I know the innards of at least one tenement building very, very well. My maternal grandparents lived in such a building, one which they owned; this was during a time when there was not a huge housing shortage, and such properties in that Williamsburg/Bed-Sty border area were relatively inexpensive. Three floors of living space. My grandparent’s bathtub was in the kitchen. Atop the tub was a large hinged flip-up wooden board that (ahem) hid the tub and also doubled as a work surface. The two top floors each had a bathroom in the hallway that allowed more than one family living on those floors shared access. Those two hallways each had three entryways into their apartments: one went straight to a bedroom; one accessed the kitchen; and one opened to a living room. My research showed that in the 1910s, the building housed a hat-making business on the first floor. The building and a big stretch of the street it was on no longer exist. If you want to see where it was located, watch The French Connection and keep an eye out for an early scene where the Santa Claus/drug dealer foot chase ends: a massive area of buildings demolished in the late 60’s to make way for what’s there now, a hospital complex.
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