TOEFL English
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Translated
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First
Paragraph
|
| 1st stc |
In about 1870 to 1900 a
new style of house was being developed, but this new style did
not receive much publicity. |
| 2nd stc |
The first apartment
building in New York was built in 1869. It was called the
Stuyvesant. |
| 3rd stc |
Rutherfurd Stuyvesant
paid for the building to be built and it was designed by Richard
Morris Hunt. Richard Morris Hunt was the first American to
graduate from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. |
| 4th stc |
These two men got some
of their ideas when they lived in Paris since apartments were
already common in Paris. They realized that apartments could be
very important in the United States. |
| 5th stc |
Even though apartments
had a lot of potential, they were only a little bit successful. |
| 6th stc |
Even though the front of
the building looked nice, the inside of the apartment was
inconvenient. |
| 7th stc |
So, people who had
enough money to live in their own houses stayed in their own
houses. Most of the people who moved into the Stuyvesant were
young people (like married couples and unmarried people) who
could not afford to buy their own, large houses. |
Second
Paragraph
|
| 1st stc |
The main problem with
the first apartment buildings was that there was not enough
space to build them in New York since the building spaces that
were available were very small. |
| 2nd
stc |
A normal building area
was a rectangular shape. The front (facing the street) of the
rectangle was 25 feet wide. The rectangle extended 100 feet back
from the street. This shape was the perfect shape for another
type of house, a row house. |
| 3rd stc |
This shape was also good
for another type of house, a tenement, but it was not good for
apartments since the rooms in apartments were supposed to have a
lot of light and the rooms in the apartments were supposed to be
organized in a convenient way. |
| 4th stc |
However, apartments
became popular even though the inside of the apartments was not
convenient. |
| 5th stc |
There were many people
who were looking for places to live that were better than
tenements, but were cheaper or different from row houses.
Apartments were popular with these people. |
Third
Paragraph
|
| 1st stc |
During this period,
people who were becoming rich built big houses, but apartments
and hotels were becoming more and more popular. In fact, the
newer apartments were better than the older ones because the
builders were buying more than one building area (a lot)
together so that their apartments could have a better space. |
| 2nd
stc |
In about 1880 to 1900,
large apartments could be found in different parts of New York.
In about 1900 to 1920, bigger apartments, like the Dakota and
the Ansonia, were more common. |
| 3rd
stc |
Of course, the next
logical step was to build luxury apartments for rich people.
These new apartments were built on the brand new Park Avenue,
which was located right next to Fifth Avenue, which was a
fashionable area for shopping. |
