Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 243, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1918 — Building Model Towns for War Workers [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Building Model Towns for War Workers

By Robert H. Moultor

Uncle Sam Is Providing Moneu But After War Buildings Will Revert to the Communities

f- ■■■■■ HEN the United States entered the Wwar and orders for goods of every description began to pour into indusi trial plants on a huge scale, the first s cry of the manufacturers was for men. Whether skilled or unskilled, there was work for them. In order ImuRW to attract as many as possible, wages

were raised to almost precedented height s. Mechanics be-

gan to draw from $7 to sls a day. High wages served the purpose of obtaining labor, immediately a new problem arose. Workmen came, but went away again. The output of factories was below what it should have been and it was difficult to maintain quality. This was due to the fact that as. fast as the factories raised wages landlords raised rents. If a man was earning $lO a day and was obliged to pay nearly that much for a de-

cent place in which to live, he did not linger long. Some factories were hiring 6,000 men a year in order to maintain a force of 1,000. Then Uncle Sam stepped in and went into the town-building business. An appropriation of SIOO,000,000 was made for emergency wartime housing, and while that was only a starter It was sufficient to provide shelter for about 150,000 persons. More money has been asked and it doubtless will be forthcoming. In the beginning Uncle Sam made a mistake. His first idea was to provide temporary barracks, something on the order of those at the army cantonments. But in the case of the ship workers he found out that 60 per cent of them are married, and their wives and children objected to living in bunk houses. Moreover, temporary houses, while costing within 10 per cent of as much as permanent ones, are a total loss within a few years. So he decided to make these towns permanent As a result, he is now covering whole square miles of vacant countryside with pretty little houses, boarding places, stores, theaters, churches, paved streets and all utilities. He has at his service the best town planners and architects in America. Arid with all the haste that is being made, beauty and good taste are not being sacrificed. The houses will not all be alike in color, material or style. On the contrary, throughout each of these spacious, slumless tracts, will be evidence that the thing was planned as a whole —that this street was curved on purpose, because a curved street is prettier than a straight one —that yonder church was put squarely across the end of the park because it would look well there. The eye will unconsciously start a vain search for eyesores, blank Fide walls, billboards and disorder. The chief benefit which accrues to the worker from the building of these towns is the fact that landlordism is to be a thing unknown. The benefits are to go unfailingly to the workers. Rents must be based on cost and not on the maximum which the tenants can be forced to pay. And Inasmuch as Uncle Sam has no desire to retain the ownership after the war, he has evolved a scheme to sell them, not to individuals, but to the communities as a whole, to be held in trust as community property. Each such town will be, at the start, at least, in the complete possession of a local housing company composed of and partially financed by publicspirited business men of the vicinity. They put up 20 per cent of the money and they get the other 80 per cent on first mortgage from the United States labor department or from the shipping board, each of which has $50,000,000 given them by congress this spring for just this purpose. In lending money to local housing companies in congested communities, the government lays down the stipulation that dividends shall be forever limited to 5 per cent annually—even after the government’s mortgage is paid off. Any excess income must be re-expended upon the property or else eliminated by lowering the rents. The part of the rent that would ordinarily go to landlords’ profits wIU go to pay off the government’s mortgage at the rate of 2or 3 per cent a year. The mortgage is for ten years, and at the end of that time enough presumably will be paid off to enable the government to say: “Go get a private mortgage to pay off the balance.” Then if the local housing company has not meanwhile sold off any of the houses the town will substantially own itself, subject to mortgage. For its rents will be based purely on costs of capital and sendee. The private capital, limited to 5 per cent return, is practically a second mortgage. One of the first government logos made to the new village at Newport News provided that 90 per cent of the private capital is to be amortized and retired. Normally the private capital owns equity. Including the part of the cost which has been amortized and the unearned increment, the size of which is more or less problematical, but it can’t do anything with this treasure except redistribute the annual proceeds therefrom among the people in the form of a rebate on rents or in communal services, preferably the latter.

