New York, 1888. "Bandits' roost, 59½ Mulberry Street (Mulberry Bend)."
[Photo: Shorpy/Jacob Riis]
I've featured this shot before, but that was a poorer quality print which had the gloriously louche bowler-hatted character on the right mostly in shadow. You can make him out more clearly here (click to enlarge).
Photographed by Jacob Riis as part of his pioneering work of photojournalism, How the Other Half Lives, which documented the squalid living conditions in New York City slums:
In the 1890s many people in upper- and middle-class society were unaware of the dangerous conditions in the slums among poor immigrants. Jacob Riis, a Danish immigrant who himself could not originally find much work, hoped to expose the squalor of the 19th-century Lower East Side of Manhattan. After a successful career as a police reporter, he published a photojournal documenting these conditions using graphic descriptions, sketches, photographs, and statistics. Riis blamed the apathy of the monied class for the condition of the New York slums, and assumed that as people were made more aware of these conditions they would be motivated to help eradicate them....
How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York explained not only the living conditions in New York slums, but also the sweatshops in some tenements which paid workers only a few cents a day. The book explains the plight of working children; they would work in factories and at other jobs. Some children became garment workers and newsies (newsboys).
The effect was the tearing down of New York's worst tenements, sweatshops, and the reformation of the city's schools. The book led to a decade of improvements in Lower East Side conditions, with sewers, garbage collection, and indoor plumbing all following soon after, thanks to public reaction.
As I noted before, a similar reforming spirit contemporaneously in London saw the demolition of some of the worst East End slums, such as the infamous Old Nichol in Shoreditch.
More of Jacob Riis's photos here.
Comments