New York City's 1910 tenement quarantine order
The city's health department quarantined tenements in lower Manhattan to stop a typhoid and tuberculosis spread, using its enforcement powers over buildings and sanitation.
The quarantine slowed disease transmission but displaced many residents.
It established the city's authority to inspect and regulate buildings for health, a power that extends to food premises today.
This early use of health inspection powers set the pattern for the modern pre-permit inspections that new restaurants like Zhengxin must pass.
