USA > New York > A short history of New York State > Part 49
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459
OUR CHANGING POPULATION
With the growth of cities, birth control and divorce-both largely urban occurrences-have greatly increased.
From colonial times to the present, and especially since 1880, the urban-rural proportions of the state have just about reversed themselves. In 1790 over 80 per cent of the people lived on farms, and in 1950 roughly 80 per cent lived in urban communities (places of 2,500 inhabit- ants or more); this is about 20 per cent more than in the nation as a whole. In 1950 all of the rural dwellers were not necessarily farmers, for all persons living in places with populations of less than 2,500 were counted as rural dwellers.
Map 10. Concentration of population in valley belt of New York State, 1950. (Adapted from New York State Commerce Review, June 1951.)
Rural population and farm acreage grew until the 1880's, when it began to feel the impact of industrialism. Thereafter, farming became more mechanized and employed fewer hands, and farmers in ever-larger numbers moved into urban neighborhoods or sought better farmlands outside the state. This movement, which gathered great momentum in the 1880's, was noticeable as early as the 1840's not only in New York but in New England as well.
Within the state itself there has been a growing tendency for popula- tion to concentrate in the New York City metropolitan area and in the right-angled industrial belt extending up the Hudson Valley and thence
460
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
westward from the Troy-Albany area to the Great Lakes. According to the census of 1950 no less than 85 per cent of the state's residents lived in this belt. The density of population in the New York metropolitan area is 4,474 per square mile; in New York City it is 26,000 persons per square mile. In the upstate part of the belt it is 500 per square mile, or almost as great as in such states as Connecticut and Massachusetts. There is also a rising island of population density in the southern-tier counties where a growing industrial area has emerged.
One reason for the tremendous growth in the state's urban population is, of course, the phenomenal growth of New York City and the suburban areas tributary to it. Probably no city in the world in any period of the world's history has had such an amazing numerical growth. After the Revolution its population was only 12,000, not much more than half what it had been in the 1770's. By 1800, however, it had increased threefold. A quarter of a century later it boasted 162,000 inhabitants. In 1840 the figure stood at approximately 325,000-practically double what it had been fifteen years earlier. By the eve of the Civil War it had doubled again. The losses sustained as a result of the war were quickly recovered, and by the 1870's the million mark was reached. Thereafter, the popula- tion curve mounted upward still more rapidly. Industrial expansion and migration, both internal and foreign, were responsible for another half million during the 1890's. Between 1900 and 1940 the percentage increase in population for New York City was 117 and for its suburban counties-Westchester, Rockland, Nassau and Suffolk-252 per cent. During the same period upstate New York percentage increase was 37, that of the state as a whole was 85 and the United States 73. The growth of New York City by decades from 1870 to 1950 is indicated in Table 8.
Table 8. Population of New York City 1870-1950.
Population
Per cent of increase over preceding decade
1870
942,292
15.8
1880
1,206,299
28.0
1890
1,515,301
25.6
1900
3,437,202
126.8
1910
3,766,883
38.7
1920
5,620,446
17.9
1930
6,930,446
23.3
1940
7,454,995
7.6
1950
7,891,957
5.9
A glance at Table 8 indicates that the city's percentage curve upward tended to flatten after 1930, reflecting the city dweller's desire to escape the congested areas, to enjoy better recreation facilities, and better
OUR CHANGING POPULATION
461
schools, to garden, to participate in community affairs, and, in the event of war, to live in a place less exposed to bombing.
The city's suburbs grew rapidly. The rise of the suburb and the motor vehicle and rapid transit were closely related developments. It is difficult to exaggerate the changes in American living occasioned by the increased use of the automobile and rapid transit facilities. After 1920 the popula- tion of New York's four suburban counties-Westchester, Rockland, Nassau, and Suffolk-expanded at a very much more rapid rate than during the first two decades of the century. The latter two each gained a quarter of a million people between 1940 and 1950. Equally significant, perhaps, is the fact that car registrations in the same four counties more than tripled between 1921 and 1930, whereas they only doubled in the state as a whole. In 1947 car registrations in the same counties were 41 per cent above those of 1930, compared with a state increase of 27 per cent. These suburban counties account for more than a quarter of the station wagons registered in the state.
