The sun., 1919-10-12
~ HARRIET sIssoN GILLESPIE


Yoikers. and the sight of subway and
trolley car passengers Of anxious coun-
tenance pouring diligently ever the small
advertisements In the daily newspapers
Is common one. News of the big
front page leads. the steel strike, the
peace treaty and even the progress of
the royal Belgians have all taken a
back seat In favor of chasing a home.
Quite unaware Of their surroundings
they keep their pencil poised ready to
bracket any notice that seems to offer
CLEAN of hope, all the while feeling
perfectly sure In their hearts that the
rents demanded will soar far beyond
what their slender purses afford.
The psychological effect on janitors
and landlords of the unwonted popu-
larity of even the least desirable fat Is
such that they can't be reached by the
low bourgeois. So bored have these
dig6itaries become with the hordes of
applicants that they either smile audibly
when approached or else they won't ap-
pear at all. To the query. Have you
any apartments vacant7 they shrug
their shoulders; IL you happen to catch
them unawares, they laugh cynically.
saying, 81 only wish I had" the voice
and manner being such as to Indicate
what they would do to their Victims IL
they had the chance.
Even after an apartment is duly ad-
vel tised in the paper It doesn't always
mean that one can see 1t. Such fiat
was discovered on Park avenue. On
reaching the address the woman In
search found a note tackled over the
doorbell with the warning, Apartment
can't be shown until Friday. Don't ring
the bell" AS 1t then happened to be
Tuesday, and as 1t was necessary to
geta roof over her head by Thursday
she decided to ignore the warning and
so rang the bell. She was received with
austere chilliness on the part of the
caretaker and admonished that under
no conditions could the apartment be
shown until Friday. so the woman re-
luctantly left, feeling perfectly positive
she had lost the opportunity of her life
by not getting It Following up another
clue and calling a Greenwich Village
phone number given IN the advertise
ment, she couldn't even learn where tho
apartment was and was only vouchsafed
the information that It was lover $75,"
which goes to show that apartments to
rent are guarded as q miser guards his
gold
One Must Cultivate "Nerve."
In the non-elevator apartments II
simply means that the fat hunter must
beard the lion in his den and descend
into the bowels Of the earth to find the
janitor or the janitress. for they won't
answer. No amount OF ringing at the
innocuous looking bell will bring any
one TO life. not even the be-aproned In
dividual who in the old days used to
stand at the bottom of the area stairs
and shout, What did you want?' Those
happy days are gone and now It means
Drawing the uncanny depths OF the base
mont, than which. to the average per son.
nothing is more mysterious.
After travelling through dark alleys
the way may lead into the cold, gray
atmosphere of the court area and per-
haps il you are lucky head will be
stuck out of a door In some quarter and
a foreign voice will announce even be-
fore you have had time to ask that
there are no apartments TO be had.
Presumably the door will then be shut
in your face and the only thing to dc
is TO retrace your steps up and out into
Gods sunshine once more.
Such little things a. these wouldn't
discourage the nat hunter. however. II
there were homes to be had-some-
where. The discouraging thing 10 to
know that there IL simply nofhing avail
able. Even the two room apartments
have gone up to almost unbelievable
figures There is nothing TO be had
under 800. Fifty dollars a room seems
to be the bottom price. From this the
rents soar up to the thousands One
apartment on Park avenue is to be had
at $500. A three room apartment on
Riverside Drive Is to bring $4,000. This
Is 81 900 or more q room. Nor are all
the high priced apartments OF this sort
In what 10 commonly known ~ the
fashionable section The high remit
have levelled all barriers OF caste anc
custom and folk are glad enough 70 gel
apartments In sections whore once upon
q time they wouldn't dream Of uvtnG.
EverybeAy's Payins n.
II would seem as n these prices would
be prohibitive except for the very rich
but from the statements of real estate
men others are paying II But a. one
hears II asked daily, where do % many
people get the money to do It? Other
men. keen students Of conditions. say Q
lot of expensive apartments Will bt
thrown back on the agents hands aftei
the first of the year because the tenants
simply won't be able TO carry them
Every one Is all keyed UP now to get
home and get settled for the winter, anc
thew are taking upon themselves burden:
that they simply can't handle They
will have to unload. with the result thai
rents will come down and there win b
more apartments to be had
Perhaps the quickest raise In renti
yet registered 10 In an apartment II
the Eighties. which was $4,000 when
woman house hunter went up TO look a.
Il and S2,400 when abe came down
II had advanced S400 in twenty minutes
And SO far as finding a nine room
apartment is concerned the mother o.
a family OF business girls found II
out of the question. as the rents toi
such commodity in even the unfash
ionable parts of town were way beyone
her means, although she was willing Y
pay $4,000 for what she wanted.
In the highly popular Murray Hill dis
trict the rents of available apartment
have, for the most part. gone up anf
out the chimney. A brownstone man
SION in the vicinity of J.. Pisrpont Nor
Ran's home, recently remodelied.
renting the parior floor for $1,000 ant
the basement for $4,000. One woman
in the Fifties with an eye to business
subleased her own four room apart
ment, for which she paid $500, foi
$1,000. When the applicant demurret
a bit at the price she said: "An right
where In this section can you get 4
four room apartment with a real kitchen
furnished like this" The man saw thu
force Of her argument and took It with
out more ado.
He Who Hesitates Il Lost.
Delays in buying real estate are a
dangerous AZ In any other department
of life and one man who was In TIL
market to buy q house lost four goot
chances because he couldn't make III