A CITY OF FIRE TRAPS
TY OF FIRE TRAPS Socialists Make Vienna A City of Beautiful Homes ¦ 7TENNA, the beautiful Austrian city on the » Danube, the former capital of the AustroHungarian monarchy, has risen like...
...Other rooms, bed-rooms, have windows opening oa "air" shafts which carry foul odors generated In the cellars and basements upward^ districting them luce tho* rooms whose window* may be open...
...The old Vienna with its mall houses and vast number of unhealthy barracks Is now only a sad memory...
...They would not sell except for a good price...
...9.—it requires at least one toilet for every two families...
...Of the 1,316,057 apartments in New York City, 545,903 are of the "old-law type...
...The new Vienna with its wonderful municipal dwellings...
...The old system of taxation Was swept aside by the Socialist municipality...
...The administration is In...
...Side by side with tat* program for new bousing, the Socialist party wflr fight for the condemnation of the Ustast ltilna fire-trap* politely designated "old-tavsr tsa*«* mfntifi...
...NUMBER OF APARTMENTS IN NEW YORK CITY (December 1st, 1928) . New Law Old Law Total Manhattan____ 215,420 353,340 568.760 The Bronx---- 244.363 32,221 276.584 Brooklyn...
...When the lease is expired the houses lapse to the municipality which grants compensation to the lessees...
...The Old-Law Tenements Must Got The bill is thus condemned by the very mas] who sponsor it...
...In the past few years this desire of reaction has emerged twice as Fascist •emonitrations and the Vienna workers have steeled themselves to meet it by force...
...Socialist Vienna has accomplished a miracle, ft inspires the workers ot sS countries...
...These are also convenient for married couples who work out and who are unable to employ domestic help...
...The question of housing facilities at rentals within the reach of the great mass of the working population of New York City is a problem that demands solution...
...The housing scandal in New York City has been the subject of much agitation...
...The United Neighborhood Houses, an association of settlement houses In New York City, pointed out the defects of the hill and urged its defeat Three members of the commission which drew tits bill—Darwin R. James, Raymond V. Ingersoll and Lawson Purdy—were moved to answer the United Neighborhood Houses in a letter drawn by Mr...
...Like nearly all large cities in all countries the old system of taxes had favored the wealthy and the Socialists had to adopt a more •quitable fiscal policy...
...repealed these requisitions and the landlord could do what he liked with houses that became empty but he remained subject to the Rent Protection Act...
...Men tad women interested in municipal problems it other countries visit the city to study its achievements...
...The first step of the Socialist administration was the creation of a housing department...
...The old Vienna had been a fortress of reaction, governed by clerical-capitalist politicians till the end of the World War when the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was broken gs...
...There is a large open air bathing pool for the children and a large open garden provides a playground where children can play in safety from street traffic All stairways open into the yard...
...At the end at 1927 Socialist Vienna assigned about 1,600,000 square metres of land for the garden suburbs constructed with its assistance...
...A source of income never before tapped was found in levying luxury taxes...
...Of those apartments renting for from $41 to $50, 61.51 per cent, were in "old-law" tenements...
...Realtors, the Bebbttised name for real estate sharks, often produce figures to show there are plenty of apartments to be had at reasonable rentals...
...They ridiculed the Mayor's pleas and re* minded him that a Tammany mayor ought to realize that "business is business...
...Defeat of the measure would leave legislation pending tor smother year, during which the songreasrve forces may be successful la wtnahag ana concessions...
...Taxes on houses levied by the State for itself, the province, and the city amounted to 40 per tent of all rents paid in the pre-war period...
...8.—it ends the use of basement rooms which have no windows...
...Instead three more members chosen by the real estate boards of Manhattan...
...Tammany and Republican officeholders have been glib: with promises and have as glibly explained them away after election day...
...The provision making possible central heating plants if the owners desire them ft* hypocritical and worthless...
...A fairly comfortable apartment is too often rented at the expense of other necessities,—food, clothing and recreation...
