Part 15

For house drainage, Pittsburgh has a good plumbing code in its detailed provisions similar to those in New York and Philadelphia. It is in the form of a state act, passed in 1901, and responsibility for its enforcement rests in the Bureau of Health. Besides containing strict requirements for new work, it gives the bureau certain important powers with reference to plumbing in existing buildings.

Tenement houses,--that is, buildings occupied by three or more families,--are the subject of special legislation. Two tenement laws were enacted in 1903. One applying principally to the maintenance of tenement buildings is enforced by the Bureau of Health. It forbids the use of tenement cellars for living purposes; a cellar being defined as a "story more than one-half below the street or ground level." It permits living in basement rooms only when they are eight and one-half feet high and are properly lighted and ventilated according to the specific terms of the law, and are not damp or otherwise unfit for habitation. It requires for every room in existing tenements either a window equal in size to one-tenth of the floor area of the room, and opening upon the street or alley, or upon a yard or court, with a sectional area of not less than twenty-five square feet; or else a fifteen square foot window opening to an adjoining outside room in the same apartment. No rooms may be occupied unless they contain seven hundred cubic feet of air space, nor unless they are eight feet high from floor to ceiling in every part, except that attic rooms need be eight feet high in only one-half their area. Overcrowding is prohibited by the requirement that in any room there must be four hundred cubic feet of air space for each adult, and two hundred for each child occupying the room.

In new tenement houses an independent water supply is required for every suite of rooms; in existing tenement buildings, or buildings hereafter converted to tenement use, there must be a water supply on every floor, accessible to all tenants on the floor without the necessity for their passing through any apartment but their own. The space under all sinks is required to be left open, without enclosing woodwork.

A water-closet is required for every apartment in a new tenement building, except that where apartments consist of but one or two rooms, one closet for three rooms is sufficient. In existing tenement houses one closet for two apartments is required, and for existing buildings converted to tenement use after the passage of the law, one closet for six rooms, but not less than one to a floor. Water-closets located in the yard are permitted where the Bureau of Health considers this arrangement necessary.

Cleanliness and good repair of all parts of the house are required. The keeping of horses, cows, pigs, sheep, goats or poultry in tenement houses is prohibited, also the use of any part of a tenement house for a stable or for the storage of anything dangerous to life or health. The keeping of inflammable or combustible material under any stairway in a tenement house is prohibited. The act prescribes fines for violation and makes it mandatory upon the Bureau of Health to employ one or more special tenement house inspectors to inspect tenements and see that the requirements of the law are enforced.

The main points of the law are excellent, but it contains an undesirable feature in placing a premium upon the conversion of existing buildings to tenement uses. There seems scarcely room for question that if the working population of the city must be crowded into multiple dwellings, it is better for it to be into houses constructed and properly fitted for the purpose. But the law encourages the squeezing of three or more families into old, ill-adapted houses, erected for other purposes. A new house may not be built for tenement uses unless it has a separate sink for every suite of rooms, and a water-closet for every suite, or where suites consist of but one or two rooms each, a water-closet for every three rooms; but an old building, not constructed for the purpose, may at any time be made to serve as a tenement house if it has a sink and a water-closet on every floor, regardless of how many families may be occupying the floor, providing only that there is at least one water-closet for six rooms. A landlord may lawfully turn an old dilapidated mill into a tenement as in the case previously cited and provide only two sinks (one in a restaurant) and a yard hydrant for twenty-five families, but if he wishes to build a new tenement for this number of families the law requires him to put in twenty-five sinks.

To aid in the enforcement of the above law there was enacted in 1908 an ordinance requiring all tenement houses in the city to be registered in the offices of the Bureau of Health, and providing penalties for failure to comply.

An act of 1895 established a Bureau of Building Inspection in the city Department of Public Safety. Officials of this bureau are required to examine buildings in the course of construction or alteration, and houses reported in an insecure or dangerous condition. The superintendent and inspectors, as in other cities, are required to be men of practical experience in work connected with building construction, but must not be engaged in such work while holding office. Plans and specifications for all new construction or extensive alteration work must be filed with the bureau, and work of this character may not be carried on without a permit from the bureau, to be granted within ten days, when the plans and specifications conform to law. Where a permit is refused, the party aggrieved may appeal to a commission, to be appointed by the director of the Department of Public Safety, and to consist of three persons, either master builders, civil engineers, or architects; but authority is in no case granted to this commission to set aside or alter any provisions of the act, or to require the issuance of a permit for a building to be constructed otherwise than as required by the act.

