Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow

by Thomas Fitch; Anna M. Fitch

The consent of the city authorities to a resurvey and remodeling of the streets and avenues of the destroyed section of New York, was obtained without difficulty since Mr. Morning was now the sole owner of the land affected thereby, and the rearrangements proposed by him were made at his own cost, and insured greater uniformity and greater convenience to the public than those which were superseded.

The land was platted into blocks four hundred feet in length and eighty feet in width, running north and south, thus giving to the occupants of the new buildings either the morning or the afternoon sun. These blocks are divided by streets of a uniform width of one hundred feet, having a park thirty feet wide in the center of each street, with lawn, shrubs, ornamental trees, and a fountain in the center of each block. Gas, water, and sewer pipes, and electric light and pneumatic tubes, have been laid in the new streets, and by means of a powerful pumping engine, erected on the Battery, the sewers are flushed every day with sea water. The new streets are paved with asphalt, with sidewalks of cement. The city received from Morning land at the foot of Canal Street purchased by him, in exchange for Castle Garden and vicinage, and the Battery—filled with fountains, statues, and increased acreage of lawn and garden—is restored to its ancient functions, and more than its ancient glory.

The buildings erected upon each of the one hundred blocks thus created, are of uniform size and style. Each building—occupying an entire block—is four hundred feet long, eighty feet wide, and seventeen stories high. The roofs are covered with glass, making the structures eighteen stories aboveground. One-half of the area of the eighteenth story in each block is laid out in plots filled with ten feet of rich soil in beds of perforated cement, the other half in broad walks of plate glass—guarded by copper netting—so as to admit light to the seventeenth story and to the large air shafts.

In each of the buildings are one hundred and fifty suites of five rooms, each suite having a floor area of sixteen hundred square feet, and every room having an outlook upon the street. A broad hall runs through the center of the building on every floor, lighted by means of plate-glass windows at each end, and also by three shafts, one hundred feet apart, running from cellar to roof. Every room is provided with steam, dry, and gas heat, and with gas and incandescent lights. Each suite has a household pneumatic tube service connecting with the store rooms in the basement, and with the kitchen and dining rooms in the seventeenth story. Each suite has also a cooking closet, with gas range, hot water, and steam pipes, porcelain-lined sinks, and pneumatic tubes for carrying away garbage.

Six hydraulic elevators furnish ample accommodations for reaching every floor at any hour of the day or night. A network of perforated steel pipes is concealed in the walls and floors, with separate connections for each room with the great tanks on the roof, which are in turn connected both with the Croton water system, and with the great steel water main bringing water from Rockland Lake. In case of fire the walls and floors of one room, or of any number of rooms, can instantly be saturated with water, and twice in each week, at an appointed hour, a warm, gentle rain is made to descend for a sufficient length of time upon the trees and shrubs in the roof garden.

Each suite has separate sewer connections, and each room is provided with registers in the wall, from which either hot air or cold air can be turned on or off at will, the hot air ascending from the furnaces, and the cold air being forced by a pumping engine from the refrigerating room in the basement. Those whose fate it has been to swelter on Manhattan Island in the dog days can appreciate the latter luxury. The fortunate occupant of a room in one of the Morning Blocks commands his temperature. Whether the thermometer registers thirty degrees below or one hundred degrees above zero outside, he can arrange the climate in his own room to suit himself, and pater familias can connect a wire with the register in the parlor, and, if “Cholly” protracts his visits to Gladys to an improper hour, he can shut off the hot air, turn on a current from the refrigerator, and in ten minutes make the young man choose between departure and congealment.

These buildings were planned for the relief of women. The great source of waste and care in our American domestic life is in the kitchen, and it is impossible to organize a more advantageous trust for both producer and consumer than a “kitchen trust.” The daily history of every American family is one of almost unavoidable waste. In food, in fuel, in the labor of cooking, and in many other details of housekeeping, there is uneconomic use of both labor and materials. Probably one-fourth of the expenditure of every American householder who is able to keep one or more servants is unnecessary and wasteful, and where only one servant, or none at all, is employed, the health and beauty and life of the wife are expended in kitchen drudgery, and her opportunities of growth and culture are lost.

The Morning Blocks were designed as theaters of experiment, which, if successful, will be copied elsewhere, for freeing the household from the waste and vexation and tyranny of the kitchen. Mr. Morning’s plan for bringing about this beneficent result is both simple and effective. The kitchen, or general cooking room for the block, is situated in the seventeenth story, where there is one large, and one hundred and fifty small dining rooms. Each dining room is lighted either from the street or the roof, is perfectly ventilated, and has an electric bell and pneumatic tube service connecting it with the kitchen, with the market house in the basement, and with the suite of apartments below, of which it is an adjunct.

The happy householder in one of the Morning Blocks will have his choice of methods. He and family may take their meals at the restaurant or general dining room in the seventeenth story, either by the carte, meal, or week. He may use the general dining room, or his private dining room, or dine in his apartments below—the pneumatic tube service extending to all, and a private waiter will be furnished at a fixed price per hour. He can purchase cooked provisions by weight, delivered at either place, or purchase his own supplies at the market house in the basement and have them cooked in the general kitchen, or use his own cooking closet, where, without waste of fuel—gas being used—his selections may be prepared for the table and served either there or sent by pneumatic tube to his dining room above.

Prices for everything furnished, whether of materials or labor, are fixed from time to time by the manager, and all bills are required to be paid every Monday, on penalty of the tenant losing his privilege of occupancy. The prices charged are less than those demanded for similar service or material elsewhere. An account will be kept of each householder’s disbursements, and his proportion of the profits made will be returned to him at the end of the year, according to the usual co-operative process, the object being to furnish each occupant of the block with whatever he needs of food or service at actual cost.