RECORD AND  GUIDE





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DeVM) to Re^L EsTWt. BuiLDlt^G ^crflTECTURE .HoUSnlOlD DECtStMloH.

Busii/ess Alio Themes OF GeiIei^.! INtzr^si,
PRICE  PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS

Tublisfted cVem  Saturdag

CommunlcatiODs should be addroaaod to

C.   W.   SWEET.   14-16  Vesey Street, New YorK

J. T. LIXDSEY. Business Manager                              Telephone, Cortlandt 3157





••Entered at the Post OSice at New York, N. Y..





Vol. LXXIV.





November 5, 1904.





■s second-class matte)-."
No.  191:2.





WALL STREET is trying to guess at present what effect
the election will have upon the prices of securitips. On
the part of some people there is a disposition to anticipate that
the re-election of President Roosevelt, which is very probable,
will be the signal for a renewed advance. On the other hand,
it is argued with equal gravity that the present level of prices
is being maintained nntil after the election; so that the Repub¬
licans will not be embarrassed by a sevore slump, coincident
with the voting period. For our own part we find it hard to
believe that the election will have any decisive effect upon
pricos, no matter how it goes.' There are no serious business
issues at stake, as tliere were at the two previous national elec¬
tions. The business 'interests of the country, as well as the
special interests of Wall Street, will be as secure in the case of
Judge Parker's election as they will be in the case of President
Roosevelt's. The Republicans have been trying to create a dif¬
ferent impression; but common sense refuses to believe that the
executive program and candidate of the Democratic party are
inimical to business prosperity, just as it refuses to believe
that President Roosevelt's triumph would look in the direction
of a lawless dictatorship. But if Wall Slreet has no reason to
fear Judge Parker, it wil! have no reason to rejoice at the
election of the Republican candidate. Contrary to many prece¬
dents, the prices of stocks have heen steadily advancing through¬
out the campaign, and they have advanced, on the whole, for
sound business reasons. If they continue to advance after the
election, it will be because tbese favorable business conditions
have not yet spent their force. Should a decline follow the
election, it will be because Wall Street has come to believe that
any advantage to securities from the improved business con¬
ditions has been sufficiently discounted. Several weeks ago it
looked as if such was tbe case; but, as the weeks go by, the
business outlook becomes better rather than worse, and,
granted the continuance of easy money, it is entirely possible
that the end of the bull movement has not yet come. The
business of the country has certainly shown extraordinary
vitality in its recovery from 1903. Only a year ago the gloom
was at its height, and now the recovery is already far ad¬
vanced. Id view of the continued improvement in the steel
trade with all that it implies, he would he a bold man who would
declare that it has advanced too far.





Bronx and about 350 on Washington Heights. The same parcels
of property are being frequently sold two or three times, which
shows that many of the operators are taking quick and prob¬
ably small profits. Outside of vacant lots, the activity is about
normal. The whole operating and speculative fraternity is
concentrating its attention on vacant lots, which makes the
sales of other classes of property small. Nevertheless, the out¬
look is good in every direction. Absolutely the only cloud upon
one of the best real estate and building prospects which New
York has ever possessed is the continuation of the lock-ont, A
number of very large building projects, such as the extension to
the Singer Building on Broadway, and the new Brunswick
Hotel are held up, because of the tmcertainties of the situation,
and they will doubtless continue to be held up until some
assurance can be given that buildings will not be interrupted by
imnccessary strikes. The situation would probably have
cleared up already, were it not for the great activity in the
cheaper forms of constructiou. These huildings are erected by
builders, who do not belong to the association, aod they give
work to many carpenters, plasterers and the like, who other¬
wise would be out of a job. The employers must be completely
successful in tho end; but, owing to the activity in the Bronx,
the power of resistance of the unions in the Building Trades
Alliance is more considerable thau it was. A very notable in¬
crease may be remarked in the number of flreproof apartment-
houses which are heing built; but these are the only plans for
buildings of a higher grade of construction which are coming
out at present.





