By: Grace Anne MacGillivray

“People do not pay me rent,” says Mr. Goldfine. Mr. Goldfine is the landlord at 97 Orchard Street. He uses his own money to fix stuff in the building, which means that sometimes things don’t get fixed.

“I will pay you rent when you fix my sink,” says Rebecca Goldstein. Rebecca is a pregnant tenant at 97 Orchard street who has had no water for three weeks, having to climb upstairs every day to get water from her neighbors.

When inspectors arrive on their surprise visit, Rebecca’s apartment is a mess. They see poo and pee in a chamber pot on the floor of the parlour near the bed. “I would have emptied the chamber pot if I knew you were coming,” Rebecca says. There are rags on the floor and leaks from the walls when it rains. Rebecca has three children and is expecting a fourth.

The inspectors tell Rebecca she is not allowed to have rags on the floor because they are a fire hazard. That is a problem since she is pregnant and cannot bend down to pick up the rags. There is no janitor in the building, Mr. Goldfine is the only one picking up, and he has not picked up the rags.

Rebecca’s red hair flares, “You can see your face in his shoes!” Rebecca declares. She feels he is spending money on himself and not doing enough to help her family. With no water, mice and rats and roaches scurrying across the floor, she is in no mood to give her landlord any breaks.

The stench from the hallway bathrooms is unbearable. On the ground floor of the tenement building, there is only one bathroom for two large families because the other one is out of order. There are no lights in the bathroom even though the law states there must be. There are many violations; the building is a mess!

Rebecca’s husband is a painter. Mr. Goldfine asks him to paint a mural on the wall of their hallway. Rebecca’s husband paints a scene of trees, grass, blue skies and sun, the way 97 Orchard Street might have looked before there were tenements there, in exchange for one month’s rent. This pretty landscape doesn’t do much to change the filthy conditions of the building. The inspectors will come again to be sure the laws are upheld and the problems are fixed.

Rebecca’s husband’s pastoral mural improves the hallway somewhat, but living in a filthy, dangerous, rundown tenement isn’t what Rebecca and her neighbors dreamed of when they left their homeland and moved to Manhattan.