COLUMBIA LIBRARIES OFFSITE 
 
 HEALTH SCIENCES STANDARD 
 
 HX64171450 
 RC311.1 .C37 Memorandum submitted 
 
 RECAP 
 
 Ch&rit ..:ganizat-Lon Society -- th of 
 
 Zork* Committee on the Prevention 
 tuberculosis * 
 
 norandum submitted to the Committee on 
 
 buildings or the Board ox aldermen 
 
JC3//I £37 
 
 Columbia (Bnftwtfitj) 
 
 intljeCtipofltaitork 
 
 College of iJSfjpgtciana ana burgeons 
 Hibrarp 
 
THE BUILDING CODE 
 
 
 AND 
 
 TUBERCULOSIS PREVENTION 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 Open Knowledge Commons 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/memorandumsubmitOOchar 
 
Memorandum Submitted 
 
 to the <r \ 
 
 Committee on Buildings 
 
 of the 
 
 Board of Aldermen 
 
 BY THE 
 
 -v Committee on the Prevention of Tuberculosis 
 
 of the 
 Charit y Organi zation Society of the City of New York. 
 
 May 15, 1912. 
 
i^e s\\.\ 
 
 C-3.1 
 
THE Committee on the Prevention of Tuberculosis, which 
 is deeply interested in decreasing in every way prac- 
 ticable the extent of tuberculosis in this city, and which 
 includes among its members most of the city's leading 
 physicians who have made a special study of this disease, respect- 
 fully submits for the attention of the Board of Aldermen and the 
 public the following considerations with reference to the proposed 
 building code now pending before that Board : 
 
 While we appreciate the disinterested public service which has 
 been rendered, and the genuine desire for improvement over 
 present conditions which has actuated the members of the Com- 
 mittee who have formulated the proposed building code now 
 under consideration, we are constrained to point out certain vital 
 considerations in which the code is so defective as to make unwise 
 its adoption in its present form. 
 
 We are not unmindful of the many good features of the code, 
 nor of the attempt made to advance the interests of the public, 
 but the methods employed are so inadequate and fall so far short 
 of what is desirable as the "irreducible minimum," that we are 
 forced to the conclusion that it would be far better for the com- 
 munity to have the code remain entirely silent upon certain ques- 
 tions than to attempt to enact provisions as inadequate as those 
 contained in it. 
 
 This Committee is primarily interested only in those provisions 
 of the code which affect adversely or favorably the living and 
 working conditions of our citizens from the point of view of 
 tuberculosis prevention. While as individuals we may be deeply 
 interested in many provisions of the code having to do with the 
 safety of buildings and the protection of their inmates in case 
 of fire, as members of this Committee our interest centers only 
 around questions which deal with light and ventilation. 
 
 We realize fully that at the present time, with the exception 
 of tenement houses, lodging houses, hotels, office buildings and 
 private dwellings, there are no legal requirements limiting the 
 amount of lot that can be covered or regulating the spaces that 
 shall be left unoccupied for the purpose of supplying light and 
 ventilation. The effort made in the code to extend these require- 
 
ments to other classes of buildings is to be commended, but it 
 is to be regretted that the attempt to carry out this purpose 
 should have failed so signally. 
 
 THE EVILS OF BORROWED LIGHT. 
 
 The evils due to the failure to provide proper light and ven- 
 tilation for each building upon its own lot at the time the building 
 is erected, which, up to twelve years ago, was exemplified so 
 strikingly in the city's tenement houses, have in recent years devel- 
 oped to an alarming extent in connection with hotels, office build- 
 ings, factories, lofts, private dwellings, two-family houses and 
 other similar buildings, until the community generally is aroused 
 to the evils of borrowed light, and even property owners them- 
 selves have become aware of the disadvantages of permitting a 
 new building to be erected securing its light above the roof of an 
 adjoining building, or from property abutting it, and at the time 
 vacant, but which will sooner or later be built upon, and, when 
 built upon, will result in the shutting out of light and air from 
 the building in question, thus creating numerous dark rooms. 
 
 THOUSANDS OF WINDOWLESS ROOMS FOR NEW 
 
 BUILDINGS. 
 
