pamphlet,
made public in June, 1899, and attracted widespread com-
ment in the daily newspapers in this city, and in fact all
over the country. The criticisms were uniformly favor-
able. These recommendations were also officially ap-
proved by the New York Chapter of the American Insti-
tute of Architects, by the Architectural League of New
York City, by the Association for Improving the Condi-
tion of the Poor, the Children's Aid Society, the Univer-
sity Settlement, the College Settlement, the Nurses' Set-
tlement, and by most of the prominent citizens of this
city, including many of the heads of the City Depart-
ments.

None of these recommendations was adopted by the
municipal authorities.

Being convinced that no real progress in tenement
house reform was to be made unless the whole commu-
nity was aroused to a knowledge of existing conditions, the
Tenement House Committee set itself to work to prepare
for the public such a statement of tenement house needs
that the most unconcerned could no longer neglect taking
action looking toward the amelioration of the living con-
ditions of the working people in New York.

THE TENEMENT HOUSE EXHIBITION OF 1900.

With this end in view a plan for a tenement house
exhibition was prepared in the fall of 1899, and the Com-
mittee devoted its entire time from then until the begin-
ning of the present year in preparing this work. The
Exhibition was held in New York City in a large building
on Fifth avenue for a period of two weeks, and in that
brief time was viewed by over ten thousand persons of all
classes, from the millionaire to the poorest, unskilled
laborer.

42

The Exhibition included five models, over 1,000 photo-
graphs, over 100 maps, and many charts, diagrams and
tables of statistics. It was most comprehensive in its
scope, including a study of tenement house conditions in
New York City at the present time, a study of model
tenements in America and throughout Europe, a study of
suburban tenements and working people's cottages both
in America and Europe, model lodging houses and hotels
for workingmen in America and Europe, and a series of
studies of public parks, playgrounds, libraries, baths,
cooking schools, etc. The Exhibition also included in its
study of existing conditions in New York exhibits show-
ing density of population, death rates prevailing in tene-
ment districts, the distribution of nationality in the city,
charts showing overcrowding, dangers from fire, health
conditions, etc.

During the second week of the Exhibition, a series of
conferences was held every evening, with leading special-
ists discussing such different phases of the tenement house
problem as "The Exhibition and Its Meaning," " Model
Tenements," "Improving Tenements by Personal In-
fluence," "The Tenements and Poverty," "The Tene-
ments and Tuberculosis," " The People Who Live in Tene-
ments," " The Duty of the City to the Tenement Dweller,"
" The Tenement House Problem and the Way Out," etc.

This exhibition was the first tenement house exhibition
ever held, and marks a distinct step in advance in the
treatment of the tenement house problem. Perhaps one
of the most interesting features of it was the cardboard
model of an entire block of tenement houses in the City of
New York. To those unfamiliar with the state of affairs
in this city, the conditions here presented are almost
beyond belief. The block chosen was one on the East
side of New York, being the block bounded by Chrystie,
Forsyth, Canal and Bayard streets, comprising an area of
200 feet by 400 feet, or eighty thousand (80,000) square
feet. Nearly every bit of the land was covered with tall
tenement houses six stories high. This block on January

43

1, 1900, contained 39 different tenement houses having
605 different apartments or sets of rooms, and housing
2,781 persons; of these 2,315 were over 5 years of age and
466 under 5 years. In the block there were 263 two-room
apartments, 179 three-room apartments, 105 four-room
apartments, 21 five-room apartments, making a total of
1,588 rooms. There were only 264 water closets, and not
one bath in the entire block, and only 40 apartments were
supplied with hot water. The block contained- 441 dark
rooms having no ventilation to the outer air whatsoever,
and no light or air except that derived from other rooms,
and there were 635 rooms in the block getting their sole
light and air from dark, narrow "air shafts." Duringthe
past five years there have been recorded 32 cases of tuber-
culosis from the block, and during the past year 13 cases
of diphtheria. The records of the Charity Organization
Society and the United Hebrew Charities show that dur-
ing a period of five years 660 different families living in
the block have applied for charity. The rentals derived
from this block amount to $113,964 a year. If this were
an exceptional case and these conditions limited simply to
one part of the city, the question would be serious enough,
but when one considers that the block thus shown was
selected merely as characteristic of the conditions through-
out the City of New York, and that nearly every block is
similar, one begins to realize the terrible extent of the
problem.

