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Real estate record and builders' guide: [v. 101, no. 2610: Articles]: March 23, 1918

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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