OLD LAW TENEMENTS
35-47 1/2 East 1st Street
FEBRUARY 11, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 207

An "old law" tenement is one built under the Tenement House Act of 1879, before the "new law" act of 1901, which increased air and light requirements. With the passage of the 1929 Multiple Dwelling Act, new standards were set for interior toilets, increased ventilation, floor waterproofing, and fire-retardant hallways. Researcher Sally Sands interviewed occupants of the eight buildings in Abbott's photograph and found that all but one tenement complied with the 1929 requirements. Each building housed ten families, with two to ten members, and rents varied--arbitrarily-- from $16 to $30 a month.

In 1930, the houses facing Houston Street and backing onto this row were torn down to make way for the Eighth Avenue line of the Independent Subway. Their removal exposed the backs of these East 1st Street tenements, strewn with freshly washed laundry, to public view. The scaffolding in front of the tenements belonged to a WPA construction project for a playground and athletic field. Abbott included the mailbox in the foreground, she later explained, as a point of visual interest (O'Neal 159). The American flag in the distance rises over P.S. 76, on the north side of East 1st Street.

Today, this block is relatively unchanged. Trees shield the backyards from a widened Houston Street, and the WPA-built playground and handball courts are still in use.

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