Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 262, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1913 — ODD CITY TRADES [ARTICLE]

ODD CITY TRADES

Sawdust Wholesaler Who Handles Refuse of Mills. Men Make a Specialty of Putting New Faces on Old Stores and Dwelling Houses—Role of Chimney Expert New York.—Among the occupation* of New* York city are many of an unusual nature, which could not exist elsewhere than In a center of vast population. Specialized occupations these are, which demand a huge population from which to draw their patronage. New York la the city of specialized trades. Innumerable articles which in smaller citieß could be but a by product of some more general business find here a sufficient market to make their separate existence possible. There is the sawdust man, for instance, who in New York is a very important business man. The wholesale sawdust dealer advertises ail kinds of sawdust and requests that you will telephone your needs so that there may be an early delivery. It used to be that anyone who want* ed sawdust went to the sawmill and asked for as much as he wanted. There was only one kind of sawdust in the good old days and that was an unimportant product which auybody could have for the asking. Now the sawdust wholesaler will tell you that sawdust is a very valuable product and that,the sawdust business Is offering greater opportunities every day. There are about sixty kinds of sawdust on the market, so says the sawdust expert, and all of them have their stated uses in the realm of trade. Mahogany sawdust Is just as aristocratic and elegant a product as mahogany furniture. .It is useful for smoking—not as tobacco. Mahogany sawdust is employed because of the good, clear kind of work that it does in smoking hams, fish, etc. All the way from the preparation of food to the polishing of precious metrfs, ranges the usefulness of sawdust The hardwood dusts are used for polishing in some Jewelers’ shops and cheaper sawdusts are used for perishing less valuable metal work. In packing and making cushions, for the covering of floors and in the fur business sawdust is useful There are sever A firms in New York who have no other care in this world than to discover, the dark secrets of why chimneys smoke. They don’t bother to attend to the big buildings, either. T hmj are almost entirely devoted to solving the secrete of the domestic hearth. Business is plentiful, too, for nowadays everybody who builds a new house in the country or tbe suburbs of New York wants at least one open Are In it, and. etrange to say, there are more new chimneys that smoke than there are new chlm neys that don’t smoke. So there yon are with an excellent opportunity for the smoking c*imney doctor—and all directly in the New York zone. In less closely populated regions tbe new householder with a smoking chimney Is obliged to consult an architect, a mason or an oldest inhabitant—usual

ly with results much more doubtful than when the chimney specialist is called in. In line with the chimney expert is the man who devotes his life to defective hot water pipes. He calls himself a domestic engineer, but hastily asserts, on being interviewed, that he isn’t intending any interference with the domestic relations court and that his domestic engineering ceases when the hot water pipes are in perfect order and there are no general heating repairs to be made in tbe flat He is a specialist in these two kinds of work and he is on tap for emergency service all the time: Useful in the world of bnslnesfl as well as that of the home Is the firm which takes care of floors. Making over store fronts is an industry which has found so many patrons in New York that a number of firms have found it profitable to set aside all other forms of building and devote themselves wholly to helping* New York merchants improve the appearance of their establishments by putting a new face on the matter. All classes of merchants, from the small dealer In the suburb to the great dry goods firms which do millions of dollars' worth of business in a year, indulge in the luxury of a new kind of front to their business homes every once in so often. The new store front builder is also an architect and his art demands all the taste, discretion and sense of appropriateness which are required for the erection of an entire new building, with perhaps a greater degree of ingenuity. In line with the new stoi*e front enterprises there are certain firms of architects which have made a reputation for their ability in the making over of bouse fronts In city houses, so that, while the remodeled residences fit perfectly Hi to their ’place in the city block, they at the same time are greatly Improved In'appearance and are given an originality of aspect which enables the occupants of the mansion and the friends of the family to recognize a residence without referring to the .number on the transom.