Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: [v. 92, no. 2387]: December 13, 1913

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REAL ESTATE BUILDERS AND NEW YORK, DECEMBER '13, 1913 ■■■■■■■■■■■^^^ i-llfl'il(!'^''.i' SERIOUS DEFECTS IN NEW FIRE LAWS Factory Workers Deprived of Needed Protection — Many Owners of Factory Buildings Subjected to Arbitrary and Expensive Requirements. By ALEXANDER C. MAC NULTY, Assistant Corporation Counsel [Since th'S article was ivrittcn the draft o* a bill itiliiided lo cure some of thc defects in the firelatvs, and restore to the Neiv York City Fire Dcfartment most of the poxvers, of zchich it has been deprived b\< the new Slate Factory laivs, has been for¬ warded lo Governor Glynn with_ a letter of commendation signed by the Slate_ Labor Commissioner, thc Deputy Fire Commis¬ sioner Mr. Olvaney, and .4bram I. Elkus. chief counsel to the Factory Investigatinii Commission. This legislation has been asked for upon Ihe advice of .Assistant Cor¬ poration Counsel MacNulty, who, in Ihis article, c.rplains Ihe injury Ihat was done by Ihe hurried legislation of last Spring.] THE recent explosion, fire and fatal¬ ities in a Canal street factory build¬ ing constituted the first of a series of disasters that, with good reason, may be expected to result from the division of responsibility and general chaos worked by the fire laws enacted this year. The measures referred to went into ef¬ fect October 1, and since then the Fire Department has been powerless to re¬ quire the remedying of unsafe conditions in factory buildings, except insofar as such conditions may be minimized by fire-alarm systems and auxiliary extin¬ guishing appliances. .A.11 jurisdiction of fire-escapes and other means of egress from factories, and all authority to make orders for the safeguarding of factory employees against conditions likely to cause fires and fire-panics, were taken from the Fire Commissioner by amend¬ ments to Section 775 of the Greater New York Charter, made by Chapter 695 of the Laws of 1913. The Hoey Law Efficient. The local fire-prevention system, created and organized under the Hoey Law, has operated efficiently. More¬ over, it has not imposed arbitrary and unreasonable expense upon the own¬ ers and lessees of tenant-factories. In¬ deed, under the Hoey law, a fire-preven¬ tion order must be reasonable to be en- forcible by judicial action, civil or crim¬ inal. Requirements of the Fire Commis¬ sioner, when arbitrary and oppressive, may be opposed in and vacated by the courts. For this reason, in issuing fire prevention orders, under the authority of that statute full consideration has usu¬ ally been given to the nature and degree of the fire hazards of the particular buildings affected by such orders. Where factory buildings contain little or no combustible material, the requirements have been few and inexpensive to ineet. On the other hand, in buildings jammed with inflammable materials and crowded with toiling humanity, the requirements have often been numerous, and some¬ times burdensome. In brief, under the Hoey law it has been impossible to mulct property own¬ ers and business proprietors for unnec¬ essary and unreasonable safeguards .A.LEX.A.NDER C. MAC NULTY. Mr. MacNulty is Ihe City's tire-law e.v- pcrt. He drafted the Hoey Fire Preven¬ tion Law, and has had charge of all crimi¬ nal prosecutions and civil proceedings ilicrcnndcr. in behalf of the Corporation Counsel. Mr. MacNulty has made a special study of firc-prcvention measures and of means for the elimination of fire-perils, and is being mentioned in connection with the Fire Cominissionership. against fire perils, whereas it has been possible to require that dangerous fire- traps should be made safe at hatever cost. Lender the circumstances it would seem that a radical departure from the fire-prevention system, authorized and developed under the Hoey law, should not have been made without the most careful consideration and balancing of all the conditions involved. Unintentional Interference. It is common experience that modern legislation is more apt to be destructive than constructive. The fire laws en¬ acted this year seem to be typical of this tendency. It appears now that it was not the intention of the Factory Com¬ mission to deprive the Fire Commission¬ er of the power to remedy all dangerous conditions in factory buildings, nor was it intended to rescind his authority to re¬ quire fire drills in buildings not used for factory purposes. The admission that these concedcdiy unwise encroachments upon tlie Fire Commissioner's jurisdiction were inad¬ vertent, and chargeable to lack of care in drafting the statute which contains them, raises a serious doubt as to the wisdom and technical accuracy of all the pro¬ visions of the new fire laws. This doubt is accentuated by the fact that many of such provisions contained requirements applicable to all factory buildings. They do not discriminate between buildings with non-combustible or slow-burning contents and those filled with explosive or highly inflammable materials. They put a wire-goods manufactory and a sjiirt-waist sweat-shop on the same ba¬ sis, imposing on both the expensive re¬ quirements that are indispensable to the latter only. In this respect, therefore, the new legislation is arbitrary and op¬ pressive. Hard on Owners of Old Buildings. The provisions added to the Labor Law, which form the bulk of the new fire laws, appear to be aimed at the most numerous, yet least remunerative, class of business properties—the old- style loft buildings. There are hundreds of such structures in lower Manhattan and in the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn, that are wholly or partly va¬ cant. It is from the owners of. these properties that we hear the most con¬ cerning over-assessment, excessive tax¬ ation and budgetary increases. They are losing money, but the real cause of their loss is the ever increasing migration of industrial plants, from old factory build¬ ings to new loft structures of modern equipment and so-called fireproof con¬ struction. One twelve-story Ijuilding of the latter type affords the same area of floor space as two six-story structures, occupying twice as much land as does the taller building. The modern factory building, there- tore, costs commensurately less for land and construction, hence its owner can successfully compete with the landlord of an old-style factory building in the matter of lower rents, as well as in trade facilities. These are the real reasons for the vacant space in the older buildings and the consequent loss to their owners. Under the circumstances, it will be ruin¬ ous to the owners of many of the old type of loft buildings to require them to make the same structural alterations in their vacant or half-vacant properties, as no doubt should be made in many of our towering tenant-factories. Two Tragedies. True, but for the fortuitous absence of the usual occupants of the two upper floors of the Canal street building, the loss of life in the fire there might have been appalling; the disaster was terrible enough as it was. But it should be re¬ membered that this fire was explosive in origin and killed its victims, with one exception, before they had a chance to escape. Even had the upper floors been occupied to their normal capacity, their human contents were all within the stretch of the ladders of the Fire De¬ partment, and their retreat mi.ght have been protected by its hose-streams. On the Other hand, the scores of people, who