Boardinghouses were a common place for adults to live through much of American history. They worked something like today’s college dorms: The rooms were small, the bathrooms and kitchenettes shared, and the cost was low. They weren’t as nice to live in as a single-family home with a detached garage, but they were far nicer than a tent in the middle of an encampment in the dark of winter. So where did they go? The answer is that they were made, in most jurisdictions, functionally illegal.
