Joseph Papin’s drawing of the corner of 100th Street and 2nd Avenue, circa 1958:
In 1958, Joseph Papin wrote: “East Harlem is one of the world’s most densely populated areas, the most overcrowded section of NYC, where 300,000 people live jammed together in little over one square mile. Many of my drawings were done on East 100th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue where 4,000 people are packed into 27 rotting tenements. The people, mostly Puerto Ricans and Negroes just up from the south, struggle for survival in an atmosphere tense with hatred, fear, and discrimination. They are the latest in the waves of immigrants who have settled here in the past 60 years. The strong maintain the struggle; the weak succumb to apathy and despair. Yet even though most of the city finds itself too busy or indifferent to care, I found a group of young ministers and students of the East Harlem Protestant Parish who were living here and working with quiet efficiency to help on every level they could. They present no special claims to righteousness, austerity of life or devotion to principles superior to other men’s; rather this group, free of any rigid restricting dogma or methodology, let the problems encountered dictate the solutions” (Joseph Papin, 1958).
Some of these drawings were published in “Come Out the Wilderness” by Bruce Kenrick, illustrated by Joseph Papin, 1962.
I found the following photograph by Bruce Davidson, “Tenement buildings in East Harlem, New York City, circa 1966-1968” on the New York Historical Society website after seeing it initially on Esther Crain’s Ephemeral New York blog post of April 20, 2011.
Esther Crain posted:
“In 1962, journalists gave [the title of “one of Manhattan’s two worst blocks in the 1960s”] to East 100th Street, between First and Second Avenues. Called ‘absolutely rock-bottom’ by a city official in The New York Times that year, East 100th Street was further summed up as ‘overcrowded, notably unsanitary, ridden with crime and narcotics addiction, it is a microcosm of the worst conditions and worst elements of the city.’”
The corner today (Google maps screen capture below):
The following text is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Harlem which draws on sources in the “Housing” section of the article that are primarily from 2011-2012:
“East Harlem is dominated by public housing complexes of various types, with a high concentration of older tenement buildings between these developments. The neighborhood contains the second-highest concentration of public housing in the United States, behind Brownsville, Brooklyn. [11] [citing article written in 2011] The total land area is 1.54 sq mi (4.0 km2).[49][50]
“After a wave of arson ravaged the low income communities of New York City throughout the 1970s, many of the residential structures in East Harlem were left seriously damaged or destroyed. By the late 1970s, the city began to rehabilitate many abandoned tenement style buildings and designate them as low income housing. Despite recent gentrification of the neighborhood, large numbers of apartment buildings have been deliberately kept vacant by their owners. Although the businesses on the ground floor are retained, landlords do not want to have the trouble involved in residential tenants. In some cases, landlords are waiting for a revived economy, warehousing the apartments so that they can rent them later at a higher rent.[51] [NYTimes article, In East Harlem, ‘Keep Out’ Signs Apply to Renters, by Joseph Berger, 10-30-2011]
“In 2007, a survey of Manhattan’s buildings found that 1,723 were significantly vacant, three-quarters of them north of 96th Street. A 1998 survey found that one-quarter of low-rise residential buildings on avenues or major cross streets in East Harlem had sealed-up residential floors, despite having commercial businesses on the ground floor.[51] [NYTimes article, In East Harlem, ‘Keep Out’ Signs Apply to Renters, by Joseph Berger, 10-30-2011]”
The area is becoming increasingly gentrified, forcing long time residents out.
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