A COMPARISON between the sales announced during the
past week and those announced during the corresponding
\yeek last year indicates how radically the real estate market has
changed since then. At the end of the first week of November
in 1;103 we reported the sale of seventy-one parcels of real
estate, of which eight were dwellings and forty-eight flats, situ¬
ated norith of 59th st. These figures indicated that the specula¬
tion in (Harlem flats, characteristic of last year, was already
well under way. As compared to the seventy-one sales last
year, the! totals for this year are over 315, of which 20 are pri¬
vate dvifellings, 55 arc flats, situated north of 59th st, and 51
of vac ht lots. This classification, however, applies only to the
ManhL 'an sales, which constitute a little more than half
of thjniltotal. A very large number of small transactions are
takiidditJlace in the Bronx, indicating a much greater popular,
as oidlysed to professional, interest in real estate in that borough
ttia'^ tooei-e is in Manhattan. Bronx is, of course, still a
l,o'' ^ ^^ijn which the modest home-seeker can bny the land he
frame bouse for less than $5,000, whereas
are very few desirable dwellings to be
; that snm. The small investor has also
Hp^ No. 2 shows a^^ '° '-'^^ Bronx which he lacks entirely in
M houses '.^iat are b^^-l number of lots sold is smaller than last
ikson av and lo6th a about 1,000, of which GOO are situated in the





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"T* HE experience of the week of Subway operation has proved
^ one defect beyond peradventure. The stations and their
approaches have not beeu made as spacious as they should
have been. Doubtless the conditions which prevailed last Sun¬
day were exceptional, hut a Subway which is to endure for a
century must be built to provide for exceptional as well as
normal conditions. While under ordinary circumstances the
Subway passengers will have as much room as they need, in
cases of an accident or of exceptional pressure the service will
break down completely. Reasonable provision should be made
for such emergencies. The Subway system will differ essentially
from the elevated railroad system. It will not consist of a
numher of parallel lines, all of thom practically independent of
each other; it will consist of a carefully articulated system. The
longitudinal tunnels will be connected both at terminal points
and by a number of cross-town lines, and the consequence will
he that under exceptional traffic conditions, a pressure collected,
as it were, from the whole city would be brought to bear upon
particular points of the system. Another Dewey day, for in¬
stance, would put the completed Subway to much severer strain
than that to which the elevated roads were subjected in 1899,
because passengers would be gathered from east, west, north and
south, to be dumped at comparatively few stations. In short,
the Subway should have been designed to handle much larger
crowds than the existing stations and their approaches can pos¬
sibly accommodate, it is part of the permanent comprehensive
transit system of the city. It will be carrying passengers when
the central parts of Manhattan will be a ridge of sky¬
scrapers, and when, owing to the concentration of business and
residences, the tragic will be more dense by a good deal than it
is at present. It will be found in the end that both in regard
to its express service and In regard to its station accommoda¬
tions, the Subway has not been made sufflciently elastic.





IT will be interesting to observe what the outcome will be of
the lively protests which have been evoked by the adver¬
tising placards on the walls of the Subway stations. From every
standpoint of aethetic decency, the placards ar^ undoubtedly
an outrage. They irretrievably mar the appearance of a very
appropriate and admirable piece of interior decoration, which
belongs to the city, and which should maintain a standard of
propriety in such matters superior to that of a private corpora¬
tion. On the other hand the Interborough Company presumably
has the legal right to sell the space, and under ordinary cir¬
cumstances would undoubtedly exercise that right without miti¬
gation or remorse. But the Interborough Company occupies a
very different position frora that of the ordinary railroad cor¬
poration. It cannot ignore public opinion as the Metropolitan
Street Railway or the Manhattan Company can. It is the ten¬
ant of city property. The profit which it derives from the
privileges will depend largely upon the extent to which the
existing Subway can be developed. It imperatively needs, that
is, an extension of the "privileges'" which it now enjoys; and
it will have difficulty in securing-theso additional opportunit''