36 COMMISSION ON BUILDING DISTRICTS 



width of the street might be used. The minimum space required by 

 a crowd moving in one direction is five square feet per person. Com- 

 puted in this manner, Broadway could hold but 96.3 per cent of its 

 occupants; Trinity Place and Church Street 86.6 per cent; Nassau 

 Street 69.3 per cent; New Street 44.5 per cent, and Exchange Place 

 only 37.5 per cent. This being the situation to-day, the question 

 arises as to what might happen in case of a general panic should the 

 entire district be solidly built up with buildings of the present extreme 

 heights. 



" In areas where high buildings are crowded together most of the 

 rooms even on the street front are inadequately lighted and many 

 are decidedly dark. On New Street and Exchange Place, where the 

 office buildings range from 10 to 22 stories high, on a bright sunny 

 day at noon in midsummer it was found that in almost all of the street 

 rooms artificial light was being used next to the windows. The 

 conditions in the interior courts in parts of the tall building district 

 are even worse. 



" Even with modern artificial lighting of the most approved type, 

 the dark offices have caused a great deal of eye strain. Nothing but 

 adequate natural light seems to prevent it. Tuberculosis experts 

 testified to the Commission that they had found many cases of tuber- 

 culosis directly traceable to working in dark offices. A noticeable 

 increase in sick leave has been found among the employees of firms 

 that have moved from light to dark offices. 



" A number of streets in the high building district are already so 



congested that pedestrian and vehicular traffic is greatly impeded. 



Assuming that pedestrians will use sidewalk space only and will move 



in one direction only, there is room on Trinity Place and Church 



Street for but 56 per cent of the occupants of the buildings located 



on those streets ; on Broadway, 50 per cent ; on Nassau Street, 32 



per cent, and on New Street, but 19 per cent. If these same streets 



should be uniformly built up to an average height of 30 stories, the 



above percentages would be reduced to 26 per cent on Broadway ; 



20 per cent on Trinity Place and Church Street; 11.9 per cent on 



Nassau Street ; 8.9 per cent on New Street, and 8.4 per cent on 



Exchange Place. It is quite clear that under such conditions the 



street capacity would be entirely inadequate to take care of the 



morning, afternoon and noon hour crowds." 



Chief Engineer Lewis in his testimony before the Commission spoke 



of the possible fatal consequences from panic in congested lower Manhattan. 



Mr. Lewis said: "It is obvious to anyone that in certain portions of the 



city, notably in lower Manhattan, the enormous day population of the office 



buildings, most of whom come to their work in the morning and leave in 



the afternoon within a very limited time, now overtaxes the public streets 



and, while we are reasonably free from earthquake shocks, or even tremors, 



