The Tenement: 1910

I have never felt closer to O. Henry than at this moment.

I often wondered where Basement Cat got his start. Now I know. (I wonder if anyone else got that).

To the left of the doorway is a half-model of a boat hull with a centerboard. It's a technical rather than a decorative object and makes me suspect that someone in the tenement was a boatbuilder.

It's definitely a well kept room and a superior tenement, but I bet that on a hot day it SMELLED.

A little Google research indicates my earlier thought the stove was a conversion may have been wrong. The Gem City Stove Company in Dayton, Ohio, produced a gas stove from the late 1800s up until the Depression known as the "Perfect."

The thing reflected in the mirror appears to be a yarn swift, or winder. The bag would be used to store it.

Those are definitely flatirons (or, as they are known down here in the South, "sad irons," as it was a sad day when you had to use them because no matter the weather a lot of heat was involved).

Great photo with lots of history which is somewhat lost except in museums or as one contributor pointed out a Tenement tour in New York.

Old Molly agrees with the Tipster and stands corrected. Through mergers and various name changes, the paper survived until relatively recent years.

Since the old New York Journal-American was my late father's favorite newspaper, I'm going to have to quibble with Old Molly's history of the New York Evening Journal. The history account I found has William Randolph Hearst publishing both the morning American and the Evening Journal in New York from 1895 until they were combined in 1937 into the afternoon Journal-American, which continued as a Hearst publication until 1966, when it was merged with the old World-Telegram and Sun and the Herald-Tribune into the very short-lived World-Journal-Tribune.

Not about to divulge the things which popped into my imagination by that design along the bottom edge. Okay, one. I see a bearded gent with spectacles peering through an arbor.

Another thought came to mind while examining the photos in the room. Which was the chance we just might come across a Shorpy photo hanging on the wall in another Shorpy photo. I'm too old to use the phrase "that would be so cool," but that would be apt.

The disk high on the wall is a decorative cover used to plug an opening where an old flue pipe went through the wall, probably from a coal stove. Judging from the matching cover in the bedroom, the flue went horizontal for a while before heading up and out. The cover had spring clips on the back that snapped into the circular opening.

Anyone make out what's in the mirror?

As somebody who lives in a 274-square-foot tenement from 1871 in the West Village, I find this photo wonderfully revealing. My home as been updated (in 1934), but still retains a lot of quirks. This shot is such a wonderful view into the personal lives of folks that lived in homes like my own. I can only imagine how warm the home must have been in the summertime with the cast iron stove and gas lighting.

More photos like this please!

Can anyone tell me what the woven wooden object is that in propped up on the wall shelf?

[A fan. - Dave]

It is faint in the photo, but it appears there is a flatiron leaning against the baseboard behind the corner of the stove.

The photo doesn't let us know where in NYC it is. 1910 tenements usually conjure an image of the Lower East Side, a neighborhood of immigrants. In this picture, which could be in Midtown, Yorkville or the Upper West Side or even Harlem, we have reasonable living quarters for 1910. The newspaper on the table appears to be in English. One picture on the wall show a Military unit, possibly a Spanish-American or Civil War Unit that a resident or relative served in. A tenement building was and is a way of life in many American Cities. Many remain in the poorer neighborhoods today, however the very upscale Upper East Side of Manhattan has them on almost every block east of Madison Avenue. A few are run down, but most are well kept and the monthly rents, where they are not controlled, are in the multiple thousands. The vacancy rate is around 1%.

Million-dollar condo 2010.

While we can't quite see through the window to the left of the oval bedroom mirror, it is evident from the amount of sunlight coming through that the window opens to the outside. It's a sign that this tenement is of higher quality (and rent) than most. Tenement bedroom windows usually opened onto narrow airshafts that admitted dim light and very little fresh air.

Also, many tenement dwellers in 1910 would have been first-generation immigrants, mostly from southern or eastern Europe. If immigrants, the occupants of this tenement are at least knowledgeable enough in English to be reading an English-language newspaper. Again, if they're immigrants at all: the picture of soldiers looks like it could have been from the American Civil War, more than a generation in the past when this picture was taken.

The New York Evening Journal was a daily (except Sunday) published by William Randolph Hearst from 1897 to 1909. The paper was sold in 1909 and ceased publication in 1911.

Looks like a National Guard Company group photo

Notice the hat pins, scent bottles and other such items on the dressing table. This tenement dweller did not leave home unadorned!

If any Shorpsters find themselves in NYC, they can visit the Tenement Museum and see a re-creation of a tenement much like this one. It is a fascinating place with, yes, some old photographs. It is on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side.

The first known photo of Basement Cat emerging from the shadows.

Won't hold still for a photo!

See the little black kitten in front of the stove? Hopefully he (she?) won't get a paw in either of the two sheets of flypaper, one on each table. Plenty of flies to keep Kitty entertained.