At normal rentals, the revenues of such a community will be far greater than ordinary taxes. For while houses depreciate, land neither rots nor wears, and such a town will be in effect owner of all its underlying land. The Utopia of the single taxers is achieved by virtue of the fact that the town was caught young and started right with no land boom allowed! The town will be In the position of having bought Itself at cost without letting anybody pocket profits on the rising values. Perhaps the most remarkable example of Uncle Sam’s ability as a town builder is Yorkship, near Camden, N. J., designed to serve employees of the New York Shipbuilding corporation. This town, where 10,600 of Uncle Sam’s shipworkers will live while they are making ships with which to beat Germany, might almost be said .to have been built overnight. Starting work early in the summer, 1,000 houses will be ready for occupancy in October, and another thousand will follow within a few months. Some idea of the speed employed in the work is indicated by the fact that one group of five workmen’s houses was put up frdm foundation to roof in 36 hours. While putting up a thousand houses in a few months is an amazing feat in Itself, it becomes more so when it is understood that the buildings of Yorkship are to be things of beauty, embodying all that is attractive in our old Colonial style of architecture, and at the same time up to date in everything. In short, it will be a town that will give the workers new zest for the morrow’s work when they troop home of an evening. Speed, practicality and simplicity, but the best of everything, was the gist of the government’s instructions, and these instructions are being followed to the letter. At the same time there isn’t a trace of paternalism in the government’s attitude toward the workmen. Uncle Sam simply wanted to show them that he fully appreciates what they are doing for him. The town of Yorkship will occupy a site of 140 acres, 100 of which are now being developed. The main feature of the town plan is a central square, abo,ut 300 feet on each side, from which the major streets radiate. Around the central square threestory buildings have been erected, with stores on the first floor and apartments above. The west side of the square opens upon a broad green, or common, 125 feet wide and 450 feet long, which is flanked at its farther end by church sites and terminated by a site for a school or library on an axis. From the north side of the central square a broad boulevard leads out toward New creek, con> necting w’ith a bridge and main connecting road to the shipyards. Parks and playgrounds are also liberally provided for. Streets, are laid out, for the most part, with a width of 50 feet, with roadways 18 feet wide, grass strips 9 feet 6 inches wide, and sidewalks 4 feet wide. A few streets of greater width where there will be a concentration of traffic have been provided, while alleys of a 10-foot width are provided on the interior of all blocks* 1 The plan for Yorkship is perhaps the most complete town plan ever made. Every house is complete; it has hot and cold water systems, modern plumbing, up-to-date plumbing fixtures, gas range, hot-water heater, electric light and cellar furnace. Most of the houses are of brick, with a few stone, stucco, or frame. The majority have slate roofs. The order for brick for Yorkship is said to have been the largest single order of its kind ever given. The brick used came from seven .different manufacturers and is varied as to color, etc., so that the aspect of the village will not be at all monotonous. J..,./ In fact, the architect has consistently aimed at avoiding monotony. Starting as he did on, virgin land —the site of Yorkship before he went to work on it looked like ap ideal golf course —it was out of the question to run up houses in unsightly rows, as if in a city. On the other hand, individual houses would have been too expensive. The problem that confronted him, therefore, was to produce dwellings at a minimum cost and yet make them as attractive as the nature of. the plan demanded.

In solving this problem, the architect evolved a limited number of units of architectural design and repeated them in large numbers through the village, but in such ■ groupings and regroupings as to obtain a considerable variety, and interest. These group houses are for several families of workers —from two to five families in a group. When it is considered that it was necessary to design 250 actual structures in a period of four weeks and at the same time bear in mind that the structures

had to be so varied in design as to be attrac , the difficulty of the task will be better understood and appreciated. . . To get the needed variety and yet conform the general plan, the architect hit upon the un que idea of having small-scale drawings made on pieces of cardboard for different parts of a house one for the .middle, one for the right corner, one for the left, etc. By combining these slips like children’s picture blocks so as to form a whole groUphouse. a surprising variety of combinations was obtained. As soon as particularly attractive combinations were made they were photographed, and it is these selected combinations which will appear again and again at Yorkship when the village is completed, yet they will be so arranged as to cause no rponotony of effect. In addition to the varied types of houses, there were also developed about a dozen different types of porches. Then in order to add still further to . the variety, .a gable roof was designed for one group of houses, a flat roof for another, a roof like the ones in the old Colonial houses of Salem, Mass., for still another, and so on.- No less than seven different kinds of roofing materials have been employed, including a new one which gives an interesting effect as of an old-fashioned ribbed copper or red tin roof, and does it so successfully that it takes an expert to tell the difference. Towns such as Yorkship undoubtedly will have an excellent effect on our workers. As an antidote to bolshevism they should prove most efficacious. It is impossible to Imagine any man being discontented when his government is mobilizing the best talent in. the country to provide for his comfort. At the offices of the Emergency Fleet corporation ■ there are acres of desks at which the best housing experts in the country are busily engaged in evolving the best of housing plans. . The architectural profession is being combed for town planners, and the government is looking all the time for the most distinguished engineers and the men most learned in public utilities, and employing them at no more than a living wage to give the workers every comfort and all the beauty of home surroundings that-eAn possibly be obtained. To illustrate how this is all being done at a low cost unknown before, it may be stated that architects employed on such work are charging only onesixth of the fees which they would charge under ordinary conditions in times of peace.