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 | | The 1901 Tenement House Act
Part Three: The Commissioner's Survey
by Andrew Dolkart
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After its establishment, the Tenement House Department of the City of New York undertook a detailed survey to determine the condition of housing in the city. No such survey had been undertaken since that of the Council of Hygiene and Public Health in 1864. The Tenement House Department's new staff of inspectors examined conditions in every tenement and the results were published in the department's first annual report. The survey accumulated information on the total number and physical characteristics of tenements, including statistics on toilet facilities, dark rooms, and fire escapes, as well as information on the number, size, and nationality of tenement residents.
The Tenement House Department's survey found that the Tenth Ward was the most densely populated in the city. In 1903, it had a population of 69,944 or approximately 665 people per acre. The most densely populated block in the ward was that bounded by Orchard, Allen, Delancey, and Broome streets on which the Tenement Museum is located (the survey was undertaken before the size of the block was truncated). This block encompassed 2.04 acres and had a total population of 2,223 people (1, 089 per acre) comprising 450 families. They resided in 34 buildings -- two surviving 2½-story rowhouses, 28 pre-law tenements such as 97 Orchard Street, and four dumbbell tenements.
The extraordinary population density in the Tenth Ward and neighboring Lower East Side wards was caused by several factors. The major cause of overcrowding was, of course, the increasing population as large numbers of immigrants, largely Eastern European Jews and Italians arrived in New York. Immigrants initially settled on the Lower East Side because this was an area with affordable housing where immigrants were welcome by building owners. Specific immigrant communities were perpetuated because members of a particular ethnic or religious groups tended to cluster where their compatriots had already settled.
Overcrowding was aggravated by localized developments, some of which were unwittingly the result of projects instituted by the city or state and supported by the progressive reformers who sought to improve conditions. The demolition of blocks of tenements for the construction of schools, parks, and other structures sought by reformers resulted in the displacement of large numbers of people. For example, the establishment of Seward Park and Hamilton Fish Park in the primarily Jewish area of the Lower East Side in the late 1890s brought much needed recreational space to the neighborhood, but resulted in the demolition of entire blocks of tenements and the displacement of over 3,000 people for each project.
The widening of Delancey Street to create a boulevard leading onto the Williamsburg Bridge also displaced thousands of people and had a direct impact on the Tenement Museum's environment, truncating the northern portion of the block. Although no statistical information is available, anecdotal evidence suggests that most of the people displaced by these projects remained on the Lower East Side where they were close to friends, family, and a community that spoke Yiddish, where people shared similar customs, and were synagogues, kosher food stores, and other community facilities were available.
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 Part Four: Let There Be Light--The Hallways
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3: The Survey