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Story
October 30, 1886
Sierra County Advocate
Truth Or Consequences, Hillsboro, Kingston, Sierra County, New Mexico
What is this article about?
New York families of modest means use storage warehouses to store household goods and vacate city apartments for summer escapes, avoiding heat and high maintenance costs. This trend has grown rapidly, allowing more people to leave the city each year.
Clipping
OCR Quality
98%
Excellent
Full Text
STORING FURNITURE
How City Families With Small Incomes Manage to Leave Town in Summer
One of the most interesting features of modern metropolitan life is indicated by the recent rapid development of storage institutions. Comparatively few years ago they were scarcely known. Now enormous buildings, capable of taking care of the household effects of hundreds of families, are found in nearly every quarter of the city, and the conveniences they afford have become indispensable to the community.
"The meaning of the rapid growth of this business," said the manager of one of these big ware-houses the other day, "is simply that more and more people every year are getting into the habit of leaving the city for the summer. They are people of the middle or poorer classes, too, and the storage ware-house has made it possible for them to get a vacation. You see, it is like this. There are a great many families that pay from $30 to $50 a month for their flats and are only in moderate circumstances. Many of them could not possibly afford to go out of town for the summer and keep up their city houses at the same time. Formerly they had to stay in the city and bear the summer heat as best they could. Now, when the hot weather comes on, they simply give up their houses, pack up all their effects and send them to a warehouse to be stored, and go to the country until fall. The storage for the season costs them from $15 to $50. To maintain their houses would cost from $200 to $1,000. When they come back they find their property in as good condition as they left, and there has been no convention of hired girls eating ice cream in the parlor or banging the life out of the piano, either. Of course they may find the flat they occupied the winter before rented, but if the head of the family knows his business, he has looked out for that contingency long ago.
"Yes, it is safe to say, judging from the experience of the storage-houses, that thirty per cent. more people went away from New York this summer than ever before. There were a good many more went away last summer than the summer before that. If this sort of thing keeps on increasing this way, in a few years New York will get to be like the deserted village in the summer months.-N. Y. Mail and Express
How City Families With Small Incomes Manage to Leave Town in Summer
One of the most interesting features of modern metropolitan life is indicated by the recent rapid development of storage institutions. Comparatively few years ago they were scarcely known. Now enormous buildings, capable of taking care of the household effects of hundreds of families, are found in nearly every quarter of the city, and the conveniences they afford have become indispensable to the community.
"The meaning of the rapid growth of this business," said the manager of one of these big ware-houses the other day, "is simply that more and more people every year are getting into the habit of leaving the city for the summer. They are people of the middle or poorer classes, too, and the storage ware-house has made it possible for them to get a vacation. You see, it is like this. There are a great many families that pay from $30 to $50 a month for their flats and are only in moderate circumstances. Many of them could not possibly afford to go out of town for the summer and keep up their city houses at the same time. Formerly they had to stay in the city and bear the summer heat as best they could. Now, when the hot weather comes on, they simply give up their houses, pack up all their effects and send them to a warehouse to be stored, and go to the country until fall. The storage for the season costs them from $15 to $50. To maintain their houses would cost from $200 to $1,000. When they come back they find their property in as good condition as they left, and there has been no convention of hired girls eating ice cream in the parlor or banging the life out of the piano, either. Of course they may find the flat they occupied the winter before rented, but if the head of the family knows his business, he has looked out for that contingency long ago.
"Yes, it is safe to say, judging from the experience of the storage-houses, that thirty per cent. more people went away from New York this summer than ever before. There were a good many more went away last summer than the summer before that. If this sort of thing keeps on increasing this way, in a few years New York will get to be like the deserted village in the summer months.-N. Y. Mail and Express
What sub-type of article is it?
Curiosity
What themes does it cover?
Social Manners
What keywords are associated?
Storage Warehouses
Summer Vacations
New York Families
Urban Life
Modest Incomes
Furniture Storage
What entities or persons were involved?
Manager Of One Of These Big Ware Houses
Where did it happen?
New York
Story Details
Key Persons
Manager Of One Of These Big Ware Houses
Location
New York
Event Date
This Summer
Story Details
Storage warehouses enable middle and poorer class families in New York to afford summer vacations by storing furniture and vacating apartments, avoiding heat and high costs; trend shows 30% increase in people leaving the city this summer.