New Britain Herald Newspaper, December 18, 1925, Page 31

AMIR CA'S F RST APART Ao Hot Waler A0 jamiior No ORERUNNER of the modern apartment house, sans the latter's high rents, con descending janitors and other prover bial nuisances, has been brougnt to lght by archaeologists of the Amerlean Bchool of Research excavating the desert Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico. Buried decp under the mouldering antiguity o {ts 20,000 years of silence, Chettro Kettle, the com munity residence of u race long disappeared, has bared fts massive rooftop, its five-foot walls and thousand rooms in answer to the probing finger of sclence poking beneath the arid waste, This monster structure, rescued from out of the eenturles of oblivion, represents an ancient cul- ture that reached a high degree of perfection, It covers two acres or ground and {s pieced together with more thaa fifty million pleces of carcfully quarred stone. Every bit of masonry was exquisitely shaped wnd laid Into the walls 8o as to make a smooth and harmonious decorative surface. Thousands of logs, poles and additional slabs were also used in the construction. FROM DEAD FORESTS Thege must have been carried from distant for- ests, now razed by voleanic or othee dist ances. Tons of mortar were mixed to weld the aboriginal apartnient house together. Al this evidence stamps the primitive Chettro cttle dwellers as prodigious workers. It fs be- teved they were occupied almost 300 years in erec tlon of their monster houe. Chettro Hetle, the “Rain Pueblo,” with its fine curving facade, its inner towers, its fmmense sanctuary and half dozen smaller kivas, or cere monial vaults, fs at once the most remarkable and spectacular building of ancient North America. Ranging from one to three stories high, it runs full 700 feet in length, a quarter of a mile around and, undoubtedly. gave shelter to thousands who *wove at home and recefving” in the dim heyday of the past. Now, only abandoned fields, dry, primitive frri- gation ditches, deserted altars, stairways carved Into the sheer, beetling cliffs, illegible plcture writings and other relics remain mutely to tell of the extensive activities of the prehistoric people who once tread through Chettro’s halls and from which all the glory now is fled. HIGHLY ORGANIZED LIFE These mud-caked mementos present graphie evidence of & race of great cultural development who lived a highly organized, soclal and religious life, archaeologlsts who made the find believe. Lifs as it was in the Kettle Chettro s being pleced together from these remnants that in re- markably preserved manner have withstood the onrushing march ot the centuries riding heedlessly over the site of thls burlal ground of a vanished race. As though builded in anticipation of the needs of @ later century, which found them too late to copy, dainty “kitchenettes” within the communal ruins would turn the modern architect green with envy, 80 compact ar® they laid out in conjunction with other rooms of the parlor, bedroom and bath type. On the cooled hearthstones of some of theso falry-like cookeries, traces of buffalo, elk deer, bear, small-eared corn, pinon nuts and roots, com- posing, probably, the left-over abundance from & merics of great feasts celebrated before whatever destroying fate descended upon the banqueters, have been found by the investigators. Bits of yucca and rabbit fur remain to descrihe this anclent people's costume. Two ash-filled pits, large enough to roast whole venison, when all the Kettle's apartment dwellers gathered in mass pow-wow for observance of re- ligious rites, were excavated near one of the sacred kivas, The ancients of Chettro had no footmen to guard their doors against unwelcome intrusion or enemy attack, NO ELEVATORS Ladders exclusively were used for tho pu of scallng the house walls and In going from one room to another within the building. At the first sign of danger these means of ¢ proach could be withdrawn, making of Chet & well-nigh impregnable fortress. In its massive substance, this man-made Gib- raltar of en ancient day ehows strong individual ity and fmagination on the part of its buiid Chettro Kettle is simple architecturally. the manner in which its cream-colored sandstone and adobe was put together with a mortar of cl made firm by mixing with grasses and ! thing which has left modern engineers a problem over which to puzzle. Archaeologists who literally ere digzlug Chettrd out of an unknown era, are working under direc: tion of Wesley Bradfield, scientist, of Santa Fe, which could have tnduced so comparatively @ group of people to spend centurles in building a home the like ot which I8 to be found nowhere on the American continent.” DESIRED SPACE Bewildered by the thought as they survey the vasiness of the mammoth pile, the party of scen- tists on the ground, by deduction, have come to the conclusion that Chettro was reared to satisfy an aboriginal