Tenements and Row Houses - cont.
The worst of these were rear tenements, which were constructed in the yards behind the buildings facing the street. Residents entered through a narrow alleyway and passed through an open court that contained the privies serving both the front and rear tenements. The slaughterhouses and fat boiling businesses often located in these rear yards made conditions worse.
Although still a tenement district, the neighborhood improved as one moved west from Second Avenue:
Between Second and Third Avenues the population is mixed, the domiciles ranging from third-class tenements to very good private residences. The private houses are on the south side of 27th Street, and on 30th, 31st, 32nd and 33rd Streets. The greater part of the houses on the four last-named streets are private houses or first-class tenements, that is, tenements occupied by not more than one family to each floor, and are as well kept in every particular as most private residence. Between Third and Lexington Avenues the population is for the most part of the better class....West of Lexington Avenue the private dwellings are almost without exception first-class structures...
