The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1903-05-17
LIVES WELL IN NEW YORK
ON AN INCOME OF $500

wall. It's an extravaganza that he can't
help.
The first problem in the $500 a year
set of troubles is to get your window
outlook without the humiliation of going
off of Manhattan island for it. Nothing
is so bad the suburb. It's neither city
nor country. 1t has the disadvantages of
both and the delights of neither
Il wouldn't say word about Brooklyn
if the man who wrote In the Sun last
Sunday about the alleged delight of living
in that borough hadn't gone out of his
way to knock Harlem and to accuse ev-
erybody on the north end or Manhattan
of being a dark-closet dweler. Have you
seen that new geological chart of New
York city published by the United States
government? There are as many colors
in it as in a pousse cafe TO indicate the
different kinds of rock formation.
We'll, the Brooklyn region is colored
with pale, sickly yellow, which, ac-
cording to the key means formation not
determined, area deeply covered by drift
and artificially made land Just think of
living a place which even the govern
ment experts have to give up as a hope
less conundrum and admit that the Lord
only knows what it's made of.
"Of course every prospective tenant
does not ask the jantor TO what geolo-
gical period the foundations of his house
belong, but it's pleasant TO know that
this fine old island of Manhattan is made
of good material that can be vouched for,
all solid rock and two miles wide. And
the farther north you go the higher and
better the rock gets. That brings me to
what l started to tell you, that Wash
ington Heights is the place in which to
live well on $500 year.
There are two good rules that ev-
SALARY WOnll do we'll to
adopt as the foundation of his household
financial system: First, to save at least
a tenth of his income, and, second, not
to pay more a month for his rent than
he earns in a week On that basis can
afford to pay $40 month for my house,
because $500 a year means $40 week.
But the dweller on Washington
Heights can do much better than that.
Here's what l actually get IN the way
of shelter for s45 month-seven rooms
and a bath and a storeroom.
did you ever hear of a storeroom in
a downtown apartment? It's on the same
floor, of course, with the other rooms,
and is seven feet square, big enough for
stack of trunks and all the odds and
ends the slowing of which is usually the
despair of the seven-roomers in other
parts of the town. Over in Brooklyn,
suppose, the $45 month man would
call that storeroom a music room or
something like that He would have to
in order to get his moneys worth.
But the best thing about the place is
that in those seven rooms there are eleven
big windows, each of them opening on
all outdoors, and from all of them you
can see the Hudson river and the PAIL
sades over on the Jersey shore. So there
Is the view that's just as essential as
steam heat or open plumbing and | put
that first because it's about the best
thing l manage to pay for out Of my
$780,
So allowing s45 a month for rent and
not forgetting the 10 per cent to be saved.
my $500 gets used up in the service of
my wife and young daughter and my
self on schedule something like this,
figuring on the totals of a year:
Rent. -. :. ...................S $40
Food ........,.. LOU
Clothes ..-...... GU
School bills ........... 100