New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-10-15
THE TENEMENT PRooRUsrES.

The classic representation of Procustes was
not an amiabe one He had a bed, they tell
u.s. which he compelled all his guests-unwill-
ing ones. of course-tO use. And, instead OF
making up the bed to suit the guests he made
the guests to fit the bed. If the guest was
! shorter than the bed, as seems from Procrustess
name generally to have been the case, he
stretched him out to its full length, and If he
was longer than the bed, he chopped off the
superfuous inches. And the old brtgands
name has come down to us in execrated noto-
riety a synonyme for the ruthless sacrificing
of man to arbitrary rules.
The report of the observations and inyesdga-
lions of the Tenement House Commission sug-
gest the thought that Procrustes has Outlived
the classic age and has survived in pernicious
activity until this present time. He Is or was
incarnated in the man who devised the proper
tons of the city building lot That is the
Procrustean bed to the arbitrary dimensions
of which the multitudinous tenement house
dweller is perforce adapted. And 1T Is from
such adaptation that the most and the worst
OF the evils of tenement houses proceed. Light,
air, privacy, sanitary equipments and other
comforts and decencies and necessities of life
are lacking. Why? Because there is not room
for them in a building on small a lot. They
are chopped off to make the guest fit the Pro-
crustean bed. Instead of the ground being d.
vided to suit the needs of man, man and his
needs are compressed to fit an arbitrary d.
vision of the ground
1t is a striking indication of the evils of I'M
restricted greed that there has been steady
lessening of the size of city lots. The depth
is fixed, of course, by the size of the block. But
the width is variable, and has been decreased
as greed of gain has increased Time was
when % feet formed the standard width though
double lots of twice that width were common.
Then there was some fellow who discovered
that by reducing the width to about 2212 feet
he could divide a certain plat of ground into
eleven instead of ten lots, and build eleven in
stead of ten houses; and as the difference in
width would scarcely be noticed, he could
get as good prices for 2212 foot as for 25
foot houses, and eleven rentals instead of ten
from his ground. Soon another reduction was
similarly made to 20 feet, which is now the
standard" width of private houses and of the
most generous tenements. In many places,
however, the 1S-foot lot is considered as stand
ard and Is foot as merely narrow" while a
2O-foot house is called extra wide" Nor is
that the end of reduction, for legion is the name
of the old 25-foot lots which are now made
to bear two houses or tenements of only 1919
feet each
Now, if a man is willing to live largely on
the stairs he may get along very we'll in
1212-foot private house, or one of even half
that width. Such a house may have every
room opening directly upon the outer air, and
so be well lighted and ventilated and may be
provided with ''all the comforts of home" But
with a tenement the case is different. With
one or two families on each floor, so narrow
a lot means that the inmates must be deprived
of the supply of light and circulation of air
which are necessary for their wellbeing. If
the building be not more than two or three
stories high its plight will be bad. To build a
one family, a floor to a height of six
eight STORIES is frequently done in this city,
is simply murder.
good many years ago the evil Of dark inner
rooms widely prevailed, and there were those
who were prepared to demonstrate mathemati-
caIy and scientifically, that it could not be
otherwise, and that such rooms were as neces-
sary as the movement of the tides, and to prove,
morally and legally. that it was right that it
should be so and that those rooms should be
jealousy guarded as one of our essential insti-
tutiOns. But some unconvinced refOrmers got
a law enacted abolishing the dark rooms and
then what a rafting of dry bones there was, to
be sure when some forty thousand windows
were cut through in the twinkling of an eye!
We should just like to see a similar experiment
made in regulating the size of city lots and the
width of houses erected upon them. We should
not be a bit surprised if the modern bed of
Procrustes were thus made to expand to fit the
needs of its occupants.