Big Apple History . New York Living . Streets and Roofs


	Children in a makeshift "bedroom" overlooking elevated train tracks, 1916

The streets and the rooftops of the Lower East Side were only about 60 feet apart; but for the immigrants who lived among them in the early 1900s, the streets and rooftops were two different worlds!

Packed four or five to a room in stuffy tenements, the newly arrived immigrants spent as little time indoors as possible. During daytime, they lived in the streets, which, at this time in New York history were noisy, crowded, dangerous, and smelly places. However, the streets were where life took place: business got done, crimes were committed, accidents happened, and on the lighter side, they were also where children played hide-and-seek among the pushcarts or marbles on a smooth patch of sidewalk.


Poor children playing

The rooftops, on the other hand, were for nights -- refuges where families got together, neighbors socialized, and lovers kissed. Marie Ganz, a young Jewish immigrant, remembered: "[O]ur housetop had a wonderful fascination for me -- the cool breezes, the far vistas over the city roofs, the mysteries of the night sky, the magic moonlight -- a fairyland, a place of romance after the dreary day in the stuffy little rooms below or in the crowded, noisy streets."

Top illustration: Courtesy of the Roger Whitehouse Collection and the Museum of the City of New York.

Illustration at bottom: Courtesy of the Library of Congress.