The Secrets of the Great City by Edward Winslow Martin
page 4 of 524 (00%)
page 4 of 524 (00%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
present in the city was estimated at two hundred thousand. The amount
of money brought into the city by these strangers is astonishing. Millions are spent by them annually during their visits to the metropolis. The population is made up from every nation under Heaven. The natives are in the minority. The foreign element predominates. Irishmen, Germans, Jews, Turks, Greeks, Russians, Italians, Spaniards, Mexicans, Portuguese, Scotch, French, Chinese--in short, representatives of every nationality--abound. These frequently herd together, each class by itself, in distinct parts of the city, which they seem to regard as their own. Land is very scarce and valuable in New York, and this fact compels the poorer classes to live in greater distress than in most cities of the world. The whole number of buildings in the city in 1860 was fifty-five thousand, which includes churches, stores, etc. In the same year the population was eight hundred and five thousand, or one hundred and sixty-one thousand families. Of these fifteen thousand only occupied entire houses; nine thousand one hundred and twenty dwellings contained two families, and six thousand one hundred contained three families. As we shall have to recur to this subject again, we pass on now, merely remarking that these "tenement sections" of the city, as they are called, are more crowded now than ever, the increase in buildings having fallen far behind the increase of the population in the last eight years. This mixed population makes New York a thorough cosmopolitan city; yet at the same time it is eminently American. Although the native New York element is small in numbers, its influence is very great. Besides this, |
|