Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-20
VILLAGE OF ORPHAN CHILDREN.
Cottage System for Caring for Juve-
nile Wards Established.

FROM PUBIC OPINION
On the hills back Of Dobbs Ferry, over
looking the Hudson, Is being built a re-
markable village, with cottages, schools, a
hospital, a church, gymnasiums and rec
reation grounds. 1t is the new home Of the
New York juvenile asylum, and as soon
as the buildings of the new community are
completed this institution intends to aban-
don it's huge brick building at Amsterdam
avenue and 176th street, which 1t has oc-
cupied for nearly half century, and
which the rapid growth Of the city north
ward has now made undesirable. But the
removal of the asylum is by no means one
OF situation alone. An entirely new system
is to be established in the training and edu-
cation of the thousand or more boys and
girls who have been picked up from the
streets and alleys of the great city with the
hope and purpose of making them useful
citizens In their present home they have
been herded together in one great building
There nearly 1000 sleep study, work and
play On entering the institution MANY of
them thought it was a JAIL and even the
kind treatment which they received in the
years that followed was not enough to dis
suade them from such belief. But in the
new home at Dobbs Ferry it is believed nv
the men at the head of the institution
there will be no Jail horror haunting the
minds of the children. Instead of one great
penitentiary building there will be sixty
cottages each a little home In itself pre-
sided over by man and his wife called
the house mother and the house father
There will be boys cottages and girls cot
tages, each large enough for twenty. Each
cottage Is to have it's own dining room,
sitting room and bath room
The Hudson farm with its aggregation
of buildings. is to be the most comprehen-
sive institution of it's kind in the United
States. Within an Enclosure of 277 acres
there are to be forty cottages accommo-
dating 500 boys: twenty cottages for 400
girls; three buildings. which are termed the
administration group, for the superintend-
ent and other officers; a library and NIL
scum and separate gymnasiums with lock-
ers and swimming pools for boys and girls
There are schools where the younger chill
dren may study and the older ones work
at various trades and vocations such as
blacksmithing, tailoring, shoemaking. short
hand and biography. A church occunies
the southern hill of the grounds The din
ing rooms are supplied with food from
a central kitchen. In the cottages are also
individual kitchens, where food NAV be re-
heated If necessary. The whole group of
seventy-five buildings will be heated and
furnished with water from central plants.
The change Of surroundings from the
prisonlke halls of the present building tn
the cottage life of the Dobbs Ferry farm
although entailihg greater cost, will, it
is believed, fhave marked effect on the
after life Of the children. These waits are
brought to the asylum through the courts
and the Gerry Society. Nearly all, even at
their early taSe,, have committed a GRIM
inal offense,, because of their extreme
youth-for all are between the ages of five
and fifteen ysarsTthey are not sent to Ran
dalls Island with older and more hardened
offenders, but Kept by themselves At the
Dobbs Ferry farm they will be still fur
Their removed from criminal associations.