For residents, the worst assault was rock dust that defeated all housekeeping

Evidence

One of the by-products of blasting or drilling in solid bedrock is rock dust, an extremely fine-grained, abrasive grit. The grit—East Tremonters called it “fallout”—arose from the excavation in a continual fine mist. “It just filled the air,” Lambert recalls. “If you closed your windows and put towels in to seal them up, it was there anyway. I don’t know how. You got up in the morning, and you felt like you had slept in dust. When you came home from work, you couldn’t sit down without sweeping it out of the chair. It was impossible to live cleanly—you felt like you were covered with silt. All the time.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 3712

Categorization

• QUESTION: There is an echo here of the reader’s own interests — that cleanliness mattered most to these residents — worth connecting to scholarship on respectability and hygiene as forms of dignity among the poor.