[originaltext] The living conditions for the poor and for immigrants in New

The living conditions for the poor and for immigrants in New York City during the late nineteenth century were truly wretched. Over one and a half million poor people lived in tenements, a form of barracks-like building that could house some five hundred people in a structure lacking heat and plumbing. The resulting poverty, disease, and crime make tenement life degrading and often fatal.
    But almost as shocking as the city-condoned horror of the tenements was the government’s neglect of normal city functions. Real estate development was uncontrolled, resulting in factories, stores, and residences springing up randomly without consideration of zoning or building codes.  Pollution of waterways was unrestricted, streets were poorly paved, lighting was inadequate, and sewage disposal was insufficient. Some of the poor housing can be blamed on New York’s rapid population growth. But most of the wretched living conditions in the city must be attributed to the corrupt city government of the late nineteenth century.