Apartment building

“ I strode up to the door of the apartment house, and rapped sharply on the knocker. It was a low, grimy, building, with many grimy windows, whose shuttered blinds had once been green, but now were grey with grease and dust. A card in either lower windows signified its calling: "Apartments to let!" ”

“ The Apartment House.—The apartment house, which is a kind of evolution of the flat, is becoming a feature of life in large cities. The question whether it is a paying property will receive light by the consideration of the rents received by the owners of a building of this kind in New York, the Knickerbocker at Fifth Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street. ”

“ The houses are of one story; a flight of two or three steps leads to a narrow piazza, or very wide sill, which encircles the entire building. The apartment within is only limited by the size of the building; in other words, there is only one room under the roof. ”

“ The building, which was comparatively new, was located in the middle of the block, on a little square bit of ground, and had on [Pg 125] each floor a cozy octagonal hall with one apartment running entirely around it. The entrance steps and halls were not as unsullied as those of our present habitat, but the janitor was a good-natured soul who won us at first glance, and who seemed on terms of the greatest amity with a small boy who lived on the first landing and accompanied us through. We saw also that the plumbing was in praiseworthy condition, and the doors swung easily on their hinges. ”

“ There is no door in the centre, but at each end a door opens into an apartment eighteen feet long and nine wide, and between the two is a third apartment of the same width, and thirty-four feet long. The whole building is of stone; inside the walls are of polished smoothness; outside, up to the height of the door, the stones are plain and square; above this line there is a rich cornice or moulding, and from this to the top of the building, all the sides are covered with rich and elaborate sculptured ornaments, forming a sort of arabesque. ”

“ Finding the apartment so eligible for our purpose, and fearing that at some future time we might be disturbed either by the owner of the building or some tenant, we cut similar doors into every room of the house, so that on an emergency we could traverse every apartment without access to the known doors. ”

“ The entire building should be equipped with shades, screens, ash and garbage cans. Each apartment should be provided with separate and complete bath room equipment. Playground, and if possible, a small additional park, should be provided adjacent to the building for the exclusive use of the tenants. ”

“ The difficulty of obtaining efficient servants, and the worries consequent upon their inefficiency, is probably the chief cause of the rapid growth of the apartment-house among us. The contemporary architect has selected this class of building for some of his deadliest conceits. ”

“ Every apartment has cheerful, sunny rooms, with two or three exposures; the rooms are never more than two deep, the apartments extending through the building, giving thus to all rooms, cross-ventilation; and a large number of the bedrooms are corner rooms. Living rooms and dining rooms are separate from the bedrooms, and the kitchen is also isolated ”

“ These disadvantages could not but make the Association quite early decide that the one thing above all others needed was a new building with suites of rooms, where families could have the comforts and privacy of homes, which with a large kitchen, bakery, dining rooms, parlors, etc., would make a "unitary dwelling"; approximating to an apartment house of more modern days in many of its details, and improving on it as regards unitary cooking, dining and social conveniences. ”

“ The apartment-house, however, soars to heights that the tenement-house never half reached, and is sometimes ten stories high. It is built fireproof, very often, and is generally equipped with an elevator, which runs night and day, and makes one level of all the floors. The cheaper sort, or those which have departed less from the tenement-house original, have no elevators, but the street door in all is kept shut and locked, and is opened only by the tenant's latch-key or by the janitor having charge of the whole building. ”

“ When opened the comfort and convenience of the guests will be further insured by the accommodations of the dining rooms, laundry, and barber's shop, run to the most improved plan, in connection with the building. It is the perfection of the apartment style of living, and guarantees to the tenants comforts which would require unlimited wealth to procure in a private residence. The wisest precautions have been taken to insure freedom from the ordinary cares of the household to the fortunate tenants. ”

“ The construction is of the most massive character, and the aim of the owners has been to produce a building monumental in solidity and perfectly fireproof. The brick and mason work is of unusual weight, the walls being in some places four feet thick, and the partitions and flooring have iron beams and framing, filled in with concrete and fireproof material. ”

“ Each lofty state apartment is a building by itself, the outer galleries on the four sides being the corridors that touch other corridors at their angles. Plate-glass doors in maroon lacquer frames, with superb metal mountings, take the place of the usual paper shoji ”

“ “But you’re out of another world old kid.... You ought to live on top of the Woolworth Building in an apartment made of cutglass and cherry blossoms.” ”

“ Personally I'd rather take my exercise out of doors than by climbing stairs: though if you do not want to live on the level, there are plenty of apartments that are duplex. In any ease, it must be admitted that the home unites the family closer when it's in an apartment. It is as compact a life on a steam-yacht yet without any motion, except that of the elevator, which makes it easy to get out a desirable thing at times, though utterly impossible when cruising.
Another cherished tradition about apartment-house life is its alleged lack of privacy. ”

“ It is a large, old-fashioned, stately apartment, oak-panelled, with large mullioned windows, and a massive marble chimney-piece that reaches high as a man's head. A pleasant, sociable room at ordinary times, but now impregnated with the vague gloom that hangs over all the house and seeks even here to check the gaudy brightness of the sun that, rushing in, tries to illuminate it. ”

“ The current of air admitted by the open jalousies, passing constantly through this apartment, renders it at all times delightfully cool; while the lattice-work serves to mellow the glare of light, which, under the sky of the tropics, is almost as disagreeable as the heat. An uncarpeted floor, composed of the hardest sorts of native wood, and subjected to a diurnal polish, contributes to increase the coolness.
This great hall is the principal apartment of the dwelling. ”

