ABSTRACT
The population of New York grew rapidly in the late 1800s. European immigrants arrived in the city to seek better opportunities in America, and New York served as an immigration landing port to enter the country. While some immigrants continued through and moved on to other parts of the United States, many decided to make New York their home, and of those, many settled in the Lower Manhattan area, specifically East Village and Lower East Side.
The New York tenement housing typology emerged in Lower Manhattan during this time. The tenements were constructed rapidly and in great succession to keep pace with the advent of recent arrivals in the Lower Manhattan neighbourhoods. The New York tenement is a type of row house development five to six storeys in height. The characteristics are of an economical housing solution to accommodate the urban working poor; buildings attached to both sides of adjacent tenement buildings; lot size usually 25 feet (7.6 metres) wide by 100 feet (30.5 metres) deep; four apartments on each floor; central shared staircase and communal sanitary facilities; and the types of tenements built were back-to-backs, railroad, air-shaft, and dumbbell.