 It would seem that the time had come when the City of New 
 York should prohibit the erection in the future of buildings with 
 windowless rooms. We have heard so much in recent years of 
 the great number of these rooms in our tenement houses, and of 
 their intimate bearing upon the tuberculosis problem, that it 
 hardly seems possible that any responsible group of citizens, in 
 formulating a code regulating the types of buildings to be con- 
 structed in the future, should have knowingly permitted the 
 erection of all kinds of buildings with any number of windowless 
 rooms. 
 
 We regret to have to point out that this is the case with regard 
 to the present code. Notwithstanding the fact that a dark room 
 without a window to the outer air, and without proper light or 
 ventilation, is just as dangerous in a two-family house, in a one- 
 family house, in a boarding house, in a factory, or in a hotel, 
 as in a tenement house, it is proposed to permit the erection of 
 such rooms practically without limitation. The dark room will 
 foster and develop tuberculosis in one case quite as much as in 
 the other. 
 
 4 
 
The framers of the code apparently set out with the intention 
 of doing away with dark and windowless rooms, but succeeded 
 only in proposing a weak compromise which vitiates the entire 
 effort. 
 
 In the first place, to limit only to sleeping rooms the require- 
 ment that rooms shall have windows to the outer air, is singu- 
 larly shortsighted. Light and ventilation are quite as necessary 
 in the other rooms of a dwelling as in the sleeping room. In the 
 kitchen, for instance, in many houses the mother of the family 
 spends two-thirds of her time, as against one-third in the sleeping 
 room ; and in the parlor, back parlor, dining room, and other 
 rooms, the other members of the family spend quite as much 
 time as in the sleeping rooms, and often more. Windowless 
 rooms are objectionable, whether in sleeping rooms or in other 
 rooms. 
 
 Moreover, if the requirement is limited to "sleeping rooms," 
 the law will be easily evaded, and architects who wish to escape 
 compliance with its provisions will simply mark various rooms on 
 their plans, with some designation other than sleeping room, such 
 as parlor, back parlor, storeroom, etc., and the authorities will 
 be powerless to prevent this evasion, even though they may be 
 morally certain that the rooms are to be used for sleeping pur- 
 poses. Our building departments are not so organized that they 
 can station inspectors in all houses to see that rooms are used 
 for the purposes stated on the plans. It would require an army 
 of inspectors to do this, nor would it be desirable. 
 
 The only way to get satisfactory results is not to> permit the 
 erection of buildings with dark rooms in them, as there are no 
 parts of the majority of buildings where it is safe, from a sani- 
 tary point of view, to have rooms constructed without direct light 
 and ventilation. Again, the open spaces that these rooms are 
 required to open upon are entirely inadequate to secure light 
 and ventilation. 
 
 LAW EVASION MADE EASY. 
 
 More serious even than any of these considerations is the 
 fact that the entire requirement is completely vitiated by per- 
 mitting dark windowless rooms in the guise of alcove rooms, 
 with a certain portion of the room open to an adjoining room. 
 New York has had its experience with alcove rooms and has 
 learned its lesson thoroughly. It needs no further experi- 
 
ments. Its experience with alcove rooms in tenement houses 
 has been entirely conclusive. Here, twelve years ago, an at- 
 tempt was made to permit alcoves of exactly the same type 
 as it is proposed to permit now, with the result that archi- 
 tects and builders at once took advantage of this provision and 
 proceeded to construct in tenement houses numerous rooms 
 without any windows to the outer air, totally dark, providing 
 one room with windows and then opening from it, in different 
 directions, four or five other totally dark alcove rooms. 
 
 From a sanitary point of view the alcove room, without 
 direct outside ventilation and light, is more objectionable 
 even than the dark room with only the ordinary doorway to 
 the adjoining room. Where the alcove is provided, invari- 
 ably curtains and portieres are soon hung in the openings, 
 shutting out generally as much light and air as the partition 
 would exclude and in addition serving as catch-alls for germs 
 and dirt. 
 
 The only satisfactory method is to require all rooms to 
 get their light and air directly from a proper open space.' There 
 is no objection to the alcove treatment of rooms, but the 
 portion thus treated should have its independent means of 
 light and ventilation. 
 
