RECORD OF TESTIMONY AND STATEMENTS IN RELATION TO 89 



NECESSITY FOR DISTRICTING PLAN 



class of manufacturers to provide, and on the part of the unions to demand, 

 reasonable wages and sanitary shops. 



Distance factory workers must travel 



The workers in the factory districts of Manhattan do not as a rule 

 live within walking distance of their work. A large number of the artificial 

 flower and feather factories are located within walking distance of their 

 employees in the vicinity of Washington Square and during the last three 

 or four years clothing factories have been erected east of the Bowery where 

 the workers live. Also of late with the removal of the big printing plants 

 to the west side, considerable tenement house space has been let to employees 

 in the printing trade on Eighth and Ninth Avenues and in the side streets 

 from 25th to 42d Streets on the west side. 



When the garment industry was organized some 15 or 20 years ago 

 the factories were located on and around Broadway between Bleecker and 

 Canal Streets. In those days' the employees of these factories all lived 

 within walking distance of their, places of work and it was customary for 

 them to go home for their lunches. The multiplications of garment factories 

 and their gradual removal northward diminished the chances of the opera- 

 tives to live near the places of their employment. When the garment 

 factories congregated around Fifth Avenue in the center of the City, there 

 remained, of course, no possibility for the workers to live within walking 

 distance of their factories. To-day, the bulk of garment workers live in 

 the Bronx, on the lower East Side, Williamsburg, and even as far away 

 as Brownsville. 



The removal of garment factories to the district below 14th Street 

 would save a great deal of traveling by the workers on street cars and 

 elevated trains and about 40 per cent of the garment workers would live 

 within easy walking distance of their places of work. About 40 per cent 

 would save two carfares per day and could reach their places of work within 

 the average of 15 minutes' walk. The ones living in the Bronx or Wil- 

 liamsburg would save on the average a walk of one mile — the distance they 

 have to walk to-day from the elevated or subway stations on the East Side 

 of the city to the factories west of Fifth Avenue. 



Unsatisfactory luncheon and recreation facilities 



There are not and cannot be adequate luncheon facilities in the crowded 

 factory districts near Fifth Avenue. There are about 50,000 factory em- 

 ployees in that district and as a rule they visit restaurants only during the 

 lunch hour from 12 to 1 p. m. At other hours there is practically no demand 

 for the service of food. The average expenditure of money for lunch on 

 the part of the garment workers is less than 15 cents — a sum inadequate to 

 give a fair return on the cost and investment of a restaurant. The item of 

 rent alone is prohibitive and the only lunch places patronized are of the 

 type which provide no seats for their customers. The workmen buy cheap 

 and insufficiently nourishing food or bring some food with them from their 

 homes. In both cases they are compelled to eat their food on the sidewalks 

 or in the roadway and even with utmost care the streets are littered with 

 refuse. 



All luncheon places are overcrowded. It is not an infrequent occur- 

 rence that in a place where 50 chairs are provided for the lunchers as many 

 as 200 crowd the place, packed tightly awaiting their chances of getting 

 something to eat. 



