The question is very frequently asked, "Is living in New York very
expensive?" An emphatic affirmative may be safely returned to every such
interrogatory. Let one's idea of comfort be what it may, it is
impossible to live cheaply in this city with any degree of decency. One
can go to a cellar lodging-house, and live for from twenty to forty cents
a day, but he will find himself overcharged for the accommodation given
him. He may live in a tenement house, and his expenses will still be
disproportioned to the return received. The discomforts of life in New
York, however, fall chiefly upon educated and refined people of moderate
means. The very rich have an abundance for their wants, and are able to
make their arrangements to suit themselves. The very poor expect nothing
but misery.
To begin at the beginning, the expenses of a family in fashionable life
are something appalling. Fifty thousand dollars per annum may be set
down as the average outlay of a family of five or six persons residing in
a fashionable street, and owning their residence. Some persons spend
more, some less, but this amount may be taken as a fair average, and it
will not admit of much of what would be called extravagance in such a
station.
For those who own their houses, keep a carriage, and do not "live
fashionably," or give many entertainments, the average is from fifteen to
twenty thousand dollars.
For those who aspire to live in comfort and in a respectable
neighborhood, and to occupy a whole house, the average is from five to
six thousand dollars. With six thousand dollars a year, a family of five
persons, living in a rented house, will be compelled to economise. Those
who have smaller incomes are obliged to board, to occupy a part of a
house, or to leave the city.
The average rent of a moderate sized house in New York is $1800 per
annum. This amount may or may not include the use of the gas fixtures,
and the house may or may not have a furnace in it. There will be a
dining-room and kitchen, with hall or passage in the basement. The first
floor will contain two parlors and the front hall. The second floor will
contain a bath-room, water closet, and two, or perhaps three, chambers.
The third floor usually contains two large and two small rooms, and
several closets. The chambers in the more modern houses contain marble
basins, with hot and cold water laid on. Where the tenant is unknown to
the landlord, he is required to pay his rent monthly, in advance, or to
give security for its quarterly payment. Such a house will require the
services of at least two women, and if there be children to be cared for,
a nurse is necessary. The wages of these, per month, are as follows:
cook, $16 to $20; chambermaid, $12 to $15; nurse, $12 to $16. In many of
the wealthier families a higher rate of wages is paid. At the rate
given, however, from $480 to $582 is the annual outlay for servants, to
which must be added a considerable sum for "changing help." Instances
are known to the writer in which this "changing help," in the case of
discharging an old cook and securing a new one, has cost a housekeeper as
much as $30 in a single change. This will be easily understood when I
state that ladies who go to look after "girls," in the places from which
they advertise for situations, are obliged to go to the expense of hiring
a carriage, it being unsafe for them to venture into these sections on
foot. Without counting the changes, however, and taking the lower
estimate of wages, we have a total of $2280 for house rent and servants'
hire. This leaves, from $6000, the sum of $3720 for food, clothing,
sickness, education, and all the incidentals of a family. The General
Government secures a large slice of this through its iniquitous income
tax, and State and county taxes take up several hundred more. Those who
have had experience in keeping house in any portion of the country can
easily understand how the rest goes, when one has to pay fifty cents per
pound for butter, fifty cents a dozen for eggs, sixteen cents a pound for
crushed sugar, twenty-five cents a pound for fowls, and thirty-five cents
a pound for the choice cuts of beef. All this, too, with the certainty
of getting light weights from your butcher and grocer.
Many persons seek refuge in boarding. Those who have no children, or but
one or two, may live cheaper in this way, but not in the same degree of
comfort that their outlay would bring them in their own homes. A couple
with two or three children and a nurse, cannot live in any respectable
boarding-house in New York, except in instances so rare that they do not
deserve to be mentioned, for less than sixty dollars per week for board
and lodging alone. Such persons must pay extra for washing, and there
are many "incidentals" which add to the landlady's receipts.