...Owing their existence to this support, a number of garden suburbs have sprung up which comprise, at the end of 1927, 3,694 houses of the three garden suburbs built by the city in 1923...
...Socialists and some social workers have tirelessly fought for relief...
...This promise being fulfilled one year earlier, the building program was increased to 30,000 and in April, 1927, another large building program was announced which includes the construction of 30,000 more dwellings before 1932...
...of the $31 to $40 apartments, 82,40 per cent, were "old-law...
...The kitchen is run in common and the housework is also looked after by a common staff...
...7.—It requires "old-law" tenements four stories or more high to have fireproof first-tier of beams...
...The real estate Interests lined up solidly for their bill...
...The Socialists recognised that Vienna rested OB the edge of a precipice and that only clearbeaded administration would save the city and its working: masses from incalculable ruin...
...A Bill For Landlords YJOMES or hovels...
...The Tenement House Department of New York City has supplied authoritative and up-to-date figures...
...families would still be subjected to use of toilets in common with other families...
...6.—it requires all doors opening into public halls to be self-closing...
...The New Leader feels that unless the bill is radically amended along the lines Indicated above, the bill should be defeated...
...There are the hotel and post*> taxes, concession and advertisement taxes, lotions and land value taxes, all of which jpog in substantial city revenues...
...The following year...
...Of every thousand flats built in Vienna before the war, 959 had no water supply and 921 so water closet on the premises, but both exist in every dwelling built by the city...
...The BJtomobue tax is based upon the type of car "¦¦•d...
...There is no reason why the right of property should be recognized In buildings which should have been depreciated long ago to nothing oa tht* books of their owners and whose values list a been amortised out of rents at least three tames over...
...In an Old-Late Apartment To know the horror that life becomes among the families whose poverty condemns them to live in these "old-law" tenements, one must view them...
...The work of the commission is told In two bills, one proposed m 1928, and an amended one proposed this year and now/ before the legislature...
...The Socialists backed by the powerful trade unions Inherited the power of the old corrupt regime and faced what appeared to Ot baffling problems...
...The bourgeois parties looked forward to a temporary occupation Of power by the Socialists then collapse and the restoration of the clerical-capitalistic BoHticians...
...The municipality appoints numerous ¦cUls to the directorates of these companies M strict measures are adopted to prevent hjr irregularities...
...The large buildings are tastefully designed and form impressive objects for the sightseer, Imparting a new architectural beauty to the city...
...The land built on is exclusively municipal property, let out on lease until 1960...
...Hot watei and steam heat are luxuries unknown...
...The fire-trap evil remains undiminished under the proposed bill...
...was also obtained from municipal enterprises, the gas works, electric works, transit service and the water supply...
...The food taxei tad house dutfes which bore heavily on the working class were abolished...
...Balls, festivals, theatrical and operatic performances were made to ley varying taxes into the municipal treasury...
...One room, frequently more, in the railread apartments is permanently shut eft from the sun, wlndowless...
...Summer-time and hot weather bring their immovable cloud of sttf ling poison-air...
...As far back as 1901, these tenements were condemned as unfit for habitation...
...One-fifth of the pre-war revenue of the city...
...The city built 7,299 dwellings between 1919 and the end of 1923 and announced the construction of 25,000 new ones within the next five years...
...These buildings have brought their I owners their investment many times ever...
...4.—it empowers the Tenement House Department to improve hall and stair lighting...
...There are lecture halls and libraries also available to the tenants...
...The chief aim of Socialist Vienna is to build houses and flats which shall be healthy and convenient...
...The finances were demoralised, the municipal services were in a ¦taU of chaos, misery was widespread and the outlook seemed hopeless...
...Nights, vermin, rate and mice whose ancestors have for decades made merry is rotting walls and floor crevices come forth to make hours of repose hideous...
...tuberculosis and other diseases, and the diseases that are the result of too intimate contact, through the transmission of infection...
...Some differences arose with the landlords the details of which need not concern us here...
