tenements on the lower east side

Most of the immigrants emigrated from poverty to even more poverty, because the competition for employment was fierce in the crowded Manhattan.

For this reason, so many ended up on the cheap Lower East Side, where they stuck together in packed, freaky apartment buildings - the so-called tenements - where all families could live together in a single room with neither windows, toilet nor running water.

As immigration was at its peak, over half a million people lived in this way.