In matters of population, manufacture, trade, building construction, and other economic considerations, it has long been customary to think of the state in the dual terms of metropolitan New York and upstate.
MASSENA
MALONE
PLATTSBURGH
COUNTY SEATS
FRANKLIN
CLINTON
10.000 10 100,000
OGDENSBURG O CANTON ST.LAWRENCE
100,000 and over
ELIZABETHTOWN
ESSEX
JEFFERSON WATERTOWN
LOWVILLE LEWIS
HAMILTON
WARREN G
o PULASKI OSWEGO
LAKE atonce WASHINGTON
· OSWEGO
LAKE PLEASANT
ROME
· FULTON
(HERKIMER
SARATOGA
IRONDEQUOI
ONEIDA
GLOVERSVILLE
NIAGARA FALLS NORTH TONOWANDA
GENESEE
· KENMORE
ONTARIO
SENECALAUBURN
NTGOMERVIENENECTAR
RENSSELAER
TONOWANDA O
GENEVA
ONONDAGA
SCHENECTADY
COHOES
WATERVLIET
O TROY
ERIE
LIVINGSTON
YATES
CHENANGO
ALBANY BENSSELAER
ORTLAND
ONEONTA
SCHOHARDE
O FORWICH
COLUMBIA
WATKINS GLEN
DELNY
SCHUYLER TOMPKINS
LITTLE VALLEY BELMONT CATTARAUGUS ALLE GANY
HORNELL STEUBEN
OWEGO
BROOME
DELAWARE
JAMESTOWN
OLEAN
CORNING
TTOGA
ENDICOTT BINGHAMTON
ELMIRA
ULSTER KINGSTON
DUTCHESS
WESTCHESTER OSSINING
NEW CITY ROCKLAND
O POUGHKEEPSIE
YONKERS
WHITE PLAINS
MONTICELLO SULLIVAN
BEACON
SCARSDALE
PORT CHESTER
NEW ROCHELLE MOUNT VERNON
· RYE
MAMARONECK
ORANGE NEWBURGH GOTHEN MIDDLETOWN
PEEKSKILL
BRONY
OLEN COVE HICKSVILLE
ROCKLAND WESTCHESTER
LEVITTOWN
WHITEPLAINS
FLORAL PARK
QUEENS .ELMONT
GARDEN CITY
SUFFOLK
BROOKLYN'
BELFORT
NASSAU MINIOLA
LONG DEACH
VALLEY STREAM
ROCKVILLE CENTER
RIC
Раножной
CHEMUNG
JOHNSON CITY
GREENE CATSKILL O
OHUDSON
DUNKIRK MAYVILLE CHAUTAUQUA
WARSAW WYOMING)
COOPERSTOWN OTSEGO
ALBANY C
CAYUGA
CORTLAND
SCHOHARIE
SARATOGA SPRINGS BALLSTON TPA
ONEIDAL KAMP O SVILLE MADISON
MONT
BATAVIA
CANANDAIGUA
BUFFALO LACKAWANNA
SENESTO 0
WAYNE NEWARK
UTICA
FULTON
ROCHESTER MONROE
SYRACUSE
JOHNSTOWN
HERKIMER
TONDA O AMSTERDAM
GLENS FALLS
O NUDSOM FALLS
ORLEANS ALBION
NIAGARA LOCKPORT
ITHACA
CARMEL
PUTNAM
MANHATTAN
OMINEOLA
BALDWIN, HEMPSTEAD
LYNBROOK
Map 11. New York State counties and cities over 10,000 population.
462
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
Table 9. Principal cities arranged according to population, 1955.
