This photograph shows an overcrowded room of a tenement, with poor conditions of hygiene, and the people of the photograph were taken by surprise. The sanitary police intervened that night because the price of the beds was 5 cents, two cents below the minimum allowed by law. The picture depicts at least six people in very poor conditions and in a very narrow space, with also a stove and several belongings visible. They appear sleepy and don't hide their surprise at being awakened at night. Riis himself describes the miserable conditions of the room: "In a room not thirteen feet either way slept twelve men and women, two or three in bunks set in a sort of alcove, the rest on the floor. A kerosene lamp burned dimly in the fearful atmosphere, probably to guide other and later arrivals to their beds, for it was only just past midnight. A baby's fretful wail came from an adjoining hall-room, where, in the semi-darkness, three recumbent figures could be made out. The apartment was one of three in two adjoining buildings we had found, within half an hour, similarly crowded".Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1889)Jacob Riis, The Art Story
