Consequently the bulk of the population is packed into that portion of the city which lies between the City Hall and Fourteenth street. By the United States Census of 1870, the population of the wards in this district was reported as follows:
| Wards | Natives | Foreigners | Total |
| 4 | 10456 | 13292 | 23748 |
| 5 | 9245 | 7905 | 17150 |
| 6 | 9444 | 11709 | 21153 |
| 7 | 24130 | 20688 | 41818 |
| 8 | 20285 | 14628 | 34913 |
| 9 | 33020 | 14589 | 47609 |
| 10 | 18851 | 22580 | 41431 |
| 11 | 34805 | 29425 | 64230 |
| 13 | 19288 | 14076 | 33364 |
| 14 | 13379 | 13057 | 26436 |
| 15 | 16821 | 10766 | 27587 |
| 17 | 46033 | 49332 | 95365 |
| Total | 255757 | 222047 | 477804 |
By the same census, the total population of the city in 1870 was 942,292. The district included in the above wards is about two miles square, which would give for this portion of New York an average population of 238,902 to the mile square. The Seventeenth ward covers less than one-fortieth of the whole area of the island, and contains more than one-tenth of the whole population.
The total area of the city is twenty-two square miles, and we find that one-half of its population is cramped within an area of about four square miles. It is evident, therefore, that they must be housed in a very small number of buildings, and such indeed is the case.
The section of the city embraced in the wards we have named is filled with a class of buildings called tenement houses. The law classes all dwellings containing three or more families as tenement houses, but the true tenement house is an institution peculiar to New York. There are about 70,000 buildings in the city used for purposes of business and as dwellings, and of these, 20,000 are tenement houses, containing about 160,000 families, or about 500,000 people. This would give an average population of eight families or twenty persons to each tenement house in the city. In 1867 the number of tenement houses was 18,582. The following table will show their distribution among the wards at that time, and their sanitary condition:
| No. of Tenement | In bad sanitary condition from | |
| Wards. | Houses. | any cause. |
| 1 | 275 | 175 |
| 2 | - | - |
| 3 | 40 | 24 |
| 4 | 500 | 300 |
| 5 | 300 | 180 |
| 6 | 600 | 360 |
| 7 | 1847 | 890 |
| 8 | 850 | 546 |
| 9 | 60 | 434 |
| 10 | 430 | 196 |
| 11 | 2400 | 1200 |
| 12 | 208 | 104 |
| 13 | 550 | 275 |
| 14 | 550 | 346 |
| 15 | 200 | 132 |
| 16 | 1300 | 433 |
| 17 | 2305 | 1138 |
| 18 & 21 | 2276 | 1516 |
| 19 | 761 | 380 |
| 20 | 1250 | 417 |
| 22 | 1200 | 800 |
| Total | 18582 | 9846 |
The reader will no doubt suppose that the inmates of these houses are compelled to remain in them because of extreme poverty. This is not the case. The tenement houses are occupied mainly by the honest laboring population of New York, who receive fair wages for their work. They herd here because the rents of single houses are either out of proportion to, or beyond their means, and because they are convenient to their work. They are not paupers, but they cannot afford the fearful cost of a separate home, and they are forced to resort to this mode of life in order to live with any degree of comfort. Many of the most skilled mechanics, many of the best paid operatives of both sexes, who are earning comfortable wages, are forced to live in these vast barracks, simply because the bare rent of an empty house in a moderately decent neighborhood, is from $1000 upward. Did the city possess some means of rapid transit between its upper and lower extremities, which would prevent the loss of the time now wasted in traversing the length of the island, there can be no doubt that the tenement sections would soon be thinned out.
There are two classes of tenement houses in the city. Those occupied by the well-to-do working people, and those which are simply the homes of the poor. The first are immense, but spruce looking structures, and are kept cleaner than the latter, but all suffer from the evils incident to and inseparable from such close packing. Those of the second class are simply dens of vice and misery. In the older quarters of the city, many of the old time residences are now occupied as tenement houses. The old Walton mansion in Pearl street, opposite the vast establishment of Harper & Brothers, was once the most elegant and hospitable mansion in New York. It is now one of the most wretched tenement houses in the city. The tenement houses of the upper wards, however, were constructed for the uses to which they are put. As pecuniary investments they pay well, the rents sometimes yielding as much as thirty per cent. on the investment. One of them shall serve as a description of the average tenement house. The building stands on a lot with a front of 50 feet, and a depth of 250 feet. It has an alley running the whole depth
on each side of it. These alley-ways are excavated to the depth of the cellars, arched over, and covered with flag stones, in which, at intervals, are open gratings to give light below; the whole length of which space is occupied by water closets, without doors, and under which are open drains communicating with the street sewers. The building is five stories high, and has a flat roof. The only ventilation is by a window, which opens against a dead wall eight feet distant, and to which rises the vapor from the vault below. There is water on each floor, and gas pipes are laid through the building, so that those who desire it can use gas. The building contains 126 families, or about 700 inhabitants. Each family has a narrow sitting-room, which is used also for working and eating, and a closet called a bed room. But few of the rooms are properly ventilated. The sun never shines in at the windows, and if the sky is overcast the rooms are so dark as to need artificial light. The whole house is dirty, and is filled with the mingled odors from the cooking-stoves and the sinks. In the winter the rooms are kept too close by the stoves, and in the summer the natural heat is made tenfold greater by the fires for cooking and washing. Pass these houses on a hot night, and you will see the streets in front of them filled with the occupants, and every window choked up with human heads, all panting and praying for relief and fresh air. Sometimes the families living in the close rooms we have described, take “boarders,” who pay a part of the expenses of the “establishment.” Formerly the occupants of these buildings emptied their filth and refuse matter into the public streets, which in these quarters were simply horrible to behold; but of late years, the police, by compelling a rigid observance of the sanitary laws, have greatly improved the condition of the houses and streets, and consequently the health of the people. During the past winter, however, many of the East side streets have become horribly filthy.