Tag Archives: tenements

05/22/11

97 Orchard Street – Lower East Side, Manhattan

The “Getting By” tour takes you through a typical day in the life of two families that lived at different times in the tenements at 97 Orchard Street. The building that I walked through was very dark with narrow hallways. The walls were lined with potato sacks and the ceiling was made of aluminum. There were paintings on the walls and it had a wooden banister. From downstairs it seemed like a regular apartment building that just needed some better lighting and a good cleaning. But once I went upstairs, I got the chance to step back in time and see how the tenants really lived. The quarters were tight and the views were nonexistent. The families had no privacy, and the children had nowhere to play. The tenements were by no means suitable living conditions, but they were in America – and to the residents of Manhattan’s poverty stricken, disease ridden, over populated Lower East Side, that meant that there was chance for a batter life. A chance that simply was not possible where they came from.

@ 97 Orchard Street

I’ve actually visited this museum on more than one occasion, once in elementary school, again in my first year of college for a sociology paper, and them a third time for this class. I chose to visit the tenement museum again for this assignment rather than one of the other sites in NYC with historic significance because I thought it would be a good idea for my 12 year old sister to get a look at how difficult the conditions were that our grandparents had to endure when they first came to this country to give us the opportunities that we now have in front of us. I think it would be a great idea for anyone who hasn’t been there to make it a point to get there at some point – I think you’ll  all really appreciate it.

-C. Salama

02/23/11

Tenement life of the early 1900’s

Tenements in NYC circa 1900                              Tenement life; Photo by Jacob Riis 1910

These images show how the typical immigrant lived in New York City in the early 1900’s.  The first photo depicts how tenement life worked in the 1900’s.  It shows a crowded community in a very small area.  It also gives you the idea of a relative sense of community, after all the strings the clothes hang on do connect to other strings.  It can be a place to talk to your neighbors from each others windows and it seems to be a bright spot in a struggling immigrant’s life. People from many backgrounds all met in these areas and since they all lived in these same conditions they formed bonds with each other.   The second photo was taken by renowned photographer Jacob Riss and is a more dreary and accurate portrayal of immigrant life.  Entire families were packed into a single room, and that room was called their home.  These rooms were generally decrepit, cramped and full of chemicals that today are deemed extremely hazardous to health.  Families would often work out of these shoebox sized rooms; doing things such as tailoring and shoe-making.  It was a very tough life to live, but to them it was the only way to survive.

02/21/11

“This can not be what I signed up for!” Where are the Paved Streets of Gold!

Italian woman immigrant, Ellis Island, New York : Sherman, Augustus F. (Augustus Francis), 1865-1925 -- Photographer

Differing very little from their ancestors, many European immigrants came to the US seeking  a better life with a hope of economic relief.  The freedom of religion; escape from racial and/or political persecution.  Many did not dream that with the hard journey across the world, life in America would be full of extreme hardship.  Many of them had to endure low wages, poor work conditions and overcrowded living situations.  Yes it was better then there place of origin. Yet if life was too hard many immigrants went back home.

A tenement gleaner, New York City (1900-1937) Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940 -- Photographer

The two photograph above were taken in the early 1900s.  Both picture are similar in the aspect that both women seem as if they are very unhappy.  The woman sitting appears to be quite sad.  She seems like a well bred woman from Italy.  Whom may have came for all that America had to offer.  The woman carrying the large bag, by her dingy clothes seems  to be working or living in hard conditions.  She is an example of what America was offering.  I chose these photographs because of the differences and to show that many of the woman that came into the US during that time, had to work to survive, no matter what they believed the America was suppose to be like.

Anonymous Quote:  Recollections of 1900’s immigrant

“I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, found out three things: First, the streets weren’t paved with gold; second, they weren’t paved at all: and third, I was expected to pave them.”

02/19/11

Immigration To The New World

These two images portray the lives of Italian immigrants in the early 1900s. Both images depict their living conditions in the 1900s. The image on the left shows the bedroom of an Italian family. Judging from the image, the family may be from a lower class because their living condition seems poor, cramped and unsanitary. However comparing this image to the one on the right, they are complete opposites from one another. The image on the right shows a much well off family probably in the middle class. The breadwinner in this family may have been a scholar, allowing him to have a higher paying job compared to other immigrant families with low education back then.