Prohibition settled the drink question, but while the cafe lasted in Roebling it kept the men from going to town to battle with the “embalming fluid,” and not showing up for the customary three days. That too was good business.
FIRE, POLICE, BANKS, STREETS
After the dirt and noise and disorder of a city street, it is like a sedative to slip from the train into the peace and the wide spaces of Roebling. The tidy station is at one side, at the other, beyond the switch tracks, the little gate-house which gives ingress to the mill enclosure—if you have the proper kind of pass. From here a trim concrete walk leads on past the ground of the plant and its fence of tall pickets, toward the river, and the town. As you go, you meet with courtesy. It is not drawing the long bow to say everybody in Roebling—outwardly at least—is civil and good natured. Just beyond the mill grounds you come upon the police office, with trig coppers who seem to have very little to do. Like the shining fire engines, which stand in the adjoining building ready for service either in town or plant, they seem to be maintained chiefly for insurance and ornament. But they are practical organizations at that. The Roebling Company learned what fire was during the war, when two of the biggest buildings in the Upper Works were destroyed.
From this point the streets lead away, broad, clean streets with the best of sidewalks, and drainage. The town has spread out now so that it looks no more like a toy city. The streets are 80 feet wide, with the exception of Main Street and Fifth Avenue, which are 100 feet wide. Trees have been planted which already make it attractive. In front of every house is a dooryard, a patch of green grass to remind a man that God made the world.
HOUSES
Adjoining fire and police houses, there was formerly a trim little bank whose business has expanded to such an extent that it has been enabled to move to the centre of the business section of the town in an attractive and up-to-date building of its own.
The houses, while of widely different types, are for the most part made of brick. In order to avoid fire danger, the minimum of wood is used in all the buildings of the town. The houses are all constructed on the most improved plan of sanitation and hygiene. Through the block, giving access to the back-doors, run clean alleys, wide enough to allow wagons to pass for the delivery of coal, foodstuffs and other commodities, and for the collection of waste. The company is now halting between the erection of an incinerator plant to consume the garbage for its 700 and odd homes, or a “hog farm” as part of its three or four hundred acres, which without difficulty could turn out 1,000 to 2,000 head of swine a year, and further reduce the cost of living. It is possible, too, that it may some day produce its own milk.
There is a marked difference between some of the houses first erected and those of more recent construction. At present the “bungalow” type is in great favor, since it facilitates the labor of housekeeping. More pretentious dwellings, for the men holding important positions in the plant, are sufficient to make a rent-ridden, janitor-jaded, bell-boy bossed New Yorker wonder what he is being punished for. One handsome colonial home just built for a superintendent in one of the wire mills would be a credit to any commuter town.
BASEBALL, RECREATION BUILDING, THEATRE, BALLROOM
Always as you pass through airy Roebling you encounter some new institution built to make it seem like a regular place. There is a baseball ground which would be a credit to any city, with its tidy green grandstand and its carefully manicured diamond. The Wire Works team is now prominent in one of the State Leagues. There is a recreation building, with billiard and pool tables and the best bowling alleys that can be built. There is a spacious assembly hall, with theatre stage and a scrumptious curtain bearing a picture of the Roebling Brooklyn Bridge. The gallery is commodious. The seats are removable, leaving a ballroom of impressive size, and adjoining rooms are equipped with ranges, refrigerators and dishes for the preparation and service of suppers or of dinners great and small.