The evening world. Newspaper, June 13, 1922, Page 24

Consulting Engineer and Expert on Population and Statistice of the Copyright, 1992 (New York Bvening World) by Press f H down the buildings the parish of Whitechapel and the KE do even more densely populated parish covering one-third of Manhattan Island, give each of the peo ple who live In the demolished houses an army cot ordinary and, even if were possible to crowd the cots together like sardines In a box, there would not be sufficient ground space to permit the cots to be set up. ‘There “are thousands of acres In Manhattan with more than 600 rest @ents, there are hundreds with more thane thousand and there are many where tho density in population is close to the two thousand acre mark, No other place on earth be- gins to compare in this respect with the east side of Manhattan, strete! ing all the. way from Brooklyn Bridge to the Harlem River. The world-famous Whitechapel dis- trict of London, the slums and #0- called congested areas of Berlin, Paris, Petrograd, Naples, Tokio, Peking am other great cities are not in the same class when number of people living in comparable areas is taken {nto con- sideration. With a population of 6,000,000 with- in the city lmits; with ‘almost an equal number residing within two Hours’ ride of the City Hall—a con- siderable. proportion of whom make frequent.visits to the city—and with considerably over a third of a million out-of-town visitors daily registered at its hotels, yet unbelievably few peopie are really ucquainted with New York City. How many people are aware that dense as the population is to-day in the lower east side and in the sections east of Thinl Avenue extending the entire length of Manhattan, It was much worse ten years ago? How many people know that the population of of Manhattan below 59th Street de- creased in number during ten years just past and that the loss In this section of the city exceeded by far the total population of such import- ant cities as Portland, Ore., Denver, Col., or Toledo, O., being in fact con- siderably. more than three times the population of the State of Nevada? ‘The actual loss in population in the istrict between the City Hall and 14th Street in ten years was greater than the total population of elther Dayton, Bridgeport or Houston, but in spite of this decrease in residential popu lation as revealed by the census, tl number of residents per acre still maining in this section of the city is fer in excess of anything to be found in any of the cities of the Old or New World. of Stepney in The Borough the ae aan, By Major Joseph Caccavajo. of Spituifields, has a total area of 1,765 acres and a population per acre of 169 persons. The Borough of Southwark has 170 residents to the acre. The purish of Whitechapel {s divided into three precincts which are com: parable with tho sanitary districts which the Health Department of the City of New York has adopted In pre- paring Its records and vital statistics. Whitechupel’s enst precinct has a population of 12,085 crowded into 58 acres, The Middle Precinct has 74 with 8,484 residents, averaging 115 to the ncre. The West Precinct has but 41 acres and with 9,876 resi- dents in this limited area, leads the Whitechapel district In density of pop- ulation with 241 to the acre. Spitalfields Parish, also in Stepney, with 19,811 residents living within less that 74 ucres, leads every other Lon- don parish in density of population, 268 to the re. The olf City of London, which oc- ne square mile of territory in the cenjre of the administrative of London, may be compared to that ‘district of Manhattan which 1s south of the City Hall and includes tho Wall Street, financial and principal office building cent: As a matter of fact the’ populations of London City and the section of lower Manhattan just mentioned are almost identical, both districta having a resident popu- lation of approximately 20,000, with a daylight population ranging consider- ably beyond the million mark. In London, as in New York, the objective point toward which all lines of traffic are pointed is the sec- tions wherein are located the princi- pal financial, commercial and amus«- acres, ment centres, The people reside thickest immediately adjoining and within walking distance of their places of employment, so that in London as In New York the areas of greatest congestion of population are close to centres of business and f\- nancial activities. For this reason the boroughs which are closest to Picca- dilly show the greatest density per acre, the six most thickly populated being Southwark, 1,132 acres, 170 per acre; Shoreditch, 668 acres, 169 per acre; Bethnal Green, 759 acres, 169 per a Stepney, 1,766 acres, 16! per acre; Finsbury, 587 acres, 160 per | FIGURES IN SHADED AREAS INDICATE AVERAGE NUMBER OF PERSONS PER ACRE nt ewYork Worlds MostD Most Populous District Has 545 Persons to the Acre—London Follows With 268— Tokio With Only, 217 Several Acres in Manhattan’s Lower East Side Have a Present Population Density Greatly in Excess of 1,500 City of Naw York. Leb acre, and Holburn, 405 acres, 122 per acre, ‘The district between the Brooklyn Bridge and 14th Street, tn the Bor- ough of Manhattan, which has ap- proximately the same area as Lon- don’s two most