An
unscrupulous contractor regards no basement as too dark,
no stable loft too foul, no rear shanty too provisional,
no tenement room too small for his workroom, as these
conditions imply low rental. Hence these shops abound in
the worst of the foreign districts where the sweater
easily finds his cheap basement and his home finishers.
The houses of the ward, for the most part wooden, were
originally built for one family and are now occupied by
several. They are after the type of the inconvenient
frame cottages found in the poorer suburbs twenty years
ago. Many of them were built where they now stand; others
were brought thither on rollers, because their previous
sites had been taken by factories. The fewer brick
tenement buildings which are three or four stories high
are comparatively new, and there are few large tenements.
The little wooden houses have a temporary aspect, and for
this reason, perhaps, the tenement-house legislation in
Chicago is totally inadequate. Rear tenements flourish;
many houses have no water supply save the faucet in the
back yard, there are no fire escapes, the garbage and
ashes are placed in wooden boxes which are fastened to the
street pavements. One of the most discouraging features
about the present system of tenement houses is that many
are owned by sordid and ignorant immigrants.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120