Super-Capitol

A $100,000,000 contract, pledging the credit of every man, woman and child in Rumania to the extent of approximately $5, was signed with a U. S.-German group of builders and architects last week by Vice President Clinciu of the Rumanian Senate.

Purpose: to provide Rumanian Government employes in Bucharest and elsewhere with 50,000 spandy new "model homes"; plus a liberal complement of highways', lighting systems, schools; plus a sugar plum for the Government itself in the shape of "the most magnificent Capitol Building in Europe."

To finance this gargantuan program a Special Funding Bank was created last week in Bucharest, with power to deduct payments on the instalment plan for "model homes" from the salaries of Government employes fortunate enough to get them--village postmasters, workers on the State Railways, policemen and the like.

Said spokesmen for Prime Minister Juliu Maniu: "The existence of a housing shortage in Bucharest is not remarkable when it is recalled that Rumania's territorial size more than doubled as a consequence of the War, and that the population of our Capital increased from 300,000 to 1,000,000. . . . The contract call's for payment of $100,000,000 over fifteen years. . . . Rumania has met all her bond issues up to Monday of this week. In fact she is one of the few countries that have met all their outstanding obligations."

The two Manhattan firms participating in the U. S.-German building group which will revamp Rumania's housing are those of Maurice Blumenthal, co-builder of the Pennsylvania Railroad's sub-Hudson River tunnels, and David M. Oltarsh, whose achievements include four Childs restaurants and Fifth Avenue's smartmart, Kurzman. Mr. Blumenthal and Major Oltarsli each managed to announce last week that his firm was participating in the contract without mentioning the other. Architect for "the most magnificent Capitol Building in Europe" will be H. Craig Severance, who devised the new 72-story Bank of Manhattan Co., now building at No. 40 Wall Street. Their scouts report that "the modernistic trend has not yet reached Rumania." Accordingly they will design the new Super-Capitol Building in oldfangled classic style. Materials and labor for the $100,000,000 project will be Rumanian so far as possible. But U. S. makers of concrete mixers, road pavers and such would do well to approach discreetly Major Oltarsh or Mr. Blumenthal

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