The Imagery of “Tenements of Today”
Riis writes, “Where are the tenements of to-day?... In fifty years they have crept up from the Fourth Ward slums and the Five Points the whole length of the island, and have polluted the Annexed District to the Westchester line. Crowding all the lower wards, wherever business leaves a foot of ground unclaimed; strung along both rivers, like ball and chain tied to the foot of every street, and filling up Harlem with their restless pent-up multitudes, they hold within their clutch the wealth and business of New York, hold them at their mercy in the day of mob-rule and wrath…The tenements to-day are New York, harbouring three-fourths of its population. When another generation shall have doubled the census of our city, and to that vast army of workers, held captive by poverty?” Tenements have expended due to the explosion of the population. The metaphoric ‘pollution’ underscores the expansiveness of the tenements. The crowding is contributory to the poverty which is rampant in the tenements. Accordingly, the tenements appear like slums.
The Imagery of “Forth Ward Alley”
Riis recalls, “When I once asked the agent of a notorious Forth Ward alley how many people might be living in it I was told; One hundred and forty families, one hundred Irish, thirty-eight Italian, and two that spoke the German tongue. Barring the agent herself, there was not another native-born individual in the court. The answer was characteristic of the cosmopolitan character of the lower New York, very nearly so of the whole of it, wherever it runs to alleys and courts. One may find for the asking an Italian, a German, a French, African, Spanish, Bohemian, Russian, Scandinavian, Jewish and Chinese colony.” The imagery of the alley befits the connotation of the title “The Mixed Crowd.” The occupants are contributory to the American persona which is made up of individuals from diverse origins. The alley is diversified due to the different identities which make up its prime occupants. Moreover, it is easy to point out the specific ethnicities which reside in New York due to the settlement patterns.
