The first triple-decker was built in Worcester in 1855. Since then, these homes have provided affordable housing to Worcester residents. Originally, these triple-deckers were essential to the immigration population in Worcester. Immigrants loved triple-deckers, because they provided a path to homeownership, since a family was able to live on one floor while gaining income from renting out the other two.
However, housing reformers based in Massachusetts looked to get rid of the triple-decker as they claimed that triple-deckers were a fire hazard, and were “unpleasant to look at” and therefore negatively impacted property values. While triple-deckers are a fire hazard, it is important to note that one of the key housing reformers, Prescott Farnsworth Hall, was part of both the chairman of the Town Improvement Committee of the Brookline Civic Society and a key member of the Immigration Restriction League. Hall’s wife compiled a multitude of her husband’s writings and titled it “Immigration and Other Interests of Prescott Farnsworth Hall.” Within this document, there is a section called “The Building Situation in Brookline” in which Hall addresses the issues of “tenement houses”. Once fireproof tenement housing is suggested, Hall admits that these fireproof tenement houses will help reduce the risk of fires. However, after this solution is proposed Hall brings up another argument about land value and taxes.
“The fact that the brick apartment house brings in, in many cases, a class of people who do not have the same permanent interest in the town as those who own their own single homes and perhaps do not take as much interest in town government and affairs, the fact which I spoke of before, that the town loses a considerable sum in taxable value owing to the depreciation of the land value in houses and lands which are affected by the new class of people and the increase in town expenses which are necessary to provide accommodation in school and fire and police departments,—all such drawbacks of this large tenement house population are not balanced by the increased personal property which this population brings in.” (Hall, 39).
Close reading this quote from Hall allows us to truly see his intolerance towards immigrants. He puts them in a separate category by calling them “a new class of people” and states that they “do not have the same permanent interest in the town.” Hall sees the money that would go into accommodating immigrants as a waste as the town loses “a considerable amount of taxable dollars”. This leads us to believe that despite housing reformers stating that their reasoning behind wanting to get rid of the triple-decker was due to fire hazards, some housing reformers may have had a different motivation: anti-immigration.
The push for the end of triple-deckers reached its peak in 1912, when the National Housing Association published a reform guide that advocated for single-family homes as well as public subsidized housing in the city. However, there was a major problem with this reform, as public housing prevents tenants from becoming homeowners. Due to pressure from groups like the National Housing Association and the Brookline Civic Society, the state of Massachusetts passed “The 1912 Tenement Act”, and while it did not outright ban triple-deckers entirely, it made them very difficult to build by using restrictions. The document defines the term tenement house as a building that is designed to have a portion rented, leased, or hired out to two or more families (in which a family consists of more than one person). The document states that “No tenement house shall hereafter be erected exceeding two and one half stories in height, nor shall it be occupied, nor intended, arranged or designed to be occupied, by more than two families, unless it be a fire-proof tenement house” (Section 50). A fireproof tenement house is defined as a building that is” constructed using fireproof material throughout, with floors built of iron, steel or reinforced terracotta beams, filled in between with terra-cotta or other masonry arches or with concrete or reinforced concrete slabs.” (10). There are other requirements for building a fireproof tenement house, but it is clear that these requirements made building triple-deckers much more difficult, as the materials were much more expensive. In this document, there are 121 sections of different building restrictions, which is why it was uncommon for triple-deckers to be built after this time period.
While fires are a legitimate concern within triple-deckers, it is clear that there was an ulterior motive to the housing reforms. Today, triple-deckers are being refortified with sprinklers, and fire alarms are inspected every time a triple-decker is sold. These efforts will hopefully make triple-deckers more safe, and allow Worcester to preserve a major part of its history.
Works Cited:
Farnsworth Hall, Prescott. Immigration and Other Interests of Prescott Farnsworth Hall. Edited by Lucyle Irby Hall, New York, The Knickerbocker Press, 1922, pp. 35–43, ia800201.us.archive.org/14/items/cu31924064104254/cu31924064104254.pdf.
Wood, Norman P. An Act Relative to Tenement Houses in Towns. 1912. 2166.
New England Historical Society. “The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of the Triple Decker.” New England Historical Society, 28 Nov. 2017, newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/rise-fall-rebirth-new-england-triple-decker/.