First of all, almost everyone is outside—on the street, the sidewalk, fire escapes. If you’ve ever lived in a tenement apartment without an air conditioner, you know how stifling those rooms can get, and they force you to seek relief outdoors.
The other thing is, people don’t look as miserable as you’d expect for a street scene in the summer heat. Kids are playing; groups of adults are talking. Lone men and women sit on the sidewalk or stoops and watch. Tempers don’t seem to be flaring; no one appears to be looking for a fight.
The moon is bright. What looks like an arc light in the background illuminates the street. People gather at tables by torchlight. As the caption says, it’s one of hundreds of similar scenes enacted at the same time all over the city.
[NYPL]
Tags: Illustrations New York City Tenements, Lower East Side tenements, New York City in 1899, New York City Street Side, Summer 1899 NYC, Summer in the Tenements, Tenement Block New York City
Ephemeral New York 
July 29, 2021 at 2:54 am |
Street life was communal and community. I moved from a high rise apartment where we hardly knew our neighbours to Boerum Hill Brooklyn 69 years after this picture and the rampant street and stoop life was an awakening of the Jane Jacobs variety.
July 29, 2021 at 2:42 pm |
I wish I knew what block this illustration is based on, if it was based on one. I’d love to contrast it with a scene from that block today.
July 30, 2021 at 6:36 am
Some of your other respondents also remember the pleasures of ‘stoop’ sitting and simply being on a companionable level of neighborliness. While it would be fascinating for you to identify that particular block in the illustration I think the comments show the archetypal nature of living on such blocks.
July 29, 2021 at 4:51 am |
“Hot town, summer in the city…walkin’ on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head….” –John Sebastian
It’s also the kind of street life that gave rise to doo-wop groups harmonizing on the corners, the true “folk music of New York City.”
July 29, 2021 at 6:32 am |
[…] Summer in the City, NYPL […]
July 29, 2021 at 6:56 am |
My street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn looked like that in the 1950s. You can see the girls playing ring-around-the-rosie.
July 29, 2021 at 9:40 am |
Imagine all of those neighbors outside talking, laughing, playing, knowing each other’s names! Contrast that with the modern scenario of a lone citizen sitting inside a refrigerated apartment, often spending the whole day – working, eating meals, scrolling, socializing – all in front of the blue-light glow of a screen. Barely knowing any neighbors by name. Ugh, what’s become of us!
July 29, 2021 at 9:50 am |
In the 1980s, my daughter played on the stoop with her friends, but by the 2000s my granddaughter did not — it was not because of computers, but our style of socializing changed.
July 29, 2021 at 11:23 am
And why did the style of socializing change?
July 29, 2021 at 9:48 pm
the kids engaged in more organized activities (dance, music, etc).
July 30, 2021 at 4:03 am |
The summer I lived in Brooklyn (1980), it was extremely hot from the Fourth of July through Labor Day. Almost every night, many people on my block, including me, would sit out on the front stoop, where the air had cooled somewhat, until after midnight, when our un-air-conditioned apartments had cooled enough to allow us to sleep. Although the heat and humidity were miserable, I still enjoy the memory of us all hanging out on our front steps at night.
July 30, 2021 at 6:40 am |
Look up @stoop.stories on Instagram to see Brooklyn today. Marj Kleinman still lives in the Boerum Hill house she was born in. Her parents were our neighbors.
July 30, 2021 at 7:48 am |
who is the artist…
July 30, 2021 at 2:35 pm |
I should have included this in the post: Andrew Varick Stout Anthony.
July 31, 2021 at 12:53 am |
Where are the fire escapes?
July 31, 2021 at 12:59 am |
Fire escapes have been removed to further gentrification and to qualify for a Historic Designation.
July 31, 2021 at 12:32 pm
The NYC Department of Buildings determines if fire-escapes are needed.