The exhibition showed step by step the different changes
that have taken place in New York's tenement houses
since the early days, and all the evils of the present tene-
ment house system were thoroughly exhibited, special
emphasis being laid upon the terrible evils of the dark un-
ventilated "air shafts" which are the chief characteristics
of the present type of buildings, and which have been most
aptly characterized as "culture tubes on a gigantic scale."

The sunlight almost never penetrates below the top of
the fifth floor in these shafts. Bringing up children in such
darkness and amidst filthy odors, insures its inevitable re-

44

suit: Twenty-five million dollars are annually expended for
charity in the State of New York. It is a simple matter
to investigate the records of our reformatories, hospitals,
dispensaries, and institutions of similar kind, to find out
what proportion of the patients and inmates come from
tenement houses. In New York, we know that nearly all
are tenement house dwellers. We also know that most
of our criminals are young men between the ages of
eighteen and twenty-five, and that the majority of them
come from large cities, the breeding places of vice and
crime.

POVERTY AND DISEASE.

Another striking feature of the tenement house exhi-
bition was the series of poverty and disease maps showing
the extent of poverty and disease in the tenement districts
of the city. These maps showed on a large scale each block
in the tenement house district, indicating which buildings
were tenement houses, and which, business buildings, or
used for other purposes. They gave the street number of
each building, the height in stories, also the amount of
land covered, the shape of the building and the small
amount of land left vacant for light and air. The maps
were arranged in two parallel series, one of "poverty"
maps, the other " disease " maps. Upon the " poverty "
maps were stamped black dots, each of which indicated
that five different families from the building had applied
for charity to one of the leading charitable societies in the
city within a definite period of time. It seems beyond be-
lief, yet it is a fact, that there was hardly one tenement
house in the entire city that did not contain a number of
these dots, and many contained as many as 15 of them,
indicating that 75 different families had applied for charity
from that house. Similarly on the "disease " maps, which
were placed directly below the "poverty" maps, district
by district, so that a comparative study of them might
be made, there were stamped black dots, each indicat-
ing that from that house there had been reported to the

£<

45

Board of Health one case of tuberculosis within the past
five years. While these dots did not cover the buildings
to the same extent as they were covered in ttye " poverty "
maps, it was appalling to note the extent of this disease;
nearly every tenement house had one dot on it, and many
had three and four, and there were some houses that con-
tained as many as twelve; other colored dots indicated the
prevalence of typhoid fever, diphtheria, etc. The maps
also contained upon each block a statement of the number
of people living there, so that the student thus had oppor-
tunity of weighing all the conditions that helped to pro-
duce the epidemics of poverty and disease. The maps as
they appeared in the exhibition might well earn for New
York City the title of the City of Living Death.

The exhibition was planned and developed to prove to
the community the fact that in New York City the work-
man is housed worse than in any other city of the civil-
ized world, notwithstanding the fact that he pays more
money for such accommodations than is paid elsewhere,
being compelled to give more than one-fourth of his in-
come for rent. That this was conclusively proved, no one
who saw the exhibition could doubt. Photographs illus-
trating the worst housing conditions and typical housing
conditions in over fifty different large American cities
were exhibited, and there was no city in the United
States where the workingman was not infinitely better
off in this respect than he was in New York.

The exhibit of model tenements included photographs,
architectural plans and tables of statistics from the very
many model tenement companies in London, also exhibits
of the work carried on, both by private corporations and
by the municipality in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sal-
ford, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paris, Rouen, Lyons, Berlin,
Dresden, Leipzig, Copenhagen, and other European cities.
The tables of statistics were most complete, giving nearly
every item of interest connected with such enterprises,
from the size of the rooms to the character of the tenants
and the amount of profit upon the investment.

