‘...only 10 years after it was completed Jacob Riis reported that 61 of 138 children born there in a three-year period had died before the age of one. ... The Harper's article says there was a frontage of 30 feet on the street. The building was 300 feet deep and "is divided practically into two buildings by a partition wall extending all the way from front to rear". One division had a court on the west side and the other had a court on the east side. These "courts were", in fact, alleys. The ground floor apartments visited by the reporter were "small, dark and dirty" "at noon on a cloudy day" were "as dark as early evening elsewhere". The upper floors were brighter but just as small and dirty. ...’
http://www.maggieblanck.com/NewYork/Life.html
#OTD in 1879
‘Entrance to an Alleyway, Cherry Street’ *Harper's Weekly*, March 29, 1879
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#tenements #tenementlife #LowerEastSide #Manhattan
👉ALT