100,000 and over
New York
7,892,000
Yonkers
153,000
Buffalo
580,000
Albany
135,000
Rochester
332,000
Utica
102,000
Syracuse
221,000
25,000 to 100,000
Schenectady
92,000
Watertown
34,000
Niagara Falls
91,000
Amsterdam
32,000
Binghamton
81,000
Newburgh
32,000
Mt. Vernon
72,000
Ithaca
29,000
Levittown
60,000
Hempstead
29,000
Elmira
50,000
Kingston
29,000
White Plains
43,000
Lackawanna
28,000
Jamestown
43,000
Valley Stream
27,000
Rome
42,000
Lockport
25,000
Poughkeepsie
41,000
North Tonawanda
25,000
Auburn
37,000
Freeport
25,000
Irondequoit
34,000
13,000 to 25,000
Port Chester
24,000
Ogdensburg
16,000
Gloversville
24,000
Ossining
16,000
Baldwin
24,000
Bellmore
16,000
Olean
23,000
Long Beach
16,000
Oswego
23,000
Saratoga Springs
15,000
Middletown
23,000
Watervliet
15,000
Rockville Center
22,000
Glen Cove
15,000
Elmont
22,000
Hornell
15,000
Cohoes
21,000
Mamaroneck
15,000
Wantagh
21,000
Oceanside
15,000
Kenmore
20,000
Mineola
15,000
Endicott
20,000
Tonawanda
15,000
Glens Falls
20,000
Floral Park
15,000
Johnson City
19,000
Garden City
14,000
Cortland
18,000
Beacon
14,000
Dunkirk
18,000
Hicksville
14,000
Batavia
18,000
Fulton
14,000
Plattsburgh
18,000
Harrison
14,000
Peekskill
18,000
Oneonta
14,000
Corning
18,000
Scarsdale
13,000
Lynbrook
17,000
Massena
13,000
Geneva
17,000
Franklin Square
13,000
Source: Rand McNally and Company, Commercial Atlas and Marketing Guide (New York, 1956).
463
OUR CHANGING POPULATION
In recent years, however, with the increasing concentration of the state's population in the comparatively narrow belt stretching from Long Island and the mouth of the Hudson to the Great Lakes, it becomes more and more evident that several metropolitan areas are developing upstate. While no one of them may ever reach the dimensions of the New York City metropolitan area, each, nevertheless, is a central city with tribu- tary suburban communities and closely resembles the New York City metropolitan district. The principal upstate metropolitan areas are Buffalo-Niagara Falls, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica-Rome, Binghamton, and Albany-Schenectady-Troy. All of these upstate metropolitan areas are products of favorable location and twentieth-century developments. From 1900 to 1940 their combined population rose 66 per cent, while that of the rest of upstate New York rose only 1.8 per cent.
Between 1940 and 1950 the entire upstate area gained 480,000 persons, bringing the total to 5,252,000. Upstate, counties with already populous industrial centers had the greatest absolute increases, as for example, Madison, Niagara, Broome, Schenectady, and Onondaga. Even in the longer period, 1850 to 1950, most upstate counties which have not de- veloped industrially show only slight increases or actual declines in popu- lation.
Agriculture and forestry, which had their greatest development rela- tively early, did not greatly expand their employment requirements. Growth in employment and in population has taken place, therefore, where manufacturing, trade, and service industries have developed. Declines in population can be attributed principally to the abandon- ment of marginal land by farmers or to the lack of economic opportunity sometimes occasioned by the shift of industrial enterprise.
The population of the state, both rural and urban, and especially the latter, has long been concerned with the problem of inadequate housing. New York City has been conscious of bad housing for more than a cen- tury. In 1834 Gerritt Forbes, city sanitary inspector, called attention to the connection between bad housing and high death rates. In 1842 his successor, Dr. John H. Griscom, issued a carefully prepared report show- ing how the then-frequent epidemics of smallpox, typhus, yellow fever, and cholera got their start in crowded and unsanitary slums. Subsequent surveys, notably that made by the Association for Improving the Condi- tion of the Poor in 1853 and the Report of the Council of Hygiene and Public Health-a citizens organization-in 1865 so aroused the public that a city department of health was created in 1866. The next year saw the enactment of the first tenement house law. This act as amended in 1879 required fire escapes and better facilities for ventilation and sani- tation.