Such a fixed law without discretionary powers granted to the building inspecting officials, or to the Bureau of Appeals, is an important safeguard to the community. The experience of New York affords conclusive evidence of the danger of an opposite policy. For example, previous to 1901, the laws applying to New York fixed a limit to the percentage of the lot which might be covered over by a new tenement building, requiring the remainder to be left vacant, in order to provide proper yard and court space for light and ventilation. But the superintendent of buildings was granted power to modify this requirement, and the result was that it was practically nullified. The New York Tenement House Commission of 1900 examined several hundred new buildings erected under the law, in the Borough of Manhattan, and found that only one per cent had the prescribed reasonable air-space. In theory, discretionary powers have advantages in giving a law sufficient flexibility to meet varying conditions, but in practice, where granted to modify reasonable legislation, they place worthy officials in the difficult position of being obliged to refuse,--in opposition to any influence that may be brought to bear,--to exercise discretion plainly permitted to them, and they open to unworthy officials of all grades innumerable opportunities for corruption and unjust discrimination.

In Pittsburgh the specific provisions in relation to details of building construction are incorporated in the main in state laws, but there are also certain city ordinances regulating building construction. Building requirements affecting sanitation and safety in dwellings for one or two families, apart from those enforced by the Bureau of Health and previously referred to, are few in number, although in Pittsburgh the great majority of the population is housed in buildings of this character, making the situation a vastly different one from that in New York, where seventy-one per cent of the families live in multiple dwellings and the proper control of these is the important matter.

A few provisions affecting all dwellings, which may be mentioned, are a requirement that beneath new houses cellars shall extend under the whole building and be ventilated from both ends, and that in low, damp, or made ground, the bottom of all cellars shall be covered with bricks, concrete or asphalt, at least three inches deep. Also every new dwelling house must have an open space attached to it at the rear or side, equal to at least 144 square feet clear, unobstructed by any overhanging structure. Proper rain leaders must be provided to conduct water from the roof to the ground or sewer, in such a way as to protect walls and foundations. There are also restrictions in regard to frame extensions and frame sheds, provisions for roof exits, giving means of escape in case of fire, and requirements for strength of construction.

Comparing Pittsburgh's housing laws with the new building code of Cleveland, Ohio,--a city with somewhat similar conditions, brings out striking defects in the former. For example, Cleveland, for new one-and two-family dwellings, has excellent detailed requirements as to the percentage of the lot which may be covered by dwellings; as to the sizes of courts and air-shafts, the provision of intakes to give a current of air through enclosed courts, the sizes of yards, the minimum sizes permitted for rooms, and the lighting and ventilation of rooms and of water-closet compartments and bathroom. Corresponding to these light and air provisions for dwellings, in Pittsburgh, there is only the requirement of 144 square feet of yard-space at the rear or side. There is no law, ordinance or regulation for houses other than tenements, prohibiting the construction of dark, unventilated rooms and halls, and of the "culture tube" air-shafts,--which have been the curse of other cities.

For tenement houses the building requirements are much stricter than for other dwellings. New houses of this class on interior lots must have at the rear or side at least twenty per cent of the lot left open,--on corner lots ten per cent,--as a yard to provide light and air. This open space must be at least eight feet wide throughout its entire length. Courts between tenement houses or wings of tenements may not be less than ten feet wide. All courts and air-shafts, except vent shafts for water-closets or bathrooms, are required to be open on one side to the street or yard. Every room in a new tenement must have a window opening on the street or on the open space described above. The distance of such a window from the wall or party line opposite must be at least eight feet. The halls on each floor are required to have windows to the street or open space, unless light and ventilation is otherwise provided to the satisfaction of superintendent of the Bureau of Building Inspection. The requirements for the size of rooms and of windows, for basement and cellar apartments and for sinks and water-closets, are the same as in the tenement house health law.

New tenement houses, four stories or more in height, are required to be fireproof throughout. The same penalties are fixed for violating the tenement building law as for violation of the tenement health law. Right of appeal from decisions of the superintendent of building inspection is granted, as in the case of the general building law.

