110
Record and Guide.
July 26, 1890,
afforded the opportunity to present any desired ideas to a competent
tribunal. For instance, it is quite proper for any one to come before
an engineering board and suggest, if he pleases, that a third track
be added to the elevated roads ; but it is hardly sensible that he,
who does not understand the science of bridge building, who does
not even know whether the structure if strong enough to carry
the proposed load, should pose before the public as competent to
decide this question. And it is quite proper for the elevated roads
to come before the expert board with any technical proposition
whatever, but altogether improper that these roads should them¬
selves have power to decide, independently of veto by representa¬
tives of public interest, that this, that or the other changes in the
roads should be made.
A DISPATCH from Washington, said to have been authorized
by Superintendent Porter himself, places the population of
this city at some 1,513,000. an increase of only 25 per cent, over
the population ten years ago. If this estimate is strictly cor¬
rect New York is increasing in inhabitants far less rapidly than
has been generally supposed. Some enthusiastic people thought
our population would very nearly reach the 1,700,000 limit, while
the least sanguine did not put it below 1,600,000, and for various
reasons we are inclined to believe, assuming the number given to
represent, or nearly to represent, the actual count, that like very
many other figures the census estimate requires a great deal of
elucidation. A prominent Italian was once on a visit to England
and the advantage of marrying him to an English woman was
eagerly discussed. There always is a something, however, to pre¬
vent such arrangements, and the objector thought that the fact
that the Italian already had a wife :n Italy would serve as a bar to
the alliance. " Oh ! that is all right," said Lord Palmerston ; " we
will get Gladstone to explain her away." Without pretending to
the dialectical subtlety of Mr. Gladstone, we do not think that it
will be difficult to discredit the census estimate as representing the
increase in population in this city, and it certainly affords no clue
towards discovering the increase in business and wealth. Indeed,
if the estimate could not be explained things would look bad for
the future premiership of New York. Chicago, by a dint of
extending her city lines over country districts, as well as by a
large legitimate increase, has succeeded in nearly doubling her
population : and Brooklyn is making merry over an augmentation
that is fa I larger than that of New York, as shown by the census
estimate. The normal increase in population of the whole country
is between 30 and 33 per cent., and it would be most singular, as
well as most unfortunate, if the increase of the metropolis was not
as large, relatively, as that of the rest of the country.
ON general grounds the estimate is more likely to be too small
than too large, and this is more true of New York than else¬
where. An enumerator may easily miss counting a man, either from
negligence or false information, but it is scarcely likely that he will
create fictitious individuals. As there lias been a laudable absence
of booming the census estimates in this city, the enumerators were
not filled with the responsibility of their task. Tbey probably did
not feel, as their prototypes in Chicago and elsewhere must have
felt, that the results were part of the stock-in-trade of the city.
The foolish eagerness of the Western cities to pile up figures, as if
the well-being and prosperity of the city .depended upon and was
represented by a lot of numerals is petty in the extreme, but it has
the good effect of making the enumerators careful about their work.
The New York "inquisitors" were animated by no such local
fervor; the prolonged and bsrassing detail of their work might
easily make them careless, and as a matter of fact a good many
complaints have been received by the newspapers from people who
were not counted. Aside, h'.»wever, from any such problematical
causes which may or may not have materially affected the result,
there are peculiarities about the situation in this city which must
have influenced the enumeration. A large and increasing propor¬
tion of the population are out of town when the estimate is made.
A great number of families that live cooped up during winter in
flats and small houses naturally wish to breathe country air dur¬
ing the summer, ana tbey are generally sufficiently well-to-do to
take advantage of the numerous summer resorts near the metropo¬
lis. The proportion of p(>ople so situated has not only increased
during the past ten years, but it is larger than in any other city
either in this or iv other countries. And as it is a good general rule
in estimating the value of censtis enumerations that their accuracy
will vary proportionately as the information is mediate or is reported
by the person himself, it may be seen that facts based on tbe
talk of janitors and servants is scarcely likely to be
reliable. Furthermore, as we all know, no estimate of the
people who have a residence or room within the city limits
at all represents the people who contribute to New York's pros¬
perity and wealth. In this respect, again, the trend of population
during the past decade has served to alter the proportion between
those who both live and work in the city and those who work here
and lir« elMwhere. Last WMk we showed that over 58,000 men
daily commuted on the various railways leading out of the city,
a number that stands for a population of fuHy 250,000. If to these
could be added the residents of Brooklyn, Long Island City, Jersey
City and Hoboken, who work in New York and find some of their
amusements here, it can scarcely be doubted that the above esti¬
mate would be more than doubled. It must be remembered that
despite the disadvantages which New York has suffered under,
the assessed valuation of her real and personal property has
increased 48 per cent, between 1880 and 1890. While it is true that
this increase in wealth has always been more rapid than the
increase in population, yet, if the census figures (as reported) prove
true, never has there been such a disproportion between tbe
enlargemept of population and that of the value of property.
