The Osceola times., 1885-06-06
TALL BUILDINGS.
An Experts Opinion of Them on the Score
of Healthfuincss, Etc.

An Experts Opinion of Them on the Score
of Healthfuincss, Etc.
As our readers know. bill was in
troduccd this winter into the New York
Legislature providing that the height Of
buildings in the dwelling-house quarter
of the city of New York should be re.
stricted to a certain limit, which was,
az a maximum, set at eighty feet
from the sidewalk. The object of the
bill was Of course to prevent the erec-
ton of the great apartment houses
which tower in some cases two hun
dred feet above the pavement, and un.
questionably shade the streets and
houses north of them, and reduce, by
comparison, the apparent size of the
ncighboring buildings. Whether this
dwarfng effect would be appreciable
in the selling price of the property
next to such structures is more than
doubtful, and the real grievance seems
to be confined to the shadow cast by
them. and as this seems to have been
considered an insufficient basis for so
arbitrary restriction as the one pro-
posed, the advocates of the bill have
recently undertaken to fortify their po-
sition by the very doubtful device Of
attacking the apartment houses them
selves, and have produced evidence. in
the shape of opinions by certain ply
sicians, to show that the inhabitants
of such buildings are liable to zy-
motto diseases from the probable OPEN
ing OF the joints of the drain pipes in
them, rs well as to contagious dis
orders from the diff Guilty OF isolating
patients attacked with such maladies
in them. As might have been expect
ed, this attempt has brought out
an overwhelming amount of re-
butting testimony. Several of the
best physicians in the city join in COM
mending the substitution of elevators
for stairs, which forms one Of their
principal characteristics, and it is easily
proved that, however such buildings
may shade the streets below them,
those who live in them enjoy a greater
amount of air and sunshine than the
dweller in the average city house. To
say nothing of the advantage of being
raised above the surrounding buildings,
the planning of the best apartment
houses always secures outside light and
air for the bathrooms and Railways,
which in most CITY houses are dark and
unventilated, while the interior space
between the front and rear chambers,
which in houses is usually given up to a
mass of unventilated closets, cupboards,
bathrooms, wash-basins, and slop-
sinks, and soon becomes the permanent
abode of the insects and efiluvia which
are supposed to be indispensable to s
city dwelling, is practically unknown in
the first-class apartment house, where
economy of room, as well rs better
principles Of planning, demand dis
tribution of these adjuncts to domestic
life which greatly facilitates their main
tenance in wholesome condition.
Whether infectious diseases are likely
to spread more rapidly in an apart
ment-housc than in a block of houses
we will not venture to say, but in the
fire-proof buildings, which should alone
be constructed for the purpose there is
little probability of contagion being
communicated through the walls or
floors, and the risk that any person
leaving the patients room win convey
the infection to others by contact in the
elevators and halls is no greater than
that which every one encounters in rid.
ing in public conveyance. .-Anaerican
Archftect