KinSource - Tale of the Week - Would Amend Building Code

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The St. Paul Daily Globe, March 11, 1903, p. 2

WOULD AMEND BUILDING CODE.

Van Slyke Thinks Tenement Houses Should Be More Commodiously Built.

"If Health Commissioner Ohage wants to effect a real reform he should go after some of those ill-lighted tenement house and flat buildings that abound in St. Paul," commented Assemblyman Van Slyke yesterday afternoon.

"If there is anything more conducive to poor health and bad eyesight," he added, "then you will have to show me. In some of the buildings that they call houses in St. Paul, I have seen apartments where a light must be kept burning continually. The ventilation in consequence is bad, and as to eyesight, well, half of the oculists in town thrive off just such places.

"I have often thought of introducing in the council some measure that will prohibit such places being used for the housing of human beings, but have always been afraid that it would not stick. If any official will take this matter up he will certainly get my support."

According to Assemblyman Van Slyke's observations, there is hardly a flat building or a tenement house in St. Paul that is a success as far as giving good, wholesome light to those it houses is concerned, and there are hundreds, he says, that are absolutely dark. This even applies to some of the structures recently erected.

In the East agitation has brought about many reforms in the building of apartment and tenement houses, and Mr. Van Slyke thinks some of them should be introduced in St. Paul.

One reason that Minneapolis has more apartment houses than St. Paul, the city building inspector says, is because Minneapolis permits a more flimsy and cheaper construction. Mr. Van Slyke would even make the building code of St. Paul more stringent in this respect.