So we are currently on the roof of 103 Orchard Street. Currently this building is home to the

Tenement Museum.

Catherine Lloyd is the director of programming at the Tenement Museum, which preserves and

teaches the history of Tenement housing in New York City. Tenements are narrow, low-rise

apartment buildings with a series of small rooms and tight-shared spaces. In the late 19th

century and early 20th century, these buildings housed multiple families on each floor. The

museum itself is actually a former Tenement building.

And this word Tenement becomes associated with multi-family housing and often becomes

associated with difficult living conditions because of the lack of ventilation, of enough

space for people living inside of these buildings.

Lack of ventilation. Did you catch that? That's why Catherine had us climb up to the roof

of the building to show us a solution to that problem. In the middle of the building is

a square hole cut into the roof that runs all the way to the ground.

And you can peer down into what looks like a small courtyard. This would not have been

here originally when these buildings were constructed. And with the 1901 Tenement Housing

Act, this was a New York State Law, there was a requirement for every Tenement building

to have ventilation, running water, and gas light within the buildings.

Additions such as these shafts were put into law to improve ventilation and air flow.

Science at the time said it was much healthier.

In the late 19th century, people were finally starting to understand how disease spreads.

So air shafts and the accompanying ventilation were seen as a solution to the public health

crises that were happening in Tenement buildings. There were high cases of tuberculosis, diphtheria,

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