The poorer children worked as ragpickers. Outdoor games, such as hoops and marbles, were popular, as well as playing with crafted games and toys indoors. There were always chores to do. People uptown often had to travel long distances to a well or spring to get a bucket of water.

It was not mandatory for children to go to school...some did, some didn't. Very young children often worked beside adults--along the wharves and docks, as errand boys, as fruit, pie, and hot corn vendors. They sold their wares from baskets and carts along the street.

Uptown was different: it had farms as well as large uncultivated tracts. There were hills, trees, rocky outcroppings, streams and springs

Often called a "city of contrasts," downtown New York was crowded with buildings and people, busy with trade and commerce. Elegant brownstone buildings stood next to houses made of wood and scrap metal. Some streets were built of cobblestone, while others were dirt. There was mud and manure everywhere. People moved about in horse-drawn carriages, omnibuses, trolleys, ferryboats, and on foot.

The Great Fire of 1835 destroyed New York City's wooden downtown and nearly ruined the economy, but the wave of urban renewal that followed made it the country's number one port. New York quickly became the receiving point for travelers, opportunity seekers, opportunists, refugees, and the poor.

The enslaved population of the city was emancipated in 1827, even as slavery continued in other parts of the nation. Cries for the abolition of slavery were growing in New England and in pockets in other regions. At the same time, Native American territories in the West were being taken, reshaped, and resettled by settlers hungry for land.

Village was also the site of several institutions, including three churches, five cemeteries and a school. When the City government claimed the land under the right of eminent domain, evicted the residents, and razed their homes to create Central Park, Seneca Village disappeared for over a century.

By the mid-1850's, the Village was a thriving community with a population of over 250 people. Approximately two thirds were of African descent, while the remainder were of European descent, mostly Irish

Some think that one of their incentives was to acquire $250 worth of property, the amount of property that was needed for an African-American man to vote.

Located between 82nd and 87th Streets, just east of Central Park West, Seneca Village was first settled in the 1820's, just on the eve of emancipation in New York State.

. Where two families had lived ten moved in.”

Buildings that once housed comfortable dwellings were cut up and added onto to accommodate the newly arrived immigrants who swelled the city’s population, eventually quadrupling it from 125,000 in 1820 to just under one million by 1870.

that were cramped, dark and impossibly small —in buildings that were decaying firetraps, with substandard or broken plumbing and conditions not fit for a human being.

Whether our ancestors arrived on exploring vessels, slave ships, crowded steamboats from Europe and Asia or illegally from everywhere, most came seeking the American Dream. But while they searched for it, many endured racism, discrimination, and exploitation in schools, the workplace and housing.

that killed thousands of New Yorkers led to new laws requiring tenements to include at least one toilet for every 20 people.

Little wonder, then, that cramped and unsanitary conditions caused neighborhoods like the Lower East Side to become breeding grounds for epidemics

In such buildings, Baer is told, there was no electricity or indoor plumbing, forcing tenants to get their water and use outhouses in a backyard area. The residents of the apartment featured were actually fortunate, in a way, because they had two windows that brought in fresh air and light; many tenement dwellers did not enjoy such "luxuries."

The rent was a mere $10 a month, but the three-room home was utterly insufficient for the family’s needs.

a tenement building was supposed to accommodate up to 100 people, and individual apartment units could be as small as 325 square feet.

As History of Poverty & Homelessness in NYC notes, there were crafty landlords who tried to flout the new regulations, but ultimately the guidelines became the law of the land; to this day, New York City’s low-rises must follow the stipulations instituted by the Tenement House Act. The tenement may not be an architectural wonder, aesthetically speaking, but it was instrumental in leading to the rules that govern how New Yorkers live today.

Apartments now had to follow minimum size requirements, have windows for the flow of light and air, and include indoor gas lighting, toilets, and fire escapes.

warehouses for people

Of the 100 black New Yorkers eligible to vote in 1845, 10 lived in Seneca Village.

By the mid-1850s, Seneca Village comprised 50 homes and three churches, as well as burial grounds, and a school for African-American students.

Andrew Williams, a 25-year-old African-American shoeshiner, bought the first three lots for $125.