Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-11-12
THE NEW EAST SIDE
Many Changes in New York's
Old Quarter.
ALL FOR THE BETTER
APARTMENT HOUSES INSTEAD OF
wRETCHED TENEMENTS.
Darkness and Dirt Giving Way to
Light and Cleanliness New
Parks and Schools.

Written for The Evening Star by Guy T. Tisknskki
You had better hurry up if you want to
see New Yorks East Side as you have had
1t pictured to you since childhood. Your
last chance to do so is rapidly going. A
few years more, and presto! it will have
disappeared entirely. 1t is already vanish
ing at an astonishing rate; the New Yorker
who knows his East Side fairly well is put
to 1t to keep up with the changes. and not
infreaucntly finds himself getting lost i'll
its devious streets for want of once familiar
landmarks.
The replacing of the old East Side of
filth. foul air and darkness with the new
East Side of cleanliness, sweet air and
light has beer going on, in the main, Oily
since 1901. when the new tenement house
law. under which all dwellings in Greater
New York are now constructed. was passed
by the state legislature. But, although
three years have barely elapsed since the
law went upon the statute books, wonders
have been worked in making fit for human
habitation the section of the nation
metropolis where the great majority or me
country's future citizens first make their
homes on landing in America.
1t is notorious fact that. previous TO
the passage of this law, very little of The
East Side was fit for human beings to i've
and work in. and that little. under the con-
troll of philanthropy, was so inf1nltesimaI
that it cut no figure at all in the sum OF
things
The room that had light was the rare
exception ten out of every fourteen rooms
were merely dingy cells into which the
rays of the sun never penetrated. ABOUT
a third of these rooms had no windows or
other openings for light in any shape or
manner the doors communicating on halls
as dark The rest opened on an air shaft
with a width of twenty-eight inches-a
batr hp
walls
Source of Disease.
This air shaft was prolific source of dis
ease. 1t kept the room opening upon it in
semi-darkness AS it was Theoretically seal
ed everywhere except at the top, circulation
of air in it was impossible, and 1t was sim
ply "a stagnant well of foul air. emptied
from each one of the rooms opening upon IL,
which sometimes were as many as sixty.
Many persons testified that the ar from
these shafts so foul and the doors SO
vile that they had to close the WINDOWS
opening upon them, and in some cases the
windows were permanently nailed up lof
this reason" This extract is from the report
of the tenement house commission of 1900,
whose Investigations are now resulting IN
the new and better East Side.
Another crying evil was the extremely in
sanitary condition of what few bath rooms
were provided for the hundreds of thou
sands of East Sders. By far the greater
number were placed in the dark and mar
row halls for common use, and had no
means of ventilation, while those for pri-
vate use were reached only by going
through bed rooms and also were without
windows or other means of ventilation.
These were three of the twenty-eight ten
ement-house evils that were sapping the vi
tally of the great East Side as late as three
years ago. But their day is over. In the
place of the air shaft of twenty-eight
inches, which prevented family privacy by
ri ants nj hf MT
next to hear and see everything done by
their neighbors there is now the court of
six and half, twelve and half and
twenty-four feet, open at one end, or with
an intake for fresh air. All rooms are light,
those opening upon the new courts natural
ly so; while no room can be built without
one window at least. AS for the bath room,
each family must have private one, en-