Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1922-07-30
ALLEY SYSTEM
OF WASHINGTON
is NOTORIOUS
Bx FREDERIC j. HAsKIN.


Washington, d. c., July %
Goat Alley. Pig Alley and Ca
sey's Court are not inventions
OF moving picture producers. They
are the addresses of a number
of people in the national capital
Congress is being urged to sweep
such places from the map OF
washington and leave them en-
tirely to tenement fiction
Washington is generally known
as a city without Sums Ger
tainly no tourist to the capltal
ever saw any conditions such as
New York's East Side openly as
plays. Even old residents OIL
Washington have been known TO
say that the city had no SUM
district They said it in good
faith. They had never visited
the alleys or they never thought
of them as slums.
Washington has no slum dis
4 trict 1t is true. But through
the city, like hidden sores, run
tortuous alleyways with rows OF
shacks crowded with humanity
mostly colored,
An Investigator who spent SIX
3 months living in one of the alleys
gave the following as a typical
instance of bad conditions: A
four room alley home sheltered
15 persons. The mother Of the
home had had 16 children, Her
4 five grown daughters all had IL
legitimate children. one son
was in the insane asylum. One
7 of the daughters was dying or
tuberculosis. Another was in Jail
for cutting a man and woman.
According to the story, when
4 this last daughter was little
girl. "she begged from door to
door, saying that her dead mother
lay awaiting burial in their desc
late home, or that the family
4 lived in the country where all
their possessions had just been
destroyed by fire"
The alley situation in Washing
ton is unusual. There are 224
inhabited alleys, the homes of
$500 people. In another Amer
lean city this condition would
have been made a political issue
long ago. The necessary funds
would have been raised and the
alley homes torn down.
E But Washington must walt on
congress, and congress is con-
stantly busy with national affairs
and always anxious to economic.
1t takes money and careful plan
ming to revise a city and to
move $500 OF the poorest peo-
pie in it without panic or great
disorder. Furthermore, the alley
system works to the benefit OF
the more affluent classes. So
there has been apathy. The al
leys have continued since before
the Civil war, hidden but in
sidious blot on the beauty Of the
capital.
How the System Started.
The system started in a queer
way. Washington was laid out
in deep lots with plenty of back
yard space. Lanes between lots
became alleyways veining the cen
ter of a square. Outhouses were
built in some of the back yards
and servants sometimes We're quar-
tered there.
When the Civil war ended large
numbers of soldiers were in
Washington and wooden barrack!
were built for them in some o
this back yard space. The sol
diers left, but thirty or fort,
thousand negroes came swarmint
into the government headquarters
at that time and the barrack
were eagerly taken over for thei
homes. A few of these Civil wa
barracks are still standing ant
Inhabited. other negroes foun,
shacks in alleyways. The peopl
who employed them were glad t
have them living conveniently a
hand.
Domestic servants were in de
mand in Washington and house
were built for them on the bacl
lots. In time these lots ofte
became entirely separated fror
the property facing the street
Rows of alley houses were bough
up by land sharks because the
brought in good profits.
William Deane Ham, membe
of the citizens housing commit
tee, says that these sharks or
operating today. They own lon
rows of alley homes, and deriv
large incomes from the rents.
four room house in one Of thes
rows is valued at about $400.
rents on an average for s12
month, or $144 a year. In othe
words, every three years the ter
ants pay for the houses they rel
and some of them have lived |
their shacks for so years.
Most of the houses are tumb
down wooden or brick structure
Mr.. Ham has made survs
which congress will get in II
fall. He says:
1T is doubtful whether the,
are more than 10 bath rooms
the entire alley system. Leaks
the roofs average four or fl,
to a house in some alleys. II
alleyways are paved and a,
kept comparatively clean by CT
ordinance. But the city cam
clean up the interiors. TT
houses are crowded because Il
rents are high and even in a 70,
room house rooms are rented o
to several families. When v,
consider that six or seven peop
sometimes occupy a single roo
10 by IL feet, existence in the
homes can be imagined"
Not all the alley jewellers