Within three days after its doors had been opened to the public more than 1,100 persons had availed themselves of its benefits.  Within three years, it is promised, the community kitchen will have become national in character.  Its possibilities for development are limitless.

    Way was blazed for the pioneer kitchen by Edward F. Brown, executive
    secretary of the New York school lunch committee.

    The active power behind the cauldrons of soup, cabbage and
    frankfurters, beans and rice pudding is vested in Mrs. James A.
    Burden, jr., and Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, jr.

    The evolution of the community kitchen is going to be of interest to
    every housewife and to every wage earner in all classes of society.

First of all, let it be distinctly understood that the kitchen as inaugurated is not a charity.  It is social and philanthropic in character, and it will ultimately reduce the cost of living by almost 50 per cent.  This much has been demonstrated already to the extent that the Tenth Avenue kitchen has not only paid expenses, but has so overrun its confines that plans are in preparation for the establishment of other and larger kitchens in rapid succession.

The object is to give to the purchaser the maximum quantity of highest grade food, properly cooked, at minimum cost.  This cost includes rent, light, heat, power, interest on investment, depreciation, cost of food materials, labor and supervision.  The principle is that of barter and sale on an equitable business basis.

The project as now formulated is to establish for immediate use a small group of public kitchens having one central depot.  This depot will be in constant operation throughout the twenty-four hours.  Here the food will be prepared and distributed to the smaller kitchens where, by means of steam tables, it can be kept hot and dispensed.  The character of the food to be supplied each district will be chosen with regard to what the population is accustomed to, that which is simple and wholesome, which contains bulk, can be prepared at minimum cost, can be conveniently dispensed and easily carried away.

    Opposite a large school building, in a small room that had been at
    one time a saloon, the kitchen of the century was fitted up and
    formally opened to the public.

    Three long green tables with green painted benches beside them
    encircle the room on two sides.  Their use was manifest the second
    day after the kitchen was opened.

At 4 o’clock in the morning, from various tenement homes near by, sturdy ’longshoremen and laborers might have been seen plodding silently from their respective homes, careful not to disturb their wives and families, and heading straight for the new kitchen on the corner.  From trains running along “Death Avenue” came blackened trainmen after their night’s work.  They, too, stopped at the corner kitchen.  By the time the attendant arrived to unlock the doors forty men were in line waiting for breakfast.

    Ten minutes later the three tables were fully occupied.