The Bowery Hall of Fame
THE FORMATION OF SKID ROW
Although the term "skid row" came from
a 19th century logging strip in Seattle, to the American mind
the Bowery has long been the paradigm of life on the margins.
But what is a skid row? What was its social and economic function
during the late 19th and early 20th century? Is it now just
a curiosity of American history, or does the skid row still
play a role in today's urban economic life?
For the better part of the 20th century,
the Bowery provided a haven for transient single workers,
hobos, alcoholics, prostitutes and anyone seeking illicit
thrills. Cheap lodging houses, bars, burlesque theaters and
day labor offices riddled the street. Unlike today's homeless,
early 20th century Bowery denizens were, for the most part,
migrant single male laborers with their own culture, work
habits, and living accommodations.
A HIERARCHY OF SUB-TENEMENT HOUSING:
Toward the end of the 19th century, life
on Manhattan's lower East Side became synonymous with the
tenement, cheap apartment houses built on spec. Although the
Bowery had its share of tenements, it mostly catered to a
population even poorer and more unstable. In those days, there
was a range of cut-rate lodging.
As noted by social observer and photographer
Jacob Riis, "There is a wider gap between the 'hotel'.that
charges a quarter and the one the furnishes a bed for a dime
than between a bridal suite and the every-day hall bedroom
of the ordinary hostelry." Sociologists Charles Hoch and Richard
Slayton--and Riis, in his famous "How the Other Half Lives"--sketched
out this hierarchy of cheap living:
Workingmen's Hotels: The top of
the heap, workingmen's hotels catered to skilled craftsmen
and mechanics. Rooms cost up to a dollar a night, with services
like trouser pressing and stationery. These hotels were scattered
across the city until public pressure led to legislation in
the 1950s that prohibited new developments. Many of these
hotels, now known as Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels, were
demolished, converted into commercial hotels or permanent
housing.
Cubicle Hotels: Also called lodging
houses or cage hotels, these buildings are now more commonly
known as "flophouses." Housed inside manufacturing buildings,
each floor consisted of long rows of wooden cubicles, roughly
6 ½' long, 4 ½' wide and 7' high, just large enough to fit
a wire spring bed frame and a foot locker. The cubicles typically
rose only three-quarters of the way to the ceiling so as to
allow for light and air, and were covered with chicken wire
to prevent theft. One floor might have as many as 200 cubicles,
each of which cost 15 to 25 cents a night in 1890. At their
height, more than 100 lodging houses served about 10,000 people
along the Bowery. Now only seven are left.
Dormitory lodging houses: The
precursor to the maligned armory shelter, these facilities
would rent cots or bunks in large open rooms for ten to fifteen
cents per night. As with cubicle hotels, they were typically
located over taverns or saloons.
Flophouses: For two to five cents
a night, men could rent a space on the floor of a large room.
Newspaper or coats provided bedding. Men usually slept in
rows.
Barrel Houses: Saloons might allow
steady customers to sleep for a penny or so on a bar stool,
in a back hallway, or even draped over a rope strung across
the bar.
|
