Rooms without windows and poor ventilation cited by Board
Brooklyn Eagle, March 22, 1927
Substition of the All-Day Club for the All-Night Club was seen as a remedy for any crime menace in Red Hook by Mrs. Ida Wambold, superintendent of the Flatbush Boys Club, who today advocated the establishment of a community center for the whole family in the waterfront district.
Party games, well conducted dances and wholesome fun for the mothers and fathers, boys and girls, would do wonders, she declared, in commenting on the report of the State Crime Commission which called Red Hook a breeding place for criminals.
Darwin R. James, chairman of the State Board of Housing, and Louis H. Pink, a member of the board, laid the origin of crime in the district to poor housing, and both said they homed it might be possible some time to erect model tenements there.
Report Indignantly Denied.
Outraged residents and natives of the district, meantime, continued to pour out statements indignantly denying that many criminals were bred there and asserting that their district is as good, if not better, than any other.
“I think the idea of the club for boys alone in Red Hook is not as good as the idea of a club for the whole family, in which the parents would come and help supervise the work with the boys,” said Mrs. Wambold.
“In this way the boys would be induced to stay away from the pool halls.
“Wholesome contact with girls, I also believe, would be beneficial for them. We have found it is well to hold some sort of a party every week in connection with boys club work.”
Wants Parents to Attend.
“While dances sometimes bring with them the danger of the pocket flask, it is possible to prevent this danger, especially when the parents of the young people attend. We have had no trouble of this sort in our club.
“If homes in the city are too small for recreation, the whole family ought to have a chance for self-expression in big group activity. But I don’t favor turning boys loose in a place where their families never go.
“This is a day of stage activity. Entertainments, in which the girls put on Charleston exhibitions and the boys wrestling matches, give an opportunity for self-expression that is really beneficial. All can display their talent and work in such exhibitions.”
Mr. James, in speaking of the board’s plans for Red Hook, said that experts on the situation generally agreed that there were three sections of Brooklyn where the conditions were “really serious.”
Names Three Sections.
These were the Navy Yard district, Williamsburg and Red Hook. In all of these districts the poorly lighted, poorly ventilated houses sometimes lead to the breeding of criminals,” he said.
“These sections are filled with old law tenements,’” he declared. They were built with some rooms containing no light. These tenements have been legalized by putting windows that open into other rooms, into those rooms that had no windows.”
Mr. Pink said that although the immediate plans of the Board of Housing call for only the one model tenement in Brooklyn, to be located in the Navy Yard district, he has hopes that Red Hook and other old neglected sections of Brooklyn will also have such structures erected.
“Of course, what we will do for Red Hook and other sections will depend entirely on what the citizens of Brooklyn who invest their money in the projects desire,” he added. “The project will be financed by limited dividend stock, paying 6 percent. The rent for unfurnished rooms will not go above $11 per room per month.
“Land Value to Help.”
“Undoubtedly something should be done for Red Hook. The low alue of land in the section would be an aid to the building up of model tenements there.
“Red Hook is really a little community by itself. There is little new life, and there are but few new houses there. The dwellings are a great many of them old, dilapidated frame structures, with poor light and ventilation.
“I have not the least doubt that ill health and crime result from poor housing, such as exist there, although I am not at all sure that Red Hook is any worse off in this respect than many other sections.
“The docks in the neighborhood and the whole waterfront atmosphere are of course causes of temptation. Docks always attract boys, and their influence is not always good, but we can’t get along without docks.”
Hugh J. Hoehn, president of the Erie Basin Property Owners and Red Payers Civic League, announced today that his organization will hold a mass meeting at P.S. 30, Thursday, “to learn the truth and to denounce the framers of this report.”
All “Home Loving” People.
“Red Hook is the home of family, loving, home-loving, God-fearing people.” Mr. Hoehn added.
At the same time he agrees with the Crime Commission that the district has “no transportation” and insufficient parks.
James L. Meeks, president of the Fort Hamilton Savings Bank, charges that the Crime Commission made a mistake in their definition of the area included in Red Hook. Some of the places they named are nearer the Heights, he asserted. He added that he was born in the section and that “although the homes may not be the most pretentious in the boro, to each dweller therein his humble abode is ‘home,’ maintained by him with all the pride and dignity to be found on Park Slope or the Heights.