 Attention is also called to the impropriety, in the year 
 1912, of permitting new buildings to be built with attic sleep- 
 ing rooms, with the roof sloping down to almost nothing 
 throughout a portion of the room. It is to be regretted also 
 that a minimum height of 9 feet, such as is required for 
 tenement houses, is not established in place of a height of 
 8 feet 6 inches, and that attic rooms are not strictly prohibited 
 unless of that height in all their parts. 
 
 DARK AND UNVENTILATED FACTORIES. 
 
 We would also call attention to the fact that notwith- 
 standing the new knowledge that has been gained in recent 
 years of the importance of the adequate lighting and venti- 
 lation of places in which people work, that the old type of 
 "Loft-factory" is continued. This highly objectionable type 
 of building has been prevalent in this city for many years, a 
 building getting its light and ventilation only from the street 
 and from an inadequate yard at the rear, without proper pro- 
 vision for the lighting of the interior portions which consist 
 
of a long, open floor space that gets its sole light and air 
 from these few windows at each end of the building, and 
 which often is subdivided in all sorts of ways. 
 
 The results of the failure to recognize the importance of 
 this requirement are now becoming obvious in the researches 
 that have recently been made into the study of industrial 
 diseases. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten that under the Labor Laws 
 of the state, owners of all such buildings are now required 
 to install methods of artificial ventilation. This, in many 
 cases, has caused great hardship and has aroused great oppo- 
 sition. It is not strange, in view of the fact that it has involved 
 an expenditure of from one thousand to twenty thousand 
 dollars in many cases. And yet, notwithstanding this fact, 
 no provision whatever has been made to remedy these condi- 
 tions. Under the proposed code a building of this type may 
 be erected in the year 1912, and shortly after it is completed 
 and occupied, the Commissioner of Labor will cause the 
 owners to install artificial systems of ventilation at great cost. 
 It would seem the part of wisdom to anticipate this situation, 
 and to require that buildings of this kind when built shall 
 be so built as to secure such ventilation, instead of imposing 
 serious structural alterations at great expense upon the owners 
 of such property, after the buildings have been completed 
 and occupied. 
 
 Yet notwithstanding the well-recognized evils of insuffi- 
 cient light and ventilation, the proposed code is totally inade- 
 quate in its provisions dealing with these primal necessities. 
 
 RULE OF THUMB METHODS. 
 
 Moreover, the method employed of determining the amount 
 of space to be left unoccupied so as to furnish light and air is 
 both unscientific and unreasonable. It is apparently based 
 upon no principle, but seems to have been determined by "rule 
 of thumb." The principle, which was established in the tene- 
 ment house law a number of years ago, is sound and has 
 proved satisfactory in practice. That principle is to establish 
 a minimum size for all open spaces and then to require that 
 such open spaces shall be increased a proportionate amount 
 for each story that the building is increased in height. Thus 
 in the tenement house law the minimum depth of a yard in 
 
the case of a building 60 feet high is 13 feet, and for each 
 additional story or 12 feet that the building is increased in 
 height, the yard must be increased one foot in depth. A sim- 
 ilar procedure is laid down in that statute for all other open 
 spaces. 
 
 But not so in the proposed building code. Here, arbitrari- 
 ly, every building, with the exception of two or three classes 
 specifically enumerated, may occupy 90% of the lot irrespec- 
 tive of the height of the building so long as it does not ex- 
 ceed 75 feet in height, the equivalent of a seven-story build- 
 ing. Then, after this height is exceeded, 87*^% of the lot may 
 be occupied so long as the building does not exceed 150 feet 
 in height. To require no greater amount of the lot to be left 
 unoccupied for light and ventilation in the case of a building 
 150 feet high, or 15 stories, than is required in the case of a 
 building 80 feet high or 8 stories, is obviously unscientific, 
 unreasonable and improper. 
 
