How
the Other Half Lives. Studies Among the Tenements of New York
es un tratado de Jacob A. Riis sobre las
residencias de los inmigrantes de Nueva York en los siglos 19 y 20, la degradante forma
en que vivían y el aprovechamiento de muchos para sacar ganancias en este
contexto. Buscamos sobre Jacob A, Riis.
¿Y de qué se trata esto de "The Great
Riot in 1863"? Esto se puede leer
totalmente gratis, en inglés. Veamos…
En vocabulario buscamos wrought, thoroughfares, y slovenliness.
Bandits´ Roost, 59 1/2 Mulberry Street
Párrafos
Long ago it was said that “one half of the world
does not know how the other half lives.” That was true then. It did not know
because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the
struggles, and less for the fate of those who were underneath, so long as it
was able to hold them there and keep its own seat. There came a time when the
discomfort and crowding below were so great, and the consequent upheavals so
violent, that it was no longer an easy thing to do, and then the upper half
fell to inquiring what was the matter. Information on the subject has been
accumulating rapidly since, and the whole world has had its hands full
answering for its old ignorance.
In New York, the youngest of the world’s great
cities, that time came later than elsewhere, because the crowding had not been
so great. There were those who believed that it would never come; but their
hopes were vain. Greed and reckless selfishness wrought like results here as in the cities of
older lands. “When the great riot occurred in 1863,” so reads the testimony of
the Secretary of the Prison Association of New York before a legislative
committee appointed to investigate causes of the increase of crime in the State
twenty-five years ago, “every hiding-place and nursery of crime discovered
itself by immediate and active participation in the operations of the mob.
Those very places and domiciles, and all that are like them, are to-day
nurseries of crime, and of the vices and disorderly courses which lead to
crime. By far the largest part—eighty per cent. At least—of crimes against
property and against the person are perpetrated by individuals who have either
lost connection with home life, or never had any, or whose homes had ceased to
be sufficiently separate, decent, and desirable to afford what are regarded as
ordinary wholesome influences of home and family.... The younger criminals seem
to come almost exclusively from the worst tenement house districts, that is,
when traced back to the very places where they had their homes in the city
here.” Of one thing New York made sure at that early stage of the inquiry: the
boundary line of the Other Half lies through the tenements…
The first tenement New York knew bore the mark of
Cain from its birth, though a generation passed before the writing was
deciphered. It was the “rear house,” infamous ever after in our city’s history.
There had been tenant-houses before, but they were not built for the purpose.
Nothing would probably have shocked their original owners more than the idea of
their harboring a promiscuous crowd; for they were the decorous homes of the
old Knickerbockers, the proud aristocracy of Manhattan in the early days.
It was the stir and bustle of trade, together with
the tremendous immigration that followed upon the war of 1812 that dislodged
them. In thirty-five years the city of less than a hundred thousand came to
harbor half a million souls, for whom homes had to be found. Within the memory
of men not yet in their prime, Washington had moved from his house on Cherry
Hill as too far out of town to be easily reached. Now the old residents
followed his example; but they moved in a different direction and for a
different reason. Their comfortable dwellings in the once fashionable streets
along the East River front fell into the hands of real-estate agents and
boarding-house keepers; and here, says the report to the Legislature of 1857,
when the evils engendered had excited just alarm, “in its beginning, the
tenant-house became a real blessing to that class of industrious poor whose
small earnings limited their expenses, and whose employment in workshops,
stores, or about the warehouses and thoroughfares, render a near residence of much importance.” Not
for long, however. As business increased, and the city grew with rapid strides,
the necessities of the poor became the opportunity of their wealthier
neighbors, and the stamp was set upon the old houses, suddenly become valuable,
which the best thought and effort of a later age has vainly struggled to
efface. Their “large rooms were partitioned into several smaller ones, without
regard to light or ventilation, the rate of rent being lower in proportion to
space or height from the street; and they soon became filled from cellar to
garret with a class of tenantry living from hand to mouth, loose in morals,
improvident in habits, degraded, and squalid as beggary itself.” It was thus
the dark bedroom, prolific of untold depravities, came into the world. It was
destined to survive the old houses. In their new role, says the old report,
eloquent in its indignant denunciation of “evils more destructive than wars,”
“they were not intended to last. Rents were fixed high enough to cover damage
and abuse from this class, from whom nothing was expected, and the most was
made of them while they lasted. Neatness, order, cleanliness, were never
dreamed of in connection with the tenant-house system, as it spread its
localities from year to year; while reckless slovenliness, discontent, privation, and ignorance
were left to work out their invariable results, until the entire premises
reached the level of tenant-house dilapidation, containing, but sheltering not,
the miserable hordes that crowded beneath smouldering, water-rotted roofs or
burrowed among the rats of clammy cellars.” Yet so illogical is human greed
that, at a later day, when called to account, “the proprietors frequently urged
the filthy habits of the tenants as an excuse for the condition of their
property, utterly losing sight of the fact that it was the tolerance of those
habits which was the real evil, and that for this they themselves were alone
responsible.” (How the Other
Half Lives, by Jacob A. Riis., ch. 1)
Vocabulario
Wrought:
brought into being; made.
She’s modest about what she has wrought.
Thoroughfare:
a main road for public use or a passage through somewhere.
The property was located at the intersection of two
busy thoroughfares.
Slovenliness:
the quality of being untidy and dirty.
I visited two factories and was amazed by the dirt
and slovenliness.
everywhere.
Para saber
The
Great Riots (conocidas como Draft Riots) fueron violentos disturbios en la ciudad de Nueva York como culminación del descontento de trabajadores con una
nueva ley pasada por el congreso en 1.863 para reclutar hombres en la lucha por la Guerra Civil de Estados Unidos.
Inicialmente expresando su rabia por los reclutamientos, las protestas se volvieron una lucha racial, con
manifestantes blancos, predominantemente inmigrantes irlandeses, atacando a los
negros a través de la ciudad. Las cifras oficiales reportaban 120 muertes.
El autor
Jacob
August Riis (1.849 – 1.914) fue un reformista danés – norteamericano, periodista y
documentalista fotográfico. Es conocido por usar su talento periodístico y
fotográfico para ayudar a la empobrecida
ciudad de Nueva York. Apoyaba la construcción de edificios modelos. Además es considerado uno de los padres de la
fotografía debido a la adopción temprana del flash en la fotografía.
Artículos relacionados
La mitad que estaba arriba se preocupaba poco por
las luchas y menos por el destino de los que estaban debajo, siempre y cuando
fuera capaz de mantenerlos allí… Como
vive la otra mitad
El sentimiento en contra del ferrocarril en la
década de 1880 provocó que el incidente se convierta en un ejemplo de la
corrupción y sangre fría de… The
Octopus
… se publicó en un diario irlandés en 1.904. La
historia detalla la conexión de un chico con un cura… El
velorio del padre Flynn
Fuentes
Jacob Riis,
Wikipedia.
Estudiá
inglés con nosotros. Estamos todos los sábados en San Carlos. Contactanos
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario
Deja aquí tus mensajes, comentarios o críticas. Serán bienvenidos