#17 Drawing by W.H. Drake In “Forty-First Annual Report of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, for the year 1884.” Pages 44 &49 (From the Tenement House Inspectors Report, pp. 35-60.) To accompany the illustration of “A Fourth Ward Colony,”* no more full or apt description will apply than that offered in a recent report of the physician of the Association, as follows: ;James Street. In the yard attached to this building are four old shanties or cabins put up, which serve as dwelling houses (?) [Sic] for four different families. All these shanties are damp and unhealthy, and are not fit for a human being to live in. The rent charged for these places is 30 cents per night. They are all “furnished apartments.” As an example of how they are furnished: there is a bed, with dirty bed clothing on it, not sufficient to keep them warm, stove and a chair. (The privy is quite near these places.)… Wm. H. and his wife, occupy the remaining shanty. The rain comes in, the place is damp and unhealthy. Husband almost totally blind, says he does not receive the aid given by the city to blind people…. Husband begs corner of Pine and William. Earns about from 25 to 40 cents per day. Wife picks curled hair, gets two cents per pound, can pick from fifteen to twenty pounds per day when work is busy…. Reproduction in “The Battle With the Slums,” by Jacob Riis (1902), p. 18. Picture title: A Fourth Ward Colony in the Bad Old Days. AICP credited, p. 16. *The Fourth Ward was bounded on the south by Peck Slip, on the west by Park Row, on the north by Catherine Street and on the east by the East River.
Women; Tenement houses; Men; Laundry; Dogs; Courtyards; Children; Chickens; Buildings; Barrels; New York (N.Y.); Lower East Side (New York, N.Y.); Fourth Ward (New York, N.Y.)