| Dens of Death, New York City, "When the 'dens
of death' were in Baxter Street, big barracks crowded out the old shanties.
. . .I remember the story of those shown in the picture. They had been built
only a little while when complaints came to the Board of Health of smells
in the houses. A sanitary inspector was sent to find the cause. He followed
the smell down in the cellar, and digging there discovered the water pipe
was a blind. It had simply been run into the ground and was not connected
with the sewer." This description and photograph came from Jacob Riis in
The Battle with the Slum (1902). Riis was an influential reformer,
journalist, and pioneer photographer who also wrote How the Other Half
Lives in 1890. |
