Lodgers in Bayard Street Tenement, Five Cents a Spot
Jacob August Riis
American, born Denmark. 1849–1914
1889
This gelatin silver photograph by Jacob A. Riis records a crowded tenement sleeping room, made to reveal urban squalor and push for social reform.
What strikes you is the claustrophobic compression of bodies, bedding, and household clutter—an iron stove, stacked pots, bunks and a pair of boots—rendered in stark light that makes the small room feel oppressively close.
The work is a foundational example of social-documentary photography: Riis used stark images like this to expose poverty, shape public opinion, and help spur housing reform and the development of investigative photojournalism.
Medium
Gelatin silver print, printed 1957
Dimensions
6 3/16 × 4 3/4" (15.7 × 12 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of the Museum of the City of New York
Accession
338.1964
Palette
Exhibitions
