1894 election of William L. Strong as New York mayor
gave Jacob Riis and other reformers an opportunity
to initiate programs that Tammany Hall politicians
had ignored. Riis found an ally in Theodore Roosevelt,
then president of the Board of Police Commissioners.
and Lodging Houses
Shortly after Roosevelt's election
to the post, he cancelled the annual New York City
police parade because of allegations of police corruption.
He also forced Police Chief Thomas Byrnes and other
corrupt police officers to resign. 
In 1895 Riis and Roosevelt made
midnight inspections of police patrol areas. Riis
showed Roosevelt the overall neighborhood squalor,
particularly the police lodging houses and tenement
workshops. In response, Roosevelt convinced the
Board of Health to shut down 100 cigar-making workshops.
In 1896 Roosevelt closed the police lodging houses.
After Riis took public health
officials on a tour of some of the tenements, the
officials voted to require that landlords install
proper lighting in their buildings. Riis was pleased
when city officials tore down several tenements
in 1896 and 1897.
In 1896 Riis became secretary and
general agent of the Council of Confederated Good-Government
Clubs. He organized local clubs and assigned projects
to each, such as evaluating the city's parks, public
schools, and street cleaning efforts.
Became a Park
Mayor Strong selected Riis to
serve as secretary of the Advisory Committee on
Small Parks in 1897. Riis believed that city parks
should be "for the rest and recreation of the poor,"
not "for the pomp and parade of the wealthy."
After much effort, Riis and other
reformers convinced city officials to raze Mulberry
Bend and replace it with a city park.
A. Riis Settlement
Like many reformers, Riis believed
that city life was bad for children's health. He
believed that children should not play in the streets
or among the rubble left by the wrecking ball. He
also believed that children should be able to breathe
fresh air and live in sanitary housing. He remarked
in an 1895 lecture:
"It is one of the greatest
of offenses to take all the beauty out of a child's
life. I live on Long Island, and when I go home
now and hear the robins sing and see the buds swelling,
I feel that the poor little ones who live in the
city are cut off from those especial agencies that
God has made to benefit them." 
Night School in the
Seventh Avenue Lodging House
In 1901 the King's Daughters
honored Riis by renaming their settlement home the
Jacob A. Riis Settlement. Riis enlisted the help
of wealthy patrons to help pay off the Riis Settlement's
debts. Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Helen
Gould, and others made pledges. Riis donated one
thousand dollars. By 1906 the renovated settlement
included a carpentry shop, playrooms, a domestic
science room, and a gymnasium. 
In 1905 Riis wrote articles requesting
funds for the relocation and expansion of Sea Breeze
Hospital, a clinic for poor children with tuburculosis.
He asked President Roosevelt to make an appearance
at the clinic to publicize the fund-raising campaign.
The Carnegies and other philanthropists donated
thousands of dollars for the project in 1906. Still,
it took another eight years for Riis and his associates
to convince municipal officials to designate land
for the new hospital. The hospital, and an adjacent
park, opened in January 1914.