For such a family, giving them two chambers and a parlor, the Fifth
Avenue Hotel charges $30 per day, or $10,950 per annum. The figures are
high, but "the Fifth Avenue" gives a fair return for the money. The
charges of the other hotels are in proportion. None of them will receive
such a family for less than $6000 or $7000 per annum.
Of late years, a new style of living has been introduced. The city now
contains a number of houses located in unexceptionable neighborhoods, and
built in first-class style, which are rented in flats, or suites of
apartments, as in the Parisian houses. The largest of these are the
monster "Stevens House," on Twenty-seventh street, fronting on Broadway
and Fifth avenue, Dr. Haight's House, on the corner of Fifth avenue and
Fifteenth street, and Mr. Stuyvesant's House, in East Eighteenth street,
the last of which was the pioneer house of its kind in this city. The
"Stevens House" was built and is owned by Paran Stevens, Esq., and is one
of the largest buildings in the city. It is constructed of red brick,
with marble and light stone trimmings, and is eight stories in height
above the street, with a large cellar below the sidewalk. The cost of
this edifice is to be one million of dollars. "The woodwork of the
interior is of black walnut; the walls are finely frescoed and
harmoniously tinted. There are, in all, eight floors, including the
servants' attics. Five stores occupy the lower tier. There are eighteen
suites of rooms, to which access is had by a steam elevator. The
building is heated upon the principle of indirect radiation, by forcing
steam-heated air through pipes into the different rooms. The main
staircase is of iron, with marble steps, and the main halls to each story
are tiled. The chief suites comprise parlor, dining-room, boudoir,
dressing-rooms, and butler's pantry; each principal suite comprehending
five commodious chambers on the first floor, and two at the top of the
house. Each kitchen is furnished with improved ranges. The roof is
supplied with water tanks, and, as a further protection against fire, the
second floor is supported by iron arched beams, filled in with concrete."
The Haight House is said to be the most thoroughly comfortable
establishment of the kind in New York. "It consists of five floors,
having twenty suites of apartments for families, and fifteen for
bachelors, at a yearly rental of from three thousand to two thousand
dollars for the former, and from one thousand four hundred to six hundred
and fifty dollars for the latter. These suites are entered from the
hallways, each suite having a separate entrance of its own, and at the
entrance to the principal suites there is a small antechamber, from which
a servant may announce the names of visitors. The family suites embrace
a commodious parlor, a large dining-room, with butler's pantry attached,
a kitchen, three bed rooms, and a bath room. Each suite has its own
dumb-waiter; a dump for coal and refuse, and the proper provision for
ventilation; while the suites intended for single occupants are furnished
with every appliance necessary to the securing of perfect comfort and
ease. Although every accommodation is furnished by the house, some of
the tenants have chosen to go to the expense of decorating their own
apartments, and have had their rooms elegantly frescoed and painted by
some of the first artists in the city. The mantels are either of walnut
or the finest marble, of elegant design and workmanship. The supposition
is that a majority of the guests will cook for themselves, but
arrangements may be effected by which the cooking may be done in a
general kitchen for the purpose. There is a steam elevator, and a
general system of kitchens, sculleries, pantries, store and ice rooms,
with the engines, and a well-devised workshop for the engineer. There is
a steam laundry, capable of washing one thousand pieces per day, where
guests may have their washing done at a cheaper rate than could be
possible under any of the ordinary methods; and also a drying room--all
of the principal work of the establishment being effected by steam. Each
apartment has its bell and whistle, communicating with the basement. A
janitor, or porter, has a lodge in the main hall, within which there is
also a 'post-office.' In the basement is another porter's lodge for the
facilitation of business with the butcher, the baker, and the
expressman."
These houses, however, are accessible only to people of ample means. The
apartments rent for sums which will secure comfortable dwellings, and the
other expenses are about the same one would incur in his own house. The
great need of the city is a system of such houses in respectable
neighborhoods, in which apartments may be had at moderate rents.