Apartment Hotels

To Mayor James J. Walker of New York City, as to many another metropolitan burgomaster, hotel owners have recently complained most bitterly. Chief plaintiff (for the New York Hotel Men's Association) is George Sweeney of the Hotel Commodore, who holds: Apartment hotels are alienating the appetites of potential diners at regular hotels by providing kitchenette facilities. His Honor should stop such nefarious seductions by invoking state laws which require more light, ventilation, sanitary devices and fire precautions in tenement houses (i. e. apartments where cooking facilities are provided) than in hotels (where cooking in the rooms is illegal).

New York apartment hotel builders have evaded the rigors of tenement specifications by pretending to construct authentic hotels. But in each pantry they have provided electric connections to which tenants could fix electric stoves, hot plates, ovens, waffle irons, percolators, what not.

In New York City $300,000,000 to $400,000,000 is invested in apartment hotels; in Chicago, Seattle, Oakland, Los Angeles, Louisville, New Orleans, Atlanta virtually as much in proportion to total property valuations.

So Mayor Walker pondered over the hotel owners' plaints, as have the mayors of many a lesser me-troplis. Last week he forbade apartment hotel tenants to cook in their rooms. Building inspectors and fire inspectors hereafter will prowl around the boroughs looking, sniffing for kitchenette violations.