Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 03:47:36 -0500 From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: PHILANTHROPY SPECIAL: Disgrace to die rich; NYC "tenement" CYBERSPACE NOTES: I've been trying to post this about 20 times. When I click "send," AOL does nothing, then signs me off!....Has anyone checked the ADS-L archives recently? Is everything gone??? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ PHILANTROPY SPECIAL This is the giving season. The sidewalk Santas (maybe I'll do that one) are out. Ted Turner gave a billion dollars! DOORMAN: Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. Popik! POPIK: Happy Thanksgiving! I was cleaning out my files and found these two interesting items. I'll probably post "sin words" through Chistmas, and then maybe post the first citation of a flying reindeer. DOORMAN: Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. Popik! POPIK: You just said that!! Actually, it's past Thanksgiving! I got the card with the fifty names on it! Please, I'm on the internet! DOORMAN: Happy holidays, Mr. Popik! "Happy holidays--second notice" should arrive any day now.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- "THE MAN WHO DIES RICH DIES DISGRACED" (ANDREW CARNEGIE?) This is from the Washington Post, Questions and Answers (Magazine section), 11 March 1906, pg. 11, col. 6: Carnegie's Epigram. Under what circumstances did Andrew Carnegie make use of his famous epigram about the disgrace it is to die rich?--George Waugh. The form quoted is "the man who dies rich dies disgraced." But Mr. Carnegie is his own best authority for saying that he never said it. The phrase was attributed to him as having been used at a dinner of a library commission in Pittsburgh in 1894. What he really did say is thus explained by Mr. Carnegie in a letter which he wrote when the phrase first obtained currency. "What I have said about wealth is found in my own writings, and not in extracts from supposed speeches. I had no reference to men who died leaving competencies, for I believe such men are the salt of civilization; but to men leaving millions in securities which they could have used in their lifetime. I said I believed the day would come when such men would die disgraced, and the tribute of approval would be given to those upon whose tombstones could be truthfully written: He lived without ostentation, And he died poor, as was said of Pitt." Surprisingly, the AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN QUOTATIONS doesn't have this quotation (even popular, falsely attributed quotes should be in there). BARTLETT'S has it and attributes it to Andrew Carnegie in 1889. Carnegie's denial is not given even a footnote. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- NEW YORK CITY "TENEMENT" HOUSE BARNHART'S DICTIONARY OF ETYMOLOGY has: The term _tenement house_, meaning an apartment building usually in a poor section of a city, is first recorded in 1858, in American English; in the 1930's, the phrase was shortened to _tenement_. In The New York Tribune, Section Five, 16 November 1913, pg. 3, is a long article: "A. I. C. P.--THE ST. GEORGE TO POVERTY'S DRAGON--IS NOW 70 YEARS OLD." A. I. C. P.=Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. In the center of the article is a picture of "ROBERT MILHAM HARTLEY: The MAN who put the BAN on INDISCRIMINATE GIVING." Also in the center is a drawing of a building, with the caption, "THE FIRST MODEL TENEMENT IN NEW YORK CITY." (Not "tenement house"--ed.) This is part of the article: Established in 1843, the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor in 1845 made the first investigation of housing conditions in the city. Three years later, in 1848, it distributed plans for model tenements with the object of educating the public as to the needs of the poor and ways of supplying them. In 1851 the New York Juvenile Asylum was projected and the De Milt Dispensary founded, the latter the first institution of its kind. The Northwestern Dispensary was founded the following year, to reproduce in another part of the city the successful work of the first dispensary. In this year also the first public washing and bathing establishment in the city was built, at a cost of $42,000. (...) ("Rotten Row" is described--ed.) The funds, amounting to $90,000, were raised, and in 1853 what was then considered a model tenement house was erected between Elizabeth and Mott streets. It would not be counted as such now. A tenement house reformer to-day would laugh if he did not weep at some of its details. For instance, there was not a bedroom in it which opened directly out upon a court or street. Comparatively little daylight could penetrate to the sleeping rooms. Each apartment in the six story building contained three rooms, consisting of a living room, with windows opening upon a passageway running in front of the building through the middle of the block from street to street, and two bedrooms behind it, extending to a longitudinal hall. The central section of this hall was lighted by means of windows opening upon what was described as an "open area," although in the floor plan, which has been preserved, it looks more like a long and comparatively narrow light well. The bedrooms fronting on this hall, if they chanced to be opposite the windows in the illuminated part of the hall, were able to secure a twice strained ray of daylight. Otherwise, the laboring man was obliged to rely upon his wife in lieu of any alarm clock to warn him that it was time for him to arise and go forth to his task. A notable feature of the building, however, was the fact that each bedroom was connected with a ventilating flue running to the roof. It was noted with pride that there was Croton water in the building and that the halls were illuminated with gas. On the top floor were large rooms, adapted to the social uses of the occupants. In 1856 and 1857 there were investigations into defective dwellings, the sewerage problem and filthy streets and a "social and moral census" of sections of the city was taken. Some appalling statistics were secured, showing the poor chances of growing up in New York City. It was developed that the ratio of deaths to population in half a century had nearly doubled. In 1810 the annual death rate had been one in forty-six persons, in itself a bad enough condition. But in 1857 one in twenty-seven persons passed over the silent river each year. In some of the most unsanitary wards of the city the death rate was one in sixteen. In no other city in the Christian world was the rate so high. It was found also that between the years 1843 and 1850 the average age of death was fifteen years. In other words, more died than lived to taste the experience of that happy period of life known as the teens. To realize that the conditions are such in one's home community that one-half of those who are born will not pass their fifth birthday is terrifying. That was the condition in New York in the fifties. It was not paralleled in any other city open to the same Christian influence. (...) A Worldcat computer search found S. H. Perkins, PLANS FOR TENEMENT HOUSING: BROOKLINE, MASS. (1846). Notes: Plans, signed by Stephen Higginson Perkins (1804-1877) and either done by him or at his request, evidently to accompany the presentation of the "Report of the Committee on the Expediency of Providing Better Tenements for the Poor," (Boston: Eastburn's Press, 1846). One plan ("#3") is of a building "to be erected on the site of the old St. Pancras Church, London" and the other ("5") is a project for New York. Floor plans and dimensions are given. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum is at 90 Orchard Street, telephone (212) 431-0233. I went there this week. There is a large bookstore, but there is no book (nor any exhibit!) that mentions the first New York City tenement house. So I asked about "tenement." "It's a Greek word," one museum staffer said. "It's Latin," answered another. Great! Here I go again!! I have these papers....