TENEMENT HOUSE REGULATION 203 



better illustration of this practical limitation can be given than 

 a simple recital of the contest over the radical amendment of 

 the New York law which was waged at Albany. The New 

 York law of 1901 marked the longest step in advance that 

 tenement house reform in that state has ever taken, though 

 in its provisions for court areas, the particular point in which 

 it was assailed, it does not go so far as the Philadelphia law, 

 and but little further than the previous Buffalo law. It un- 

 questionably increased the cost of construction by its fireproof 

 provisions, as well as, though in a less degree, by its larger 

 court areas. That there would be organized effort on the 

 part of building and real estate interests to modify it was cer- 

 tain and inevitable. Many bills were introduced amending 

 it, but my illustration only concerns two, — the city adminis- 

 tration bill, in the preparation of which I myself had part, 

 and a bill introduced by a Brooklyn member of the legis- 

 lature in the interest of Brooklyn builders and material men, 

 who claimed that they represented the people of Brooklyn. 

 One of the prevailing types of Brooklyn tenements is a three 

 story house on a twenty five foot lot, with two families on a 

 floor, making six families in all, each apartment running 

 through from front to rear. These houses had been built Avith 

 interior courts or air shafts about two and a half feet wide and 

 ten feet long. These light shafts were supposed to light and 

 ventilate the interior rooms of each apartment. As a matter of 

 fact, they furnished little light or ventilation to any bedrooms be- 

 low the top floor. The same type of air shaft in taller tenements 

 of Manhattan was one of the chief evils against which the new 

 law was directed. These evils were undoubtedl}^ less in a 

 three story building, but still existed. The minimum interior 

 court or air shaft permitted by the new law in such buildings 

 was eleven feet wide by twenty two feet long. Such a court 

 prevented the building of this type of house, and no tenements 

 of this type were consequently built on twenty five foot lots 

 from the time when the law went into effect. The Brooklyn 

 bill sought to amend the law, as respects three and four story 

 houses, by permitting a return to the old air shaft, with an in- 

 creased width of six inches, and with a somewhat mcreased 