46

The study of model lodging houses showed the develop-
ment of the lodging house in New York City from the
worst type of lodging in the police stations up to the more
recent and admirable municipal lodging house and Mills
Hotels; similar work carried on in London, Southampton,
Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Copenhagen was
also shown, as were the very large number of places
where employers and private companies had built model
small houses for workingmen in suburban districts.

THE MODEL TENEMENT COMPETITION OF J90CX

In connection with this exhibition, the Tenement
House Committee of the Charity Organization Society
authorized an architectural competition for the best plans
of model tenements, upon lots of a size 25 feet wide by 100
feet deep; 50 feet wide by 100 feet deep: T5 feet wide by
100 feet deep, and 100 feet wide by 100 feet deep, under
conditions applicable only to the City of New York at the
present time. Over one hundred and seventy different
architects took part in this competition, and the result
was that many excellent plans were submitted. Four
prizes were awarded, the first being a prize of $500,
which was awarded to Mr. R. Thomas Short, a New York
architect. The object of this competition was to arouse
interest among architects in the scientific planning of
tenement houses, the Committee feeling that a large part
of the solution of the tenement house problem lay in this
direction.

The exhibition contained many other interesting and
instructive features, and created the most widespread
interest.

Such has been the history of the different movements
for housing reform in New York from 1834 to the present
time.

47

LIST OF BOOKS IMPORTANT TO A PROPER UNDERSTAND-
ING OF THE TENEMENT HOUSE PROBLEM IN THE CITY
OF NEW YORK.

•

CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED.

1842. Annual Report of the Interments in the City and County of
New York for the Year 1842, With Eemarks Thereon, and a
Brief View of the Sanitary Condition of the City. Pre-
sented to the Common Council by John H. Griscom, M. D. ,
City Inspector. New York, James Van Norden, Printer to
the Board of Assistant Aldermen, 1843. Document No. 59.
(Library, Academy of Medicine, 17 West 43d Street.)

1853. First Report of a Committee on the Sanitary Condition of the
Laboring Classes in the City of New York, with Remedial
Suggestions. New York, John F. Trow, Printer, 1853.
Pamphlet, 32 pages. (Published in Annual Report of the
Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor for
1853.)

1857. Report of the Select Committee Appointed to Examine into
the Condition of Tenant Houses in New York and Brooklyn,
March 9, 1857. Assembly Document No. 205, 54 pages.
(State Library, Albany, N. Y.)

1857. An Act to Improve the Condition of the Laboring Poor Resid-
ing in Tenant Houses in the City of New York; To Establish
a Board of Home Commissioners in said City, and for Other
Purposes. Assembly Bill No. 568. (State Library, Albany,
N. Y.)

1865. Report of the Council of Hygiene and Public Health of the
Citizens' Association of New Yerk upon the Sanitary Con-
dition of the City. D. Appleton & Co. 360 pages. A num-
ber of maps, diagrams and illustrations.

1867. Report Relative to the Condition of Tenement Houses in the
Cities of New York and Brooklyn, Assembly Document No.
156, 34 pages. (State Library, Albany, N. Y.)

1884. Report of the Tenement House Commission of the State of
New York, February 17, 1885. Senate Document No. 36.
235 pages. (State Library, Albany, N. Y.)

1887. The Tenement House Problem in New York, January 16, 1888.
Senate Document No. 16. 52 pages.

48

^1890. "How The Other Half Lives." By Jacob A. Eiis. Charles
Scribner's Sons. 1890. 304 pages — many illustrations.

1893. " Poor in Great Cities." Charles Scribner's Sons. 1895. 400

pages— many illustrations.

-^ 1893. The Housing of the Poor in American Cities. By Marcus T.
Reynolds. American Economic Association. Volume 8.
Nos. 2 and 3. 132 pages.

1894. Report of the Tenement House Committee, as Authorized by

Chapter 479 of the Laws of 1894. Assembly Document No.
37. 650 pages — many illustrations, maps, charts and dia-
grams. (State Library, Albany, N. Y.)

1895. The Housing of the Working People. By E. R. L. Gould.

Eighth Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Wash-
ington, D. C. 461 pages — many illustrations.

1899. A Ten Years' War— An account of the battle with the slums
in New York. By Jacob A. Riis. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
267 pages. Illustrated.

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