Eleganti Apartmenti
An inspector’s notes show these properties at 233 E. 107th St. were called the “Eleganti Apartmenti.” The name belies the desperate conditions inside. The inscription on the photograph stated that the property owner had recently had their license revoked. “And, after that,” states the unnamed inspector, “our investigator found eight families doing home-work there. It is in miserable shape.”
In the early 1800s, tenements were often used as at-home sweatshops, with every member of the family pitching in to do piecework, or factory-style assembly of small products for a company. The company, then, would pay for each piece of the item correctly assembled. Today the Eleganti Amartmenti is gone, and the street is closed to traffic. It serves as a plaza and parking lot for an Urban Renewal-era apartment complex, a turnaround from the cramped complexes and dangling laundry from the image.
