Lodgers in a crowded Bayard Street tenement - "Five cents a spot."

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Description

This photograph shows a group of men inside a dirty, dilapidated and crowded lodging room in a tenement house on Bayard Street. Each man paid five cents to live inside of this room.

Object Information

Date Created:

ca. 1890

Local ID:

90.13.1.158

Collection:

Jacob A. Riis Collection

Provenance:

Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis (1849-1914); by descent to his son, Roger William Riis (1894-1953).

Place of Creation/Discovery:

Chinatown (New York, N.Y.)

Credit Line:

Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Roger William Riis, 1990.

Citation:

Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis (1849-1914). Museum of the City of New York. 90.13.1.158

Creator(s):

Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis (1849-1914)

Materials:

gelatin dry plate negative

Classification:

photograph, negative (photograph)

Rights:

Public Domain

Appears In

Resource Kit
Museum of the City of New York

Jacob A. Riis: Revealing New York’s Other Half

Jacob Riis (1849-1914) was a pioneering newspaper reporter, author, and social reformer in New York City in the late 19th century. His then-novel idea of using photographs to illustrate his writing about urban poverty created a rich historical record that was rediscovered in the 1940s and has since established Riis as a forerunner of modern photojournalism. The Museum of the City of New York holds the collection of NYC images that Riis used in his career. See more at https://collections.mcny.org

Created by: Museum of the City of New York

Grade 3-12