464
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE Table 10. Population of principal cities of the state for fifty years.
City
1900
1920
1940
1950
Rank in U.S. population 1950
Albany
94,151
113,344
130,577
134,995
68
Amsterdam
20,929
33,524
33,329
32,240
374
Auburn
30,395
36,192
35,753
36,722
329
Binghamton
39,647
66,800
78,309
80,674
139
Buffalo
352,387
506,775
575,901
580,132
15
Elmira
35,672
45,393
45,106
49,716
234
Hempstead Village
3,582
7,350
20,856
29,135
420
Ithaca
13,136
17,004
19,730
29,275
417
Jamestown
22,892
38,917
42,638
43,354
274
Kingston
24,535
26,688
28,589
28,817
426
Lackawanna *
14,549
17,918
24,058
27,658
445
Lockport
16,581
21,308
24,379
25,133
479
Mount Vernon
21,228
42,726
67,362
71,899
162
Newburgh
24,943
30,366
31,883
31,956
378
New Rochelle
14,720
36,213
58,408
57,725
196
New York City
3,347,202
5,620,048
7,454,995
7,891,957
1
Bronx
200,507
732,016
1,394,711
1,451,277
Brooklyn
1,166,582
2,018,356
2,698,285
2,738,175
Manhattan
1,850,093
2,284,103
1,889,924
1,960,101
Queens
152,199
469,042
1,297,634
1,550,849
Richmond
67,021
116,531
174,441
191,555
Niagara Falls
19,457
50,760
78,029
90,872
125
Poughkeepsie
24,029
35,000
40,478
41,023
293
Rochester
162,608
295,750
324,975
332,488
32
Rome
15,343
26,341
34,214
41,682
286
Schenectady
31,682
88,723
87,549
91,785
123
Syracuse
108,374
171,717
209,326
220,583
47
Troy
60,651
71,996
70,304
72,311 .
160
Utica
56,383
94,156
100,518
101,531
106
Valley Stream
Village
16,679
26,854
456
Watertown
21,696
31,285
33,385
34,350
354
White Plains
7,869
21,031
40,327
43,466
272
Yonkers
47,931
79,803
100,176
152,798
64
* U.S. Census of 1910.
Sources: U.S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of U.S. 1954 (Wash- ington, D.C .: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954); U.S. Department of Commerce, County and City Data Book, 1952, A Statistical Abstract Supplement (Washington, D.C .: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953).
465
OUR CHANGING POPULATION
As the ever-increasing stream of immigrants poured into the city from the Old World, population mounted rapidly. The 312,000 residents in 1840 had become 3,437,000 by 1900. Existing on small income by un- skilled labor and with little money for rent, the newcomers were without freedom of choice as to where they would live. The first-comers occupied the former homes of those who had moved to more desirable residential quarters. Much of New York, therefore, rapidly became a community of overcrowded racial neighborhoods. In the wards below Fourteenth Street the foreign born and children of foreign born equaled about seven- eighths of the population. In 1894 Carroll D. Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor, in a lengthy special report on slums, indicated that 360,000 of the people of New York City were living in slums. The disclosures in the Wright report were partly responsible for the appoint- ment of the Tenement House Committee by Governor Roswell P. Flower. The findings of this committee confirmed what was already widely known by those who were familiar with the housing situation in the city. The cellar population, which had numbered 20,000 in 1860, still existed, though it had declined in number. Sheds and shanties hurriedly and flimsily built in back yards of once-substantial houses but now located in slum areas were still in use as human habitations. The system of sub- leasing had become highly developed and enormous profits were being made by heartless exploitation of tenants. Tenement houses built for speculative profits were often little more than unsanitary fire traps with privies in the cellars or under sidewalks; even in the so-called modern or up-to-date structures there was want of provision for air, light, water, cleanliness and the flats were small and overcrowded. The streets and alleys were buried with garbage and even human excrement thrown from the windows; the sidewalks were frequently strewn with decaying refuse of greengrocers and in winter piled high with heaps of ashes which in summer intermingled with the foul filth. Everywhere in the slum there was unescapable filth.