 UNREASONABLE DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 Again, an attempt is made to discriminate between various 
 classes of buildings and to require certain buildings, viz., 
 hotels, clubhouses, dormitories and lodging houses, to leave 
 20% of the lot area unbuilt upon, whereas office buildings, 
 factories, lofts, libraries, museums, theatres, colleges, court- 
 houses, public halls, and all other kinds of buildings (except 
 tenement houses and lodging houses which are governed by 
 state laws) need only leave 10% of the lot unoccupied, or 
 one-half of what is required in the former case. Upon what 
 principle such discrimination is based it is difficult to under- 
 stand. Why clubhouses should require larger open spaces 
 than factories in which hundreds of workers are housed for 
 ten or twelve hours at a time, is incomprehensible. Why 
 hotels, for example, should require larger open spaces than 
 offices buildings, is equally hard to understand. People in 
 office buildings are there almost as many hours in the day as 
 are people in hotels; as a rule, they need both light and ven- 
 tilation more. 
 
 This discrimination is dangerous. All provisions of a 
 building code ultimately rest upon the reasonable exercise of 
 the police power of the state. It would be difficult to show 
 that the discrimination just alluded to is reasonable, and we 
 
 8 
 
have serious doubt as to whether such provisions would stand 
 if tested in the courts. 
 
 But the serious thing is that the standards which have 
 been proposed are totally inadequate. To provide that a 
 seven-story factory building, situated on an interior lot shut 
 in on all sides by other buildings of similar or greater height, 
 shall leave only 10% of the area unbuilt upon for purposes of 
 light and ventilation, obviously falls far short of what is re- 
 quired. A tenement house similarly situated would have to 
 leave over 30% of the lot unbuilt upon. 
 
 The importance of regulating the height of buildings relative 
 to the spaces upon which they open has been recognized for years 
 both in this country and in European cities. The proper principle 
 requires that the height of a building shall have distinct reference 
 to the width of the street upon which it faces and also, similarly, 
 to the open or unoccupied space at the rear upon which it abuts, 
 and the space at the rear should be equal to the space at the 
 front. The observance of this requirement is necessary, not only 
 for securing both light and ventilation to the various rooms and 
 interior parts of each building, but from the point of view of city 
 planning, and is essential for what is technically known as block 
 ventilation — that is, the keeping in the centre or interior of each 
 block a continuous open space of reasonable size which shall fur- 
 nish light and ventilation to the rear portions of all buildings 
 abutting thereon. 
 
 This is accomplished by requiring at the rear of each building 
 a yard of an adequate size. The size generally determined upon 
 has been based upon the assumption that a yard of similar size 
 would be left upon the property abutting from the adjoining 
 street, thus leaving a continuous open space. In past years in all 
 residence sections, and also in business sections, this practice has 
 been generally observed without any legal requirements. At the 
 present time the only laws which require this are the tenement 
 house law and lodging house law ; until very recently, the require- 
 ment of the present building code that 10% of the lot shall be 
 left unbuilt upon, has generally been interpreted so that this 
 amount would be left at the rear of the building, although the 
 law has not definitely required it. 
 
 The framers of the present code are now attempting to pro- 
 vide that a yard shall be left in the case of every building erected 
 in the future, and that this clear open space shall be at the rear 
 
of the lot. Their purpose is to be commended, but it is to be 
 regretted that they should have failed so extraordinarily in the 
 attempt to carry it out. 
 
 FIVE FOOT YARDS. 
 
 What has been proposed is incredible. To embody in a 
 code which seeks to regulate the type of new buildings of all 
 kinds to be erected in future years, a provision that the yard 
 to be left unbuilt upon to furnish light and ventilation, in the 
 case of buildings on interior lots surrounded on all sides by 
 other buildings of similar or greater height, shall be the inade- 
 quate dimension of five feet, is the most extraordinary pro- 
 posal which New York City has ever had to consider. To ask 
 citizens to believe that a yard five feet in depth is adequate 
 for a building 200 feet in height requires but little comment. 
 
 Here, again, no scientific principle of regulating the size of 
 unoccupied spaces relative to the height of buildings seems to 
 have been employed ; it has again been done by "rule of thumb," 
 only the method employed here has less basis in reason than that 
 referred to previously. There, some differentiation was made 
 between buildings of different height ; here, there is none, and the 
 code assumes to state that a yard 5 feet deep is adequate for both 
 a two-story building 20 feet high and for a 20-story building 200 
 feet high. 
 
