REAL ESTATE







AND







(Copyright, 1918, by The Record and Guide Co.)





NEW YORK, MARCH 23, 1918





VAST GOVERNMENTAL WORKMEN'S HOUSING PLAN

Outline of the Great Machine Being Organized to Carry
Out the  Work—How the Projects   Will   Be   Financed





CONSIDERABLE confusion exists in
the building fraternity as to the Gov¬
ernment's plans for the housing of labor
at shipbuilding plants, munition works
and other centers of war activity. This
is natural, because the various building
projects are the result of different con¬
ditions in each of the places where
living quarters must be provided for
workmen. They are under the direction
of different departments of the Govern¬
ment, owing to the character of the
manufacturing to be done at the plant,
and are financed in different ways, al¬
though most of the money comes from
the same source—the people of the
country,  through  the  Government.

In a general way there are three
channels through which the Govern¬
ment is working, or will work, to supply
housing accommodations for the many
thousands of workers who are or will
be engaged in war manufacturing. First
of these, because of its clearly defined
character and the fact that the money is
in hand with which to prosecute the
work, is that of the Emergency Fleet
Corporation, of which J. Rogers Flan¬
nery is chief of the Housing Division,
which has an appropriation of $50,000,000
with which to build houses for shipyard
workers. Mr. F!annery*s New York
representative  is  G.  Richard  Davis.

Then there are the building operations
of the War Department, covered by
appropriations for supplying specific
articles of war. Under the rulings of
the Department these appropriations
cover the cost of anything necessary to
the production of these articles, and the
prime necessity in manufacturing is
labor. If labor cannot be had, unless
houses for the laborers are built, then
the appropriation must be made to cover
the housing cost. In this way a vast
amount of money not explicitly appro¬
priated for the building of workmen's
homes has been properly diverted to
that  purpose.

Lastly is the program for the building
of homes for workers in other than
shipbuilding plants, for which a bill
appropriating $50,000,000 is before Con¬
gress, and. it is believed, will soon pass.
If it is the money will be expended
through the Department of Labor, and
Otto M. Eidlitz has been selected as
general manager of the Department's
building program. Mr. Eidlitz has been
handicapped in his work because of the
lack of funds with which to carry out
any program that had been deter¬
mined on.

For the present, Mr. Eidlitz and the
other members of his Committee, who
were originally appointed by the Coun¬
cil of National Defense, are acting as
advisors to Mr. Flannery, Director of
Housing of the Shipping Board. The
latter has recently announced the ap¬
pointment of W. C. Luce as Superiii-
tendent of Construction and Morris
Knowles as Engineer in charge of sani¬
tation,  street construction,  etc.

With Mr. Eidlitz are such well-known
experts in their various lines as Toseph
D. Leland, 3d. of Boston, of the firm of
Loring & Leland; I. N. Phelps Stokes,
and it is understood soon, Burt L. Fen¬
ner, of  McKim, Mead  & White, archi¬





tects ; Frederick Law Olmstead, land¬
scape architect and engineer; Mr.
Comeys, and Mr. Hubbard, of Hubbard
& Pray, town planning experts, and A.
M. Bing, of Bing & Bing, in charge of
real estate and welfare matters.

Further manifestations of the Govern¬
ment's building schedule appear in
studying the operations of the War De¬
partment. Without attempting to out¬
line the entire activities of that Depart¬
ment it may be pointed out that con¬
struction work has been undertaken by
the Quartermaster's Department, the
Ordnance Department and the Engi¬
neering Corps. Of these three bureaus
probably the most important work has
been done by the Ordnance Depart¬
ment, for which Mann & MacNeille are
the consulting architects, which natur¬
ally has to provide housing for munition
workers.

ConsoHdation   of   Work.

