The Cost of ShelterRichards, Ellen H. (Ellen Henrietta)
General
The Cost of Shelter
Richards, Ellen H. (Ellen Henrietta)
Building; Home economics
A single family cannot control a whole street, although cooperation can
accomplish a great deal in the way of congenial neighborhoods. But the
risk involved, the liability to error of judgment, as well as the large
outlay of capital, at once prevents the adoption of this means of
satisfactory housing for the business and professional class to any great
extent, at least in the city. The acumen needed to discover the profitable
in real estate, the skill to acquire large contiguous tracts of land, both
belong to the capitalist. Only when he is a philanthropist besides, is the
housing question safe in his hands. Such an example we find in the Morris
houses, Willoughby Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y. This set of family dwellings was
put up to meet this very need. Congenial neighborhood, safe
playgrounds for the children, labor-saving devices for the housekeeper.
When first built they were in advance of anything in an eastern city of
their class. To-day Mr. Pratt has even more advanced ideas which will take
form in the future.
[Illustration: Aerial-view Drawing: The Morris Building Company's Block of
Single Houses, with Central Heating Plant, Brooklyn, New York.]
These attractive and comfortable houses, so near the working places of
the teachers and professional and business men who occupy them, were
possible only because of the comparative cheapness of the land, which had
been held undesirable for high-class single houses, not for sanitary
reasons, but solely on account of social conditions. This cluster of forty
houses makes its own atmosphere. This is the lesson to be learned. Let
groups of like-minded families make their own surroundings. The capitalist
will soon learn where his interest lies.
[Illustration: Floor-plan Drawing: The Morris Building Company's Block of
Single Houses, with Central Heating Plant, Brooklyn, New York.]
[Illustration: Floor-plan Drawing The Morris Building Company's Block of
Single Houses, with Central Heating Plant, Brooklyn, New York.]
Very probably it will be necessary to enlarge the scope and, perhaps, to
build two stories higher, so that the elders and perhaps bachelors of
both sexes, who do not care for the garden, may help to bear the expense
of the children's playground. Whatever form the advance may take, this is
a sign-post in the right direction.
In the nature of things, however, the first experiments will be costly and
must be combined with business of a sure kind. In this instance the
heating and hot-water supply was made possible by a combination with
factory plant. But if a larger group of, say, one hundred houses were run
by a central establishment, the Morris Building Company estimates the cost
at about fifty dollars per year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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