Taming Manhattan Research Papers
Taming Manhattan is about the economic, physical and social changes that urbanized Manhattan from country side and farmland, during the antebellum era, to the city it has become today. It was not the New York City we think about today, “With the municipal government struggling to keep up with the growing city, the streets were left in disarray…” (7) There was manure from livestock such as pigs and cows, dogs roamed the streets freely and trash lined the streets. These were all very common views in Manhattan at the beginning of the 19th century. The government, or the “corporation”, as many New Yorkers called it tried to pass laws that would help clean up the city. They put a ban on loose dogs and pigs, but law enforcement did not enforce these
…show more content…
When the lawmakers proposed a law that would establish a tax collection for dog licenses the wealthy wrote letters while the poor would block dog catchers. The government tried to regulate the manure business at one point also. “The average horse left behind thirty-five to forty pounds of manure each day” (101), most of which ended up in the streets. Horses were what made the city run during this era. Manure was collected and recycled into fertilizer, then it was sold back to farmers outside the city in return for hay and grain to feed the livestock in the city. New York city earned $19,033.45 in one year from its street scrapings. This accounted for seventy-five percent of what they made from street scrapings. Cleaning up the streets became a battle of between private contractors, with the lowest bidder usually winning. New York’s rapidly rising population made the disposal of food an enormous task. The waste was burned and not put in landfills like it would be later on. Therefore, this led to the rise of small shantytowns on the edge of the city. These little towns were mainly made up of the poorest of the poor just trying to scrape by. Due to the sore view, and putrid smell coming from these towns the wealthy petitioned and eventually shut down these towns where waste was stored and processed. The result was worse, waste was dumped into the Hudson river, which created a layer of litter and trash around
When the lawmakers proposed a law that would establish a tax collection for dog licenses the wealthy wrote letters while the poor would block dog catchers. The government tried to regulate the manure business at one point also. “The average horse left behind thirty-five to forty pounds of manure each day” (101), most of which ended up in the streets. Horses were what made the city run during this era. Manure was collected and recycled into fertilizer, then it was sold back to farmers outside the city in return for hay and grain to feed the livestock in the city. New York city earned $19,033.45 in one year from its street scrapings. This accounted for seventy-five percent of what they made from street scrapings. Cleaning up the streets became a battle of between private contractors, with the lowest bidder usually winning. New York’s rapidly rising population made the disposal of food an enormous task. The waste was burned and not put in landfills like it would be later on. Therefore, this led to the rise of small shantytowns on the edge of the city. These little towns were mainly made up of the poorest of the poor just trying to scrape by. Due to the sore view, and putrid smell coming from these towns the wealthy petitioned and eventually shut down these towns where waste was stored and processed. The result was worse, waste was dumped into the Hudson river, which created a layer of litter and trash around