craving for space—ry site of men- tal and spiritual tranquility. The thought has been advanced that the glant apartment house may have marked the period of a primitive buflding renaissance of aboriginal t opinion holds that Chettro Is but the monument of a virile people who instinctively wnderstood harmony of 1ine @s well as ceramic THE SOUTHEST ORNER, OF CHETTRO KETTLE EXCAVATED BY MUSEUM CF NEW MEXICO GREAT KIVA e CHETTR KETTLE AFTER, TRESTORATION . ¢F BROKEN ¥ 4 DOWN WALLS™ WESLEY \Q . BRADFIELD CHETTRO values and constructed the mammoth thing purels out of artlstic impulse Inside Chettro’s still staunch walls trace two distinct civilizations are fou In some cases, the explorers hav one sacred council chamber built on top of other kiva of the same t TWO EPOCHS These totally diffrent vestiges of two 1 tures mark an unknown break in the ge of Chettro's dwellers, One stage bears the earmarks of what is thought to have been pre-Pucblo ufe. The other culturs is undoubtedly of preh influence, back of which, Bradfield and his arch dence left behind, it fs presumed that each fam ly of the Chettro clan usually built its own apart doned when that particuler family died ou The Tewa Indians, ancestors of the present OR OF KerTie warm in winte sinal householders t 1 family or clan owr of anc gether is t of the frag and In refuse heaps. At one time thgre must h. sustain Chettro's prolific le the & o Canyon is a desert es have changed er natural d FORCED AWAY t epide from the ¢ ) No. 25 Modern Suites Differ HE earliest apartment house T seen in this country were bulll in New York between 1870 anc 1875 At best they were but crude af fairg, designed principally to mee o changed conditions following re cuperation from the Civil War, In 1850 a further stimulus wai given to construction of tlls type o bullding by improvement of the ele vator, development of fireproof archi ture, and the introduction of elec tric lighting. However, it was not until abou 1808, w! steel-frame constructior made its advent, that the apartmen house In the United States wa: looked upon with any degres o popular favor, Since 1000 the growth {n size ar splendor of apartment houtes in th blg metropolitan centers has beer nothing less than phenomenal whet considered in an architectural sense During the past 20 years, ever maller “citles have yielded to ti movement, until today, the preva lence of the modern apartment houst has become a serious problem In it effect upon i~ family and society NOT S0 POPULAR In England they have never beer overly populer, Landlords In that country mee with general refusal to lease apart ments—or flaty as they are termet in that country—for less than twt or three years. Then, tov, the English have al ways been more or less conservative in regard to elevators and othe: modern convenlences, which may partly explaln this deep-seatec predjudice. Great blocks of apartments wert erected in Paris under the Secont Empire, between 1852 and 1870, These buildings embraced consid erable architectural skill and are the practical types of which there fs any substantial record. The difficulty in obtaining compe tent domestic help in the Unitet States Has been the strongest in ience in the development and mul tiplying of apartment houses. In Germany and other Europear countries, where such bulldings have been constructed to greater extent in late years, other causes largely local, have been chiefly responsible IN EUROPE Buropean apartment houses are better bulit than are the have more ventilation and are larger, rents cheaper and better sanitation {8 rigidly en forced. The term “flats” applied in Eng. land to better grade apartment dwellings {s usually accepted in the United States, as relating te apart ments In houses having neither ele vator nor hall service. French apartment houses are usu- ally provided with a small elevator of the automatic type, use of which for descending is forbidden. Monthly rentals for apartments in New York e from $30 up to even $2000. In Parls the same high rate ob- talns, but more desirable and apa- 18 quarters can be had at the lower rates, running from §30 to $120 a month. Apartment hotels are to be found in most of the larger citles, both in thls country and abroad. BACHELOR MODELS Other types of apartments ude » bachelor model with from one re rooms with bath, 4 or unfurnished; the nts having rooms on floors, studio apart. co-operative apartments. o latter kind are owned join all the tenants or by some of . In which case the rentals paid v the tenants are distributed among the real own Street plans of most European apartment houses are radically aif- forent from American examples. The European ground layout per- mits of greater street frontage. As @ consequence more rooms are light- ed from the street. In Paris apartment houses are constructed about commo- courts, which provide natural umination during the day for even the minor service rooms. -