New York’s Improved Tenements 
and it is safe to say that each 
new group of buildings will 
illustrate variations of use and 
ornament which will raise the 
standard of living lor city wage- 
earners lar above what the 
most sanguine philanthropists 
ot a generation ago could have 
hoped for. The Phipps houses 
show no radical departure in 
construction; their designer, Mr. 
Grosvenor Atterbury, has prof¬ 
ited freely by the suggestions 
which were offered by the best 
model tenements previously 
built, and aims to carry the im¬ 
provements in this line one step 
larther. It is impracticable 
here to give full details ol the 
points of difference between 
the first of the Phipps houses 
on East Thirty-first Street, near First Avenue, and 
the best of model tenements previously built. A 
description of these differences may be summarized 
from an article by Mr. Grosvenor Atterbury in 
“Charities and Commons.” 
The closed interior courts such as are found in 
almost all tenements previously erected are done 
away with, and they are now connected with the 
street by an archway. This change allows the en¬ 
trance to such courts to he used by the children as a 
social center in place of the street curb. The new 
•Style of architecture in the Phipps houses will also 
avoid the barrack-like effect which ordinarily results 
from the arrangement of a great number of apartments 
in one building. Another notable Improvement 
A KITCHEN AND LIVING-ROOM IN ONE OF THE THREE ROOM 
APARTMENTS “THE FIRST AVE. ESTATE,” NEW YORK 
I'HE FIRST AVENUE ESTATE. FIRST AVE. AND 64TH ST., NEW YORK 
resulting in more than the usual degree of privacy in 
tenements is the insertion of private vestibules and 
halls wherever required, so as to avoid the necessity 
of entering any bedroom by passing through a bed¬ 
room or even through a so-called parlor, which has 
commonly been done. Moreover, in order to do 
away with all public conveniences of this sort, a 
simple shower hath is inserted in combination with 
the toilets in every apartment where baths are not 
otherwise provided. There is also a considerable 
increase of the window surface in the majority of the 
living-rooms. One-half of the roof can he used as a 
roof-garden, and two permanent pavilions with solid 
roofs are provided for purposes of protection, both 
day and night, where tenants may sleep in the oppres¬ 
sive heat of summer. The doing away with, 
as soon aspossihle, of the great vitiation of air 
in rooms illuminated by gas is provided for 
bythe installationof an electric conduit,with 
a view to the use of electricity for lighting 
purposes whenever its cost shall he equal to 
that of gas and a suitable type of “demand 
metre” found—that is, a metre arranged to 
give automatically a certain amount of elec¬ 
tricity when a coin is dropped into the slot. 
It is noteworthy also that a kindergarten, 
a play-room, accessible from the street as 
well as from the tenement, has been pro¬ 
vided for the use of the tenants or kinder¬ 
garten associations desiring to conduct 
their work in the building. I'he Phipps 
houses thus represent, in some respects, the 
most advanced type of tenement house 
construction in New York, and although 
the improvements embodied in them are to a 
certain extent tentative, there is little doubt 
that they will be justified by experience. 
S7 
