Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow

by Thomas Fitch; Anna M. Fitch

The rent asked for the apartments in the Morning Blocks has been adjusted upon the basis of paying taxes, insurance, repairs, and three per cent per annum upon the capital invested in the enterprise.

Mr. Morning has conveyed the one hundred blocks to the governor of New York, the mayor of New York City, and the president of the New York Chamber of Commerce, who, with their official successors, are made perpetual trustees of this munificent gift. In the trust deed it is provided that the three per cent interest on cost, received from tenants, shall be invested in an endowment fund, payable, with its accumulations, to the tenant whenever he leaves the building, or to his widow or legal representative in the event of his death while a tenant.

The tenant in a Morning Block will be supplied with hot and cold air, hot and cold water, steam, gas, electric light, food, and service at actual cost. His rooms will be provided him at the cost of taxes, insurance, and repairs, and he and his family will be made the beneficiaries of a fund, which he will be required to create for the contingency of his death or departure from the building. To guard against overcrowding, no one suite of apartments will be rented to any family of more than five adults, and no subletting or hiring of apartments will be permitted.

The cost of the land is estimated at $16,000,000, and of clearing it and erecting the new buildings at $30,000,000. The taxes, with insurance, repairs, employes, and such other expenses as are in their nature incapable of apportionment among the tenants, will amount to $810,000 per annum. This sum divided by fifteen thousand, the number of suites of apartments in the one hundred Morning Blocks, will give $54 as the annual sum to be paid by each tenant for his apartments, and he will pay $108 additional annually toward a fund for his own benefit. In all he will pay about $14 a month for accommodations that it would be difficult to obtain elsewhere for five times the amount.

The manager of each block will receive a salary of $3,000 per annum, and will, in the first instance, be selected by the Board of Trustees, but on the first Monday of January, 1897, and each year thereafter, the occupants of each block, by a majority vote, can elect a manager, who will, however, in the discharge of his duties, and in the employment of assistants, be subject to the direction and supervision of the trustees.

Mr. Morning in the trust deed conveying the Morning Blocks has named the qualifications of tenants as follows: The applicant must be of good moral character, married, over the age of twenty-five and under sixty. He must have been at the time of his application for more than one year previously in the employment of some person, firm, or corporation engaged in a reputable business in the city of New York south of Canal Street, and be in receipt of a salary of not less than $1,000 or more than $3,000 per annum. If a lawyer, physician, dentist, architect, or civil engineer, author, clergyman, or journalist, his net income must be of a similar amount.

Applicants for suites of apartments must file their applications and references at the office of the Morning Blocks prior to 12 o’clock noon on the fifteenth day of August, 1895. The credentials of all applicants will be examined and careful inquiry made as to their habits, characters, and antecedents, and only those will be accepted as eligible for tenancy who can strictly comply with the requirements.

Should there be, as is most likely, approved applications in excess of the suites to be rented, the fifteen thousand who can be accommodated will be selected by lot, and the others registered, and whenever vacancies occur a tenant to fill such vacancy will be selected by lot from the list. Apartments will be apportioned by lot among the successful applicants. Tenants will be permitted to exchange apartments by amicable arrangement, but no transfer of apartments from a tenant to one who is not a tenant will be permitted. The tenant can surrender his right to occupy his apartments at pleasure, but he cannot assign it, or sublet the whole or any part of the premises accorded him.

Should six tenants who are heads of families on any floor make complaint against one of the other four tenants on that floor that he is obnoxious, and that in the general interest his tenancy ought to be terminated, a jury of fifteen tenants of that building, selected by lot, one from each of the other floors, shall be made up to try the accused, who shall have opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses against him, and to present his defense. The manager shall preside and preserve order, and if twelve of the fifteen jurors shall concur in finding that the tenancy of the accused ought to terminate, he may appeal to the Board of Trustees, and unless they unanimously exonerate him, his tenancy must cease.

Our reporter interviewed Mr. Morning, who was found at his offices in lower Broadway, and inquired of that gentleman if it were true, as rumored, that he intended to erect similar buildings on another part of Manhattan Island.