Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-09-03
LIFE IN THE METROPOLIS.
TENENIENTS WHICH FURNISH
SHELTER FOR THOUSANDS.
The Difference Between the Flats of the
Poor and those of the Rich-HiRhway-
men Again at Work-AnOther Clubbing
THEORETICALLY to be Kept in the Ira

Correspondence Of the Morning Ne,

OF boarding houses. Go where you will
In the best quarters of the city, you will
find, as the Light Brigade, according to
Tennyson, found the Russian cannon at
Balaklava, boarding-houses to the right
OF you, bOarding-hOuses to the left of YOU,
boarding-hOuses in front of you and be-
hind you. Numerous as the boarding
houses are, however, it would be truer to
call New York city of tenements. There
are between twenty-fOur and TWENTY-FIVE
thousand tenements in New York, with
an average, according to the figures lust
given me by a member of the Health De-
partment, of six families in each house.
A family is estimated to average four
members, so that according to these
figures about 100000 New Workers
live III tenements. In this estimate.
however, the word tenement is used
not merely to designate the crowded,
pOYerty-stricken habItatiOns on the
East side, and in the lower part
OF the city. 1t is also applied to any
building containing four families who
maintain separate establishments, and,
therefore, includes the apartment or fiat
houses. An inmate of the Florence, the
Berkeley, or any other ''swell' apartment
house, in the eyes of the law, is as much
~ NNNliCl III a. tCntlutuI as lUe occupant
of room i'll the big Flats" double
tenement ON Elizabeth street, running
through to Mott, which Is supposed to
contain nearly a thousand people.
At least 100000 of the population of the
city live i'll the class of tenements known
as flats, leaving five times that number as
inhabitants OF dirty and unhealthy struc-
lures, which in summer are so hot as to
be almost unbearable. The tenements
M hnf 10
clasSed as flats, are not only found in the
lower part of the city. They extend up
the island east of First avenue and west
of Tenth to Harlem. In addition
there is line of tenements
IN the centre of the CITY
between Sixth and Eighth avenues. eX-
tending from about Fourteenth street to
Central Park, with occasional Interrupt
tIonS by such streets as Fourteenth,
Twenty-secOnd, Twenty-third, Thirty
fourth, Forty-secOnd, etc, which boast
brown stone fronts from First avenue to
Tenth. Consequently within half a mile
OF Fifth avenue one finds the filth and
squalOr and discomfort peculiar to locali-
ties containing front and rear tenements,
which are ordinarily supposed to exist
only in the Fourth, Sixth, Tenth, Eleventh,
Thirteenth and Fourteenth wards.
The number of the fiat class of tene-
ments Is continually increasing. Last
year apartment houses sufficient for
were built, and the year before
10000 persons were accommodated
with homes in flats. This year the
figures will be still larger. Apartment
houses are building Cor, shall | say being
bullt?) all over the city. They are of
all varieties, with proportionate rents.
Fen story structures tower on Fifth
and Madison avenues, in which the
rent of a single floor will range from So
600 to $2, 2,OOO-the top floors, which are in
reality the best, being the cheapest-While
modest buildings of half the height are to
be found on the side streets up town. in
which the rent ranges from $500 to 81 900,
and, in the cheaper structures, cOnsidera-
bly, less. There are a number of apart
ment houses devoted exclusively to the
habitatiOn of bachelors. One on Wash
ingtOn Park is appropriately called ''The
Benedict" AS you may conclude from
the above figures, the bachelors who live
in them must have incomes large enough
to support an entire family in luxury out
side of New York.
WHILE 600,00 NEW WORKERS
live in tenements and flats, more than
half the remaining population of the city
live in bOarding-houses. OF the other
half thousands live in lodgings and take
their meals at restaurants. The New
Workers who own the houses i'll which
they live are, comparatively speaking, few
in number. Some of the richest people
live in rented houses. No one, indeed.
who is not fairly well-to-do can paw the
rent Of a house in even a re spectacle
neIghborhOOd, while man has to be
deml-mllllonalre to occupy handsome
house in a fashionable location. Few. or
nj AStO
rent for less than $1,000, While several
times that figure is obtained for some.
These houses, the rent of which form the
greater portion of the income of the Astor
family, are scattered over the centre of
this city in the streets contiguous to Fifth
avenue, and in that fashionable thorough
fare itself. The care of them and of the
rest of his real estate formed the life-WorK
of the father Of the present Astor genera
tiOn, who used to complain that he worked
like horse from morning until night. and
all he got for it was his board and Iodg-
ing. Did you ever hear, by the way, the
Witicism of last winter at the expense of
tors this evening?'' E'What Astors p,
''TOny P-astOrsr
You have heard, of course. by telegram.
of Tuesdays hOrrOr-the Riverdale disas-
terE The feeling here is one of cOngratu-
latlOn that it is no worse. Had the boiler
exploded hfteen minutes later. after the
one hundred or more people who were
waiting for the boat at Twenty-second
street had been taken on board. there
would have been ten lives lost where there
was but one. Had the disaster then Oc-
Cured, however, and all on board perish
ed, the loss of life would not have eduaIed
the figures which rumor, with her thous-
ana tongues; caused to be circulated
the city. That hundreds of
people were drowned was generally be-
lieved, and newsboys went through the
streets crying, Extra! $50 lives lost by
the explosion of steamers boilerr'
Their excitement, however, caused the
to sound somewhat like
that made by man who appeared near
ly naked in the streets of New Haven
years ago, and shouted incessantly, 1.-The
Eliver Ollsworth's billed her buster"
THE POLICE THEORY
that there are no highwaymen in New
York received another contradiction
Tuesday morning when one was shot at
Eleventh street and Fourth avenue i'm
mCdlately after r0bbing an old French
man OF his watch. l am not, however, so
certain that Planter Towle was really
robbed, since ] have heard that he has
served two years at Auburn for forgery.
He appears, too, to have been a carpet-
Dagger, and not to be native of Florida.
New York policemen seem to 90 on the
principle of the IrIshman at DOnnybroOk
fair: "When you see a head, hit itr,
Policeman Mcnamara of the Elizabeth
street station, after being arraigned We'd
nesday morning before the Police Commits
siOners for uniustifiably arresting and
MIR. Ross Randolph, of Brook
lyn, according to the testimony of
several witnesses, clubbed an unfortunate
sailor, who happened to be drunk on his
beat, so severely that he died In place
of being put under arrest, Mcnamara
was assigned by his superior officer to
another post, lest he should come to harm
at the hands of the indignant witnesses of
his brutal conduct. Even if the sailors
death prove not to be due to the ill-usage
he received, the policeman's action is
none the less unjustifiable.
The ostracism of Tammany by the
Democratic State Committee caused some
alarm among the lovers OF harmony lest it
should result in a repetition of the bolt of
four years ago, which gave the State to
the Republicans; but it is now believed
that the coming convention will take the
opposite track. and will recognize John
Kelly & Co. sufficiently to keep them
within the Democratic traces.
''Nera" has been withdrawn from the
stage of the Union Square Theatre, but
oh ye unfortunates who live outside of
favored New York simultaneously with
the withdrawal the announcement was
made that the condemned play would
make a tour of the country.
4 saloon near the West TWenty-third
street ferry, frequented principally by
car,driYers, laborers and other patrons
equally unclassicaI, has this suggestive,
motto, over its bar: ''Hu-
DdRum est eTrdre.n Invitation to drink