During New Years you may find it interesting to learn about what apartment hunting was like 100 years ago.
Of course, looking at an apartment may not be that different than how it’s done today, but certain aspects may be completely different. Looking back at the past may give you an appreciation for how apartment hunting is done in modern times.
For one thing, buildings themselves were much smaller than they are now. Your apartment may have even just been part of someone else’s house. If someone couldn’t afford their house but didn’t want to move, they would often just rent out some of the house to someone else.
100 years ago the population was beginning to grow significantly due to immigration. Many of these immigrants lived in cheap tenement housing. They would also move into those houses when others would move away.
Something we should be grateful doesn’t happen anymore is that all of New York City used to have the same moving day. When May 1st came around, the whole city would pack up its bags and get moving. While this might sound like it would make it easier, at least to remember, the city would get pretty hectic on moving day.
This would only continue to get more intense as immigrants moved in bring the city population up to the millions. Even today when there may only be a few hundred people moving into your apartment building it can get busy, imagining that seems like too much.
People back then also wouldn’t have had the luxury of apartment hunting websites like College Rentals. These websites allow those of us hunting for apartments to see pictures or reviews of an apartment before even setting foot in it.
This can save you a lot of time that they would have had to waste back then.
About the author:
Kathryn Hill was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She is a senior English student at Sam Houston State University. Kathryn has written for the blog and social media of the educational website Curriculum café.
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