The bee., 1883-01-20
THE EAST SIDE.
Curious Sights On New Ycrk's Great Tcne-
HMent- Iouae District

malltlc, SAYS the Times of that CITY,
ii is that district lying between Broad
way and the East river and south of
Fourteenth street.-the great section
that is known Tor mknownl TO the
rest of New York as 1.-THE East Side"
The place where people live in tiers
six and eight deep; where there is one
lnhabltant very nearly to every square
foot OF ground; where more people are
gathered together than in any other
city on this continent with the possible
exception of Philadelphia. Romance
is paralyzed or killed outright by our
numbered streets and avenues.
Strangers in London delight in visit.
ing the places Dickens has made fa-
NOUS; they like TO follow the walks
of his heroes through London streets
rs Tar as modern improvements will
permit. But suppose Bill Sykes, when
he took Young Oliver out on his
burglarlons expedition. la / been com
PEELED tolead him through West Fourth
street TO Twelfth and thence 60 Sixth
avenue. Such a mattcr-of-fact neigh
hOrhood would have sent cold chill
through that chapter of "Oliver Twist"
IYst rs it puts damper on anything
Romantic attempted about fashionable
New York. The backbone taken out
OF herring is precise counterpart of
map of the central part of New York
city. The spinal column is Fifth
avenue and the radiating bones are the
numbered streets, all branching out
with cXasperatlng exactneSs. but over
on the East side streets and people are
moro mixed Gp, and that part of the
city is somewhat like the cities we
read about with tumble of big and
little houses and Il confusion of big
and little streets. The numbered
streets drop almost out of sight TO
make way for thoroughfares named in
the good old-fashioncd way. such rs
Grand street, Da,alcey street. Broome
street, or Fast Broadway. The East
slde is the most interesting part Of
New York and the least known.
There is hardly anything there that
the ordinary visitor cares to see, cx-
cept the end Of the brooklyn bridge
There are no museums, no great
churches, no theatres. no parks, no
anything. The New Yorker Of a more
fashionable locality does not care To 90
there TO bc hustled i'm the crowded
streets or rubbed aga nst by ii ;Iwompn
IN the tram cars. 80 the Fifth avenue
person comes in 4 few years to know
more about the Al1,ian war and the
passes Of the Alps than he knows
about the East side. 1t corresponds
in some points with the great East End
OF London that immense part of the
British metropolis That is rarely visited
by strangers, because there are no
"siglt5" there. But our East side is
a more interesting place than that. for
it is miniature world wt1 It's German
quarter, its italian quarter, and its fair
intermiXture Of Irish. Africans.
Spaniards and Poles. There are also a
few Americans there. 1t is there the
tenement-house grows TO its greatest
height and proportions; there the VIE
ner schnitzel and the potato are found
In all their native purity: there the
sickly communist occasionally ycntur
to wave his toy red flag: there the
blood of all Cartll's nations runs freely
into one great Channel, called the
Bow,ry.
Among half a million of people
there must be some home life. And
there arc indeed some homes on the
East side gust as there are oranges
growing under glass in New York In
the once fashionable part Of Second
avenue and that neighborhood there
are still, of course, some fine places, |
but these are not properly rarts of
the East side. Whon the old Knicker- |
bockers shook lower New York ND in |
a Gag they were accidentally put out |
of place. The East side, as New York- |
ers know il, is a tenement-house dis |
trict, the region of pawnshops and |
dirty streets. There are some homes |
in tenement houses. because some fam I
lilies, though reduced i'm means. have in |
them those qualities that would make 1
a home wherever they settled, if il |
were Uut I'm the woods. But such fam 4
lilies ald such homes are exceedingly |
rare. Most people who have any in
iGrest whatever i'm the subject have
seen the interior of tenement houses II
and know what they are Those who I
do not even know what they arc are
fortunate. There j. something de-
pressing in merely locking at one Of 4
the tenement-house streets Many u 4
the East side streets are Lined on 10th 4
sides with vast tenement houses for
blocks and blocks. They tower up 90 .
Ave and six and seven stories
Ia height, with fUrhidding fronts,
dirty entrances and unsaYory
odors. But these are the aristo-
cratic places vou see from the street.
If YOU feel inclined 10 see the less ele-
giant abodes, come through this mar
row and slippery alley into the well
that is called 10y courtesy the court
yard. The dog lying in the corner has
been dead for some DAYS, SO he will not
bits you. The brick walls You see riseu
five or six stories on every side. SO very
little light gets in and still less fresh
air. But the courtyard is for ventila-
tion. Every fair day the sun looks
down in it for about five minutes at
high noon and then withdrawS in dis
gust. This building in the rear of the
tenement-house is called the rear tene-
ment, and large majority of these
places have their rear tenenentS, be-
cause they fill up valuable space and
bring in more rents. They are for
tenants in arrears, so to speak. Rents
are lower than in the front building
and everything is ON an even cheaper
scale. The woodwork. YOU will