Yvette Deane Spark: How They Lived 3-13-12

This week’s focus, as made evident from the reading, is how they lived. They lived in tenements and the housing condition was a major factor discussed by all three authors. Foner stated that three fourths of Manhattan residents lived in tenements in 1900. An even larger percent of immigrants lived there. Over ninety percent of Jews and only a slightly smaller percentage of Italians were tenement dwellers.  The general living situation of a tenement house was bad enough but there were the worst of the worst, which were the rear tenements, where people had to enter through alleys and had no windows. These people lived in conditions unimaginable today, compared to our standard of living.  Something I was unaware of is that the immigrant neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Harlem had tenements as well. Though many new immigrants do live in truly horrid conditions, many have dispersed and no longer live in the classical neighborhood.

Anbinder discusses similar ideas. Though Foner pinpoints many of the disastrous conditions people had to deal with in tenements, Anbinder goes into more gruesome detail. There were no beds, no water, no sunlight and the areas were riddled with disease and pestilence. Racial discrimination was not put aside even though most immigrants suffered through these same hardships. Five Point’s segregation “was even more pronounced than ethnic clustering.” There were strong family attachments and remnants are still seen in New York today.

News reporters and reformers saw the atrocities taking place in Five Points. Blame was shifted and much was argued upon yet nothing substantial was done. Eventually the civic leaders took it upon themselves to improve the city’s image rather than the city itself.

Finally, Sanjek explains how areas like Corna became so populated. He then gives us more insight through the neighborhoods and politics of New York. In fact, the shift of neighborhoods is not natural but rather based on government policy. He also begins to elaborate, similar to the other two books, that race and segregation plays a huge role in who lives where in addition to income and immigration.

Food for thought:

Foner says that many of the new immigrants are revitalizing some of the neighborhoods in New York City; does this imply that that new immigrants are truly better off in regards to their living conditions?

Why would the government try to improve their image rather than Five Points itself?

Is there truth to what Sanjek is saying? Or, does it sound closer to a conspiracy theory.