Sentence:  But it had , as was usual in southern cities of this sort , a Black Bottom , a low region near the river where the Negroes lived - servants and laborers huddled together in a region with no sewage save the river , where streets and sidewalks <WSD>were</WSD> neglected and where there was much poverty and crime . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)