_Dear Sirs_,--In your issue of the 21st. I note an editorial setting
forth how the New York City Health Department trapped an ingenious
builder, who piped his sewerage into his back-yard, and I, and, I think
I can safely say, many other architects of New York, would ask why you
omit, when publishing such facts, to mention that such work was so put
in and is continually put in, in as bad or in a very unworkmanlike and
insanitary manner, under the supervision of the same department, and
thus shows how the paid officials and inspectors whose business it is to
pass upon and approve the plans and specifications and to give continual
inspection--to see, examine and test every length of pipe and every
joint; who have the might of the law to strike down the offender who
shall make bold to violate their mandates, fail to give protection to
the innocent owners and purchasers of property, or curb the avaricious
hands of unscrupulous builders and careless workmen.
I should like further, to ask you to publish to the New York City
public, the fact that the "Department", the "Health Department", with
its Bureau of Plumbing and Light and Ventilation, and the Building
Bureau of the Fire Department, are unable to protect property owners and
purchasers from errors in sanitation and construction as they are
supposed by too many to do. Owners frequently think that unless they
want "fancy" drawings and fronts, an architect is superfluous. The
"speculator" finds it no advantage, but rather the opposite, to have an
impartial judge between owner and Contractor, or a close inspection over
his subs; as he gains little by the fact of his having employed a
thorough architect, when he comes to fell, and loses by the bill for
services and the legitimate price he pays for honest work.
The bulk of speculative work done in New York is after the most trivial
plans made by some mere draughtsman or carpenter, and the
"superintendence" is under the "keen" eye of the builder and owner--who
is usually one and the same individual and who has made a definite
failure at all the branches of the trade and frequently many others, and
now holds position as owner of the property by virtue of his having
paid, entirely in mortgage, for the same. In the large majority of cases
that have been under my observation, they are entirely incapable of
passing an intelligent opinion on any of the materials and work that
make up a building, or at least on very little, and the gross
impositions practiced upon them by their sub-contractors is startling.
Their work is covered-in and is so left, I doubt not, in the majority of
cases, as the inspection furnished by the "Department" is entirely
inadequate for proper protection. The confidence of the public is
continually bolstered up by such descriptions as the editorial above
mentioned.