The Arizona champion., 1890-11-01
ROOFS OF CITY HOUSES.
A Physician Recommends That the House.
 tons 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 ''dark closet with precipit- ous ladder leading to the scuttle, rarely entered and ascended except by work men to repair the roof. In a private dwelling of the smallest size habitually 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 fa- better place as playground for children or a resort for adults in pleasant or in progressively hot weather That is to say, in the houses most favor ably circumstanced 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 is worse, because the yard is contracted as the house is extended, until in most cases it amounts to little more than an air shaft, and is not available at all as a place of recreation.
 In the tenement houses the case Is far worse. Nobody who has ever visited the back yard of one in the more populous quarters of the city would ever there after think of it as playground or breathing space or 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, SO far as concerns any pre- cautions taken for it's use and enjoyment by the builder, who nevertheless brides himself upon his economy of room.
 It Is no wonder that Dr. Smith asks NuSIucI di iCIHIcCluJd dl lIlSellully ,COdCuSu by sanitary science" cannot ''contrive some method of using the thousands of acres of housetops on this island so 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 flat roofed city. All that is absolutely needed to convert it's roofs into the pleasantest parts of the house after the sun goes down in summer, and while the sun 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 parapet that will obviate any danger of falling by children or careless persons. The cost of all this is not worth counting in con- parison to the benefits to be derived from it.-New York Times.