PIECE OF OLD ENGLAND

Evening Star, Issue 22975, 4 June 1938, Page 13

PIECE OF OLD ENGLAND

SLUMS OF NEW YORK One of the most interesting; of the recent house developments in New York is the new “ English garden apartments that the Ogden _ Goelet estate has built under the noise and clatter of the Third Avenue “ E.l. betwaGH Seventy-seventh and Seventyeighth streets, says the ‘ Observer. In place of the old, ugly, cold-water flats of red brick with their outside iron fire-escapes on which the Goelets would have had to spend a fortune to make them conform to the multiple dwelling laws of this city (and would still have had tenements), * cottages of four or five rooms have been built, with shops facing the street and above, eight apartments in cottage type, with lawns and gardens outside their - windows, tennis and badminton courts below. You enter through a garden gate, beside which is the gate-keeners lodge, all in the regulation English style, and walk through a narrow path and up some stone stairs to the terrace on which open the eight apartments and their private porticos. A large brass plate in the centre of the parapet carries the names of the tenants in big gold letters with arrows pointing to their _ various cottages. Everything is English Regency in de- ‘ Down the path, between carefujly planted shrubs, is the private portico of whitewashed brick with glass sines, bearing the letter ‘*11” under a swinging lamp. Inside is a sun-parlour, living room with wood-burning fireplace, dining gallery, kitchen, bath and bedroom. The sun-parlour, living room, and dining gallery can all he thrown together into one huge room for entertaining purposes, and the bedroom window looks out over the tennis and badminton courts. . . The gardens and courts have a spirit of “ Old English,and the cottages, being insulated against noise and with n central ventilating plant that keeps the air fresh and of the proper temperature, allows you to believe that instead of being in the heart of New York - one might easily be somewhere in the English countryside. Robert Goelet and his yonng nephew, the Duke of Roxburghe, who own’ the property, are justifiably pleased with the success of their novel venture. They have done something new and constructive, and their pride extends also to the type of tenant they have attracted to this newest and most interesting development in what might he called “ the slums ” of New York.