Social legislation and social activity

by American Academy of Political and Social Science

District III, consisting of the three blocks bounded by First and Second and by Monmouth and Merseles streets, is located farther from the business centre of the city and from the water front, near the foot of the hill on which are situated most of the better-class resident districts. It lies in the heart of what is known as Little Italy—the most distinctively national section of the city, and the most dilapidated and neglected. Sixty-five per cent of the 377 families interviewed were Italians, and their manner of packing themselves solidly where once they enter into possession gives to the southern half of the district, with the blocks adjoining, an intensely foreign aspect. The remaining 35 per cent, among whom the Irish, the American with 10 per cent, and the German nationalities predominate, are interspersed chiefly on the northern side of the blocks, along Second street.

Rival attractions to the railroads, factories and docks, which claim so large a part of the population in the other two districts, are here offered by the dump-grounds adjacent. Irregular heavy laboring work is, however, the predominating occupation among the Italians, though the rag-picker and junk-dealer are frequently found, as well as the omnipresent factory hand.

So much for the characteristics of the separate districts. For the remainder of the paper, the houses will be dealt with, in the main, without regard to district lines. Some preliminary classifications may properly be given before more detailed points of construction and sanitation are taken up, or special evils pointed out.

First of all, classifying the 504 houses by materials, we find that just 55 per cent are of wood, and 45 per cent of brick—a few of the former having brick, and a few of the latter stone, fronts. If we group them by the number of stories, three-story and three-story-and-basement houses are found to lead with 54 per cent; four and four-story-and-basement houses come next with 31 per cent; 5 per cent have five stories; the remaining 10 per cent have either two stories or two stories and basement, with the exception of two houses, one and one-half stories and one-story-and-basement respectively.

Again, we may group the houses by the number of apartments contained. Houses occupied by but one family were not touched in the investigation, but sixty-three two-family houses were examined, leaving 431 houses which contain accommodations for three families or more, thus falling under the definition of a tenement house most generally accepted throughout the country. Three-apartment houses are most common, 25 per cent of the total number falling under this head; 58 percent have from four to nine apartments; of houses containing ten apartments or more there are twenty-three, or 4 per cent.

Another significant classification of houses is that by position on the lot. Fourteen per cent of the houses investigated are rear houses. These figures, however, give little idea of the actual aspect of things, as two blocks are without any rear houses, and six others have but one or two each, while in one block rear houses constitute no less than 40 per cent of all. These houses are seldom over three stories in height, are almost always of wood, are in general very old and frequently dilapidated.

Turning now from classifications of the houses themselves to consider the apartments they contain, we find that three-room apartments lead by a wide margin, constituting 41 per cent of the total of 2,154. Next come four-room apartments with 28 per cent; two-room apartments with 12 per cent; five-room apartments with 7 per cent; six-room apartments with 4 per cent. Of one-room apartments there is less than 1 per cent. One per cent of the apartments examined contained over six rooms.

If now, leaving these preliminary statistics, we turn to matters of greater interest, we shall find it convenient to group the chief evils found, as first, evils of construction, under which we shall speak only of the two leading faults, lack of proper provision for escape in case of fire, and inadequate lighting and ventilation; next, sanitary evils, some of which are structural and some the result of natural conditions or neglect; and lastly, evils of occupancy, chief among which is that of overcrowded apartments.

The absence of fire-escapes is perhaps the most conspicuous and glaring fault observable in the tenement houses of Jersey City. Of the twenty-four five-story buildings found, just one-half were provided with fire-escapes; while of the 155 four-story or four-story-and-basement houses, only four were so equipped. After these figures it will hardly surprise anyone to learn that in no case was a fire-escape found upon a three-story house. There are thus out of a total of 431 tenement houses, most of them three stories or more in height, but sixteen, or 3 per cent, which are provided with fire-escapes of any kind.

The character of the fire-escapes found makes them in a number of cases practically valueless. The balconies of five had wooden floors; and not only in a large proportion of cases were balconies seriously encumbered and stairway or ladder openings covered by tenants, but in two instances trap doors were regularly fitted to these openings, the owner thus encouraging the use of the balcony as a general catch-all and storage place. Furthermore, in only three houses did all the apartments above the ground floor have access to a balcony, while in one instance, but one out of four families was provided with such means of egress. No form of fireproof construction was anywhere found, even the dumb-waiter shafts in the higher buildings, well known to be one of the most common paths by which fire spreads, being almost without exception of wood.