Floor Plan Of A Dumbbell Tenement

Also called a railroad flat.
Floor plan of a dumbbell tenement. This is the source of the module floor plan below. Hence its resemblance in plan to a dumbbell. In railroad apartments the only means of egress from one room is into another room except in the case of the bathroom which can connect to the side of a room and if there. The floor plan of each floor resembles the outline of a dumbbell.
The winner was james e. The dumbbell shape allowed for air shafts between tenements. A railroad apartment is a unit with aligned rooms that lead directly into one another without a hallway according to brown harris stevens broker elizabeth lind johnson. A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access on the british isles notably common in scotland in the medieval old town in edinburgh tenements were developed with each apartment treated as a separate house built on top of each other such as gladstone s land.
Shafts located on one or both sides of the apartment provide air and a little light in the rooms that do not face the front or rear of the building. Scribner s magazine july 1894 pp. Each dumbbell reached six stories and housed 300 people in its 84 rooms. Riis how the other half lives.
A quick definition of a railroad apartment. They taper in the center like the handle of a dumbbell. Flagg the new york tenement house evil and its cure. Using our teacher designed teacher tested lesson plans students engage in inquiry and learn to use critical thinking to interpret objects oral histories and primary sources while making history relevant to today.
Riis the battle with the slum. Sam bass warner jr. Studies among the tenements of new york. The belknap press of harvard univ.
As a result of this law dumbbell tenements were constructed so called because of the shape of their perimeter. The floor plan of each floor resembles the outline of a dumbbell. With tenement museum resources students become historians. Also called a railroad flat.
A five to seven story multiple dwelling unit in urban areas characterized by a long narrow plan with an indentation on each side forming a shaft for light and air. Unfortunately the 1879 law did not alleviate the overcrowding and filthy conditions of the tenements as many of the older style of tenements were still in use. Although the dumbbell did provide one window per room and airshafts admitted light and air into the floors of tenement buildings because of the narrowness of the shafts and the height of the buildings the shafts simply became a stagnant well of foul air.