The Secrets of the Great City / A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York City

by James Dabney McCabe

CHAPTER XXV.

THE POOR OF NEW YORK.

As we have said before, land for building purposes is very high and scarce in New York. In consequence of this, dwellings rent here for more than in other American cities. The laying off of the Central Park was a decided benefit to the city and its inhabitants, but the blessing had also its accompanying evil. It reduced the "house room" of the island by eight hundred acres, which would have afforded comfortable accommodations for seventy-two thousand persons, and naturally crowded the lower quarters of the city to a still greater extent. A careful estimate has been made by the Sanitary Association of New York, and they report that with three fourths of the population there is an average of six families to every house.

The poorer classes are to be met with in all parts of the city, but they are most numerous along the East and North rivers, and between Fourteenth and Canal streets. The majority of them are, beyond a doubt, honest, and willing to work, and in times of great commercial activity nearly all can find some means of employment; but in dull seasons, when merchants and manufacturers are forced to discharge their employés, thousands are thrown out of work, and the greatest suffering and distress prevail in the poor districts. Besides these there are thousands of vagrants, drunkards, and disreputable persons, who would rather steal, or beg, than work, and whose misery is frightful.

We must not be understood as intimating that all who desire employment can procure it in New York. Indeed the contrary is the case. Labor and skill of almost every kind are in excess here. For every position of regular labor there are at least five applicants, so that four fifths of the poor have to resort to any and all means to maintain an honest existence. Some of these means it is our purpose to notice separately.

THE LOWEST DEPTHS.

You will see the extremes of poverty and want in and about the Five Points district. In the day time half-clad, filthy, emaciated creatures pass you on the gloomy streets, and startle you with the air of misery which they carry about them. At night these poor creatures huddle into cellars, so damp, foul, and pestilential that it seems impossible for a human being to exist in them. The walls are lined with "bunks," or "berths," and the woodwork and bedding is alive with vermin; the floors are covered with wretched beds in a similar condition. The place is either as dark as midnight, or dimly lighted with a tallow dip. Sometimes a stove, which only helps to poison the atmosphere, is found in the place, sometimes a pan of coals, and often there is no means of warmth at hand. Men, women, and children crowd into these holes, as many as thirty being found in some of them. They pay a small sum to the wretch who acts as landlord, for the privilege of receiving this shelter from the cold night. The sexes are mingled carelessly, and the grossest indecency prevails. The air is loaded with blasphemy and curses, and is heavy with such foul odors that one unaccustomed to it cannot remain five minutes in the place.

The attics of the lowest class of tenement houses are no better than these cellars. They are colder, and more exposed to the elements, but the suffering in them is no greater.

TENEMENT HOUSES.

The scarcity of land in the city has led to the construction of numbers of buildings known as "Tenement Houses." These are large edifices, containing many rooms and, often, as many families. They abound chiefly in the Tenth, Eleventh, and Seventeenth Wards. The majority of persons living in these houses are foreigners. "It is not to be inferred, however, that it is poverty only that causes such dense settlement, since a spirit of economy and frugality manifests itself among these people, which forbids too much expenditure for the high rents charged, or for much riding on the railroads." Still, whatever may be the causes which lead persons to herd together in such buildings, the effect is the same in all cases. The neighborhood becomes dirty and unhealthy, and the buildings themselves perfect pest-houses. Some of them are neat and tasteful in their exteriors, others are vile and filthy all over.