Inside the squalid tenements of 1890s New York City
 

Inside the squalid tenements of 1890s New York City
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1895

Street children huddle over a grate for warmth on Mulberry Street.

Image: Jacob A. Riis/Getty Images

In the last decades of the 19th century, lower Manhattan was a densely packed collection of slums. With waves of immigrants entering the city and land at a premium, landlords bought up buildings and subdivided them into ever smaller partitions, housing dozens of people together in squalid, dark, unventilated rooms. Buildings often covered 90% of a standard 25-by-100-foot lot, with ******* and ventilation only at the front and back.

The Tenement House Acts of 1867 and 1879 attempted to impose standards of safety, ventilation and health on dwellings, which eventually led to the adaptation of a “dumbbell” design, where a narrow central shaft provided light and ventilation to the interiors of tenements. Read more...

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