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In its 1874 report, the Relief and Aid Society pointed out that it had built
four such barracks in different portions of the city (Washington Square Park,
Madison Street, Harrison Street, and Clybourne Avenue), housing a total of 1000
familes. Each family had two furnished rooms. As for the occupants, the
Society maintained, "They were mainly of the class who had not hitherto lived in
houses of their own, but in rooms in tenement houses." Such people were
"undoubtedly very nearly, if not quite, as comfortable as they were before the
fire," and, since they were less crowded and under supervision of health
officials and police, "their moral and sanitary condition was unquestionably
better than that which had heretofore obtained in that class." The Washington
Park barracks were directly across the street from the Mahlon Ogden house, the
sole survivor among the North Division mansions. Here several children play in
the snow, indicating that the picture was taken either late in 1871 or early in
1872. "Washington Park is full of the barracks built by the city for the
houseless poor--they are the only neighbors Mr. Ogden has within a mile," wrote
Anna Higginson, whose own ample home near the Ogdens had been burned a month
earlier. "One of the men whom we employed for a day told Charlie 'that they had
not many neighbors, but they were very select!' meaning the Ogdens. I think
Mrs. O. feels worse, living in her elegant, untouched house, than we do who are
altogether homeless, & I do not wonder at it, as they live in fear of their
lives, with their house watched day & night by policemen."
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The Relief and Aid Society 