150 COMMISSION ON BUILDING DISTRICTS 



recent history of New York to inaugurate this great plan and to plan with 

 certainty a specific kind of building for a given locality without incurring 

 the danger of having the value of the improvement partly or wholly de- 

 stroyed by improper uses of adjoining or neighboring premises. I believe 

 that the adoption of the proposed plan of restricting and limiting the height 

 of buildings will attract a large amount of capital to build better homes in 

 better localities and appropriate buildings in appropriate localities, that will 

 be to the advantage of the entire city both in healthfulness and permanent 

 values, and to help prevent the congestion of New York streets both through 

 concentrated shipping and the gathering of operatives at certain hours of 

 the day. 



New York has prospered under apartment house building restrictions ; 

 no one complains, everybody is satisfied. Why should not business districts 

 enjoy the same measure of protection that has been gained through the wise 

 provisions of the apartment house law? Those who have had the welfare 

 of New York at heart have recognized for the past twenty years the 

 necessity of some form of control over business buildings and for the pro- 

 tection of business and residence localities ; and the work of the Commission 

 on Building Districts and Restrictions is but a tardy response to the urgent 

 need for action, and in my opinion it would be a grievous loss to this city if 

 the work of this Commission should be lost through failure to recognize its 

 value to the entire city. 



New York is at present at a disadvantage in that investors are running 

 great risks in erecting almost any kind of a building while the city is left in 

 its present haphazard condition and at the risk of having either its residence 

 population or business houses driven out of certain districts through uncon- 

 trolled action of speculative builders and inconsiderate owners. 



High buildings make tremendous demand on the city's service and 

 resources ; they overtax its narrow streets and the land which carried two 

 or three superimposed buildings pays no more land tax than the modest four 

 or eight-story building. 



Statement by Dr. Marion B. McMillan, Assistant Sanitary 

 Superintendent, Department of Health, March 30, 1916 

 Sanitary condition of office buildings 



I had the pleasure of conducting during the last four months an investi- 

 gation leading toward the establishment of better sanitary conditions in the 

 office buildings located in the financial district. I shall give a short sum- 

 mary of data I obtained in a trial block between Broadway, Nassau Street, 

 Cedar Street and Liberty Street. 



In looking over the block we have taken into account 928 office rooms, 

 in which the total number of employees was 2,380 people. The percentage 

 of individuals working eight hours and over in this district was 92.71 per 

 cent, and the number under eight hours was 7.29 per cent. Of the 2,382 

 individuals working there, over 92 per cent worked eight hours and over, 

 a day. The per cent of the entire number provided with natural light was 

 14.67. 85.33 were subjected to artificial light. In going over the point 

 of public health and the relation of the office worker to public health under 

 present conditions, in our large financial districts, we found that the indi- 

 viduals who are most affected are the clerks and stenographers ; individuals 

 with low salaries. It is among this class of individuals that the Department 

 of Health finds the heaviest per cent of tuberculosis and it is in this class 

 of individuals where the case incidence of disease per year is highest. 



