Part 7

The Inspector of the Eleventh Ward says: “As a rule, the streets are extremely dirty and offensive, and the gutters obstructed with filth. The filth of the streets is composed of house-slops, refuse vegetables, decayed fruit, store and shop sweepings, ashes, dead animals, and even human excrements. These putrifying organic substances are ground together by the constantly passing vehicles. When dried by the summer’s heat, they are driven by the wind in every direction in the form of dust. When remaining moist or liquid in the form of “slush,” they emit deleterious and very offensive exhalations. The reeking stench of the gutters, the street filth, and domestic garbage of this quarter of the city, constantly imperil the health of its inhabitants. It is a well-recognized cause of diarrhoeal diseases and fevers.”

The Inspector of the Eighteenth Ward reports: “The streets in the eastern part of the district, east of First Avenue especially, have, for the past six months, been in a most inexcusably filthy condition. The pavement here is uneven, there are deep gutters at either side of the streets, filled with foul slops, in which float or are sunk every form of decaying animal and vegetable matter. Occasionally, at remote and irregular intervals, carts come round, these stagnant pools are dredged, so to speak, and their black and decayed solid contents raked out. If there be anything on earth that is ‘rank and smells to heaven,’ these gutters do on such occasions, especially in the summer months. The streets in this part of the city are the principal depositories of garbage. In some instances heaped up at the sides of the streets, in others thrown about promiscuously, the event in either case is the same, if it be allowed to remain day after day, as it usually is. After having passed through every stage of decay, after having corrupted the surrounding air with its pestilential smell, it gradually becomes dessicated and converted into dust by the summer sun and the constantly passing vehicles. And now every horse that passes stirs it up, every vehicle leaves a cloud of it behind; it is lifted into the air with every wind and carried in every direction.

“Those who are directly responsible for this state of things suffer no more than the cleanly and thrifty who are so unfortunate as to live anywhere the wind, blowing from this quarter, reaches them. And what a pulvis compositum is it to breathe into the lungs! As we pass by, our mouths become full of it, we draw it in with our breath. It is swallowed into the stomach, it penetrates our dress and clings until it has covered our perspiring skin. Surely no dumping-ground, no sewer, no vault, contains more filth or in greater variety than did the air in certain parts of our city during the long season of drought the past summer. And wherever the wind blows, the foul corruption is carried; by a process as sure and universal as the diffusion of gases, is it conveyed throughout the city. Such, often, is the air drawn into the lungs with every respiration, of the poor sufferer stifled with consumption or burning with fever. No barrier can shut it out, no social distinction can save us from it; no domestic cleanliness, no private sanitary measures can substitute a pure atmosphere for a foul one.”

But I need not multiply these quotations. It will suffice to state that during the week ending August 5th, a special inspection of all the streets was made and they were found to be reeking, and, indeed, almost impassable, with filth. And to-day they are in, if possible, a still worse condition than ever before.

Closely allied to the streets are courts and alleys. These cul-de-sacs leading to, and adjoining the close and unventilated homes of the poor, are almost universally in a more filthy condition than the adjacent street. They are the receptacles of much of the waste of the house, and are rarely cleaned. The air of these places during the summer is often the most stifling and irrespirable, and yet as it descends it enters the closely packed tenant-house and furnishes to the inmates the elements of disease and death. Says the Inspector of the Fourth Ward:

“Slops from rear buildings of such premises are usually emptied into a shallow gutter cut in the flagging and extending from the yard, or space between front and rear buildings, to the street. This is often clogged up by semi-fluid filth, so that the alley and those parts of the yard through which it runs are not infrequently overflown and submerged to the depth of several inches. There are more than four hundred families in this district whose homes can only be reached by wading through a disgusting deposit of filthy refuse. In some instances, a staging of plank, elevated a few inches above the surface, is constructed through the alleys.”

New York, 1865]

In the court is found generally that most pestiferous of all the sources of civic uncleanliness and unhealthiness--the privy and cesspool. These receptacles are rarely drained into the sewers, and consequently require for their cleanliness the frequent and faithful attention of the scavenger. The reports of the sanitary inspectors prove that this work is most irregularly and imperfectly done. Hundreds of places were found where these nuisances existed within, under or beside large tenant-houses, creating a vast amount of disease and death. Numerous instances of this kind are detailed in these reports, which are almost too revolting to be believed. I will quote but one or two illustrations:

“The privies (two in one) of Nos. -- and -- West Twenty-fourth Street need instant cleaning. They are overflowing the yard, and are very offensive. The privy No. -- Seventh Avenue, as in the preceding two adjoining houses, is in the yard, and adjoins the house, and is on a line with the southerly wall of house No. -- (the adjacent house), which has a back area; the wall of said area being part of the foundation of the privy. At times the fluid portion of the privy oozes through its own and the area wall.