...Out of the war sad emerged the new rich leading a life of lmary, the war profiteers, and these with the •at rich were taxed...
...the-hands of cooperatives which also manages similar dwellings of their own in the city...
...Apartment* Fit For Human Beingt Despite difficulties due to the antagonism of the State government, the city acquired many blocks of building land within the city area at a fraction of their pre-war value, and 16,430,000 square metres became municipal property from the end of the war to the end of 1927...
...Couples with children found it difficult with a nursery and adjoining rooms where children could play under the eye of a neighbor...
...The garden suburb movement receives special encouragement from the municipal administration...
...Periodic fatal fires tell but a bit of the story...
...They had to restore the ruined finances, reconstruct the municipal enterprises, expand welfare institutions to care for the sick, the disabled and the starving, solve the perplexing problem of housing, and obtain a revenue from taxation that would enable them to carry through their program...
...These courtyards are ornamented with flowers and gardens while the rooms, unlike the old Vienna, do not depend upon airshafts for air...
...Night restaurants, concert cafes, and buffets tttached to entertainments generally patron¦¦a by the rich are also taxed...
...Requirements for door-bells, garbage cans, etc., etc., are an insulting concession to offer to intelligent proponents of a decent bill...
...Under the stairs will be found collections of ancient refuse stored by janitor or tenants...
...e is tempted to dwell upon the hours of *w of municipal employes, retirement penl...
...Horses used for carter* or riding purposes and considered a luxay are taxed...
...There are IMr taxes of a similar character...
...We can only suggest that the men who framed the bill be condemned to live in one of these departments for on* month and instructed under penalty of Jail to keep them clean of ordinary vermin...
...The large blocks of flats are provided with play rooms for the children, court-yards and gardens...
...It was) not passed...
...Rents in the newer apartment bouses and in the small family houses in the outlying boroughs have been beyond the reasonable means of their occupants...
...Indirect taxes on meat sad beverages supplied the city with one-tenth of Its revenue...
...The other boroughs have generous supplies of them...
...8.—it removes yard-toilets...
...WIntel brings the ooM drafts in through badly fitting window frames...
...66,803 7,230 74,033 Richmond...
...The dewllings are built with the view of the maximum of sunlight and air reaching the tenants...
...The highest yield in the case of balls and festivals amounted to J1.SOO for one evening...
...They become profoundly impressed and return home inspired with knowledge of what is possible in a city that is surrounded with a hostile environment and which > must contend with a national Parliament that has a majority opposed to the policies of Socialist Vienna...
...The rent is fixed at the cost of maintenance and amounts to about one-eighth of the rent of similar, but inferior, dwellings, and about one-fifteenth of the normal rent according to present building costs, if private contractors and owners were to receive interest on their investments...
...10.—it requires bells to be in good order...
...The apartments are bare rooms painted or papered at rare intervals...
...They consulate only a small fraction of the restaurant *sd drink business yet the income from this ¦wee for 1928 is estimated at 11,600,000...
...The planning and entire architectural scheme of the suburbs are subject to the approval of the Garden Suburb Department...
...The predictions made at the time by Norman Thomas, Socialist leader, have been found accurate...
...Promises, Gestures and Failure* ' While these efforts were running the circle of promises, gestures and eventual failure, a 8tats commission was at work on a bill to revise- the tenement house law...
...Among the earliest dwellings built were accommodations for families whose Income was derived from the labor of both husband and wife...
...Flats for single persons containing bedroom, parlor and water closet are also being built...
...Its beautiful public gardens and baths, its remarkable municipal enterprises, its unique system of taxation and new social outlook is a marked contrast with the old Vienna of prewar days...
...After re* peated delays, the public mindedness of the) property-holders proved itself of a doubtful quality...
...Moreover, as the hate of the old ruling cliques became more and more a memory, the Vienna working class recognised that these cliques would conspire to retarn to power...
