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 | | The 1901 Tenement House Act
Part Four: Let There Be Light--The Hallways
by Andrew Dolkart
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The least controversial changes were those established to increase the amount of light and air in the public halls of older buildings. Such measures often involved no structural changes. Halls had been seen as a problem for many years, since they generally received no direct natural light and seldom had adequate artificial light. The halls were not only dark, but in old buildings, were generally in poor condition with "bare boards worn into hollows by the tramping of many feet, with pine-knots sticking out of the surface now and then like a miniature mountain."
A resident of Forsyth Street who testified before the Tenement House Committee in 1900 reported that the hallways "are dark in most houses that I have lived in [he had lived in fourteen different tenements in seventeen years]. One tumbles over human obstacles and other obstacles, especially little children."
The law required landlords to improve the conditions in any "a public hall on any floor...(where there is) not light enough in the daytime to permit a person to read in every part thereof without the aid of artificial light." The landlord of 97 Orchard Street followed the law 97 Orchard Street, the law by removing the upper panels from the apartment doors and adding sheets of translucent glass. Another requirement that would increase light in the halls was the installation of a ventilating skylight with a glazed surface of not less than 20 square feet directly over the stair. A skylight was installed at 97 Orchard Street after July 1902.
Finally, the law required that a lamp was to burn from sunset to sunrise near the stair on the entrance floor and the second floor. This may have been the impetus for the installation of gas lines throughout 97 Orchard. However, by the time gas was installed in the building--likely sometime between 1896 and 1905--it was an out-of-date technology: electricity was rapidly replacing gas in the homes of more affluent people and in newly built tenements.
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 Part Five: Let There Be Light--The Apartments
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4: The Halls