USE DISTRICTS 19 



congested with pedestrians during the hours when the workers are going to 

 or returning from work. At the noon hour when the workers come out 

 from the factories for a stroll along Fifth Avenue they monopolize the 

 sidewalks to the exclusion or serious inconvenience of those having business 

 on the avenue. An intensive factory use on the side streets is fatal to the 

 business use of the avenue. The sidewalk space is needed by the workmen 

 and the roadway space is needed for the trucking incident to factory use. 

 On the other hand, all the available roadway and sidewalk space would be 

 unduly congested if reserved solely for business use. Two bodies cannot 

 occupy the same space at the same time, and even if there were more space 

 available it would be difficult to harmonize an intensive use of roadways 

 and sidewalks for two such widely different purposes. 



Traffic conditions are the crux of the situation. It is vital to the exist- 

 ence of the city that it maintain such conditions of street traffic that the 

 city's chief hotel, club, theater and shopping center may permanently be 

 maintained in the sole location that is suited for it. The plan proposed will 

 protect the entire Fifth Avenue and Broadway section south as far as 23d 

 Street and between Fourth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. 



The exclusion of future factory lofts from the above section will also 

 result to the economic advantage of the manufacturing industries concerned, 

 to the welfare of the workers and to the relief of the city's congested transit 

 facilities. The factories will be located on cheaper ground, nearer to rail 

 and water terminals and nearer to an adequate labor supply. They can, if 

 they find it desirable, maintain salesrooms in the restricted district. The 

 workmen will be able in greater proportion to live within walking distance 

 of their work. This will be a boon to the workers who walk, in that it will 

 save them carfare and the necessity of spending about an hour and a quarter 

 a day on the cars under conditions of overcrowding that are a menace to 

 health, comfort and safety. And just to the extent that they do this will 

 this condition o'f congestion be relieved for those who will still have to ride 

 on transit lines during the rush hours. 



Retail business naturally tends to segregate. The grouping of a few 

 of the neighborhood stores and business buildings on the main avenue or 

 thoroughfare creates the center that attracts other stores and makes that 

 particular street the most desirable place in which to do business. In spite 

 of this strong trend toward segregation, unless prevented by law, the occa- 

 sional store will come into the midst of a residential community, to the 

 detriment both of the residential section and of the natural local business 

 street. 



In residential neighborhoods the plan has been to preserve the side 

 streets wherever possible for strictly residential use. The avenues along 

 the ends of the block and main thoroughfares have usually been included 

 in the business districts. The business use on the avenue is permitted to 

 extend 100 feet back along the residential side streets. In the less developed 

 sections it has often seemed feasible to indicate onlv every second or third 