“ Apartment houses—regular flat buildings, with elevator service and all that—shoved their aggressive stone and brick faces up to the pavement line of a street where before old white houses with green shutters and fluted porch pillars had snuggled back among hack berries and maples like a row of broody old hens under a hedge. ”

“ We could climb when we chose, but should not of necessity be forever climbing. Yes, I like this plan exceedingly, not alone for its one principal floor, but I have always had a fancy for the 'rotunda' arrangement—one large central apartment for any and all purposes, out of which the rooms for more special and private uses should open. ”

“ I will merely say that such problems as furnaces, gardens, garages, snow-shovelling, taking down screens and putting up storm-windows, erecting glass inclosures and laying plank walks, do not enter into the truly simple life of the modern apartment house, where the water-pipes never freeze and you have no roof to leak. ”

“ Miss Forster looked about the room into which he had ushered her, the first room on the right when you had come through the front door. It was the usual ground-floor front apartment of the £45 a year suburban "modern residence," a fair size, as a habitation for a "single gentleman," with a sufficiency of light, and air, and space. ”

“ We wander at will through the once splendid apartments, now in pitiable decay and ruin. In the banqueting hall—a vast apartment with high open-beamed roof and minstrel gallery—a washerwoman is heating her water-pots, and piles of wool are stored in the Hall of State. But from the far greater number of the rooms the roof has wholly or partially disappeared and the rooks scold each other in the chimneys or caw hungrily among the sagging rafters. ”

“ A good-sized porch with brick floor and high-backed settles at the side replaced the unattractive, old-time entrance, while the dormers relieved the long, monotonous roof-line and afforded light to the apartment constructed from the formerly unfinished attic space. Just outside the original parlor, beside the shed space, an addition has been built that runs midway of the shed to the line of the chimney in the parlor, and without a large covered veranda is added. ”

“ These apartment houses are used year after year, but last year's chambers are not used, new ones being made under the roof each year, and so it grows bigger and bigger until the weight of the mass may break the branches and cause a part or the whole to fall to the ground. ”

“ Well, we could house ten times as many persons if we built skyscrapers full of small state-rooms, but I fear our prospective tenants would find the notion rather outlandish!"
"Pough!" said the explorer. "All notions seem outlandish at first. You must have had experience enough of that in your own business. Years ago good New-Yorkers lived in long rows of 'brownstone-front' houses. Each row or block was like a loaf of bread, and each house was a slice. The apartment idea was really nothing more than turning the loaf up on end and living in horizontal slices instead of vertical ones. ”

“ The private apartments are commonly separate from what we should call the ‘keeping room,’ and have a separate entrance, if under the same roof; it is, however, very common to allot some detached building, having a compound divided off, and perfectly sequestered from the other accommodations, set apart for the zenanah, or female part of the family. ”

“ How does the furnishing of an apartment differ from that of a house? Present the suggestion that as the rooms are apt to be small there must not be too much furniture, and that what there is should be plain, and simply upholstered. The wall-paper should be rather light in color, and plain or self-figured; to have it all of one kind makes the apartment look larger than if several kinds were used. There should be few hangings, and light curtains. Note also these questions: How can spaces be saved in sleeping and other rooms? What about heating and ventilation? Is living in an apartment hygienic? ”

“ Particularly noticeable is the den which is at the left of the hallway. Here the color scheme [Pg 173] is green, the walls being covered with textile; the wainscot is painted white, and the hangings at the window brighten the plain effect of the wall treatment. There is no crowding of furniture, but a dignified atmosphere pervades the entire room. It is an apartment such as one loves to find—quiet and restful. ”

“ The long apartment, with its many recesses and deep windows, an apartment which took up the whole of one side of the large house, had all the dignity and even splendour of a drawing-room, and yet, with its little palm court, its cosy divans, its bridge tables and roulette board, encouraged an air of freedom which made it eminently habitable. ”

“ In the southeast corner of the basement, where the uninitiated might expect to find a coal bin or a hole in the ground to store away wood, they discovered a room with three or four chairs and a lounge. Even the tenants on the floor above had no idea that there was such a room in existence.
One of the passages from the bedroom opened into what must have been a sort of social apartment for the patrons of the widow. It might also answer the purpose of a card or smoking-room. A cheap stove, a couple of tables, and three or four chairs comprised the furniture of this room. ”

“ Particularly significant is that part of it which, in proposing definite measures of relief, at the same time lays down the fundamental principles of industrial housing. First, the report goes to the root of the whole complicated subject by emphasizing the essentials of durable construction, and of daylight, ventilation, garden and recreation space in the architectural design. To quote the report: "We believe that the only plan by which apartments can be provided will be an apartment house or a modified form of tenement house containing not more than fifty apartments. ”

“ Then comes the entre-sol, with low ceilings, short windows, and dwarf chambers; then succeed a succession of floors, or stories, rising one above the other, to the number of Mahomet’s heavens. Each floor is like a distinct mansion, complete in itself, with ante-chamber, saloons, dining and sleeping rooms, kitchen and other conveniences for the accommodation of a family. Some floors are divided into two or more suites of apartments. Each apartment has its main door of entrance, opening upon the staircase, or landing-places, and locked like a street door. ”

“ It is bad enough to buy furniture for a house you haven't seen, but an apartment is a place of limitations, and you can so easily mar the place by buying things that will not fit in. An apartment is so dependent upon proper fittings, skilfully placed, that you may ruin your chances of a real home if you go ahead blindly. ”