tenament

a small building found in New York City, especially in New Yorks Lower East Side. Tenements are usually no more than five stories high, with narrow staircases and tiny apartments. Tenaments were home to many european immigrants during the 19th century. Most tenements were built no later that 1910, and often have features such as hexagonal tial floors charachteristic of that time. Unsafe conditions, especially overcrowding in the tenements caused a lot of sickness and death amoung immigrants, and in 1863, new "tenemant laws" were passes stating things like, all apartments must have windows. Tenaments are very specific to the Lower East Side, but can also be found in east harlem, and other parts of NYC.

Do you live in the projects? No I live in a tenament.

by miss nightlights July 2, 2006

tenement halls

Known for its lyric out of Simon and Garfunkel's: The sounds of silence, "tenement halls" are rooms or sets of separate residences in housing complexes and apartments. Specifically rundown, overcrowded and low income apartments.

"And the signs said
The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence"
OR
"I live down in the tenement halls on 136th, its a real sh*thole"

by kethlogan21 January 20, 2016

tenement yard

Jamaican slang for a housing area that is generally poor or undeveloped

shanty towns in Jamaica or Jamaican ghetto

reggae lyrics "Dreadlocks can't live in a tenement yard!" from Jamaican Reggae artist Jacob Miller

by rootsreggaerespect March 21, 2011