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S A M Y M A HFA R

• When you think of the Lower East Side, you conjure up images of the nightlife, the old architecture, and the scene that has thrived in this neighborhood for 50 years.

• However, the Lower East Side was an immigration enclave for millions of people and life wasn’t always so easy in the LES.

• SMA is taking these historic tenement buildings from the mid 1800s and reimagining them to suit the LES of today.

• Here are some pictures and information about what these buildings were meant to be.

T E N E M E N T S

Tenements or "walk-ups" were prevalent in New York, where in 1865 a report stated that 500,000 people lived in

unhealthy tenements

One reason New York had so many tenements was the large numbers of immigrants; another was that the grid pattern on which streets were laid out and the economic practice of building

on individual 25- by 100-foot lots combined to produce extremely high

land coverage, including back building.

Prior to the 1867 law, tenements often covered more than 90 percent of the lot, were five or six stories high, and had 18 rooms per floor of which only

two received direct sunlight. Yards were a few feet wide and filled with privies

where they had not been entirely eliminated. Interior rooms were

unventilated.

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SMA Equities owns 75-83 Orchard Street, which is located just 1 block from the tenement museum, and is

similar in architecture and design. You can see from the above page that the

block is filled with small lots and similar buildings.

Things were very different in the LES in 1900 then they are today.

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Orchard Street was known for their pout door markets. Immigrants sold items from pushcarts to other members

of their enclave. Even to this day, Orchard Street is closed to street traffic on

Sundays for a street market to run. It has ran

continuously over the past 100 years.

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Inside of 75-83 Orchard Street, you will every apartment has luxury

finishes, including in the bathroom.

How beautiful!

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Originally, apartments of this rear didn’t even have

indoor plumbing. They used what is called “school

sink” style toilets. A bank of outhouses located in the back of the building. 6 toilets would normally be available for a building of

this size.

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In 1903, the laws were changed to require all buildings to have indoor plumbing and toilets. Even still, 2

common toilets were installed in the hallway of each floor.

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Lower East Side tenement apartments tend to be small by today’s standards. Here is the kitchen in

75-83 Orchard Street.

You should see what the original inhabitants in this type of building had to cook with.

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These sinks are not original to the apartment, they were installed

after the 1903 law change. Also, they were the cheapest sinks

available at the time.

The stove takes up an enormous amount of space, as well.

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Currently the apartments are layer out in 2 and 3 bedroom setups. Here is a typical 2 bedroom layout. Probably two original apartments were

combined to make this space possible.

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The original layout is even smaller and many of the apartments

bedrooms don’t even have a source of natural light.

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