The act does not require that an official certificate that a completed new tenement house complies with the law must be issued before the building is occupied. This important safeguard is entirely lacking. A visitor not long since was in a new tenement house in Pittsburgh, occupied by a number of families, with the usual quota of children. The house had been let and the families had moved in, although the building was by no means completed, and there were even no balusters on the stairs, which were entirely open on the side, creating an extremely dangerous condition, especially on the third floor. In this house, too, no fire-escapes of any kind had been supplied. The writer has also seen a number of other new tenement houses fully occupied, but without any proper means of escape in case of fire,--contrary to law. The discretion allowed in the tenement building law, in regard to hall lighting, is another dangerous feature, although less important than the absence of the certificate requirements.

In addition to the tenement house building law, there are several acts relating to fire-escapes on tenement houses. A law of 1885 requires a tenement building three or more stories in height to have outside iron fire-escapes, with balconies and slanting stairways, except where the authorities permit some other kind of escape. The number and location of fire-escapes is not definitely provided. They are "to be arranged in such a way as to make them readily accessible, safe and adequate." A law of 1889 requires, in addition, that at least one window in each tenement house room above the second floor be provided with a chain-rope long enough to reach the ground or with any other appliances approved by the Board of Fire Commissioners. The same act requires the lighting of tenement house halls and stairways at night and the burning of red lights at the head and foot of each flight of stairs and at the intersection of all hallways with main corridors; and an alarm or gong ready for use and capable of being heard throughout the building is also required.

It will be seen at once that the wholesale discretionary powers granted in regard to the enforcement of the above fire-escape provisions make it easily possible for them to be nullified.

Finally, the removal of garbage, which has an important relation to the sanitary condition of the houses, is insufficiently regulated in Pittsburgh. A state act, and subsequent city ordinance, authorize the Bureau of Health and Department of Public Safety to provide for the removal of garbage. How frequently it shall be removed is not specified by law. Specifications of contract are that it be removed daily from markets, hotels, etc., and three times a week in the closely built up wards, and twice a week in the outlying wards. Nearly two-thirds of the annual appropriation for all the work of the Bureau of Health is expended in paying for this service. The carrying away of ashes and rubbish has up to the present time in no way been regulated by law. A step looking in this direction has been taken during the past year, however. On recommendation of the superintendent of health an ordinance authorizing a bond issue for the creation of furnaces for the final disposal of rubbish has been passed by councils and voted for by the people and specifications relating to these are now being drawn up.

The beginning which has thus been made in the line of recognizing housing dangers and of framing state legislation and city ordinances to meet them affords a basis for the development of a consistent public policy in this field.

SKUNK HOLLOW

A POCKET OF CIVIC NEGLECT IN PITTSBURGH

FLORENCE LARRABEE LATTIMORE

MEMBER INVESTIGATING STAFF, RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION

The main thoroughfare is respectable and non-committal. It offers but one clue to the melodrama, the violence and misfortune, which its brick fronts so innocently conceal. This clue is a narrow, dusty alley-way, which cuts through the brick fronts, runs back about eighty feet, and then turns sharply to the left and takes unto itself the name of Ewing street. Ewing street runs along the edge of a valley called Skunk Hollow. It pursues a serpentine course between two irregular rows of shacks,--the one back to back with the preoccupied brick houses, the other balancing itself uncertainly on the edge of the valley,--and finally ends in a number of branching foot-paths. This street and Skunk Hollow below it, both effectively shut off and concealed from casual inspection by the row of brick houses, are bound up into a pocket edition of civic neglect.

One cannot tell, without inquiry, whether the shacks on Ewing street are for horses, cows, or human beings; it is said that the owners do not care, so long as the rent is paid. But whether it is the desirability of being in a "dead-head row" commanding a view of the valley, or the advantage of having a house which while showing but one or two stories above the street, takes a private drop of one story in the rear and accommodates itself to the abrupt decline of the cliff, there is no doubt that the cliff-edge structures are far more popular than their stunted neighbors across the way. In them one finds the most desirable clinical material for a study of Pittsburgh's ills, all in one well packed group of abnormalities. Do you wish to see the housing problem? You need only follow Ewing street its short length of a city block and observe. The level of one side of Ewing street and the characteristic drop of the other, have brought out two typical forms of Pittsburgh architecture described by a resident small boy as "squatters" and "clingers." Together they form the nondescript shelters of a parasitical class of persons, white and colored, unassorted. In such fantastic and general dilapidation are these rows of unpainted shelters that some of them are falling to the ground without the formality of condemnation proceedings. Most of them have running water in the kitchens; a very few have sanitary toilets and shout the fact on black and white rental signs. Cellar rooms abound and are often used as sleeping rooms; in those houses built together into a block they are windowless. The toilets back of them are in the old boxed battery style, unflushed, and send their contamination down the grooves of the slope to Skunk Hollow at the bottom.

