New-York tribune., 1908-06-21

not lar from the Spr1nSneiu turnpike ana lHO
old Jersey town of Miburn, where few years
ago real estate concern made money by cut
ting farm UP into minute plots. with lanes be-
tween Them and selling them to Italians and
others who would buy. The average lot
IA feet wide and 35 feet long. These lots sold
low s14 each and averaged about $25.
title being guaranteed by a Newark company.
They could be bought easy terms 50 down
and low so cents a week. Italians who
worked miles away heard of the offer and
bought A number of negroes took advantage
of it, too
The outcome of this experiment is interesting
and just a bit amusing. The Italians and their
negro neighbors caught the American spirit
well holding 10 the thrifty Italian ways.
They bought up two threa lots and combined
them for themselves: then bought Il few more
as speculation. There is hardly one of the
first rough shacks TO be seen now. II is pTiIai-
tive enough but the shantes have either been
torn down, or, when they were large and strong
enough. have been modeInized by covering them
with weather boarding and shingles and by plas-
tering inside Little piazzas have been added.
The twenty-five dollar lots are now rated at
$50. Just villa sites along Riverside
Drive plaStered with for sale signs the visit or
to this little settlement boards painted a
bright yellow bearing the sign For sale and
ures carefully as if it were in Broadway. iu
the heart of the skysCraper district. You notice
that nearly all of the owners who want TO seb
give addresses away off in Newark, or Ruther-
ford. in The Bronx. in New York The Names
characteristicalIy Italian.
A negro scrub woman has well built house
with least four rooms. lot forty feet
square, all having cost about $500. The whole
amount Of her yearly taxes would not pay for .
dirty. dark and stufry tenement of three
rooms in the worst part OF New York for tive
weeks.
A number of the inhabitants of the settlement
out of work Just at this time It is not
worrying them much one fellow seen sit
ting under the shade of a little yeranda playinF,
cards with his wife. the children at play
at hand It was in the middle of the day. He
had evidently done all he could do in the vel
kept little garden that is supplying large part
of the daily menu, helped out by the goat thai
, roams field near by and by d minimum pur'
chase from al Italian general store III a struct
ure about ten feet wide by twenty long lie
was enjoying life in spite of the industrial de-
preston.
This place may be wiped out within few
months at some advantage TO the present own
| ers. Surveys are being made the propcr,J
adjoining for laying out plots of highly re-
| ing lots in the settlement are watching the pro-
| ceedings with great interest They say that
| their new neishbors will not want to be near
! them and that they will probably buy out the
! undesirabIes at good advance in prices.
The thrift of foreigners does not always mean
| that they devote themselves increasingly to
hard work and accumulation Frenchman
who plays the violin in a big downtown res
: taurant has built with his hands jn-
posing country house in the outskirts of 4 fash
ionable New Jersey suburb. He plans 70 live
three months of the year at ease there when he
has it finished. Adjoining him is the property
of a waiter. who has built house that is not
imposing but is comfortable. He Cultivates a
garden raises chickens, rabbits and pigeons ard
spends three-quarters of the year potterins
around this place. content with tne money that
he can earn in the work of a few weeks in
winter.