 We know from the city's experience with the tenement house 
 law that even the minimum size yard there established, viz., a 
 yard 12 feet deep for a five-story building, is hardly adequate, and 
 even this minimum must be increased one foot for every additional 
 story of the building; so that a tenement house 200 feet high 
 would have to have a yard 24 feet in depth instead of 5 feet. 
 The same standard is what should be required for all other build- 
 ings of a similar height. The occupancy of the building, so long 
 as it is intended for human occupancy at all, in no way changes 
 the requirements ; what determines whether the space shall be 
 adequate, is the ratio between the height of wall shutting out 
 light and the open space that will admit it. 
 
 Extraordinary as this proposed provision is, even this inade- 
 quate amount of 5 feet is not to be left at all in the case of 
 buildings on corner lots, thus making impossible any adequate 
 scheme of block ventilation. If the corners are to be built up 
 
 10 
 
solidly there is no means by which the air in the interior of the 
 block can be renewed. The only way that this can be secured is 
 by requiring an open space on corner lots, as well as on interior 
 lots, although this can properly be less in size. Moreover, the 
 code is so loosely drawn that even this tiny space of 5 feet can 
 be completely filled up with fire-escape balconies, cornices and 
 outside stairs projecting into it, practically covering the entire 
 space. Similarly, again, by exempting buildings from these re- 
 quirements in the case of those houses which extend through 
 from one street to another, the entire plan of block ventilation 
 becomes void. 
 
 THE RETURN TO THE DISCREDITED AIR SHAFT. 
 
 The inadequacy of the provisions dealing with yards is 
 equalled in the attempt to regulate the size of the other open 
 spaces that are to be left unbuilt upon. The minimum size of 
 courts is also established at the inadequate dimension of 5 feet, 
 but strangely enough here, for the first time, there is evident some 
 recognition of the principle which should govern. The minimum 
 standard is established, inadequate though it is, and then it is 
 required that for each increase in the height of the building above 
 a certain height, the size of the open space shall be increased a 
 certain amount. But even this principle could not be adequately 
 carried out by the framers of the code. In the first place, there 
 is no recognition of the essential difference between the different 
 kinds of courts — the inner court and the outer court ; the inner 
 court enclosed on all four sides by walls, receiving its only light 
 and air over the roof, and the outer court, open on at least one 
 side, thus permitting the light and air to stream into it from that 
 end. The two courts are essentially different. Their difference 
 is well recognized in the tenement house law, where the inner 
 court is required to be twice the dimensions of the outer court. 
 But no such discrimination is made in the code. All courts are 
 treated alike. 
 
 The minimum width of 5 feet for a court for a building 75 
 feet, or seven stories in height, is grossly inadequate. In tene- 
 ment houses of similar height an inner court, surrounded on all 
 four sides, would have to be 25 feet in its minimum width, instead 
 of 5 feet, as provided here for factories, hotels, lofts, office build- 
 ings, and all buildings. Experience with the tenement house law 
 shows that this dimension has proved to be a proper standard, not 
 
 11 
 
too much or too little, and that a court of such size will furnish 
 reasonable light and ventilation. 
 
 When we consider the method of regulation providing for 
 an increase in the size of courts with an increased height of 
 buildings, and contrast the plan proposed here with what 
 is required for tenement houses under the present law, we 
 can see the total inadequacy of this measure. In the case of 
 a tenement house 150 feet high, that is, a twelve story apart- 
 ment house, an inner court of the type above described would 
 have to be 32 feet in its least dimension ; that is, would have 
 to be increased 7 feet above the minimum for a building 75 
 feet high. In the code such a court needs only to be 8 feet 
 wide as compared with 32 feet for tenements. 
 
 All of these provisions are, moreover, so loosely drawn 
 that it would be possible for unscrupulous builders to com- 
 pletely evade them. The requirement is that the minimum 
 width of courts shall be the distance between opposite boundary 
 walls. As is frequently the practice, courts are built on the lot 
 line with one side entirely open to the adjoining property, 
 which may happen to be unbuilt upon at the time the building 
 is erected or which may be above the roof of a lower building 
 on adjoining property. In such cases it would be entirely 
 feasible to claim that the "opposite boundary wall" was the 
 nearest wall, which might be hundreds of feet away, and even 
 the inadequate 5 feet would be not left, but the property 
 could be built upon right up to the lot line. Such attempts 
 have been made by builders in the past and would undoubtedly 
 be made in the future, and in view of the language of the 
 code might readily be sustained by the courts. 
 
