Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-10-03
TENEME ENT
ALTERATIONS
ORDERED.
State Inspectors Find Startling
Conditions at Many Houses,
Some of Them JUST Built.
URGE BUILDING CODE
State Officials Tell NEWS Reporter
of Their Observations - Law of
Two Years Ago Requires That
Plans Be Filed With the Commits
sion, But That Law Has, They
Assert, Been Disregardcd Locally.


sion, But That Law Has, They
Assert, Been Disregardcd Locally.
The tenement house conditions in
various parts of this city, as found by
the state inspectors and the local
health Inspector, DR.. G. w. Fithian,
of the Board of Health last night. DR..
Fithian reported having conferred
with the state officials, who have
been here for some time.
DIR. Fithian mentioned several ten
ements which must be improved i'm
mediately. Some of them are the
Armstrong tenement on Prospect
street; the Gadek tenement; Kram
er's tenement at Madison avenue and
Fayette street; 231 Washington
street; and the large tenement at De-
Kalb avenue and High street. DR..
Fithian stated that the owner of the
last named>place cannot be located.
The consensus of opinion was that
the state inspectors are handling the
matters very capably.
Inspectors Take Measures.
Two inspectors and supervisor,
from the State Tenement House Com
mission, made thorough tour of this
city yesterday.
In conversation with a NEWS re-
porter, one of the officials said:
"We have made an inspection of
the entire city, and | must say that
the conditions in this city are the
worst that | have ever seen. Build
ings are put up regardless of plans,
and in some instances even without
judgment We inspected the Garrett
son tenement in North Amboy, and
found it unsanitary and not in ac-
cordance with the law. 1t contains
about twenty dark rooms, which is
not allowed by the department. So
far we have found the people willing
to make the necessary changes with
one exception, and he is Joseph Ga
dek. We came here two weeks ago,
and, after finding out what buildings
needed altering, also the buildings
tiidb WClC DClhso ClCttOo Plohp
had not been filed, notified the own
ers to make the changes and to file
drawings. Today we found that Mr..
Gadek had disregarded our instruc-
tions, and had continued to work on
a building on Valley place, back of
Pulaski avenue.
''The law of March, 1904, says
that plans of all tenement houses and
also stores and private dwellings,
must be filed with us. Mr.. Gadek has
not complied, and we will take ac-
tion against him at once.
"Since we started to inspect this
city, we have received over 100 plans
at our Office in Newark, and the pub
lie does fully appreciate what we
have done.'
The inspectors will be here a few
more days, after which they will be
through. According to their state
ments about fifty buildings here must
be altered. The owners will be noti-
fed, and failure to comply will mean
that legal action will result.
In the opinion of the inspectors a
building department and code are
needed here at once.
''The building departments are self
sustaining, and would cost the city
practically nothing, said a tenement
house official, ''and with a local in
spector your city would reap much
benefit"
The reason why the inspectors are
making such a strict investigation in
this city is because only a few of the
local architects and builders have
filed plans with the department. The
law of 1904 compels all builders to
file plans of every structure.
mo carpenter or mason has any
right to draw a plan," said the su-
pervisor; 'only a licensed architect
should do that, and then we would
not have to do so much inspecting"
In some of the tenement houses
the owners are already making nee
essary changes, and the commission
expects general cooperation on their
part.
Good Results Assured.
The present movement may be a
great benefit to this locality, as one
of the commission said yesterday, and
from the present outlook large
number of new structures are to be
erected soon, which is proven by the
fact that 100 local sets of plans are
now at the departments Office in
Newark.
81 know of house in North Am
boy" said the official, that is now
being built without any plans at all.
The man who is building it, construc-