"Model Towns for Uncle Sam's Shipworkers" New York Times, July 14, 1918, p. 55.
| Model Towns for Uncle Sam's Shipworkers |
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| Architect of Yorkship, Where 10,000 of Them Will Live, Tells of Government Axiom That Nothing Is Too Good for Them |
"It's an opportunity no other architect ever had," is the way Electus D. Litchfield, entrusted with the job of building a whole town practically overnight, describes his work. The town in question is Yorkship, near Camden, N.J., where the New York Shipbuilding Corporation's thousands of workers are to be housed by the United States Government while they are busy making ships with which to beat Germany.
Yorkship is the largest town of its kind planned for this part of the country - its name, it will be noted, is formed from the words "New York Shipbuilding Corporation."
Mr. Litchfield planned it following the Government's behest to remember that the best was none too good for America's shipworkers. The first lot of 1,000 houses is to be completed in October; after that another thousand must be built. Already Mr. Litchfield and his assistants, in the course of their work, have turned out two and a half tons of blueprints! - an amount of such things which the average layman probably never dreamed existed in the universe! One group of five workmen's houses was put up from foundation to roof in thirty-six hours.
But the most amazing part of the whole business is that Yorkship and the other improvised towns for war workers are not going to be mere conglomeration of rude shanties, like the mushroom towns that spring up around mines in the Far West. They are to be things of beauty. Yorkship will embody all that is attractive in our old Colonial style of architecture - yet be up to date in everything; it will be a town that will give the workers new zest for the morrow's work when they troop home of an evening.
"No ramshackle stuff! Speed, yes, and practicality and simplicity, but the best of everything!" That was the gist of the Government's instructions to the architects of Yorkship and its sister towns that are suddenly appearing all over the country to house war workers.
"Yet there isn't a trace of paternalism in the Government's attitude toward the workmen," said Mr. Litchfield as he sat in his office surrounded by pictures of the future Yorkship, which made it look for all the world like a beautiful old New England town instead of a put-up-while-you-wait industrial village. "Uncle Sam simply wants to show his workmen that he fully appreciates what they are doing for him.
Street in Yorkship.
"These workmen's towns that are springing up overnight should have an excellent effect on our workers. They are a God-given opportunity for combating Bolshevism. How can a man be discontented when his Government is mobilizing the best talent in the country to provide for his comfort? Why, at the offices of the Emergency Fleet Corporation there are acres of desks at which the best housing experts in the country are busily at work evolving the best of housing plans. And, at the same time, 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 can possibly be obtained. To illustrate how this is all being done at a low cost unknown before I may say that architects employed on such work are charging one-sixth of the fees which they would charge under ordinary conditions in times or peace.
"The Government acts exactly as does the prospective owner of a house when he goes to an architect. He wants the best; he is always on the lookout for everything that will be to his advantage; he carefully scrutinies the architect's plans to see that everything possible is being done for his comfort and enjoyment. That is what the Government is doing now, with the difference that it is doing it not for its own comfort and enjoyment but for the sake of the shipworkers.
"In the plans for houses, we architects are avoiding everything that will not contribute to these ends. We avoid darkening piazzas, making winding stairways, building obstructions of all sorts that will cut off the light from the rooms where the worker's wife and children are to live. We are providing back yards with grass in them, and, not content with that, we are seeing to it that, all through Yorkship, there will be public squares so that the children may not be confined to playing in small yards but may have really large open spaces for their games, and so arranged that the little ones in them will be safe from automobiles and other vehicles. Near the schools of the town there will be still larger playgrounds in which, it is expected, adults as well as children will spend part of their time.
"We are getting together with the church-authorities in order to arrange for churches conveniently located for the workers. We are providing for band stands, where concerts can be given. In every department of the work we have had the benefit of the advice of experts, leaders in every one of the branches that go to make up finished houses and finished towns. This has been made possible not only by the magnitude of the undertaking but by the patriotic spirit that animates all the experts taking part in the undertaking.
"Our 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 toilet fixtures, gas range, hot-water heater, electric light and cellar furnace. Most of the houses are to be of brick, with a few of stone, stucco, or frame. The majority will have slate roofs.
"The order of brick for Yorkship is said to have been the largest single order of its kind ever given. The brick used will come from seven different manufacturers and is varied as to color, etc., so there is no fear that the aspect of the village will be monotonous.
Yorkship as It Was.
"In fact, we have consistently aimed at avoiding monotony. Starting as we did on virgin land - the site of Yorkship before we tackled it looked like an ideal golf links - 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 be too expensive. We were therefore, confronted with the problem of how to produce dwellings at a minimum cost and yet make them as attractive as the nature of the site demanded. In solving this problem, we have 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 will be for several families of workers - from two to five families in a group. When you consider that we had to design two hundred and fifty 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 attractive you will understand that we have had somewhat of a task before us.
"We felt that a town situated on the banks of the Delaware, in New Jersey, close to Philadelphia, should have as the predominant note of its architecture the American Colonial style of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We have kept this steadily in mind in designing all the buildings for Yorkship so that, when completed it will have a Colonial air, yet be quite modern.
"To get the needed variety and yet conform to the general plan, I hit upon the idea of having small-scale drawings made on slices of cardboard for different portions 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 group-house, we obtained a surprising variety of combinations. As soon as particularly attractive combinations were made I had them photographed and it is these selected combinations which will appear again and again at Yorkship when the village is completed, yet they will be arranged as to cause no monotony of effect.
"In addition to the varied types of houses, we also developed about a dozen different types of porches. Moreover, to add yet more to the variety, we have designed for one group of houses a gable roof, for another a flat roof, for another a roof like the ones in the old Colonial houses to Salem, Mass. or Portsmouth, N.H. We employed no fewer than seven different kinds of roofing materials, 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 be tell the difference.
"lt isn't only houses that we must think of - hand in hand with the actual building work goes the construction of suitable streets, roads, and sewers. At present we have 3,500 workmen on the job. Already more than 400 dwellings are built and the number is increasing by twenty to thirty a day.
"Yorkship will be laid out on a plan providing for broad streets and boulevards. The streets will all be named after American naval heroes or ships famous in our naval annals - there will be a Paul Jones Street, a Constitution Street, an Albemarle Square. When completed the place will house 10,000 shipworkers.
"Don't forget that Yorkship will not be just a lot of workers' homes. It will be a real town. I have already mentioned how we are making provision for churches; in addition to that branch of our work, we are arranging for a police force, with suitable accommodations, a well-housed Fire Department, a Red Cross Station, moving-picture theatres, and other things that go to make up a well-regulated town. The workmen who live in Yorkship will have a real share in the happiness that comes from accomplishment."
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