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R E A L E S TAT E BUILDERS AND Vol. CII. NEW YORK, AUGUST 17, 1918 No. 7 Does New York Want Temporary Factories? Lawson Purdy Combats Idea That the Establishment of Heavy Manufactories Is Beneíicial BY LAWSON PURDY Former President Department of Taxes and Assessments WE have all read a great deal about the alleged de- sirability of having war work done in the City of New York; and, I think, some of the Brooklyn newspapers have said something about the desirability of having it done in the Borough of Brooklyn. No com- munity in the United States should be backward in wel- coming any war industry when it is to the advantage of the United States Government. But it is by no means desirable for a large community to have added to it suddenly a large number of workers, in an industry which must be temporary. I can see no gain to the Borough of Brooklyn by having established here a temporary industry that would bring a large num- ber of workers here for the time being. Brooklyn has not the future of a heavy manufacturing community. The opportunities here are far too valuable for more inten- sive use of the facilities that Brooklyn affords to make it worth while to retain here any industry that requires a great deal of land as do all heavy manufacturing indus- tries. I feel very confident that the future of Brooklyn is not in the direction of heavy manufacturing industries. They involve the bringing to the place of great quantities of raw material. On Long Island we do not produce any mineral ores. There is no particular reason that one can see for transporting iron and coal to BrookKn, and such industries require a great deal of land which is of such value for other purposes that it should not be devoted to that sort of use. You have made a tremendous beginning here in light manufacturing. You are providing facilities such as have heretofore been unknown, in the great Bush Terminal. There wiU be a further development in thc waterfront from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Atlantic Basin. The New York Dock Company is already deveioping along those lines. You will in time have direct railroad trans- portation under the Bay, with the connecting railroad into New England. And you will have other lacilities for bringing shipping here and taking finished articles away. Brooklyn is a very great shipping port. We have the immense number of miles of waterfront at Jamaica Bay that are merely waiting for development, and the shore from Red Hook to Owl's Head is getting pretty well de- veloped now. Across the Bay we have the great shipping point of Staten Island. The future of Brooklyn is a great manufacturing centre for light manufacturing, and a very great port for the entrance and shipment of goods with direct entrance to New England. You don't want these temporary industries established here. If they are established here with reasonable access of Manhattan and the Bronx, housing facilitics are prob- ably suffĩcient for the time being for the workers that are likely to come. When you add 10,000 people to Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx, it is not noticed. But it is when you bring 10,000 people to a Hog Island shipyard that housing facilities must be provided. If a shipping plant is established on the north shore of Staten Island, it will be necessary to provide adequate housing facilities on Staten Island. They are talking and even arranging for the transportation of workers from the Newark ship- yards to Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens, by an in- tensive use of the Hudson Tubes and the Pennsylvania Railroad. That will obviate the necessity of building houses for workers in the neighborhood of the Newark yards. Before the war, as you very well know, there was a stoppage of building throughout the United States be- cause of the rapidly increasing cost of building material and the increasing wage cost, and we were short of hous- ing facilities in a great many places. With the establish- ment of great plants for war industries it became neces- sary to house the workers. Before the war there 'was another condition that had been in existence for a good many years, to whicli hardly sufĩfĩcient attention had been paid, that of the very rapid labor turnover in great in-' dustries. In some of them it was so high that to maintain 1,000 men it was necessary to employ 4,000 during the year. Various estimates have been made as to the loss caused by the labor turnover, and all agree that the loss is very heavy. In one industry in which I am somewhat familiar an estimate was made as to the loss caused by the labor turnover. In this industry goods were nianufactured which were easily damaged and spoiled. It was found that the spoilage of goods through carelessness and in- experience of the workers amounted in one year to a sum that would have built houses for a very large percentage of the force. Some of the great manufacturing indus- tries of the country have in many ways tried to check the labor turnover, or to stabilize labor. There was one experiment which has exerted an evil influence against what I think is a right line. All of you remember the Pullman strikes of 1894. Those strikes were in part attributed to the PuIIman Company in es- tablishing the town of Pullman, and the paternal attitude of the company toward its employees. Many thought that the employees were ungrateful. They were not con- tented. And manufacturing companies have been timid about providing homes for their workers along the same lines adopted by the PuIIman Company. Some of them have refrained entirely from building houses for their workers. Lmder such conditions the effort to maintain a stable and contented labor forc'e has been fruitless as long as the living conditions are so bad as they are. During the last few years it has been common for great industries to establish new factories in virgin fields, and overnight a great town is built up of nothing. That was done in Gary, Ind., by the U. S. Steel Corporation. This