, 1888-06-07
ROOFS or CITY HOUSES.
A Physician Recommends That the House.
tops Be Turned Into Fairgrounds.

a Physician Recommends That the House.
tops Be Turned Into Fairgrounds.
DR.. Gouverneur NJ. Smith has contri-
buted to a recent number OF The Medical
Record an interesting and suggestive
paper. The main point of this article is
that by neglecting to make the roofs of
the houses places of safety and pleasantly
habitable, New Workers miss the best
and most readily available opportunity
open to them of enjoying fresh sunshine
in moderate weather and fresh and COM
paratively cool air during the sweltering
heats of summer.
DR.. Smith describes the state of things
which all New Workers know when he
speaks of the 'tdark closet with precipit-
GUS ladder leading to the ~scuttle, rarely
entered and assembled except by work
men to repair the roof" In a private
dwelling of the smallest size habituaIly
built on this island, the roof has an area
as large as that of the yard, immeasur-
ably better lighted and aired, and intrin-
sically o far better place as a playground
for children or q resort for adults in
pleasant or in oppressively hot weather.
That is to say, In the houses most favor
ably circumstance for light and air, one
half Of the available breathing space OF
the city, excluding the streets, Is abso-
lutely wasted. In the more expensive
and extensive dwellings the case Ia
worse, because the yard Is contracted as
the house is extended, until in most cases
1t amounts to little more than an air
shaft, n Is not available at all as n
place of recreation
In the tenement houses the case Is far
worse. Nobody who has ever visited the
back yard Of n in the more populous
quarters Of the city would ever there
after think Of 1t asa playground or a
breathing space or n place of resort for
rest and refreshment. Yet the choice
for these purposes is practically between
this place, one-third the area of the
house, and the street, while the house
top, three times as large as the yard and
In every respect more eligible, is abso-
lutely wasted, 80 far as concerns any pre-
cautions taken for its use and enjoyment
by the builder, who nevertheless prides
himself upon his economy of room.
1t is no wonder that DR.. Smith asks
whether"architectural ingenuity, coached
by sanitary science" cannot ''contrive
some method of using the thousands of
acres of housetops on this island 80 that
roofs can be made additionally useful at
certain seasons by affording outdoor rec
reation and protection from invalidism."
Really it seems as If architectural inge-
nuity had been exerted in the opposite
direction, for there Is no difficulty In the
way of achieving this result New York
Is already a flat rooted city. All that is
absolutely needed to convert its roofs into
the ~leasantest parts of the house after
the sun goes down in summer, and while
the SUI is up during the spring and au-
tumn, Is perhaps slightly to increase
their structural strength, to cover them
with some material that shall be practi-
cable as a pavement, to provide decent
and commodious access to them by con-
tinuing to the roof the main stairway of
the house, and to provide a parapet that
will obviate any danger of falling by
children or careless persons. The cost of
all this is not worth counting In com
parison to the benefits to be derived from
it-New York Times.