The Hawaiian gazette., 1884-04-23
New York,s Cheap Lodging.

The modern Ben Franklin is net obliged to
hunt out some modest home wherein room can
be made for another member Of the household.
He could not in our days get room and bed
for less than 50 or So week in such dwell
ing as the original Franklin found. But beds
can be had in New York for five cents night.
The brisk competition in the lodging house
business has been Of great advantage TO the
young men who are struggling for foothold
in New York. Not only have the prices Of
beds been brought down lower and lower, but
the competitors now vie with one another in
making their houses as attractive as possible.
Ten years ago it was safe to say that cheap
lodging house was a filthy place without see
ing more Of it than its street sigu-board. Now
the most dainty lady need not be afraid TO
make tour of the principal ones. Look into
hebiggest one on the Bowery. 1t is on
corner below Grand street. The rooms are
let fortwenty-tive cents a night. You enter
at the end of the building on the side street
and at the head of the stairs come TO little
window at which the quarter dollars of the
customers are exchanged for the keys of the
rooms. The keys, which have numbered bits
Of brass attached to them, serve as tickets Of
admission at the door further on. The lodg-
iug-house consists Of two floors, each as big
as the interior of an extra large Broadway
store. 1t presents to the eye of the visitor a
number of narrow passage ways leading be-
tween partitions only seven feet high. The
ceilings are seven or eight feet above these
partitions Seven feet apart along these pas
ssgeways are doors opening into the little box
like rooms. The walls and doors are white
and clean. There is faint smell Of carbolic
acid in the air. Each tiny bed room is furn-
ished with chair, a cot, three clothes-hooks,
bowl, pitcher, and three legged iron
washstand. The pillow and sheet on each bed
are white, the blue counterpane looks neat,
and the walls are white and clean. The floor
is bare. Here and there are to be seen rooms
wherein cheap chromos are pinned upon the
board walls. Their presence shows that the
room is hired by the week, but if you look for
a trunk or saichel belonging to the tenant you
are apt to be disappointed nine times in ten.
On the first floor Of this and all other big
lodging houses a large space in front of tho
rows Of bedrooms is fitted up as a lounging
aud reading room. These are the rooms pas
seugers on the elevated railroads notice all
along the main avenues down town, where are
always TO be seen many young men with their
feet up and their chairs tilted back, smoking,
reading, OF looking out upon the street. Each
rooom has big table, and the pens, ink aud
the checkerboards on these tables show how
the dodgers may spend their spare time which
most of them possess in abundance. In some Of
the teu-cent houses the beds are not separated
by partitions. They are arranged in rows in
big rooms, just as hospital cots are. Each
lodger hangs his clothing on a chair by his
bedside. A Waterman stands guard over the
pockets and property Of the sleepers. The
biggest fYe-cent lodging house in New York
is in the old colored grammar school building
in Thompson street. 1t is an exaggerated
ships steerage, or rather three steerages one
above the other The walls Of the former
class-rOOms have been removed, and each spa
Cious floor is now an immense room filled will
double hunks built closetogether. The bunkt
are heavy wooden frames, and look like one
kitchen table set on top of another. They are
two feet apart. There are eighty or ninety o
these frames on the first floor, the ouly one th,
reporter visited. No women are admitted t.
any Of these places. The floor had been scrub
bed and the walls were clean. Each lOdgel
gets bed to himself under cover in heated
room. The place suggested a catacomb, bu
the price was only five cents.-N. Y. iStai.