But what I think better of is the good such
houses do in elevating and making happier their tenants, and I much rejoice
in having had an opportunity to test their usefulness."
As a comment upon these brief, but weighty sentences, we would beg any of
our readers, who may have opportunity, to look for himself at the
substantial and not unornamental buildings of the Association, with their
showier front on Pleasant Street, and their imposing length and height of
range along the side of Osborn Place,--to see them affording healthy and
convenient homes to fifty families, many of whom, without some such
provision, would be exposed to be forced into the wretched quarters too
familiar to the poor,--and then to compare them with the common
lodging-houses in any of the lower streets or alleys of Boston or New York.
A similar work to that performed by the Boston Association was undertaken
shortly afterward by a society in New York, who in 1854-5 erected a
building containing ninety tenements of three rooms each, under the name of
"The Working-Men's Home." The cost of this enormous building, which was
well designed, was about $90,000. It is fifty-five feet in breadth by one
hundred and ninety feet in length; it is nearly fireproof, and is provided
with double stairways. It has been occupied from the first by colored
people, and we regret to learn that it has not proved a success, so far as
regards the annual return upon the property invested.
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