record of testimony and statements in relation to 105 



necessity for districting plan 



Statement by Dr. Haven Emerson, Commissioner, Department of 



Health, City of New York, February 10, 1916 

 Regulation of cornices 



Not only do cornices, as used in the past in New York City, generally 

 detract from the simplicity, beauty and architectural attractiveness of the 

 buildings and the streets, but by their overhanging they deprive the passing 

 citizen and the neighboring and opposite dwellers or occupants of light and 

 heat from the sun, to which they are entitled and which are of value to the 

 health of the community. 



Further, it is a matter of common observation that the dripping of rain 

 water and melted snow and ice inconvenience the foot passengers and main- 

 tain the kind of nuisance from wet pavements which is forbidden from other 

 kinds of projections, such as hanging flower boxes, food safes, etc. Actual 

 bodily danger is suffered as the result of icicles hanging in some cases over 

 one-third of the width of the sidewalk. 



In permitting cornices on the set-back walls to have a greater width of 

 projection than those on the street wall, I trust some provision can be 

 inserted which will prevent such cornices from encroaching on the line 

 established by projecting the line from mid street to top of street wall 

 upward and backward. 



Statement by Dr. Haven Emerson, Commissioner, Department of 



Health, May 4, 1916 

 Sanitary conditions of office buildings 



Dr. Emerson stated that the Health Department had made a survey of 

 the health conditions of the persons employed in the office buildings within 

 the block bounded by Broadway, Nassau Street, Liberty Street and Cedar 

 Street. This block is immediately north of the Equitable Building, which 

 has a height of 36 stories. This is a representative business block in the 

 downtown section, containing buildings of both the older and rnore modern 

 types. 



The air used in these buildings, which is generally supplied through an 

 artificial system of ventilation, is generally far below normal in its humidity 

 and above normal in its temperature. Artificial light is used practically 

 every hour in the day and every day in the year by 85 per cent, of the 

 occupants of these offices. A census showed this block to be inhabited by 

 an office population of 2,400 persons. The number of persons visiting this 

 block each day to transact business is about 16,000. The total number of 

 persons accommodated in this block daily is therefore 18,400. The absence 

 of natural light, and the abnormal conditions of the temperature and 

 humidity in office buildings constitute, according to Dr. Emerson, a situa- 

 tion that is detrimental to health, not that it causes disease, but that it 

 promotes lack of resistance and lack of proper physical and mental vigor. 



Tuberculosis in old law and new law tenements 



An investigation made by the Health Department of the patients suf- 

 fering from tuberculosis in the twenty-fifth census district, which is bounded 

 by Broadway, East Houston Street, West Broadway, Waverly Place, 

 Sixth Avenue, 14th Street and the Hudson River, clearly demonstrated 

 that, not only are there fewer cures among those living in old law than in 

 new law tenements, but the ratio of secondary to primary cases is higher 