“The privy of the rear tenant-house No. -- West Twenty-second Street is used by 42 persons; it has five subdivisions, one for every two families. The compartments are so small that a person can scarcely turn round in them, and so dark that they have to be entered with an artificial light. The cellar itself, as has been stated, is damp, dark, and without ventilation. Under such circumstances the emanations of the excrementious matter of 42 persons can find no escape; thus this privy-cellar is worse than a Stygian pit.”

The Inspector of the Fifth Ward says: “Very few tenements have water-closets in the house; they have privies in the yards, which, as a rule, are insufficient for the accommodation of the numbers crowded into the houses; many are not connected with the sewers; are seldom cleaned, being allowed to overflow in some cases, rendering the neighborhood offensive with insalubrious emanations.”

The Inspector of the Fourteenth Ward states that: “The water-closets are nearly all in the yards--but few being in the houses--and connecting with the sewers. The greater number of these sewers are in a filthy condition, being but seldom emptied. Many of those which communicate with the privies are choked up by all sorts of offal being thrown into them, thereby producing a very bad condition.”

The Inspector of the Seventeenth Ward reports: “The privies of East Eleventh Street, rear, are beneath the floored alley-way leading to the building. Large holes in this floor allow ocular inspection from above, and admit rain and dirt. These nuisances are almost always overflowing, and the passage leading to them is full of fæcal matter. It would seem impossible for human beings to create or endure such vileness. The cellar is used by children and others as a privy; the foul air there seems never to change.”

The Inspector of the Sixteenth Ward says: “The privies form one end of the chief features of insalubrity. Nearly all of them are too small in size and too few in number, and without ventilation or seat-covers. About twelve were found locked securely, and on procuring the key and inspecting the privy, such masses of human excrements were found on the seats and floors as would justify the locking of the door to protect unwary persons from injury. Occupants of rear buildings are the principal sufferers from this insalubrity. The proximity of privies is in some cases eight feet from the windows of rear houses; the odor in these is, especially at night, intolerable. Instances of the kind are to be found at Nos. --, -- and -- West Seventeenth Street, and others. They are also too few in number; for example, No. -- West Nineteenth Street, where in the front and rear buildings more than one hundred persons live who have one common privy, with a single partition dividing it, and but four seats in all. Twenty-five persons are expected to use one seat-opening.”

The Inspector of the Twentieth Ward says: “During my inspection I reported a number which were filled, and at the same time in such need of repair as to hazard the lives of those who entered them. The proximity of these places to the houses in many cases is a fact to which I would call your attention. One instance of this kind I may state: At a house in Fortieth Street, between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, the privy is situated about 10 feet from the door, and there is another on a line 10 feet from the first, and still another within 10 feet of the last mentioned, making three privies within 30 feet, and two of these belong to houses fronting on Broadway. The offensive odor arising from these places contaminates the air of the houses in the vicinity. This house, in Fortieth Street, is actually unfit to live in. At the time of my inspection the noxious gases from these privies were strongly perceptible in every part of the house.”

The Inspector of the Seventeenth Ward reports: “The privies are in most cases in the rear court-yard. In about two-thirds of the houses the privies are connected with the sewer. Overflowing privies are frequently found. Sometimes they are located in a dark place, which in all cases must be considered an evil. Such is the case in some houses in Rivington, Stanton, Ninth and Eldridge streets. All these places are filthy, and exceedingly offensive and dangerous to the whole neighborhood; in some places the foundation of the privies being rotten and broken, and fæcal matter runs into the cellar, as in No. -- ‘Extra Place,’ where diseases and deaths have occurred. The contents of a privy in a court at No. -- Fifth Street have, from a similar cause, saturated the yard of premises on the Bowery, where several children died during the summer.”

I will at this point simply allude to special nuisances. New York has within the narrow limits of its present occupied area of about eight square miles, in addition to its one million of people, and all its commercial and manufacturing establishments, a vast number of special nuisances, which are, to a greater or less degree, detrimental to its public health. There are nearly 200 slaughter-houses, many of which are in the most densely populated districts. To these places droves of cattle, hogs, and sheep are constantly driven, rendering the streets filthy in the extreme, and from them flow blood and refuse of the most disgusting character.

In certain populous sections are fat-boiling, entrails-cleansing, and tripe-curing establishments, which poison the air for squares around with their stifling emanations. To these must be added hundreds of uncleaned stables, immense manure heaps, etc., etc. But I shall not dwell further on these subjects, and the evidence regarding them.

