The record-union., 1899-08-21
SLUMs THAT ONCE WERE.
RooKERIES MOVED AND CREME
HAUNTs RECLAIMED.
The Park at Mulberry Bend-Fresh
Air Visits Cherry Hill-The
Ghetto Playground.

Ghetto a Playground.
1t was the Tenement House Commit
tee of 1894 and the Small Parks Com
mission that administered the death
blow to some of New Yorks sodden
slums. These, though only phases OF
the agitation extending over many
years for slum regeneration, proved to
be the final weapons for those VINO
would wipe out fostering spots. What
was sought to DC accomplished began
after this committee and this commits
sion had handed up their recommends
tions and had mapped out their work.
1t is not to be contended indeed, that
all slums have disappeared in New
York, though the metropolis shares
with nearly every other municipality in
this country and in Europe the honor
for the fact that there has been a de-
crease in the number and a contraction
in the size of it's regions of crime that
stalks nakedly and extreme suffering.
But the worst have gone. Beneath the
vigorous strokes of dealers in second
hand building materials the grimy,
ancient, disease filled structures have
vanished. A round half dozen Of the To-
calities famed malodorously in police
annals and in the records of the Health
Board from 1870 on are no more.
If the old slum sites have not become
places of beauty they are at least, now
adays spots of comfort. No disease
turks in them, there are no shadoWy
haunts and recesses for the plotting
and committing of crime. The regen-
Grafton has been effective, and has left
little behind it but memories. Memoir
les there will always be. The traditions
of the old sites are not likely to be for
gotten or lost Nevertheless, the
younger generation of to-day, visiting
these localities, will find it hard to
realize what they once were, with the
herding together, the noisy revelry, the
wickedness and the dirt of years. In
deed. they will never be able to realize
it, for, save on a few occasions, the
worst was never told.
A tour through some of these slums,
a revisiting of the sites of the old
plague spots, has deep interest for one
who remembers somewhat of their days
of crime. What might be called the
building regeneration of these localities
is now complete. Where slums once
stood there is here a park there an
open yard. here a business structure,
there a street. Absolutely and definitely
the old tester has been cut out of the
municipality, making in spots almost a
new New York
THE MULBERRY BEND PARK.
With the sunlight shining brightly
upon its sweep of green, it's we'll washed
asphalt and it's glistening white pa
vilion, Mulberry Bend Park, breath
ing place these days for thousands of
Italians, is a remarkable change from
the old Bend" that was the abode of
vileness. Not an iota of picturesqueness
has been sacrificed, for the scene now
reminds irresistibly OF bit of an Ital-
ian city The row of dwelling houses
and shops in Mulberry street, east of
the park, shows a long range of quaint
and foreign fronts. Even the Baxter
street buildings at the west stand out
more artistically and less commonplace
because of their new setting. This
Little Italy"-New York has at least
three "Italies"-has not lost in any
manner in the change. 1t has gained
unreservedly, for the crime and dirt Of
the Bend" more than counterbalanced
all its ancient quarter charm"
There are many filthy tenements in
the adjoining streets. but with the abo-
lition of the real Bend the most
frightful have disappeared. Here where
the beautiful park now extends is the
exact site where some years ago Lady
Henry Somerset, in company with
Jacob A Riis, most expert of slum
guides, discovered the first thoroughly
drunken and bestial woman in the city.
Mr.. Riis described this in an article
written just at the time the Bend
was vanishing:
Into every place made vacant by an
Irishman moved an Italian and a tramp
and when the transformation was COM
pleted the Bend held two or three
times as many tenants as before.
Lady Henry Somerset found some
of them burrowing in their under
ground dens, the stale beer dives, when
she went the rounds of the Bend in the
small hours of the morning with the
writer. She had been congratulating
New York upon it's freedom from
drunken women until she went down
there, and changed her mind.
The police sometimes took as many
as seventy or 100 men and women
tramps out Of the stale beer dives OF
the Bend alleys at single raid. Or
such nights every window in the Eliz-
abeth- street station stood open al
night, and the policemen smoked the
strongest cigars to be got, by way OF
disinfecting the house."
That was the old Mulberry Bend, OF
which police tradition recalls that there
were nearly 600 ways, by actual count
by which a desperate criminal or petit
thief, pursued by officers could escape
All the ramshackle, aged buildings
communicated with one another, above
below, in cellars and over roofs There
were scores of grim, underground pass
aCpc and a dozap m. ca Nviudipcr allaxys