The San Francisco call., 1909-11-06
TABLOID HOMES
OF THE PRESENT
Effect of Apartment Houses
May Be Curtailment OF
Our Hospitality
By MARY AsHE MILLER

II
= seismic-have been positively
hurled at US or our predecessors in the
art of being San Franciscans ever since
the water came up to Montgomery
street. but these we have managed to
override or evade. Now we are face to
face with something worse than any OF
these. We bid fair TO lose our famous
and much priced observation-disclosures
characteristics as dwellers in the city
by the western gate" Can you remem-
ber all the superlative buoyant words
and phrases that have described US:
breezy, careless ways; our air OF the
large places and open spaces; our un-
conventional freedom; our development
OF the artistic and musical tempera-
ment, and the like.
Are these to be but memories for fu
Greeks and Romans their glories OF the
long ago? Are we to become color
less, bloodless people-and through liv-
ing in apartment houses. for there lies
the germ of our danger?
ask you, as the German comedian
says, can any one maintain a lavish
hospitality with a "kitchenette"
breezy. careless way" when there must
be a place for everything and every
thing in it's place, or such hopeless con-
fusion that paresis will soon end all;
an "air of the large places and open
spaces" in three, four or five rooms in
which. like the London home of dear
Mr.. Dick in David Copperheld," there
was not room to swing a cat? Mr..
Dick. you may remember. remarked
that1t was fortunate that he did not
want to swing a cat and he was merely
anticipating by about a century the
docile spirit of an apartment dweller
Our unconventional freedom will be
on the wane, too, for any marked mani
festations along that line are entirely
out of place when you live in a piece OF
house. You would bump into your
next door, across the hall. overhead or
under foot neighbOr. I have heard re-
Gently of the complaints of one OF these
en- masse inhabitants who became ex-
cessively annoyed because the woman
above her whose avoirdupois was ex-
cessive would roll morning and night
in an endeavor to become syIphlike.
She said the noice was something aw-
full" Fancy such curtailing of liberty.
Then, too, how could musical tenn
perament'' be developed when the rules
of the house forbid any attempts at mu-
sic after 1890 p. M?
So we bid fair to become a careful.
orderly, delieately hammered, consid-
crate but selfish people with all of our
old. superabundant vitality, exuberance
and spontaniety gone-packed away
could not get into our apartments when
we moved from a real house
The first apartment house made it's
appearance here about IL years ago, 1
| think-the Strathmore. in Larkin street
just back of the city hall-a big, red
brick building with wide halls, huge,
i'll connected rooms and enough waste
space to drive an apartment owner Of
the present day to distraction. Five
years ago there were not more than
one could count on the fingers Of ones
two hands of these tabloid homes.
Since the fire they have sprung up
with mushroomlike growth, and now
either completed or in process of build
ing there are at least 200, ranging from
| two room divisions to those of -
| rooms, and in rent from SIS to $500 un-
furnished.
All the old complaints of boarding
| houses, all the sins laid at their doors
as to divorce courts. idle wives and
pasty faced. precocious children, are
now transferred to apartment houses,
but it must be said, most unjustly.
:
lack of space and of possibilities of
contact with good Mother Earth, con-
ditions are less pernicioSs for GER
tain types of young wives and for chill
dren than when boarding
A woman in apartments is a busy
person, even II she has a servant
plurality of these is generally out OF
the question-if she simply puts things
back in their special little hooks TO
preserve the space available for NOV
ing about. If box couches had not
been invented one trembles to think
of the life of the woman in partments
In some instances-and ore shudders a.
the thought and the realization OF
| the increase of the evil-there are
wall beds'-a shade more insanitary
and, l should think, humiliating to the
sleeper than folding beds. These beds
by night are mantels or paneIed mir
rors by day. Tables zone hears. are
| being trained to disappear into the
walls or floors, and kitchens are sim
ply reduced to the least common de-
nominator. Living rooms" have ab-
| s6rbed the dining room and amalga-
mated it with the drawing or sitting
ROOM. Pity the shades OF our pioneer
forefathers. the men who lived all out
of doors with the plains for the hoo-
and the sky for the ceiling
| .1nere are compensations which our
! forefathers did not have, however. and
it is these that are filing the new
buildings.
| No splitting of kindling, fetching OF
wood or carrying out of ashes for
those in apartments. Gas stoves and
steam heat are at their service by
turning a key. Janftors assume the
burdens of heavier cleaning, hall bovs
stand between you and an obtrusive
public. elevators carry you up wearf-
some stairs, protection is furnished by
the nearness of her neighbors to the
lone woman, who. like Kipling's Hurree
Babu, is "veree fearful" In short.
everything is compact. convenient. time
saving. hurry aiding. labor minimizing.
! temper soothing and even, if necessary.
servant avoiding