As a result of the widespread complaints coming from residents of the city representing all walks of life, a Tenement House Commission was appointed by Governor Theodore Roosevelt in 1900 to study and report on the tenement situation in the cities of New York and Buffalo. Under the guidance of Robert de Forest and Lawrence Veiller, the commission made an exhaustive study, which pointed up even more sharply the findings of the 1894 report.
The commission's recommendations for correcting these shortcomings were incorporated in the Tenement House Act of 1901, which was to serve as the chief working model for most of the tenement house legisla- tion in America since that date. Indeed, the standards adopted for new tenements in the Act of 1901 were so much higher than what had been
466
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
obtained before that the tenements of New York have been officially classified ever since as old-law (built before 1901) or new-law (built since 1901). The old-law tenements fall into two main classes, those built prior to 1879, when an amendment to the tenement law first required a window to the outer air in every room, and those built between 1879 and 1901.
The former, sometimes called railroad tenements, have a minimum of windows. The toilets, originally in yard or cellar, and sometimes still there, have usually been installed in the apartments. Water originally carried from the yard to the cellar is now supplied in almost all cases to a sink in the kitchen. Electric lights have generally been introduced. Bath tubs, hot water, and steam heat are decidedly rare.
When the tenement house department of New York City completed its first survey in 1909, it found that there were 641,344 apartments or family units in the old-law tenements of New York. Twenty-three years later there were still 425,894 and by the middle of the twentieth century the number was over 200,000.
As long as immigration was unrestricted, concentration in slum areas remained very high. The seriousness of the situation led to the appoint- ment in 1911 of the New York City Commission on Congestion of Popu- lation. The commission found that, at the eve of World War I, 18.45 per cent of the city's total population was living in 1.15 per cent of the city's total residential area. In Manhattan there were 122 blocks with density of 750 persons to the acre and 30 blocks with a density of 1,000 or over to the acre. The causes of congestion were given as poverty, concentration of factories and offices, intensive use and high price of land, cost of transit, lack of city planning, methods of administering public and private charity, and failure of the city to adopt measures to attract people to outlying boroughs, notably Queens and Richmond. During the decade of the 1920's the population of Manhattan declined by 416,791 persons. The development of transportation-including sub- ways, bridges, arterial highways, motorcars, and buses-and suburban attractions account in large measure for the lessened numbers. Even with this substantial loss, Manhattan had an average density of 85,000 persons per square mile in 1930.
After World War I the state became increasingly interested in the housing problem. In 1919 the legislature, following the recommendations of a commission headed by Charles C. Lockwood, adopted a series of bills to prevent rent gouging and wholesale evictions during the postwar housing shortage. These measures were at best expedients to meet an emergency, for the problem of slums-particularly those in New York City-remained unsolved. Both Governor Smith and the Reconstruction Commission recommended the establishment of a bureau of housing in the state architect's office, but it was not until 1923 that the legislature
1.
467
OUR CHANGING POPULATION
adopted this proposal. As a result of inquiries and investigations con- ducted by the bureau, a plan for low-rent, urban housing was drawn up by the bureau and submitted to the legislature by Smith in 1926. This plan called for the creation of limited-dividend corporations to construct apartments at rentals not to exceed a figure fixed by the state. Corpora- tions willing to undertake such projects would be given power of con- demnation, reduced real estate taxes, and exemption of their securities from taxation by the state. To aid in financing the projects, a state hous- ing bank similar to the Federal Farm Loan Bank was to be established with authority to borrow large sums at low interest rates and to lend these funds to the limited-dividend corporations. The entire program was to be supervised by a newly created New York Board of Housing.
