Daily Kennebec journal., 1884-04-10
New YOrk's Cheap Lodgings.

The modern Ben Franklin is not obliged
TO hunt out some modest home wherein room
can be made for another member of the
household, SAYS the New York Sun. He
could not in our days, get room and bed for
less than 81 or three a week in such dwell
ing as the original franklin found. But beds
can be had in New York for five cents a
night The brisk competition in the lodg-
ing-house business has been of great advan-
tage to the Young men who are struggling
for foothod 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 at
tractive as possible. Ten wears ago il was
safe to saw that a cheap clearinghouse was a
filthy place without seeing more of 1t than its
street sign board. Now the most dainty lady
need not be afraid to make tour of the
principal ones.
Look into the biggest one on the Bowery.
Ii is on a corner below Grand street. The
rooms are let for % cents a night. You
enter at the end of the building on the side
street, and at the head of the stairs come to a
little window at which the quarter dollars of
the customers are exchanged for the keys of
your rooms. The keys. which have num-
bered bits of brass attached to them, serve
along The lodging house consists of two
floors each as big as the interior of an extra
large Broadway store. 1t presents to the
eve of the visitor a number CT narrow pas
Sideways leading between partitions only
seven feet high. The ceilings are seven or
eight feet above these partitions. Seven feet
apart along these passageways are doors open
ing into the little box-like rooms. The walls
and doors are white ond clean. There is a
faint smell of carbolic acid in the air. Each
tinv bedroom is furnished with chair, cot,
three clothes hooks, a bowl. a pitcher, and a
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 chesp chromos are pinned upon ths
board walls Their presence shows that the
room is hired by the week. but if you look
for trunk or satchel 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 the
rows of bedrooms is fitted up as a loung-
ing and reading room. These are the rooms
passengers 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, or looking ont upon the
street Each room has a big table, and the
pens, ink, and the checker boards on these
tables show how the lodgers may spend that
spare time which most of them possess in
abundance.
In some of the 10-cent houses the beds
are not separated by partitions. They are ar
ranged in rows in big rooms. just as hospi
tai cots are. Each lodger hangs his clothing
on chair by his bedside. A watchmar
stands guard over the pockets and property
of the sleepers. The biggest five-cent lodg
ing house in New York is in the old coloreC
grammer school building in Thompson
street. 1t is an exaggerated ships steersge
or rather three steerages one above another
The walls of the former class-rooms have
been removed. and each spacious floor is now
an immense room filled with double bunk.
built close together. The hunks are heavy
wooden frames. and look like one kitcher
table set on top of another. They are two
feet apart. There are so to 30 of thess
frames on the first floor. the only one tht
reporter visited. No women are admitted tc
anv of these places. The floor had beer
scrubbed and the walls were clean. Eact
lodger gets bed to himself under cover in
heated room. The place suggested cat.
acomb, but the price was only five cents.