The record-union., 1897-10-31
The TABLES TURNED.
THOUSANDS OF FLATS IN NEW
YORK EMPTY.
Tenants Demand Hot Water and
Open Plumbing, and Insist
Upon Them.

to begin. After summer spent at the
seashore or in the mountains the house
keeper and mother Of the family must
think of looking for a house in the city.
Within the last few years the landlords
and real estate agents have made il a
rule that all leases should date from
October LIST, instead of the old-fashion-
ed May 1st Therefore, the real moving
day of migratory New York is October
LIST instead of the time immemorial
May 1st.
The first spectators to erect these
modern apologies for homes-the New
York flat houses-found their invest
ment so profitable that they built more
and then their neighbors were seized
with the fever, and they, too, built
flats. In the beginning the demand
was greater than the supply, and the
investment seemed such a good one
that every builder, landowner and
real estate man in New York deter
mined to push the good thing along.
Matters We're all on the side Of the
landlord for a time, and the woes of
the tenants in these huge caravansaries
furnished All unlimited supply of jokes
for the funny papers, and many a space
writer has blessed the inventor of flats.
Small families and newly married
couples fiocked to these ideal homes,
and men contemplating matrimony
counted the cost of an apartment and
decided they might make the venture.
Even the dictatorial, oyerbearing jani-
tor had no terrors for them, they were
SO Comfortable in the cosey eight or
nine-rOom fiat. The lack of privacy,
owing to the fact that every door must
be taken down and portieres hung, so
as to preserve the perfect harmony of
the whole suite, after a while became
an everyday matter, and fiat dWellerS
became accustomed to living in the
public gaze of the members of the fam
lily.
1t was SO hard to get a nice fiat at
first that one put up with all manner
of impositions from the janitor and
| submitted to any number of arbitrary
rules, because there were so few flats
as nice and comfortable as theirs.
Years rolled ON, and the newly made
man and wife, who had gone so joy
ously to their cosey little apartment
began to be cramped for room. Addi-
| tions to the family had come, and their
A1GASo 41pO1S IlctI GIGci1GQ lIlGlI IdlllllGS
| and on the stairs at all hours in the
day, hanging around the front door and
monopolizing the vestibules, could be
met the olive branches of the tenants.
Were one of the flats vacated, it was
hard at first to find a childless tenant,
as the woman without children object
ed to coming to a house where children
We're in evidence all day long. Did the
apartment become too small for the
rapidly increasing family another must
be sought and then the parents ran up
against large sized snag.
If they passed the real estate man
| they encountered the tyrannica1 jani-
tor, who generally escorted them
| through the apartment. expatiated on
all the beauties, and when he had
reused their enthusiasm to a fever heat
he would quietly ask:
ANY children, ma'am?"
Eyes, two or three" Gas the case
might be).
well, ma'am, we take no children,
only adults, in this house.
In the meantime the flats and apart
ment houses continued to go up with
surprising rapidity. For a brief pc
riod DR.. Pa1khurst was a godsend to
the landlord of medium sized flats. He
had cleaned out the Tenderloin and
filled up the uptown fats. He had abol-
ished the old Tenderloin and estab-
Iished almost countless. new ones.
Still the flats were built, whole rows
of them. Still the janitor was king,
and the tenant did not dare say
his soul was his own 1t took four or
five years, perhaps, to bring matters
to where they are to-day. The tenant
could not get out at once; parties with
children remained in the flats they had
hired when they had none until they
became too small, and then moved to
| the country, or took house and kept
/ a few friends, and by degrees rows of
empty flats and uncurtained windows
stared at one as one went northWard
ON the elevated roads. 1T became so
bad that several landlords last fall
| lighted up their apartments and pulled
down the shades as soon as night fell
to give the impression that their flats
were all occupied, leaving perhaps one
or two nlighted as a bait for the fiat
seeker.
To-day everything is changed. The
landlord is the servant, the tenant the
master, and why?
A thorough investigation made by q
| Herald representative last week re-
vealed the fact that there are hun
dreds. nay thousands, of empty flats
in the upper west and east sides of
| New York, and that the fiat owner is
suing and the would-be tenant making
terms The landlord not only offers a
months rent free, and in some cases
two months, anything the tenant wants
in the way of repairs and decorations,
! but if he lacks one essential he sues
and offers i'm vain. The tenant asks
| two questions:
"Ts hot water furnished?h
"Have you open plumbing"
IF the reply is in the negative, that
settles the matter as far as the fiat
hunter is concerned. He viii not have
the fat at any price. No matter that
the polite janitor says.
eve have taken So. S4 or s. off the
rent because we have no hot water and
no open plumbing"
If you will look over the columns of
the Herald" under the heading of
.eFlats and Apartments to Let, Unfur-
nished.' you will find that in nine cases
out of ten the words "hot water" stand
first and occupy the most prominent
place in the advertisement York
Herald.
Modern Wisdom in Love.
she put her arms around his neck and