 Attention should be called also to the impropriety of per- 
 mitting open spaces on the lowest floor of the building to be 
 without regulation and to be even narrower than the 5 feet. 
 If any differentiation is to be made it should be upon a totally 
 different basis. At the lowest floors the courts are needed 
 to be wider than elsewhere, as conditions of darkness are at 
 their maximum the lower down we go in the building, and 
 the need for a wide court on the ground floor is much greater 
 than it is on the top floor. Attention should be called to 
 the fact that although this secfi< n refers to courts, the term 
 "court" is not defined. It would be entirely feasible for an 
 owner to evade even these meagre requirements by calling 
 
 12 
 
his open spaces "shafts" and building them less than 5 feet 
 wide. Air-shafts for light and ventilation have been recog- 
 nized by architects for many years, and the term "court" 
 has no legal significance except in the tenement house law. 
 As has already been stated, there is no apparent recogni- 
 tion of the essential difference between certain kinds of courts, 
 of the important distinction between inner courts and outer 
 courts. Nor is there any provision made for securing venti- 
 lation for inner courts through horizontal intakes at the bot- 
 tom which will secure a proper draft, a feature which has 
 been found in practice in recent tenement construction to be 
 of the greatest value. On the contrary, all courts seem to be 
 lumped together under one treatment, and can be built any 
 shape or kind so long as they are 5 feet wide. To permit 
 such miserable dark pockets in the case of other buildings, 
 is to return to all of the evils which were so prevalent in 
 tenement construction twelve years ago and which merited 
 such widespread criticism. 
 
 In view of the above considerations, we respectfully pro- 
 test against the enactment of the proposed code so long as it 
 contains these shockingly inadequate provisions with regard 
 to light and ventilation. 
 
 We would respectfully urge that proper provisions be 
 enacted which will ensure in future buildings of all classes 
 sufficient light and ventilation. Unless this is done, we sub- 
 mit that the city will be deliberately encouraging the spread 
 and development of tuberculosis and thus causing each year 
 the unnecessary death of thousands of its helpless citizens. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 COMMITTEE ON THE PREVENTION 
 OF TUBERCULOSIS, 
 
 By Lawrence Veiller, 
 Director. 
 
 13 
 
Committee 
 
 Walter Bensel, M. D. 
 Hermann M. Biggs, M. D. 
 J. S. Billings, Jr., M. D. 
 John W. Brannan, M. D. 
 Joseph D. Bryant, M. D. 
 Johnston de Forest 
 Robert W. de Forest 
 Edward T. Devine 
 Michael J. Drummond 
 Livingston Farrand, M. D. 
 Homer Folks 
 Lee K. Frankel 
 Lloyd C. Griscom 
 Luther H. Gulick, M. D. 
 Robt. W. Hebberd 
 J. H. Huddleston, M. D. 
 Woods Hutchinson, M. D. 
 
 A. Jacobi, M. D. 
 Walter B. James, M. D. 
 Miss A. B. Jennings 
 
 S. Adolphus Knopf, M. D. 
 Alexander Lambert, M. D. 
 Ernst J. Lederle 
 Egbert Le Fevre, M. D. 
 Henry M. Leipziger 
 Alfred Meyer, M. D. 
 James Alex. Miller, M. D. 
 John J. Murphy 
 Mrs. James E. Newcomb 
 Henry Phipps 
 T. Mitchell Prudden, M. D. 
 E. Guernsey Rankin, M. D. 
 Antonio Stella, M. D. 
 W. G. Thompson, M. D. 
 E. L. Trudeau, M. D. 
 Lawrence VeillEr 
 
 B. H. Waters, M. D. 
 
 Staff 
 
 Lawrence Veiller, Director 
 Frank H. Mann, Secretary 
 
 May 15, 1912. 105 E. 22d Street. 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
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 C28(Z3B)M100 
 
RCS11.1 C57 
 
 Charity organization society of 
 the city of New York. Committee 
 on the prevention of tuberculosis 
 Memorandum submitted to the