The hollow, reached by sewage through winding crevices in rubbish, and by goats and dogs over hills of tin cans and refuse, is reached by the people themselves down flights of decaying steps. In the street at the bottom, a wooden surface drain goes companionably along side by side with the foot-path. Occasionally a trickling stream from the hill joins forces with it and the whole falls at last through a basket-drop into an open sewer. The disheveled exterior which gives Ewing street the personality of a gang-leader with his hat on one side, is not so marked in the hollow. The hollow has a kind of sullen reticence. Here sanitary conditions are, if possible, of graver aspect. It is literally a cesspool.

In this cesspool is a strong and dangerous community life. Till now you have been absorbed in the setting of the neighborhood, but now, as you begin to observe the people who slouch past you, you note that they correspond to their environments. The rakish aspect of Ewing street, and the morbid silence of the hollow are reflected in the manners of their respective inhabitants.

On Ewing street, one of the first houses you visit is reached by a drop of five or six broken steps, and looks like a bowling alley shack. It is long, narrow, and has two small windows and a door in the street end. On the porch is a notorious colored woman, raided out of the worst houses in Pittsburgh, ready to toss out her fine and pass on, when temporarily hindered by arrest. Tacked to her piazza is a sign informing the passerby that religious services are held within, and pasted around the dilapidated smokestack is the sign "To let." "Nobody came as long as it was a mission," said the patrolman, "they do come now. Always booze on Sundays there; nothing but crime." The old colored aunty, who owns a little cabin next door in the rear, tells you later with bulging eyes and darkey gesticulation, that the real trouble is that the ghost of Charlie Barber who died there two years ago, comes back nights and by flinging up the windows and banging the door, breaks up both services and carousels. She says he has driven most of the colored ladies "plumb spiritualistic" and that "Mrs. K----, a white, Irish lady in the next house but one, goes to meetings in the city three times a week and spends so much for collections that her children have no shoes to wear to school." Sure enough you find the children shut up in the house; the father, a laborer, out of work; the mother doing a washing. "Truant officers? What are they?" she asks. In the back yard of this home lives a red-turbaned colored scold, owner of a much coveted hydrant upon which four families are dependent for water. Her house is a fenced-in triangle on a trackless waste of rubbish. It is to be approached only by original methods. The neighbors, however, say that it is on "Christian street." They say that the owner sells out little plots here and there on the hillside for a hundred or so dollars apiece. Most of the houses are owned by the tenants, the lots having been sold to them unimproved by old Pittsburgh estates. Building permits for frame dwellings have been refused, and, as the owners cannot afford to build with brick they stay on in shanties too far gone to improve. No sword wielded in defense of a feudal castle was ever more keen than the tongue of the turbaned owner of this estate on Christian street as she raises her black fist over the fence and dares you to swing her gate!

Next to her is a burnt-out shell of a four-family house; no attempt is being made to prop it up or tear it down, and it hangs there towards the street with uncertain intentions. The owner will tell you that it "was fired on a dark night,--not by a friend," and then he will shrug his shoulders and mutter something about the neighborhood. He sits on his little stoop all day, this owner does, in his Sunday suit and best hat, replete with darkey respectability. Crutches are beside him and his feet are bandaged. Sitting near him, like a jack-knife on the point of snapping shut, is an old black mammy, her eyes glazed with coming blindness. She wears Prunella gaiters, a calico gown, and a sunbonnet with a wide limp frill, and is as much a personification of the old South as the man is of the new. She points fondly over her shoulder to her two stuffy rooms, crammed with knick-knacks, and tells you they must go under the hammer next week unless she can get help. This young man here would pay her a rent of eight dollars a month for three rooms, but he is just out of the hospital and unable to work. His leg was crushed in the steel mill six weeks ago and not one penny has been sent him yet by his bosses. Both of them are living on credit and hope. The neighborhood isn't very bad, they say, "although there are some very disbelieving people in it." But they don't know a better, where folks would let out to niggers.

So far then we have found instances of bad streets, unsanitary housing, trade accidents and the race problem.