The Washington times., 1905-05-20
4 New Apartment. .

Nearly every day the news columns
set forth d protest from the owner
of some residence against the erection
next door of great apartment house,
overshadowing, disproportionate, and
ugly on three sides, if not all four.
With these objections the community
sympathizes. Either the apartment
house must stand like a great brick
on end, surrounding it's neighbors
and darkening the street, or it must
become one OF a series of such build
ings to shut out the air and sunlight
as those luxuries are shut out of New
York.
But this is not the only way in
which apartment houses are Offend
ing in Washington. Certain capital
lists have recently built here a struc-
ture as repulsive to the eyes and
lungs and body as any tenement house
erected in New York in the past ten
years. For the sake OF Is per cent
dividends. they have packed away
human beings in every available inch
OF space from street to alley, family
Of four. six. or eight in every two
rooms. twelve feet square; and some
times these four or SIX or eight eat
and sleep and breathe the foul air OF
only one such room Think Of it
thirty such apartments" on each
floor and about forty families
This is bad enough for Washing
ton-this shutting up Of little chill
dren and tired parents in cubby-holes,
darkened and fetfd But it is not all.
Capitalists can go a great deal fur
Their than that, and not lose heart.
The sanitary" appliances installed in
this tenement make it menace to
every life within its four walls. Dis
ease soaks into the floors, hangs in
the air, and permeates the walls And
the building is new,
Some one might have interviewed il
the law had been adequate. But IN
der the law the supervision OF the |
SO thick. and the pipes of such and /
such material and dimensions. The +.
lot may be 125 feet deep; but it can
be built up solidly for lis feet, no
matter how little light there may be
for the creatures huddled inside; and
il the lot abuts on an alley in the
rear it can be built up for its entire |
depth. The Health Office can inter- I
yape 0f po,1yco on6 Gao fIDa+ for 90
day or one week the place is clean. |
But no health Office can take that !
smell cut OF the walls or keep the
place clean. And the whole District |
government cannot carry the health |
Of sunlight and fresh air to a single |
family OF little ones, a single tagged
out mother, single discouraged /
father.
And all this is true-not OF the
East Side of New York. or the LON
bard and South street districts of |
Philadelphia-but of Washington, the |
best-governed city in America. We /
who live here are proud of the Capt. |
tai. We look out on its broad streets,
or We stroll through its leafy parks. |
or we stand before its noble buildings
with our hearts content in the city's
beauty and cleanliness But these
poor people, stuffed away in this pest
house OF malaria, typhoid, and con-
sumption-they are not proud OF it.
Capitalists will ask us what we are
going TO do about it. And the Dis
triet authorities will ask us what we
would have them do, with the laws
as they are. And prominent citizens |
will ask us what good we are doing
by "disparaging" the fair name of |
the city. We shall answer these ques- |
lions in due time But just now our
eyes refuse TO see anything but these
six or eight human beings huddled |
together in two small rooms, breath
ing in disease and wasting their lives
away because the best-goyerned city
in America b<s not law enough to
make its capitalists build sanitary
apartments"