populous boroughs, has many. acres with over 1,600 peo- ple to the acre and has an average of much more than twice the number of residents per acre than, etther of the English boroughs. In an article which dealt with con Aitions in the slum districts of Petro- grad in the days before the outbreak of the World War, when the capital of All the Russias was called St. Petersburg, the statement was made that In some Mistricts there was one inhabitant to every 98 square feet and that there were buildings hous. ing more than 400 people. Ninety- three square feet for one person equals 454 p ns per acre. If such conditions as described in Russia spell conjestions of population, what can be said about one inhabitant for every 21 square feet, as is a common condition tn many blocks on the east side of “Little Old New York?” In Tokio, Japan, the most densely populated wards are Asakusa, having @ population of something over a quarter of a million residents within 1,181 veres, or 217 #0 the acre, and Honjo, with 1,447 acres, having an average density of 156 to the acre. Considering the height of the build- ings the amount of actual floor apace available for the use of the inhabi- tants is much less in the Japanese metropolis than is to be found tn New York, where thee average number of * i 2 FRAG tama Uesp , , A, a DenselyPopulatedCity LONDON'S CENTRE OF POPULATION DENSITY. IN STEPNEY Wr! TECHAPEL PARISH, OF WHICH WEST PRECINCT OF 41 ACRES HAS 241 RESIDENTS To AN_ACRE, SPITALFIELDS PARISH ALSO IN STEPNEY, LEADS ALL LONDON wiTH 268 TO AN ACRE enis eater The population of Chinese such as Canton and Peking are over large areas, but a interesting compariso square miles within the walls of king, and Including both the residents of the Yartar and th with about mi n residents, might be matched with the twenty- two square miles on Manhattan with per acre is many tines cities 2,284,000, There must be many places in Peking with nearly if not quite so many inhabitants as are found in certain sections of Toklo, but the low average per ucre within vat walls is due to the large ng, especially in what is 1 the Chinese City, which are not The imperial palace grounds and many of the private es- tates nobility are very exten- elve the actual areas covered by resident buildings 8 ve: Umited than in any other of the big cities of the world In the reports of charity organizations ene:s to ten or in the same room, a condition w was unhappily increascd during housing shortage, which prevented t!y enforcement of many sanitary nances which under ordinary tions would have been enforced by city authorities y much more the New York we find ue people sleeping ordi- condi- the In the riental cities !t is the rather than the ption to twenty persons sleeping in a a that a thi of that number would find insufferable even in the crowded sections of our east side 1s due to the ability of the Oriental to forget all about circulation of air and many other things abso- lutely necessary to the white man. Hygiene as practised in the Orlent would probably depopulate our cities, but the yellow-skinned people keep ight on increasing in number with- out following a single rule such as we are taught from the cradle ‘to the grave, Stranve as It may seem, the Chinaman thinks we are just a8 queer 1s we think he Is 4 Getting back to the density of Bop- NEW YORK CITY'S MOST DENSELY POP- ULATED DISTRICT. ENERAL VIEW OF ~ POPULATION Bcrough of Manhattan City of New York (as at pre-ent constituted) U. S. Census figures 1790 to 1920 With estimate for year 1931 Per | Popula- tion cent | tion, in- | |crease. 83 59 28 6 54 65 58 z BES8r ulation in New York City, we find that while Manhattan has an average pop- ulation of something less than 170 to the acre covering the whole borough, area of the parks, cemeteries, public and business buildings tcd, the total population of nd is crowded upon something 6,000 acres. This means the average density of popula- on Manhattan Island ts actually, to averaging 500 to the acre. ings now stand, the matter #€ tion close As congestion is much less of 4 problem than it w s len years ago, from now it will be less. is lcsing population. It will continue to do so for many ye probably within the lifetime of a ma- jority of those now living all of the territory below 14th Street, which to~ day houses clove to 600,000 residents, will be occupied by business buildings and the only voters in what are now the most thickly populate” election districts will be the few janitors and caretakers who remain to care for the dings. loss in Lower Manhattan witl to come, and bu he not be compensated for in the upper areas during the coming ten years, 1 if may well be that the 1930 cen- will find Manhattan with a popu- lation somewhat below on mark The more than 800 square miles within the present limits can accome the two mil- modate 20,000,000 peop.e and still have an average of less than 100 per- sons to the acre, At present the average density {s less than 80 to the acre. Plenty of chance to grow. The big problem Is to prevent congestion 1d overcrowd.ng in spots, The new r for the extension of subways id transit lines to all sections five boroughs, if carried out, will undoubtedly solve the congestion of popu.ation problem for many year® to come