Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-03-03
NEW YORK CITY
WITHOUT HOMES
METROPOLIS GREAT MASS OF
HOUSELESS HUMANITY
FEW OWN DWELLINGS THERE IN
WHICH THEY LIVE
Startling Statistics Compiled Reveal
Extent to Which Landlord is
Usurping Land and
Building

will soon be a city absolutely Wlthout
homes. Even at the present tlnle II
may be called the greatest homeless
city in the world, and estimates paseu
on the latest census figures show that
nv 1920 more than 100000 persons, OF
practically the entire population OF the
city, will be without homes of their own
and that the private house VIII pc en-
tirely extinct on Manhattan island
The disappearance of the institution
known as the great American nome is
proceeding rapidly in all the large cltles
of the country, but conditions are such
that it is advancing with far greater
speed in the metropolis than anywhere
else. A century ago nearly if not quite
a majority of families owned the houses
in which they lived. Today, in all the
large cities of the country, not III per
cent do SO, and in New York the pro-
portion is only about per cent.
At the present time he total number
of residents in New York is only lit
tie short of 4,500,000. OF these less than
10000 families, or, on the basis of flve
to a family, 100000 persons, own the
homes in which they live. All the re-
lnainder, 9S per cent of the city's total
population, occupy homes owned by
some one else. Sitting under ones own
vine and fig tree is purely an imagin-
airy occupation, so far as New Workers
are concerned. The twentieth century
in fact may be said to mark the be-
ginning of a new era. After the stone
age, the iron age, the fire age, and all
the other ages, the homeless age seems
now to be at hand
Result of Necessity
This change is partly the result of
necessity and partly the result Of
choice. At the tremendous prices OBJ
At, f4, UAt.Ix nCfn 70
a modest home represents an invest
ment of from $4,000 upward, which, Of
course, puts homecoming quite out of
the reach of the ordinary man who is
compelled to house his family in a no.
TEL apartment, tenement or boarding
house-or else go to the suburbs. More
than 100000 people in New York live
in flats, which, on the one extreme, are
called apartments and may cost $4,000
year rental, and on the other extreme
are known as tenements and rent for
$40 a monh. Approximately AGO. 900 per-
sons make hotels their residences and
100000 more, bachelors chiefly, live in
clubs. Perhaps a million and a half
are housed in boarding establishments
which occupy the buildings once used
as private homes. The remainder is
made up of those who rent houses.
Even among those who can afford to
own homes, however, a rapidly in
creasing number are turning to hotels
and apartments. Those who elect to
dwell outside the city in many cases
prefer the convenience of hotel life to
the responsibility of a house of their
own with the inevitable servant prob
lem. Many of those who are classed
as suburbanites are hotel jewellers, and
to accommodate these elaborate and
luxurious hotels are springing up in
suburban points about the city.
The truth of the whole matter is that
domestic life has been brought to a
realization of exactly the same factor
that has marked the commercial de-
velopment of the country, that is that
consolidation means saving of ex-
pense-to someone. In the field of the
great industries it is still a question
as to whether the consumer profits, but
in the field of domestic activities there
is no doubt that the user, that is the
consumer, of a home, can get more for
his money in comforts and luxurieS
corporation than as an indi-
vidual, a statement which is borne out
by the fact that the man of moderate
means on the one side and fashionable
society on the other are both coming
more and more to inhabit country
hotels.
Exclusive Suburbs
The two most exclusive and aristo-
cratic suburban fields of New York are
Long Island on the one side and West
chester county on the other. They are
both sections where rents are not high,
as compared to the New York standard.
and yet curiously enough the homeless
spirit has invaded them to such an ex-
tent that where the facilities are good
more people live in hotels than in their
own homes.
Out on Long Island there is a nest
of millionaires. The Vanderbilts, the
Whitneys, the Mackays and many
others have famous places scattered
about the island. Yet for many months
each year these homes are closed and
the headquarters of society people OF
large and small means alike are not
these famous homes, nor those less pre-
tentious, but a hotel. At Garden City
the center of the Long Island society
colony, the local hotel is the center OF
activities for many people who, while
they own their own homes, prefer to
close them up. More people live In the
hotel than in the whole town. At the
last Vanderbilt cup race it was there
that w. K. Vanderbilt, jr., made his
headquarters instead of at his nearby
but unopened mansion. When the ia
NOUS Briarcliff trophy automobile race
was held in Westchester county it was
not at the palatial but idle homes of its
wealthy promoters that headquarters
were established, but at a local hotel
famous for it's appointments.
Why is it then that this homeless
spirit seems to be developing so rap
idly? Professor Ferrero, the famous
Italian historian who recently visited
this country and likened New York to
ancient Rome, pointed out the Euro
pean influence in this respect. First
of all people even in the country live
in hotels because it is less expensive
to do so and because they are enabled
to meet and know many persons oil
social and business Importance, a thing
which would never happen if they lived
in their own houses. That is one OF
the great factors in the coming of the
homeless age-the desire to mingle
with the people who make hotels their
headquarters. Moreover, the tendency
is steadily growing to follow the Euro
pean custom of moving from hotel to
hotel in keeping with the seasons, and
as result chains of hotels under one
dot the coast from Flori-
da to Maine. in each of which, accord
ing to the time of year, one may look
to find circle of hotel friends living
the peripatetic society life.
Get Many Comforts
AS a matter of fact it is becoming
that the corporation shelter
ing thousands can give them comforts
never dreamed of in the old idea of
he individual home. Golf links, ten
lis courts, billiard rooms and swim
ming pools-these are only a few of
he attractions aside from the greatest
that is, the social features. which the
uburban hotel furnishes at a cost to
he person making his home there far
ess than the annual rental, let alone