For these reasons it would seem that the figure, 1,513,000 though
it may stand for the population within the city lines, is scarcely
an estimate on which aspiring cities can base calculations that in
such and such a number of years New York will have to take
second place in the list of the cities of the country. Long before
that time will come it is most likely that the metropolis will
tnake such just and substantial annexations as will keep her in
the van, until conditions greatly change, or until the world is
resolved into its original chaos.
The Western Union Fire.
rriHE recent fire in the Western Union Telegraph building at
-A- Broadway and Dey street affords an instructive lesson to
architects, builders and law makers. It has revealed the merits
and tbe defects, the strength and the weakness of fire-proof build¬
ings of great height.
The Western Union building was erected about seventeen years
ago, and was one of the first of the series of high buildings that,
commencing with the Post-office building, have been erected since
1870. The Western Union structure was well and solidly built,
and represented the highest of the art of building at that period.
Its floors were constructed of rolled wrought iron beams with
segmental brick arches between the same, leaving the underside
of the lower flanges of the iron b'^ams exposed to the effect of flame
and heat. In most of the stories level ceilings were obtained by
snspended plaster plates fastened to and covering the underside
of the iron beams. The system of hollow'tile flat arches forming
a level ceiling direct and entirely covering in the bottom flanges of
iron beams and thus protecting the latter from the heat which is
at its greatest intensity at the ceiling line in a room whose contents
is on fire, was a novelty in constructing floors at the time this
building was erected, and only came into common use a few years
later.
Prior to the passage of the amended building law in 1885
wood-stud and lath and plaster partitions were not infre-
quentiy used in fire-proof buildings to divide up the stories into
rooms; but since that date woodwork or other inflammable material
in partitions are prohibited, and also wooden furrings in any fire¬
proof building; and the only woodwork allowed under the law at
present in force are the doors and windows, and their frames, the
trims, casings, the interior finish, and the floor boards and sleepers
directly thereunder. Under the amended building law all build¬
ings exceeding 80 feet in height are required to be fire-proof. Tbe
new building law which failed to get through the last Legislature
proposed to extend the limit of height 5 feet more—to 85 feet—not,
however, for the purpose of adding another story within that
height, but to allow a little better height of stories. In buildings
exceeding that height new requirements were provided for safety
from fire.
The Fire Department claim that above a height of 85 feet a fire
cannot be effectively handled. Mar y of our modern buildings are
twice that height, the World building as one of the latest examples
being nearly 300 feet from the sidewalk to the top of the dome.
When buildings are erected to such enormous heights, or to any
height exceeding the limit of 80 or 85 feet, they should be con¬
structed in every respect in such a manner as to be able to with¬
stand any fire that may arise within them, and all requirements to
that end should be provided for in our building law and strictly
enforced in the interests of common public safety. And no matter
how fire-proof any such building may be in itself, ample exits by
direct staircases on the inside, and fire-escape balconies and ladders
on the outside of the building, should in each and every case be
exacted, and to the same extent as if the building was not fire¬
proof, for it is smoke and not flame that destroys life in a burning
building. The Western Union building was particularly defective
in its means of escape for the occupants, and, although built to defy
the elements, it proved a trap for those persons who happened to
be iu the extreme upper portion at the time of the fire, and the
rescue of the imperilled lives was entirely due to the firemen. Here
was a building that was intended to remain in its integrity without
any call on the Fire Department; no insurance was carried, so that
requirements that the Board of Fire Underwriters might have
imposed, looking to just such an emergency as did arise, found no
placo in tbe calculations of the owners. Without let or hindrance
?^