...TY OF FIRE TRAPS Socialists Make Vienna A City of Beautiful Homes ¦ 7TENNA, the beautiful Austrian city on the » Danube, the former capital of the AustroHungarian monarchy, has risen like magic from the ashes of war, famine, and poverty to secome the Mecca of the municipal reformers ill over the world...
...In the average tenements," writes the secretary of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, "there is no radiator to turn on in the morning, no running hot water, no heat at all except the kitchen stove...
...Purdy aa follows: 1.—It facilitates installation of central heat* Ing plants for owners who care to do so...
...The municipality has com¦"War acquired some of these companies...
...Of those apartments renting for $21 to ISO monthly, 84.72 per cent, were "old-law" flats...
...Ceilings and waDs reveal cracks in the plaster, while the floors are worn planks...
...The old dust heaps and barracks are disappearing...
...The full benefits of the bill to those "who live in the worst of the old-law tenement houses" are enumerated by Mr...
...J^.*> other city In the world do the working gH» enjoy the housing provided by Socialist I» Austria the Beat Pntoettoa, Acta are more drastic than in any other State...
...Kick Tmxed To Meet Needs of the Poor , - So successful has the Socialist administration been in accomplishing Its task that, Vienna baa become famous all over the world...
...A more expensive type of dwelling meets the wants of a metropolitan population by providing a central kitchen...
...After the death of several persons in such a fire on the Bast Side in 1924, Fire Chief Kenlon gave warning that all of the families living in "oldlaw" houses were subject to the same peril...
...The first bill aroused the) resentment of the real estate interests...
...Health Commissioner Louis I. Harris, in 1927 told the State Board of Housing: "These conditions of housing are directly related to two types of disease, diseases due to lowered resistence, i.e...
...Today this type of dwelling in Manhattan and Richmond is more numerous by far than the "newlaw" apartments...
...Governor Smith's) housing bill has not helped in the construction of a single new apartment house offering reason* able rentals...
...In the old period of domination by the Christian-Social Party the interests of the landlords were dominant in the Vienna Council, and they held nearly half the seats...
...Oa this entire) master the MB Is sflent...
...OH and-gas heaters brought Into use to warm chilled bodies add to noxlout gases normally generated...
...The demand for some sort of relief acquired an insistent tone la 1936...
...The time has come to end the soeapsacy of these novels...
...In this letter the utter inadequacy of the proposed bill was revealed...
...Loss of life in flre-traps are reported with tragic regularity...
...The Fire Department figures show that every serious fire in these houses over a long period of years has caused one or more deaths...
...Last year only small flats were being built, the largest comprising two large and one small rooms, parlor kitchen and water closet...
...Governor Smith, proposed his housing bill la Ou ITaw Tort: gtwtt irgjststwn Inadequat* as the bill was at the outset, it was further weakened as a result of compromises forced by the Republican legislature...
...The municipal enterprises have been operated to cover expenses and improvements, although an empty treasury faced the administration and the currency was depreciated...
...They aeg'.ect to state that these vacancies are in houses m which it would be cruel to house pigs...
...It Is now more than a generation since tha "old-law" apartments have been declared unfit and unsafe...
...648 1,209 1,847 Total---- 770,154 540,903 1,316,057 The rentals in the "now law" apartments force a great mass of the wags earners to live In the "old-law" dwellings...
...A steam laundry, Installed In the larger buildings, with drying apparatus and electric-driven mangles, enables the washing of a family of four or five to be done in a half day...
...Its most remarkable work is its hous9 program...
...242,920 151,903 394.823 Queens...
...Mayor Walker also made bousing a political stepping-stone...
...5i.i.903 Old-Lave Tenements How numerous are these "old-law" tenements ? Such horrible conditions must be the exception, it will be said...
...As ¦bout 20,000 such functions were held each ftar the income from this source was large...
...Entrance to these rookeries Is obtained through the stench of garbage and refuse piled high In cam, bags and boxes at the curbstone...
...It » estimated that this tax for the year 1928 ¦tone brought the city an income of 82,150,000...
