The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-08-04
BEAuTY oF \ cITY BLoeK.

 some 50 feet high.
 Each proud householder or tenant occupies vertical strip in these pigeon holes which he calls home, ad which is in his inviolable ideal sacred, private. isolated.
 The size and shape of the block was forced upon New York by city fathers of an earlier day. It would be interest i ing to know if those worthies in whose hands was intrusted so large share of our health and happiness really gave a thought to the necessities of human living when they thus compressed our habitations. If they did, and the thought was herein expressed, it is clear that to their minds there was nc harm in grinding smonotony, unbroken ugli- ness and crowding which is well-nigh indecent. Tn another century we shall call it indecent. All these huddled houses pressed into a solid cubical honeycomb (without the honey) stand presenting their shrunken and wasted ears to one another, while the denizens have no outlook of beauty in any direc- tion.
 The one governing purpose of these little yards, which reaches it's perfect height when the small roofless cell is frankly. concreted and strung across with beams, is to dry clothes.
 Herein show beyond evasion the real necessities of a home. as we view them. Beyond any dream of beauty. health, comfort or place of play for little ones comes this vital necessity of the home a place to dry clothes, Whatever else the home may or may not be it must be a laundry.
 How about the floor space in the block?
 The cellar space amounting to 120,- 900 square feet. is given up entirely, to the heating plant. for these hundred families, with some storage. The en- tire basement floor is occupied by the feeding plant-sometimes the dining room is upstairs, but the space is the same. Here are two stories of an entire block, floor space of .240, 1000 square feet, equivalent to S3 homes, devoted to warming and feding 800 people. Then comes the home proper, the place where the family lives, where it sleeps where it rests, where it enjoys its intimate relationships and to which lit invites its friends. Out of a five story home two stories are surrendered to prelininaries and the family is crowded Into the remaining three. The mechanical pressure still con- tinuing, there has arisen to meet it the apartment house and under the in- dustrial pressure the apartment hotel, and the rapid increase and instant oc- cupatfon of these edifices show that they meet a need. Against them in- weighs the pious, inert-minded dweller in the past, Men who have never had a moments grief over the horizontal pigeonholes of block in which each blissfully private family occupies a vertical strip are filled with anguish when similar row of pigeon holes towers upright and each family oc- cupies a horizontal strip.
 There is no privacy" cries the ob- jector. It must be that back yard laundry he Is bewailing or else the front doorsteps. They have lost their clothes drier; the sacred petticoat and pillow cases must now be exposed to scrutiny on the roof, instead of in the yard, or even in last enormity in last enormity be sent out. But aside from this cruel deprivation and the beautiful brown stone steps on which the family might enjoy 10 feet of privacy of a summer levening they were in town surely there is no less seclusion in rooms arr ranger on one floor than in the same number scattered over four stories. Is it the stairs which constitute I privacy the inner stairs as well as the outer steps? Perhaps there really Is that. Those centuries in which we climbed tree to be safe at home, pulled up ladders, built us towers of defense, may be still stirring in our blood, and to go home without having to go up does not seem the real thing. Tn the aparatment house we econo- ! mize at once in cellar space, but we still waste riotously in the amount of room devoted to the feeding processes l In small seven room fiat three go to kitchen dining room and servants room, leaving the family but four, or Ii the dining room is otherwise used part of the time say four and half. I As a result of living in our pigeon holes. hofizontal-vertical or vertical. horizontal, we suffer in body and mind land soul for lack of room, air, sun shine, pease and beauty.
 Tn country home you have light ant air; quiet, the beauty of the garden and room inside for personal expression and mutual entertainment. Iii the city
 home we have given up all these for tht
 sake of the laundry, the kitchen ant l the front steps. Now. if we chose W,
 could have in our city homes light, air comparative quiet, room essential; il
 place of the garden court of Orienta ! beauty, and in place of the extra spac for amusement in each home ia
 broader choice of entertainment.
 Our club has all the home comforts lsaid the men in the story. "Yes,'' re piled his wife, land when will our hom
 have all the club comforts?''
 ! When we build them into each block I When we recognize the swimming DOG land gymnasium as common comfort
 and necessities of life. When we hay
 billiards and bowling and all manne
 of easy games shorn of artificial an
 dangerous allurements and handy fo imother as we'll as father.
 I When the well stocked reading roor