18 COMMISSION ON BUILDING DISTRICTS 



Fancy articles 3,649 



Fur goods 10,719 



Furnishing goods, men's 8,051 



Hair work 2,704 



Hats and caps 5,815 



Hosiery and knit goods 6,082 



Jewelry 6,668 



Millinery and lace goods 24,712 



Patent medicines 5,450 



Printing and publishing 74,1 18 



Tobacco 26,664 



422,769 



The above enumeration includes only the larger groups that may be 

 classed as distinctly light manufacturing. Fully two-thirds of the industrial 

 employees of the city are employed in industries that do not find direct con- 

 nection with water and rail terminals a necessarily determining factor in 

 the selection of a* factory location. For these industries the questions of 

 labor supply and market for goods are much more important. The New 

 York Metropolitan District with a population of over 7,500,000 is itself the 

 largest consumer of the output of its factories. Moreover, Manhattan is 

 the great jobbing center for the entire country and this gives its manufac- 

 turers special advantages in the marketing of their goods. In addition the 

 city has the largest and most varied labor supply. Being the principal port 

 of entry for immigrants, it has an unlimited supply of the cheaper class of 

 labor from which the employees of the clothing trades and various other 

 light industries are recruited. 



These light industries are scattered indiscriminately over the entire city 

 throughout the business and residential sections. One good residence section 

 after another has been progressively invaded and destroyed by the coming 

 of the sporadic factory. This the proposed plan will prevent. 



The great manufacturing section of Manhattan is not, as one might 

 presuppose, along the waterfronts of the North and East Rivers, but lies in 

 a narrow belt through the center of the Island from Canal Street to about 

 38th Street. 1 The northward progress of the factory zone during the past 

 sixteen years above 14th Street has been attended by tragic consequences. 

 The city's chief hotel and retail center was invaded and substantially 

 destroyed. It was compelled to move north to 34th Street and is now again 

 in danger of destruction. The simple fact is that under New York City 

 conditions, with high loft buildings and congested streets, the chief hotel, 

 club, theater and shopping center cannot exist in close proximity to the 

 factories. In the side streets along the lower portion of Fifth Avenue the 

 number of employees is so great that the surrounding streets are necessarily 



1 See factory employee spot map, Figure 7. Note the narrow black belt from 

 Canal street north to about 38th street. 