Two other protest meetings have been announced. One was called by Congressman Thomas H. Cullen for tomorrow night at 314 Clinton st. Another meeting is being held in the Sacred Heart Shool at 493 Hicks st this afternoon.
Church Plans Cleanup.
With a view of eliminating conditions in Red Hook held responsible by the State Crime Commission’s report for the unusual degree of juvenile delinquency in that section – five times greater than any other section of the boro – the parish heads of the R.C. Church of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary will meet this afternoon to frame a program to meet the needs of the children of the section.
The meeting, to be held in the parish school at Degraw and Hicks sts., was called by George F. Dennison, head of the church’s recreational bureau, and invitations have been sent to ministers and civic and welfare workers of the section.
“Our church and its bureaus have been studying the situation much along the lines of the Crime Commission’s report for several weeks,” said Mr. Dennison today. “We were aware, generally, of the conditions complained of, and a number of measures for organization and welfare work among the children of the district have been under consideration. At this afternoon’s meeting we plan to take definite steps to improve the interests of the children of the section.”
Silent on Plans.
Mr. Dennison declined to make public the work that is being considered by the church until the meeting is called, but said the program includes steps to clean up the movie and pool room situations complained of in the report.
From the congested, badly housed and pool hall infested streets of Red Hook and its environs to an up-State “Main Street” is the step taken by the sub-commission on causes of crime. This second report on the general subject it is investigating was made public today.
The Red Hook survey, of course took up the cause of juvenile offenses in the part of Brooklyn where they are most prevalent and made recommendations for improving the conditions held to be contributory to youthful waywardness.
The second report, however, takes the crime students to the two most rural counties in the western tier of the Stat, discusses the various influences there that may be said to influence anti-social conduct, and recommends generally the development of organized community social life.
Names of Counties Withheld.
The names of the counties where the rural study was made are withheld by the Commission, and the counties are masqueraded through the report under the names of “Atlantic” and “Pacific.” (there are no counties of these names in New York.) The report appears under the names of William Lewis Butcher of Brooklyn, chairman of the sub-commission; Jane M. Hoey and Speaker Joseph A. McGinnies, members.
The 76 pages in the rural report, however, arrive at nothing in the way of major crime or felonies. The most important of its observations are the 15 percent of the farms in these communities have been abandoned since 1921, and the noting of the drift away from the country, that is, the young men and women brought up on the farms leaving them for the larger towns and cities.
Yankee Element Predominates.
“Atlantic” County is one of the several in the middle of the western tier, fairly prosperous, and its population largely of Yankee stock. It has about 50,000 population, including one town of 10,000 inhabitants and several towns and villages from 1,500 to 3,000 each.
“Pacific” County, which is more rural and has about 15,000 population, is very small and has only a few villages. Neither county has more than a handful of alien, and they are not the cause of any particular trouble.
The Commission document, in fact, reads much like the literature dealing with small towns that has appeared since “Main Street.” There is no organized crime in either county, the report affirms, and goes on to deal with the most popular misdemeanors noted. These seem to be drunkenness, moonshining, high school students sporting hip pocket flasks at dances, and petty thefts from the farms. The motorcar is blamed for a noticeable fall off of sex morals in the last few years.
The report does, however, deal a blow to the oft-repeated claim of the rural citizen that city people cause most of the trouble on the countryside. More than 90 percent of the misdemeanors, including drunkenness, bootlegging and petty thefts, in the two counties are reported as committed by inhabitants of the counties. The larger cities contribution to the rural crime consisted mainly of traffic violations.
Movies Get Clean Bill.
The report hands the movies of the small towns a clean bill of health, but does not speak so well of the dance halls. The small town pool halls are represented as a negligible factor. The Commission’s investigators report that many of the residents of the rural counties are lethargic about prohibition enforcement, and haven’t had much to worry about since the repeal of the Mullen-Gage law.
The report notes that sex and “confessional” magazines have made a recent appearance in the country stores and sell fairly well. It also notes that church attendance is falling off in these communities.
The most discourages aspect of small town and rural life, from the Commission’s report, is its dullness, particularly to growing boys and girls. The report would have this condition met by organized recreations in the churches, schools and clubs, and would improve the libraries and the schools.
