Population rapidly increases in Manhattan during 1850-1880, and about 40 percent of the population are immigrants. Because of the increase in population, many landowners max out the usage of the property by building houses to house immigrants. The overcrowded buildings lead to many problems such as sanitation and health issues. The houses were redesign, but the quality of life did not improve.

Many immigrants flee their own countries and seek for a batter life in the United States. When people arrived, they needed shelter and comfort, thus got the attention of many landlords. To fit many people, landlords built as mush buildings as they can in their property line. Putting the mindset of making money rather than the quality of life that their house will provide. The DNA of NY’s blocks got divided into two to fit two buildings. The new buildings were often closely built near the old ones, thus blocking the airflow and the sunlight. The quality of life during this time was horrible.

Because of the housing condition and the population, many problems emerged. The obvious one was sanitation. The streets were filthy, sewers were obstructed, manures were everywhere. At some point, as many as fifteen people were living in one room. People live closely, so the disease spread rapidly from one to another, from one building to another. Later, the whole block got infected by the disease. One of the blocks called The Lung Block was one of the famous blocks that got infected. The whole block got demolish because the problems were out of control.

The quality of life was very low. People lived in buildings where no breezes go through and no light shined through. There was no freshness. The Plumber and Sanitary Engineer sponsored a design competition to rebuild the house to increases the sun and breezes, but that competition-winning design didn’t increase the quality of life, because the landlords were controlling the competition using money. landlords wanted to make more money and the design that they choose met some requirement but didn’t improve the condition.

Lifes was difficult during 1800, and the greedy landlords were ruining the lives of many immigrants. The solution to the problems was not helpful.