houses can be constructed under the provisions of the new code, not only on 50-foot lots, 100-foot lots, and 75-foot lots, but on 25-foot lots as well, and that upon a 25-foot lot there is no difficulty in planning a tenement house with twelve rooms on each floor, with adequate provision for light and air. This is as great a number of rooms as could be now obtained if the present law limiting the percentage of lot to 65 per cent was strictly enforced. One architect has drawn a plan for a 50-foot tenement in which twenty-eight rooms can be obtained on a floor, which is fully as many as can now he obtained in the worst type of double-decker. The Commission submits with this report a sufficient number of plans prepared by these architects to illustrate the entire practicability of the new code.

CONCLUSION

As the members of the Commission have proceeded in the work intrusted to them by the Legislature, they have been increasingly and profoundly impressed with the variety and importance of the interests involved. There is not a tenement house question. There are a thousand tenement house questions. In New York certainly there is no group of questions that so profoundly affects the public welfare or the welfare of so many of the public.

While the fundamental evils of insufficient light and air, insufficient fire protection, and inadequate sanitary arrangements, as well as that most fundamental evil of all, failure to properly enforce the law, will continue in greater or less degree, there are some phases of the tenement house question which are likely to change and some new remedies which will have to be applied, either to meet new conditions or to take the place of remedies which have proved themselves to be ineffective. The Commission of 1894 recommended the abolition of the then existing permanent Tenement House Board, consisting of certain city officials who became members of the Board by virtue of their office, because this Board had done nothing, and, with the other more important official duties imposed upon its members, was unlikely to do anything. It recommended, however, that another statutory commission upon the subject be created by the Legislature every five years. In the recommendation for a periodic appointment of such a commission the present Commission joins. In no other way can the shifting conditions of the various tenement house problems be so effectively met.

If, however, a separate tenement house department be created directly charged with tenement house supervision and with no other distracting duties, the necessity for such a commission, so far as New York City is concerned, will be much diminished.

The Commission has sought by every means in its power to obtain expert information and expert opinion. Immediately after its appointment the Commission invited the heads of different city departments charged with the supervision of tenement houses to meet them informally. The invitation was accepted by the heads of the Building Department, Health Department, and Fire Department, who courteously placed all the information in their departments at the disposal of the Commission, and have afforded it every facility. It has also been especially fortunate in having had the hearty cooperation of the leading architectural societies of the city, the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Architectural League, and the Society of Beaux Arts Architects having appointed special committees to coöperate with the Tenement House Commission.

The Commission desires to acknowledge its indebtedness to these and to all the many persons who have coöperated with the Commission, and to acknowledge its special sense of indebtedness to those persons who have prepared for the Commission special reports upon different subjects, as well as to the architects who have prepared plans for the Commission showing what tenement houses can be built under the proposed code of tenement house laws. The Commission appreciates the public spirit prompting this work, and wishes to place on record its sense of deep obligation to all who have in these and in other ways helped the Commission in its work.

The recommendations of the Commission embodied in this report represent the conclusions reached after careful consideration of each question from the various sides. The more important subjects have been considered and acted upon by the Commission as a whole. While this has added greatly to the burdens of the Commissioners, it gives them greater confidence in the conclusions thus reached.

There have been no differences of opinion between members of the Commission except those necessarily incident to the earnest consideration of important public questions by thoughtful men, and these have been so few in number and have been discussed so freely and frankly, as to only emphasize the harmony of aim and spirit which has characterized all their deliberations.

The present Commission is larger in number than any of its predecessors. It includes among its members and officers men who have planned tenement houses as architects, men who have constructed them as builders, men who have managed them as agents, men who have lived in them, and men who are now in control of them as owners. It also includes those who have been officially connected with all the New York City departments charged with tenement supervision,—the Health Department, the Building Department,

and the Fire Department, as well as others who are interested in tenement house conditions from the philanthropic side. A Commission thus constituted has had unusual facilities for looking at the subject from all these different points of view, and more particularly, perhaps, from the point of view of the practical business man.