ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the action by the health department of the city of New York against the rector, church-wardens, and vestrymen of Trinity Church, to recover a penalty for failure to supply the floors of a tenement house with Croton or other water. The plaintiff is the owner of a plot of land in the city of New York, twenty-five feet in width and one hundred feet in depth, with a four-story brick building erected upon it prior to 1901, and still used as an apartment or tenement house. In Health Department of City of New York v. Rector, etc. of Trinity Church, supra, this court sustained on broad grounds a statute requiring owners of tenement houses at their own cost to make alterations which promote the comfort and health of their tenants. In 1940 appellant constructed a four-story building on the Bowery in New York City and since that time has operated it as a lodging house.
