"The matter of fire protection in loft buildings, it must be remembered, is only a recent problem..."
[PRICE, George Moses] Special Report on Sanitary Conditions in the Shops of the Dress and Waist Industry, a Preliminary report made by the Joint Board of Sanitary Control in the Dress and Waist Industry. No date (but I assumed this to be 1913), published by the Board of Sanitary Control, New York City. 9x6, 24pp. Condition: supplied with original wrappers which are detached and chipped; the text block however is in Very Good condition, and relatively bright. Provenance: Bureau of Mines.
There are 7 interesting tables on the area and location of shops, number of shops and people operating at the 6th floor and above; fire protection;light, ventilation, dressing, washing, and toilet facilities; and general cleanliness.
WorldCat/OCLC locates NO copies. $125
This report was published two years after NYC's still-worst industrial disaster, the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, March 25, 1911 at Washington Place and Greene Street, in which 146 people were killed, and of course the board found many safety issues among the 700 businesses surveyed. It was found that there were 319 shops employing 18,417 people located on the 6th story and above of high rise buildings, with little attention spent to fire safety and egress--this was significant as NYFD ladders could only reach to about the 6th floor; it was in the Triangle fire where the fire started on the sixth floor and then trapped many people on the 9th and 10 floors of the building (10% of the works in 1913 worked above the 10th floor).
That said, the report states that in general businesses in this sector were in better condition and more healthy than many, though that statement so far as I can tell was not substantiated. So far as responding to fire, though, the businesses were not at a "standard", finding for example that in most shops there was no instruction on how to react to a fire and had no proper safeguards from panic, and that 30% had doors that opened IN, and that there were basically no fire drills, and so on. I don't know how much change could take place in 700 days or so in the not-closely-regulated and highly combustible clothing industry in NYC in 1913, but it does seem as though some safety measures were taken.
There is no mention whatsoever of the deadly fire of 1911.
The overall statement on fire protection:
- "The crux of the problem of the sanitation of the shops...is the protection of the workers from fire...It is with deep regret that we are compelled to make the statement that..if a fire should break out today ...there would be great loss of life."
Comments