...The 1928 platform of the Near York Socialist party declared for "the building Of homes by'the* state sad municipalities to be rented to the people at' cost" and "the extension of public liiesst to home builders...
...Whether the bill is passed or not, the Socialist party in the coming municipal campaign win place decent housing among its chief demands...
...To pass (he bin at this time, might mean the sad of legislation oa housing for year* to coma...
...Some urged its amendment...
...Those whose Interest is close to the tenement dweller attacked it...
...X—• it may make basement apartments more airy...
...12.—it requires supplying by owners of receptacles for garbage and to arrange for removal of refuse...
...Previously only 62 out of every thousand small flats had a parlor, but three-fourths of the municipal flats of the same type have it...
...One of the best known of these dwellings is the Fucheenfeldhof with about 1,100 lodgings...
...Between the years 1919 and 1925 the city took over 44,838 dwellings but in December of the latter year a federal law...
...Here is the story as told by the Tenement House Department...
...Stairs and unstable bannisters of wood lead to theflats above...
...Having made promises of housing relief before his election, be) proceeded after election to make appropriate, gestures...
...Housing in Socialist Vienna And Tammany New York The Housing Scandal In N. Y...
...Those fortunate families which have been able to escape the horrors of the slums have been forced to flee into the arms of unbridled landlord-profiteers...
...But the major problem is to find decent habitation for those millions of men, women and children who now exist in the "old-law" tenements...
...The ground rent amounts to 3% per cent of one-sixth of the pre-war value of the land...
...The servant tax requires all who emtwo or more servants to pay a tax for •eh one so employed...
...Not only do they afford a wide measure of protection against notices to move, but they prescribe a way of fixing rent which amounts to an expropriation of the house owner...
...Pooh, Auditoriums and Libraries The municipal dwellings are planned with respect to utility, health, fresh air, sunlight and architectural beauty...
...The new dwellings go far to raise the former low level of Viennese bousing conditions...
...The breaking down of health among inhabitants of dark, filth-laden tenements—icy cold cr suffocatingly hot as the seasons dictate—is a less sensational story but a more frequent one...
...As a final Insult the commission proposed that tenants must keep their apartments clean...
...Most of these flats contain shower baths and washing baths, for the use of which a small charge is made to cover the cost of maintenance...
...sick insurance, provision for accidents, **»e ration and general conditions In the Jr...
...no provision is made for the condemnation of the windowless rooms at the end of a reasonable period...
...Owners should be green until January 1st, 1SS5 to rebuild or re-model la accord with decent spectficattoss...
...but space will not permit The Social* administration has brought a revolution in '¦¦'ton...
...Brook* lyn and the Bronx were added to the commhv sion...
...The Mayor entered into "negotiation" with a group of East Side property-hold* ers and appealed to their public-mlndedness to sell their property to the city as sites for *reo» Uon by the city of model tenements...
...occupancy of cellar apartments would not be Interfered with...
...Some of these dwellings were provided with nurses who prepared the children for the kindergarten...
...The bill which emerged from this en* larged commission has proved on examination to be a bill drawn solely to meet the Interests off the real estate interests...
...30,000 Going Vp iTae city also, In recent years after its sc•toxation program had become fairly atabtlbecame a shareholder In large industrial •ttrprises and today it is Interested in 66 such •hcerns, chiefly of the building and engineerIt type...
...Purdy, dean of the social workers in New York City...
...Others demanded defeat...
...11.—it obliges tenants to keep their apartments clean...
...Houses Built...
...The corridors are dark passageways lined by filthy and broken walls...
...it changes the type of required fireescapes...
...Of the vacancies reported by the Tenement House Department last December aa renting for So to $20 a month, 82.07 per cent, were In the "old-law" tenements, while 7.98 per cent, were in the "»evr-law" type...
...A public bearing on the bill was held In Albany this week...
...In erecting these magnificent dwellings 60 per cent of the site is set aside for the open yard...
Vol. 8 • March 1929 • No. 7
