Page:Industrial Housing.djvu/46

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wood. Both trim and walls are heavily painted. The stairs are steel, with wearing surfaces of heavy slate.

Mechanical equipment

The mechanical equipment of the housing is most substantial and durable. The plumbing lines are wrought iron, using brass piping at the fixtures, which latter are of a very durable character. Hot water is supplied to the apartments from a coal heater and storage tank located in the cellar of each building. Each bathroom is completely equipped with lavatory, built-in tub and toilet having a flushometer valve; and each kitchen has a sink with drainboard and swinging spout, a pair of washtrays, a dresser, a pot and broom closet, and a two-chambered refrigerator. The heating is a single-pipe steam system, the heat generated by a boiler in each building. The principal rooms are heated by radiators, with heating risers used elsewhere. The hardware and lighting fixtures are simple and substantial. In all respects the interior is cheerful, homelike and in good taste.

One most progressive feature is the provision which has been made for drying laundry on the roofs of the buildings. Racks for hanging clothes and platforms are provided, and the dumbwaiters are carried up to the roofs. In the Bayonne housing the rear of the apartments will not be disfigured with draped lines of laundry in the usual fashion.

The advance in planning

But, however striking may be the economy of the Bayonne housing, and the progress made in living standards, the biggest advantage of all is the plan. As compared with other types of apartment houses, particularly the kind usually produced by the speculative builder, these garden apartments show a saving in floor space per family housed of a fifth to a quarter at least. A study of the plan of the typical H-shaped building in the Bayonne housing reveals an almost entire absence of nonrent paying space in the form of corridors and halls. But, even more important is the elimination of waste volume in the rooms themselves. There is scarcely any variation in the sizes of the rooms of each type—living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, baths. The sizes have been fixed for the type as being ample for good living conditions and no increase over these sizes has been

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