Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-25
HENRY PH|PPS' PLANS
Model Tenements in New
York City.
WILL PAY 4 PER CENT
BUILDING FUND WILL BE $64,-
100000 AT END OF CENTURY.
Experience of the Sanitary Housing
Company of This City-How
Business Was Expanded.
BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS.

nificence of Mr.. Henry Phipps of the Car
regie Company, who formerly lived at
Pittsburg, then at Washington and now at
New York, and spends most of his summers
at Beaufort castle, in Scotland, which he
has leased from Lord Lovat. He has given
away a great deal of money for charitable
purposes without saying anything about it
to any one whose cooperation was not
necessary in carrying out his schemes, and
he bushes when you ask him for the par
ticulars. A couple of months ago he gave
100000 for the construction of model
tenements in the crowded part of New
FORK city. which shall contain every COM
fort and convenience necessary to the
health and happiness of the occupants, and
be rented at a rate that shall pay 4 per
cent net upon the investment after deduct
ing a reasonable allowance for maintenance
and repairs.
Il do not think it is right said Mr.
Phipps, Ito give anything for nothing
What is worth having is worth paying for,
or worth working for, at least, and the new
tenements are not intended to be pure
.benevolence. We are going to make a bust
ness of philanthropy and demonstrate, as
others have already done, that comfortable
convenient apartments, with modern SAN
ltary arrangements and plenty of pure air
and sunshine Will pay good dividends. We
hope to make ours pay per cent after in
vesting in them all the money that is nee
essary to make them model dwellings for
the wage-earning classes. Four per cent is
a reasonable revenue from any real estate
investment, and we do not think it is right
for us to underbid any other real estate
owner who will furnish equally good ac
commodations. On the contrary, l wish to
encourage individual investors to build sim
liar tenements upon purely business basis.
We will try to demonstrate that sanitary
tenements OF the best class will pay.
Our plan is to put up one building as an
experiment and see how it takes before
starting a second; but we hope to make a
permanent thing of it, and have organized
a company which will have charge of the
business. All the earnings will be reinvest
ed in the same kind of buildings.
The corporation will be called The
Phipps Houses Mr.. Phipps will be pres
ident, Mr.. Isidore Straus of Macy & Co.,
vice president, and Robert W. De Forest,
tenement-houSe commissioner of New York
under Mayor Low, will be chairman of the
executive committee and will have imme-
date control of the affairs The other
trustees are Mayor Mcclellan, Charles
Stewart Smith Crecently president of the
Chamber of Commerce., w. S. Halk of the
Manhattan Hotel, and several practical ten
ement house men, including Or. E. r. L.
Gould, president of the City and Suburban
Homes Company; Alfred I. White. Miles
Tierney and Charles S. Brown. who We're
members of the New York state tenement
house commission for many years.
Plans of the Phipps Houses.
The plans of the Phipps houses limit
them to six stories, or not more than one
and one-half times the width of the street
They will be as nearly freproof as possible
brick and steel being the materials of con-
struction; they will be divided into apart
ments of two, three and four rooms, and
Will be rented for 81 80, $50 and s. per
nf
lot will be left free for air and play
grounds. Every room will be lighted by
not less than one window, which will be at
least twenty-five feet from a wall; every
room will have at least seventy square feet
of area; the halls will be three or more
feet wide; the stairs will have a rise of
eight inches. Every apartment will be
heated by steam and contain a bath tub
with hot and cold water, a water closet a
stationary wash tub, a sink of ample size,
gas fixtures, gas range, q closet or
dresser, and be supplied with hot and cold
water from a central boiler system. No
living rooms will be rented in the base
ment, which will be partitioned off into
store rooms.
The board of directors has been organized
and Is now negotiating for block on the
East Side, upon which the work of building
will be begun before the end of the present
summer.
These are not the first model tenements
which have been built In New York. how
ever There are several blocks of them
erected by philanthropic people. but Mr..
Phipps is the first man to found a self
perpetuating society for that purpose.
Model tenements have also been erected in
all of the great cities of Europe and In In
dia, and even in Manila. Although little or
nothing has ever been said about them IN
the official reports of the commission or In
the newspapers. the American government
has built several model tenement houses
with the latest conveniences and sanitary
improvements as object lessons for real es-
tate owners in that city. 1t has Invested
little more than $4,000 In twenty apart
nents of three and five rooms each. In
1904 ten of them rented for IS and ten more
for 81 per month making the gross reVe-
nues 81, 800. The expenses OF maintenance
was $206. As, leaving Sl595.5o net earnings
which is SO per cent on the investment.
This however, does not include any allow
ance for taxes, insurance or repairs. Inese
models have attracted considerable atten-
ton from people interested In the supJecl
and are already being Initiated by private
investors.
Sanitary Housing Company.
One of the most novel and successtul
schemes of tho kind has been conducted
by 1.-THE Sanitary Housing Company OF
Washington, of which former surgeon
General Sternberg of the army is the NOV
ing spirit. Interested with him are twenty
or more prominent citizens who have SUBJ
scribed 500 OOO capital. which has been In
vested in blocks of houses in the Sums OF
South Washington. The scheme was start
ed in 1897 with a fund of $4,000, winch
Surgeon General Sternberg secured from
friends. He kept on building as fast as he
could raise the money, until now the com
many has assets amounting to S4Zl,9lo,
represented by 126 two-story houses, con,
tanning 252 apartments of three, four ana
five rooms EACH all of which are occupied
by the most desirable class of tenants
temperate and industrious mechanics and
other wage-earners of the better class. The
three-room flats rent for $3.50 down stairs
and Sll upstairs per month: the four-room
flats from So 80 to $16.50; the fiye-room
fats for SIG and S21 per month. Each
fiat has a bath room and kitchen sink, with
hot and cold water, water-closet two or
more closets, a kitchen dresser, good
range, an independent entrance, a separate
yard and back as well as front door.
A novel feature, which, understand, has
not been tried elsewhere, but has proven
very successful in Washington, is a system
of rebates. which was adopted at the out
set of the enterprise. One months rent
or so much thereof as may be necessary,
is expended in repairs and redecoration, In
keeping the apartment In perfect order. If
no expenditure is necessary the entire sum
is returned to the tenant, and he receives
any balance that is left after the necessary
repairs and renewals are paid for. The
tenant thus has a special inducement to
keep things in order and to prevent the