ighty suites, _averaging_ five
rooms, a bath-room and closets in each, and with a trunk or
storage-room in the basement for each suite; four elevators and four
fireproof staircases of iron and marble enclosed in brick walls from
basement to roof.

The suites are of different sizes to suit the proposed occupants, and
will have from two to twelve or more rooms of varying dimensions as
desired. They are partly "housekeeping" suites, _i. e._, having
kitchens and dining-rooms; partly "hotel" suites, _i. e._, having
neither kitchens nor dining-rooms, the occupants preferring to use the
public cafe and dining-rooms; and partly "semi-housekeeping" suites,
_i. e._, having dining-rooms and china-closets with dumb-waiters
connecting them with the public-kitchen, but no independent kitchen.
The "housekeeping" suites require one more bed-room than the others,
to accommodate a private cook.

Assuming now at first in our comparison those conditions which are
least favorable to the apartment-house, we will take one of the
"housekeeping" suites, having precisely the same number and size of
rooms as we find in our independent house or "tower" and compare
costs.

The only difference in the accommodation in each case is that, in the
"flat," the rooms are accessible to one another without the use of
stairs, while in the "tower" six flights of stairs in all are used,
constituting in the aggregate a ladder, as it were, of about a hundred
steps; also in the fact that in the "tower" the owner has to manage
his own heating, ventilating and hot-water supply apparatus, while in
the "flat" this work is done for him; that in the "tower" wooden
staircases and no elevators are used, while in the "flat" fireproof
staircases enclosing elevators are provided; that in the "tower" the
main partitions are often of wood while in the flat they are of brick
a foot thick and each "flat" is separated from its neighbor by a brick
wall a foot thick and all the floors are completely deadened against
the transmission of sound; and finally that in the "tower" no external
fire-escape is provided, while the "flat" has convenient external
fire-escapes of iron. Otherwise the accommodations are in both cases
precisely the same.

The total cost of this apartment-house, including the building-lot
valued at, say, $5 a square foot, has been carefully estimated at
$617,771.

This is the highest of two competitive estimates given by two
responsible builders, and compris