The work of the War Department has
recently been consolidated by the crea¬
tion of a Construction Division to
handle all building contracts at National
army camps and other work incidental
to the needs of the army. This Board
is under the immediate direction of
Gen. March, Chief of Staif, and is
headed by Prof. A. N. Talbot, of the
University of Illinois, President of the
American Society of Civil Engineers,
and includes John Lawrence Mauran.
President of the American Institute of
Architects; Charles T. Main, President
of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers; E. W. Rice, President of the
American Institute of Electrical Engi¬
neers; Frederick L. Cranford, President
of the Contractors' Association of New
York; R. W. Rhett, President of the
Chamber of Commerce of the U. S.;
Oscar A. Reum, representing the Build¬
ing Construction Employers' Associa¬
tion, and John R. Alpine, representing
the American  Federation  of Labor.

Large Program of Construction.

The membership of this Board is
representative and qualified and will
undoubtedly promote efficiency in the
conduct of one of the great problems of
the war. It will have charge of the
work already under way at the canton¬
ments and the additional construction
which is planned for the army camps.
There are eighty-five jobs in the first
class, aggregating $205,000,000, with 120
more to cost $278,000,000 jn prospect and
forty proposed barrack jobs for troops,
aggregating $390,000,000, and a number
of hospital buildings, to cost $10,000,000.
This program includes such widely dif¬
ferent classes of work as storage ter¬
minals, ordnance depots, repair shops,
office buildings, and gas-making plants.
As evidence of the Government's
solicitude for the workmen and to en¬
sure the proper regulation of the hous¬
ing program after the houses are actu-
allv built may be cited the appointment
of'Allan Robinson to prevent extortion¬
ate rentals, look after the careful up¬
keep of the buildings and to take such
other measures as will insure the com¬
fort and health of the workers. Then
there have been some developments
made by the Navy Department in ac¬
cordance with the needs at naval sta¬
tions   and  air  fleet  training  fields.

Another  large   factor  in  the  buildmg
business of the Government is the work





under the direction of the War Indus¬
tries Board, of which Major W. A. Star¬
rett is chief of the emergency construc¬
tion committee. This Board will expend
about $300,000,000 this year. Of this
amount $100,000,000 will be used for the
construction of 31 large storage ware¬
houses; a similar sum will be expended
on terminals at seaboard cities and the
remainder on powder, gas and high ex¬
plosive  plants.

These are, perhaps, the chief chan¬
nels through which the Government is
working to supply the imperative de¬
mand for the comfortable shelter of
the men upon whose work depends in
large measure the success of the war.

But if the plans of high Government
officials and their advisers from civil
life are carried out the larger part of the
new construction work will in the future
be handled by the Department of Labor.
This depends upon the passage of the
bill now before Congress appropriating
$50,000,000 for housing employees at
other than shipbuilding plants. This bill
admittedly will only cover a small part
of the cost of the work necessary to
provide homes for workers in Govern¬
ment service, or on Government con¬
tracts. Those who are best able to judge
of the actual necessary construction
work of this character estimate that it
will take from $500,000,000 to $1,000,000,000
to build all the houses required in the
new centers of industry.

What a little way the appropriations
so far made for workmen's houses will
go in meeting the emergency is proved
by figuring how many buildings of the
class which will fall within the Govern¬
mental requirements can be built with
$50,000,000. The general estimate of cost
of each house for a workman and his
family is about $2,500. At this rate the
money on hand will build homes for
only 20,000 men, while the number oi
workmen who will be employed in
plants where there are now no housing
accommodations or are not within easy
transportation distance of cities where
they can live runs into hundreds of
thousands.

The great demand for these houses is
occasioned by this very fact that in the
majority of cases the war activities are
carried on in places where heretofore
there have been no living accommoda¬
tions or where these accommodations
have been limited to the actual needs
of normal times. Munition plants have
been located in small towns where there
were only a few buildings. Plants that
were small before the war have been
enlarged many times without any cor¬
responding increase in the number of
dwellings and the municipal authorities
have rushed to Washington demanding
that accommodations be provided for
the workmen and their families who
were willing to work if they could find
places to live. Shipbuilding plants have
been built in half-stibmerged meadows
and on waste lands where it was almost
impossible to build satisfactory houses.
And many big factories have been
erected where there were neither
sufficient provisions for workmen's
homes or adequate transportation to
nearby cities, where they could live.

Offers by cities to cooperate with the
Government in building houses for
workmen have frequently been coupled
with   conditions   that   the   Government