Although Smith's housing program was attacked by the Republican leadership, it was popular with the voters, and the opposition was forced to compromise. As a result, the legislature in 1926 adopted all of Smith's proposals except that for a housing bank. Smith, disappointed by the rejection of his bank plan, maintained that without it the law was largely ineffectual. Some progress, nevertheless, was made under the 1926 statute. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union established a pio- neering project in the Bronx; another group of low-cost apartments was built in Brooklyn; and Lieutenant Governor Herbert H. Leh- man and Aaron Rabinowitz, a member of the State Housing Board, formed a limited-dividend corporation for the construction of low-rent housing on Grand Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side. But although the board gave considerable attention to the non-New York and Buffalo areas, little real progress was made until a number of upstate cities set up housing authorities in the 1930's.
The emphasis in housing since 1932, both in the state and in larger cities, notably New York, has been on new forward-looking policies rather than restrictive legislation. Sometimes the police power has been used to regulate zoning and building codes and the like in the interest of safety, health, and general welfare. Moreover, there has been a growing tendency since the 1930's for the national, state, and local governments to co-operate in helping to solve the housing problem. In 1934, the legis- lature, at Governor Lehman's suggestion, made possible the creation of municipal housing authorities. No state funds were involved, for these authorities merely made the cities concerned eligible to receive subsidies and loans under the United States Housing Act. In 1938, however, the voters approved a constitutional amendment permitting the state to grant loans and subsidies for municipal housing projects. In the follow- ing year, the legislature adopted four bills implementing the constitu- tion's low-rent housing amendment. The state was empowered to lend $150,000,000 to municipalities for the construction of public housing. The state's part in the housing program was administered by a state
468
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
housing administrator, and discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or color in the selection of tenants was prohibited. Construction on the first state-aided housing project in New York and the nation began at Fort Greene, Brooklyn, in May 1941. A year and a half later, when the first units of the Fort Greene Houses were dedicated, the war had intervened, and the project was used to house warworkers rather than slum dwellers. Public housing, like so many other reforms, had to be postponed until the return of peace.
When Dewey became governor, $150,000,000 had already been ear- marked for public housing and one project had been partially completed. By 1950 the public housing fund had been increased to $735,000,000, and New York State was building nearly 35,000 apartments to house 136,000 people. Of the 55 housing projects in 1950 under the state-aid program, 22 were completed, 17 were under construction, and 16 were under contract or in the planning stage. New York's slum-clearing and housing program was vaster than that of any other state, and perhaps sur- passed the combined efforts of all other states.
Although the state housing administrator declared in 1940 that the public housing law of 1939 was not enacted for the sole benefit of large cities and that his division was currently making an intensive study of the means of adapting the program to the needs of communities of popu- lation of less than ten thousand, the larger communities seem to have fared better. Bad housing affected adversely health, morals, safety, and general welfare. Slum tenements became breeding places for poverty, ignorance, ill health-both physical and mental-delinquency, and crime. Studies of the tenement population of New York City show that three out of four babies living in places without sunlight have rickets. Over- crowding and lack of fresh air account for the high percentage of many diseases. Infant mortality in congested homes is still about twice as high as in homes where there is sufficient space. Within the crowded tenement there is no play space. Restless and cramped at home, the tenement child finds his way to the street, where he associates with bad com- panions. There are gangs of all types, and the youngster, usually an imi- tator, soon joins one. Crime and juvenile delinquency are closely linked, as several studies in the state indicate. In New York and Buffalo and even in smaller cities the highest rates of crime are in the slum areas. Homicides, houses of prostitution, and low-grade amusement places are also concentrated in the same areas.
Bad housing also is a fire hazard. The fire record in New York City, for example, indicates that during the last half century the largest loss of life from fire has been in the old-law tenements. In 1934 no less than eighty-one persons were burned to death in New York tenements.
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