ALTERATIONS TO A CITY HOUSE 
By J. M. Haskell 
T HE accompanying illustrations, and the plans 
on the opposite page show what can be done 
to improve and modernize a city house of the old 
type whose arrangements have long since been 
condemned both by changes in domestic economy 
and by more enlightened sanitary considerations. 
STREET FRONT AFTER ALTERATION 
Usually such a house would he torn down and a 
house suited to current ideas erected in its place, 
but by careful manipulation the shell of the old house 
and much of the interior has been made to serve the 
new purpose. The chief advantages gained will be 
sufficiently evident on inspection. The important 
ones are the gain in apparent spaciousness of the in¬ 
terior on the first and second floors; the modernizing 
of the bedrooms and their accessories, the addition 
of the ample library or drawing-room on the second 
floor, and the more advantageous adjustment of the 
storage and closet space on all floors. 
As to the exterior, the street facade has been 
wholly changed in expression from a commonplace 
flat brick front to an agreeable disposition of the 
windows and the entrance doorway, the fourth storey 
balcony and the vigorous cornice treatment, the 
whole harmonizing very well with somewhat simi¬ 
lar changes in the surrounding houses due to the al¬ 
tered character of the neighborhood, which has be¬ 
come one of the desirable residential quarters of 
the Borough of Manhattan. 
The back yard has also been wholly transformed 
into an agreeable garden, giving a pleasant outlook 
from the rear windows of the dining-room and the 
two principal chambers over. This house is Num¬ 
ber 29 East 61 st Street and the building operations 
have been carried out by Messrs. Hoggson Bros, 
under their new system of contracting. The sub¬ 
basement plan is not shown in our illustrations, but 
contains the heating apparatus, coal cellars, wine 
closet, storage etc. It is evidence of the labor and 
worry saving facilities afforded by such a method 
of operation. 
A CORNER OF THE GARDEN 
199 
