Model tenements were experimental apartment buildings designed to prove that safe, affordable housing could be built profitably in crowded cities. Built mostly in New York between the 1880s and 1920s, they offered working families an alternative to disease-ridden slums—with running water, separate toilets, and actual windows in every room.
You climb a narrow staircase worn smooth by thousands of feet. Sunlight streams through a window—a luxury in these buildings. The room is small but clean: a sink, a toilet down the hall you don't have to share with forty neighbors, air that doesn't reek of rot. Your children can breathe here.
Reflect
What would change in your life if your home had reliable water, heat, and light?