“Ware, Leslie A., Bakery Owner, New York City Cellar bakery — general conditions
Leslie A. Ware, a witness, first duly sworn, testified as follows:
Examination by Mr. Elkus:
Q. Where do you live and what is your business? A. I live No. 600 West 107th street.
Q. East 107th street? A. West 107th street.
Q. And where is your bakery? A. 885 Columbus avenue, at 104th street, and 2373 Seventh avenue.
Q. You have attended here of your own volition to present to the Commission certain facts with regard to the bakery business i A. Mr. Hill and myself, yes.
Q. Tell the Commission what you want to say to them. A. I want to say that the kind of bakeries that 1 have heard described here to-day are a kind that I know nothing about. Yet, perhaps, my bakery might be termed a cellar bakery. I do not exactly understand what you mean by a cellar bakery.
Q. Where is your bakery located; how is it located? A. It is located in what I call the basement .
Q. How many feet is it below the level of the sidewalk? A. Well, the ceiling comes above the level of the sidewalk, that is, the curb, but it is below the sidewalk, as you might say.
Q. And is there any ventilation in it? A. Oh, yes, sir.
Q. And any windows? A. Windows in the rear, and two doors in the front.
Q. And to get into the bakery you go down steps from the outside? A. You go down steps from the outside, but there is an areaway before you enter the bakery under the walk.
Q. Tell us how many men you employ? A. Five in the day and four men at night.
Q. Well, you have heard these conditions described here. Is your bakery not like that? A. Nothing like that; no, sir.
Q. How much do you pay your men? A. From $22 to $25, a foreman.
Q. How much an ordinary workman? A. Well, for my second, third and fourth hands, they all vary.
Q. What is the lowest? A. The lowest that I pay is $12 a week.
Q. That is for the ordinary workman? A. That is the last hand.
Q. How many hours do they work? A. Ten hours, sometimes; in the summer time much less than that. Q. Seven days in the week, or six? A. Six.
Q. Now, Mr. Ware, do you provide clothes for your men to wear? A. They provide their own clothes.
Q. They wear different clothes in the shop than they do outside? A. They have their lockers to put their clothes in when they are through work, and when they come in they change their clothes from the street.
Q. How often do they get other clothes? A. That I could not tell you. I know they have new clothes two or three times a week.
Q. Do you know that, or is that a guess? A. I know that. 1 don’t say coat and whole suit, but I know that they have different clothes, part of them.
Q. Have you any washing facilities for them there? A. Yes.
Q. What have you got? A. A sink.
Q. One sink? A. One sink.
Q. Is that in the bake shop? A. In the bake shop.
Q. Eight in the shop where the dough is made, where the bread is made? A. Well, it is in the back part of the shop.
Q. Do you provide towels? A. They provide their own towels.
Q. They have to provide their own towels? A. And take them with them; each one has his own towel.
Q. Each man has to have his own towel? A. Which is supposed to be, as I understand it, more sanitary than to have a towel for all, for every one.
Q. You don’t supply them, that is what I was trying to get at, A. I do not.
Q. Where are the toilets? A. Outside, open from the outside.
Q. Are they connected with the room? A. No, sir.
Q. Where the bread is baked? A. No, sir.
Q. Where are they, in the yard? A. No, they are in an alleyway, underneath the sidewalk.
Q. They are in front of the bake shop? A. In front of the bake shop. The entrance is not from the bake shop.
Q. Where is the entrance from? A. From the outside, by a door.
Q. The men have to go out in an alleyway that leads up to the street to go into the toilet? A. Yes.
Q. That is where they have to go? A. Yes.
Q. Do you provide soap, or does each man supply his own soap? A. I provide soap, certainly. Q. You do? A. Yes.
Q. Is there anything else you want to say, Mr. Ware? A I want to say that a bakery that conducts their business in what you term a cellar can keep it just as clean as though they were in any other part of a building. I believe it depends entirely upon the person who is running the place.
Q. You heard Commissioner Lederle’s testimony? A. I did.
Q. You don’t agree with him? A. In some cases I do. Hp did not say a place could not be kept clean in a basement.
Q. Has your place been inspected by the Board of Health? A. It has.
Q. When was it inspected? A. This month.
Q. Did they make any recommendations to you or suggestions? A. No, the inspector looked the place over and found no fault with it.
Q. When was it inspected before this month, never? A. Many times the inspectors have come in when I don’t know anything about it.
Q. When was there an inspection before this month? A. I bad three inspectors coming from the Board of Health, the Department of Labor and the Tenement House Department.
Q. When was it inspected by the Board of Health before this month? A. I could not tell you the date.
Q. When was it inspected by the Labor Department last? It is inspected every month or so, to my knowledge, by some inspector. I don’t always know what department they come from.
Q. Your building has been inspected once a month? A. Once a month on an average, from the different departments.
Q. By some department? A. I should say that was so, yes.
Q. Do you know of any other bakery that is inspected once a month? A. I don’t say once a month every month in the year.
Q. No, of course not, but on the average? A. Yes, once a month on the average.
Q. Do you know of any other bakery that is inspected once a month on the average? A. I don’t know.
Q. Have you ever known of any that has been inspected once a month on an average? A. Oh, I have heard them say, sometimes, that two or three inspectors come in in one day, just as it happens, from the different departments. Q. You heard that? A. Yes.
Q. Anything else? A. I want to say one more thing. I would like to just state a question: Which would you people like to buy, a loaf of bread that was baked in what you term a basement bakery, under proper conditions, clean, and brought up and sold off our counter; or a loaf of bread delivered from a wholesale place and left in a bag or box outside a delicatessen or grocery store, or other place, before the places are opened, and the grocery man, or the man in charge of the store, comes and takes that bread in and puts it on his counter.
I would like to ask you which would be the more sanitary bread, a loaf like that, you know, left in a bag standing by the door, and plenty of ways for it to get all kinds of dirt, and become unclean.
Q. What I would say in answer to that is, that I would rather have one baked in my own home, from what we have heard here. A. But which would you want to have?
Q. Have you ever had your men inspected by a doctor, to find out whether they have sickness of some kind, consumption, or anything of that sort, or skin diseases? A I have.
Q. When? A. I could not tell you when; quite some time back, to my knowledge.
Q. Were they sick then? A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. How long ago was it? A. I should say it was a year or so.
(Witness excused.)”
Reference Data:
Documents of the Senate of the State of New York, Vol. 22, by New York (State) Legislature, Senate, 1912, pages 736-40
Just the facts sir, just the facts!