Re: OT: jerry and jury

[Michael Norman michael.norman@xxxxxxxx]

At 05:16 PM 1/9/2009, you wrote:
> > Even better are the health and housing reports of the era, and
> > Riis' photographs which show jerry-built bunks and shacks and
> > sleeping platforms for ten, twenty and more in one room.
> I think Riis' photographs were carefully selected to show the worst.
> The guide at the museum said that the average time, IIRC, spent
> living in these tenements was about a year and a half. Then the
> tenants moved out and up.
Well I don't want to extend this OT to the breaking point, but
there's plenty of data from different sources in various archives in
New York (I'm currently about to dig into hospital records of the
era) that shows the miserable conditions, nutrition and diseases in
those buildings. Riis to be sure was something of a propagandist, and
I can show you several photos that were clearly staged. But it was
what it was. Some of those folks moved out and up, to be sure. And
some more ended up in Potter's field on Randall's Island. And how we
got from a lesson in diction to the Lower East Side I'm not sure.
Michael Norman