The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1903-06-11
tenement
REFORM
New State Commission Seeks
Information In This
City.
DEPLORABLE CONDITIONS
Sanitary Police Conduct the
Board Through Thickly
Settled Districts.
DEpLORABLE CONDITIONS

The eyes of the new tenement house
commissioners who visited Jersey City
this morning were opened very wide and
they saw sights which they declared they
did not imagine existed any where in
the state of New Jersey. George B.
Bond, of Camden, Edward W. Gray, of
Newark and Clinton Mckenzie, members
of the board with their secretary Charles
]. Allen arrived at Police headquarters
about IL o'clock. There they were wei
coined by Chief of Police Murphy who
is much interested in the work of the
commission. Jersey City has no separ-
ated health board, the police having con-
troll of sanitary matters. Chief Murphy
detailed Health Inspector Henry Smellie
and Officer Herring of the Sanitary Squad
to accompany the commissioners on their
tour of inspection. Inspector Smellie led
the visitors to building on Grand street
in the neighborhood of police headquar-
ters in what at one time was the most
aristocratic section of the city Outward
ly the building was imposing enough.
1t was four stories high in an attractive
style of architecture with single pane
windows and a high sounding name in
gold letters on the plate glass of the front
door. One of the visitors impressed by
the outward appearance asked Inspector
Smeilie if that was not a modern ten
ement and said he hardly thought it
was the kind they wanted to see. The
inspector smiled and led the Commits
sioners into the basement. There the
doubter changed his mind. The plumb
ing was found to be in generally di-
lapidated condition Drain pipes were
broken and entirely inadequate to carry
off the water. Closets were in deplor-
able condition and the flow of water in
sufficient to do the work required of it.
The stream was small on the ground
foor7and gradually diminished in volume
until the top floor, it was scarcely per-
ceptible. Each floor contained four
rooms and a bath. The middle rooms
and the bath We're dark and lily ventil-
taed from n narrow air shaft. This
This building had fire escapes but they
were on sort of air shaft leaving such
small access to and from them that
person Of ordinary stoutness would have
considerably difficulty in using them.
These apartments command a com
paratively good rent, and the tenants
who are Of a better class We're loud in
their complaints to the Commissioners
From here the Commissioners were
taken over to Essex street. in the neigh
borhood inhabited mainly by the Poland
ers and Hungarians who are employed
~ tnc 4uoAAiihoth aruAdttory VI the
American Sugar Refinery Company.
They first visited big double four-story
brick tenement, which in local parlance
Is called ship. On each side of mar
row hall dark as pitch in midday are
suites of six rooms each, in almost every
case occupied by two families. Com
missioner Mckenzie brought with him a
patent electric hand lantern which proved
very useful in this case. BY its bright
light fnoisome sink was disclosed on
each floor with a single hydrant from
which the tenants secured the water sup
ply. The sink itself was half filed with
a greasy, dirty fluid, and on the floor un-
der it stood buckets and old tin cans
filed with garbage and kitchen refuse.
Only the rooms at the front and rear
were lighted and ventilated properly.
Into the middle rooms struggled some
faint rays of gray light and no fresh
air through windows about twenty inches
wide which looked out onto very mar
row airshaft. In the yard of this build
ing, not sixteen feet from the rear win
dows is a vault with door for each
floor. This vault was in most unsani-
tary condition, and the Commissioners
u 1 4 ffLH