Scary tales of New York: life in the Irish slums In the 19th century, Irish people fled poverty at home for dirt, disease and danger in the American city’s overcrowded tenements
Sat, Mar 23, 2013, 06:00 Niamh O Sullivan
In 19th-century New York, even tenements were ranked. Some were considered too good for the Irish, who were relegated to densely packed hovels in the urban shanty town of Five Points, on the Lower East Side. Here families huddled together, with several hundred people in one building.
In the 1860s, almost 300,000 people lived within one square mile. Rear structures were appended and floors were added, stacked precariously one on top of another. Rooms were divided and subdivided. It was not uncommon for five families – about 20 people – to share one room that measured 12ft by 12ft and had two beds and no table or chairs. There was no v