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The main purpose was to meet the minimum standards for Plumbing and ventilation in apartment buildings. The 1879 Tenement Act in NY required that all inhabitable rooms (living rooms, restrooms, have windows that could open up on plain air, thus airshafts and narrow alleys were created between buildings.

An excellent example of this type of structure can be seen on Broome St. between Ludlow and Orchard Streets, in Manhattan on the lower east side (very near New York Tenement Museum).

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Q: What was the main purpose of the dumbbell tenement?
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Related questions

How was the dumbbell tenement supposed to be an improvement over previous tenement buildings?

its not it was a piece of s*** disgrace


What urban housing design turned out to be blight on the cityscape?

The Dumbbell Tenement


What urban housing design turned out to be a dangerous blight on the cityscape?

The Dumbbell Tenement


Who outlawed dumbbell tenements?

The State of New York outlawed the dumbbell shaped tenement buildings in 1901. The New York State Tenement House Act of 1901 banned the poorly lit and poorly ventilated buildings.


High-rise urban buildings that provided barracks-like housing for urban slum dwellers?

dumbbell tenement


How many families could live on each floor of the dumbbell tenement?

12 families could live in a dummbell intenement but they would have to be squeezed in


What are 3 main reasons that immigrants couldn't leave tenement buildings?

they were gay


What are the 3 main reasons that immigrants couldn't leave tenement buildings?

they were gay


Who lived in the tenements?

Life in a tenement was not good. It was really small and crowded. There usually was many immigrant families living in one tenement apartment. There was no plumbing. You had to get water from a faucet on the main floor of the tenement and bring it back up to your apartment. If you had to go to the bathroom there was a bucket for the whole tenement and when it was full someone had to bring it out to the street and dump it.


What were tenement districts like and what were the main problems cities faced in the 1830s and 1840s?

tenement districts were like slums. the buildings in the districts were old and being rented to other people at higher prices while the buildings' rent had to be at lower prices. also, the main problem in the cities was that their(workers) wages were low and they could not afford tenements eventhough their bosses owned the tenement A large apartment building that was usually overcrowded and dirty


Which of these was not associated with tenement living?

Cooperatives are not associated with tenement living.


Did the dumbell tenement work?

Yes. I am sitting in one as I write and it works just fine. Although "tenement" has a negative connotation, the modern term is "apartment building". In New York City, the "new tenement law" of the early 1900s resulted in dumbbell-shaped buildings. This was done to create courtyards that permit every room of every apartment to have access to natural light and fresh air. Although the turn-of-the-century "old tenement law" was an improvement, it was in many ways insufficient. The old law required windows in every room, but did not say they had to open to the outside world. Consequently, developers built windows between rooms and transoms to evade that requirement and maximize income-producing floor space. Skylights and air shafts, too small for a person to fit through, satisfied the requirements for light and air, but proved inadequate and eventually collected trash at the bottom, where there was no easy way to clean it out. Under the new tenement law, transoms were outlawed and windows had to open to the outside. Most architects in New York City responded by creating dumbbell tenements, although in Jackson Heights, Queens, a different style was more popular: one in which all interior windows opened on an interior courtyard which featured a fountain and space for tenants to socialize. The dumbbell tenement, as an architectural type, in New York City is preferred by tenants over old law tenements (with air shafts), railroad apartments and other less airy arrangements.