164 COMMISSION ON BUILDING DISTRICTS 



to two minutes. There have been very few fire drills conducted simul- 

 taneously by all the shop owners in a building and therefore the time in 

 which buildings may be emptied cannot as yet be determined. 



The several experiments which we have made in emptying buildings 

 show that where the whole building is drilled by us and where the individual 

 shops have been previously instructed and drilled, and where the exits are 

 at least two or three outside of the fire escapes, which we do not consider 

 as exits, a twelve-story building may be emptied within five to ten minutes. 



Lunch facilities in factory loft district 



A great many people suffer from gastric troubles. This is due in the 

 first place to the fact that the people are compelled to eat a dry lunch, sand- 

 wiches, etc. They live too far from their residences to get something warm 

 to eat. It is also due to the fact that they have a comparatively short period 

 for lunch and they are obliged to eat their food very quickly. It is also due 

 to the congestion. It is hardly possible for a great many of the factory 

 employees, especially on the higher floors to have the time to go down and 

 eat their lunches in a neighboring restaurant and then have time to come 

 back again to their work in the high buildings. They might have time if 

 there were not such congestion. But at the noon hour the congestion in 

 buildings is very great. All want to go down the elevators at one time, 

 and it is manifestly impossible for them to go down all together and have 

 time for lunch and then come back in time for their work. The time the 

 employees have to wait at noon or at night for an elevator depends, of 

 course, on the building, on the employees and upon the shop. The girls 

 have frequently asked to be allowed to begin to dress themselves half hour 

 or twenty minutes before the time of closing. They claim that if they all 

 go out at six o'clock they will lose fifteen or twenty minutes standing near 

 the doors of the elevators in the jam and after a day's work it is quite a 

 hardship upon those girls and the men as well to compel them to lose fifteen 

 or twenty minutes of their time waiting until the elevator takes them down. 

 We have in some buildings made arrangements for the employees by which 

 the workers have been divided into squads. Some are allowed to go five 

 minutes earlier and they come so much earlier in the morning, so that they 

 all don't go out at the same time v but that is only in single instances and 

 cannot be done throughout all the buildings and shops. 



Daylight in factories 



The light in the shop depends very much, not only upon the window 

 itself, its character, size, etc., but upon where the window opens to- — ■ 

 whether to street, courtyard, etc. ; also upon the height of adjoining build- 

 ings and the story in which the shop is located. 



In garment factories with average windows opening upon a street of 

 ordinary width, the operatives may work without artificial light, as a rule, 

 between 10 A. M. and 4 P. M. to about twenty-four feet from the window. 

 This refers to garments of light shades ; on black or red garments artificial 

 light will be necessary beyond fifteen or eighteen feet from the window. 



As a rule, the light is adequate in the better class of shops lighted with 

 electricity or well-arranged gas lights. 



Eye trouble 



We have found that one-third of our shops use artificial light during 

 the day time on account of the defective illumination. A special study was 

 made of the lighting and illumination conditions in our shops by the United 



