The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1886-05-28
A CURIOUS VILLAGE.
DlLe3IDATED SHANTlES OF ONE OF
GoTHAM's QUEER SUBURBS.

GO1 HAMS GOEEH tSUBDR60.
"Shantytown and Its Queer Inhabit-
ants--Adaptation Of Iueans to an End,
as Shown In Cabin Neutrality-suspicious.
ing Material-National Features.
When Vanderbilt erected his famous
houses ON the corner of Fifth avenue and
Fifty-first street, it was thought that New
YORK would not extend much beyond that
quarter of the city for years to come. To-
day, however, the Vanderbilt mansions
are barely removed from the shops &c Etail
ors and picture dealers that havelcrepf
9 into the ayentle, and every scar the Streets.
facing and extending from Centzal paTk
are becoming more popular with the In
habitants of the costliest residences. But
there is still one district, facing this pleas
ure ground of New Yerkers--this magnifi-
cent park, with its drives, it's museum, its
lakes and monuments-which has not yet
been obliterated, but which remains to in
terest all who are curious enough to visit
it. It is needless, perhaps, to declare that
this quaint region of classic New York is
known as "Shantytown'
A STUDY OF sHANTYTowN.
Whoever is acquainted with the city il
more or less familiar with the peculiari-
ties of this congregation of dilapidateG
shanties, poster-eating goats, crooked
chimneys, spiked fences and German and
Irish families. A few years ago Shanty
town was bounded OH the south by Sixty.
fifth street, and on the north by Eighty
fifth. But now the southern limit is much
nearer the northern end than a short time
ago, and surely, as well as rapidly, the
curiously fashioned huts are being
destroyed. Shantytown is doomed The
land its houses occupy is wanted New
streets are being cut through the rocky
hills upon whose quick slopes and pointed
SUBMITS the huts used to stand and cabin
after cabin is being replaced by brown
stone houses, into which there will soon
move aristocratic tenants and owners. In
some of the new streets the modern build
ings and the squalid huts stand side by
side-the one costly and stately, the other
representing an outlay of a few dollars,
and as rude crude and quaint as the hab-
itations of all squatter colonies are apt
to be.
Some one who once made a careful
study of Shantytown declared that rep
resentative cabin is the most wonderful
instance of perfect adaptation of means to
an end in the whole range of modern archi-
lecture Nothing is prepared for it
neither ground nor material. Its builders
have but an empirical knowledge of the
craft they practice. They scorn a model,
and they work with whatever comes to
hand" AS nature created it, the ground
upon which Shantytown stands was
vastly uneven. Hilly, rocky, and crossed
by narrow, deep ravines, it offered any
thing but desirable location for houses
of any description, but the squatters were
persevering and were little troubled.
They took the ground as they found it and
built their houses as best they could As
result, it is not unusual to find shanty
climbing tenaciously up the steep side of a
rock and with it's front: door at the very
summit; thence it's other rooms slipping
off at lower levels. Stairways being i'm
possible, these lower apartments are
reached by trap-doors in their roots,
which are on an exact level with the
kitchen floor.
BUILDING MATERIAL FROM EVERYWHERE.
AS to the material used, it is collected
from everywhere. There is wood from the
docks and from the country, strips of tin
roofing, bits of canvas, pieces of tarred
paper, bricks and stone Some of the
houses are painted in various colors, Others
are blackened by age and still others are
coated with whitewash. Where the room
for building has been Emited-and there
seems rarely to have been ground enough
for all who come-the roof of one house
has been made the foundation of another
and single cliff or hill or rock has been
covered with cabins Of every shape, size
and color. When viewed from distance,
this careless grouping is not without some
picturesqueness, but that feature vanishes
utterly when one draws nearer and gains
an intimate conception of the style and
general arrangement of the colony. No
one race has settled at Shantytown.
There are Germans Irish and Italians,
and the people have each their own
way of living, The Irish predominate,
and it is they who own the goats one
sees feeding on tomato-can labels and bits
of refuse. The Germans raise geese and
ducks, and fiocks of the noisy, wind-fap-
ping birds are always wsddling about the
settlement or with the goats enjoying free
access to the huts, into which they wander
with sedate assurance whenever the door
is left conveniently open. z s
As for the children of Shantytown, they
are as numerous as the architecture of the
cabins is varied, and do much to increase
the general confusion that exists. The
gardens of Shantytown supply many of
the vegetables that are used in New York
In former years these cultivated patches
were much more numerous than they are
at present, but even now there are many
of them left, and in summer they give
freshness to the settlement that in winter
is entirely lost. The owners of Shanty-
town cabins are quiet, well behaved
people, and the settlement has long en-
joyed reputation for order and sobriety
The land is leased at merely
nominal figure, and election is made at
the pleasure of the owner.-Edwards
Roberts in San Francisco Chronicle