Lower East Side Housing Conditions

From The Peopling of NYC

Tenements were rundown apartment houses barely meeting minimal standards. Most tenements did not have running water. In many cases there was only one toilet for every 10 people. In the poorly ventilated, dark tenements, it was common for both parents, six kids, and five other borders to share the same three rooms. Many times, the small apartments had no windows and were roach infested. Few fire escapes existed before building construction reforms came into effect in 1903-08 (which we know weren’t always followed), Jewish immigrants suffered 38% of all fire fatalities in Manhattan during these years. It was a harsh life, but better than Old World, “where many had lived in rundown hovels, fearful of drunken peasants, increasing economic dislocation, oppressive czarist decrees, and government sponsored pogroms” (Sorin 67).