Fire Escapes For All! Technically, Anyway
Riis’ book wasn’t the first call for change. For decades before Riis published his book, the City of New York had attempted to fix the blighted conditions of its tenements. In 1867, the City passed the first Tenement House Act. This Act required fire escapes for each residential unit, and at least one window for every room.
Landlords complied with the letter of the law but not the spirit. They placed windows room-to-room or facing interior hallways rather than opening to the outside. Tenement owners had to install fire escapes, but the exits might be boarded up or blocked. Each tenement had to be built with one toilet or privy for every twenty people living there, but these may not be well – or at all – maintained, nor did they have to be indoors. The 1867 Tenement Act didn’t fix the problem, as property owners found ways around the regulations.