I pass from the consideration of the external to the internal domiciliary conditions. The poorer classes of New York are found living either in cellars or in tenement houses. It is estimated by the City Inspector that 18,000 persons live in cellars. This is also about the estimate of the police. The apartments of these people are not the light and airy basement rooms of the better class houses, but their homes are, in the worst sense, cellars. These dark, damp and dreary abodes are seldom penetrated by a ray of sunlight, or enlivened by a breath of fresh air. I will quote several descriptions from these reports. In the Fourth Ward many of these cellars are below tide water. Says the Inspector of that district:

“This submarine region is not only excessively damp, but is liable to sudden inroads from the sea. At high tide the water often wells up through the floors, submerging them to a considerable depth. In very many cases the vaults of privies are situated on the same or a higher level, and their contents frequently ooze through the walls into the occupied apartments beside them. Fully one-fourth of these subterranean domiciles are pervaded by a most offensive odor from this source, and rendered exceedingly unwholesome as human habitations. These are the places in which we most frequently meet with typhoid fever and dysentery during the summer months. I estimate the amount of sickness of all kinds affecting the residents of basements and cellars, compared with that occurring among an equal number of the inhabitants of floors above ground, as being about a ratio of 3 to 2.”

The Inspector of the Fifteenth Ward reports: “In a dark and damp cellar, about 18 feet square and 7 feet high, lived a family of seven persons; within the past year two have died of typhus, two of smallpox, and one has been sent to the hospital with erysipelas. The tops of the windows of this abode are below the level of the surface, and in the court near are several privies and a rear tenant-house. Yet this occurred but a short distance from the very heart of the city.”

In its dark, damp cellar, 18 feet square by 7 high, lived 7 persons

L, LIVING ROOM; D, DORMITORY]

The Inspector of the Ninth Ward writes: “At Nos. --, --, -- and -- Hammond Street, and also at No. -- Washington Street, are inhabited cellars, the ceilings of which are below the level of the street, inaccessible to the rays of the sun, and always damp and dismal. Three of them are flooded at every heavy rain, and require to be baled out. They are let at a somewhat smaller rent than is asked for apartments on an upper floor, and are rented by those to whom poverty leaves no choice. They are rarely vacant.”

The Inspector of the Seventeenth Ward states that: “In 17 squares 55 houses contain 246 persons living in cellars entirely underground. As a matter of course such cellars are unhealthy dwelling apartments. Stanton Place has some of these miserable cellar-apartments, in which diseases have been generated. These cellars are entirely subterranean, dark and damp.”

The Inspector of the Sixth Ward says: “There has been some improvement within the last few years--the cellar population having been perceptibly decreased, yet 496 persons still live in damp and unwholesome quarters under ground. In some of them water was discovered trickling down the walls, the source of which was sometimes traced to the courts and alleys, and sometimes to the soakage from the water-closets. The noxious effluvia always present in these basements are of a sickening character. Many of the cellars are occupied by two or three families; a number are also occupied as lodging-houses, accommodating from twenty to thirty lodgers. One, near the corner of Elm and Worth streets, is now fifteen or sixteen feet below the level of the street (the street having been raised ten feet). The lodging-house keeper complained to the Inspector that her business had fallen off some since the street was raised. As might be expected, the sickness rate is very high; rheumatic disease, fevers, strumous diseases, cholera infantum, etc., etc., running riot among the population. Indeed, in nearly every basement disease of some kind has been found peculiarly prevalent and fatal.”

Another Inspector says: “At No. -- West Sixteenth Street, two families, in which are thirteen persons, occupy the basement. It is so dark that ordinary type can be seen with difficulty. In the other case the people were healthy before entering the basement; since, however, they have been ill; the mother has phthisis. Of twenty-four cellars, note of which has been made, four only were in good sanitary condition. The rest were more or less filthy, some indescribably so. One contained urine, bones, and soakage from the privy.”

The Inspector of the Eighteenth Ward writes: “There are a few cellars so dark that one cannot see to read in them, unless by artificial light, except for a few hours in the day, by sitting close to the window; and there are many basement rooms into whose gloomy recesses not a single direct ray from the sun ever shone. The latter are, as a rule, by half their depth below the level of the street. Dark and damp, with very little chance for circulation of air, it would be difficult to imagine a human being more completely beyond reach of sanitary provisions. And when we consider that four large families often crowd this subterranean floor, no words are needed to show their condition deplorable. That a generally impaired vitality is promoted by living in this unnatural way, ‘a nameless, ever new disease,’ there can be no question; that these people will be especially prone to whatever form of prevailing sickness may be about in the community, no one can doubt; but whether there is any specific cause involved, capable of producing definite forms of disease, is more difficult to determine.”