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The Tenement House

Many immigrants settled in large city areas, which soon became crowded ghettos. The following story

is from Michael Gold. His memories of his boyhood in a turn of the century immigrant neighborhoodin New York City remain vivid even today.

can never forget the !ast "ide street where lived as a boy. t was a block from the notorious #owery

district, a tenement canyon hung with fire esca$es, bed clothing and faces.

%lways these faces at the tenement windows. The street never failed them. t was an immense

e&citement. t never sle$t. t roared like a sea. t e&$loded like fireworks. 'eo$le $ushed and wrangledin the street. There were armies of howling $ushcart $eddlers. (omen screamed. )ogs barked . . .

babies cried. !&citement, dirt, fighting, chaos* The sound of my street lifted like the blast of a great

carnival or catastro$he. The noise was always in my ears. !ven in slee$, could hear it+ can hear itnow.

There were thousands of cats on the !ast "ide one of the common$lace -oys of childhood was to

torture cats, chase them, dro$ them from stee$ roofs to see whether cats had nine lives. t was a world

of violence and stone, there were too many cats, there were too many kids.

The stink of cats filled the tenement halls. Cats fought around each garbage can in the !ast "ide

struggle for life. ur tenement was nothing but a -unk hea$ of rotten lumber and brick. t was an old

shi$ on its last voyage in the battering winter storm, all its seams o$ened, and wind and snow came

through.

The $laster was always falling down, the stairs were broken and dirty. /ive times that winter the water

$i$es fro0e, and floods s$urted from the $lumbing, and dri$$ed from the ceilings.

There was no drinking water in the tenement for days. The women had to $ut on their shawls and hunt

in the street for water. 1$ and down the stairs they groaned, lugging $ails of water. n )ecember whenMr. 2un0er, the landlord, called for rent, some of the neighbors told him he ought to fi& the $lumbing.

3Ne&t week,3 he murmured in his scaly beard.

3Ne&t week*3 my mother sneered, after he had gone. 3% do0en times he has told us that, the yellow

faced murderer* May the lice eat him ne&t week* May his false teeth choke him to death ne&t week*3

"ome tenants set out hunting for other flats 4homes5, but could find none. The chea$ ones were always

occu$ied, the better ones were too dear. #esides, it wasn6t easy to move it cost money, and it meant

leaving one6s old neighbors. 3The tenements are the same everywhere, the landlords the same,3 said a

woman. 3 have seen $laces today an risher wouldn6t live in, and the rents are higher than here.3

3(ho made bedbugs73 often wondered while trying to get to slee$. ne steaming hot night we

couldn6t slee$ for the bedbugs. They have a $eculiar nauseating smell of their own it is the smell of

$overty. They crawl slowly and bravely, bloated with blood, and the touch and smell of them wakensevery nerve in your body.

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t wasn6t a lack of cleanliness in our home. My mother was as clean as any German housewife sheslaved, she worked herself to the bone kee$ing us fresh and neat. The bedbugs were a torment to her.

"he rinsed the beds with kerosene, changed the sheets, s$rayed the mattresses in an endless frantic war

with the bedbugs. (hat was the use nothing could hel$ it was 'overty it was the Tenement.

(hen woke u$ each day, was never greatly sur$rised to find in my bed a new family of immigrants,in their foreign baggy underwear. They looked $ale and tired. They smelled of disinfectant, a stink that

sickened me like castor oil. %round the room was scattered their wealth, all their stri$ed calico

seabags, and monumental bundles of featherbeds, $ots, $ans, fine $easant linen, embroidered towelsand 8ueer coats thick as blankets.

!very tenement home was a 'lymouth 9ock like ours. The hos$itality was taken for granted until the

new family rented its own flat. The immigrants would sit around our su$$er table, and ask endless

8uestions about %merica. They would tell the bad news of the old country 4the news was always bad5.They would worry the first morning as to how to find work. They would be instructed that you must

not blow out the gas or everyone would die in the a$artment 4most of them had never seen it before5.

They would walk u$ and down our !ast "ide street, $eering at $olicemen and saloons in ama0ement at%merica. They would make discoveries they would chatter and be foolish.

%fter a few days they left us with thanks, #ut some stayed on and on, eating at our table. )on6t think

my mother liked this. (e were too $oor to be that generous. "he would grumble . . . but she6d never

really ask them to move out or $ay. "he didn6t know how.

The summer. t was $ainful to draw one6 breath. The sun bla0ed with sheer murder all day. %t night,

steam rose from the ghetto stones like a va$or bath. There was never any relief from the weight

$ressing on our necks and skulls. 'eo$le were sick, doctors were very busy.

The babies whim$ered and died. The flies thrived. !veryone was nervous there were 8uarrels downthe air shaft. would wake in the dead of night and hear the tenement groaning and twisting in

bedrooms. 'eo$le went e&$loring for slee$ as for a treasure. Hollow:eyed ghosts tram$ed the streets

all night. /amilies sle$t on the docks, in the $arks, on the roofs. #ut the world was hot.

;ike rats scrambling on deck from the hold of a burning shi$, that6s how we $oured on the roof atnight to slee$. Mothers, gray:bearded men, lively young girls, e&hausted sweatsho$ fathers, young

$eo$le with terrible coughing s$ells, s$itting on the roof constantly :: all of us snored, and groaned

there side by side, on news$a$ers or mattresses. (e sle$t in $ants and undershirt, hea$ed like deadbodies. The city was all around us.

!ach family was $olite enough to leave a s$ace between itself and the ne&t family. This was our only

$rivacy on the roof. woke one hot choking night and saw it all like a bad dream. saw the mounds of

$ale stricken flesh tossing against an unreal city. was frightened, and didn6t know where was. Then cried, and wondered what would ha$$en if -um$ed off the roof. My mother heard me and soothed

me, and went back to slee$.

"ome nights it rained. %ll s$rang u$ in bedlam, screaming, cursing the rain, shouting to others, the

babies in weak tears. (e grabbed our bedding, and scrambled back into the fire of the bedrooms. #utthere were some who sle$t through the rain, rather than go back into that fire. t is said that the )awn

is beautiful, but where7 n the roof nobody loved that hour when the fever glow a$$eared on the $ale

sky. Then the swarms of bloodsucking flies arrived, and slee$ was intolerable, and the humid day washere, and reality, and $overty.

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'overty in winter. (ho can describe it . . . the collective suffering of a hundred thousand tenements7

#abies groaning and dying in the thousands worry, slee$lessness. The funeral coaches rolled through

the street as often as the garbage wagons. n the !ast "ide $eo$le buy their groceries a $inch at a

time three cents6 worth of sugar, five cents6 worth of butter, everything in $enny fractions. The good