1178





RECORD   AND   GUIDE





June 1, 1912







^                              tSTABUSHlU•^MWH^I«:^la6e.

BUSI iftM ArfD Tilt M E S Of C E(JCT(0. I [frtHtST
Fonndcd Mird. 21, 186S, by CLINTON W. SWEET
Pubiished Every Saturday
By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO.

!■•  \V, DODGE, PfcsidciH
V. T, MILLLR, Sccrtury aiiJ 'I'icasurcr

Nos. 11 lo IS Eb»1 2<lh Streel, New York City

(Ttlcplione. Madison Square, 8900.)





"Entered at  the Post  Office at New  York.  N. Y.. as
$eco>id-claes matter.





CopyriEliied, IV12. by Tbe Record and Cuiili Co.





Don't   kill   the   public   market   project
by making it too costly.





After to-day all Pennsylvania Railroad
tickets will be good to and from the up¬
town Hudson Tube stations upon pay¬
ment of the two-cent supplemental fare.
Heretofore Pennsylvania tickets have
been good only to and from the Hudson
Terminal,   downtown.





Nelson P. Lewis, chief engineer to the
Board of Estimate, has been elected presi¬
dent of the Anierican Road Builders' As¬
sociation, the purpose of whieh is to bring
about an improvement in the methods of
building and maintaining highways
throughout the country. The association
is composed of engineers and highway
commissioners.

The jury of the New York Chapter ot
file American Institute of Architects in
the Le Brun travelling scholarship com¬
petition has awarded the first prize to
Otto R. Eggers. Honorable mention was
given to the following gentlemen, in the
order named; Steward ■\^'"agne^, Charles
H. North, Joseph J. Gander and Oliver
B. Raser. Jr. The competition drawings
are on exhibition at the Architectural
League, 215 West 57th street, where they
will remain on view until June L





The recent Aeroplane Exposition, held
in Berlin, Germany, was in every way a
brilliant success. The halls in the exhi¬
bition buildings erected in the Zoological
Gardens were fliled to their utmost capac¬
ity every day, and only the fact that the
buildings -were engaged i&r other pur¬
poses prevented the aeroplane exposition
from being prolonged for two weeks.
Curiously, a similar exhibition held some
weeks ago in New York, attracted no
popular  interest.





As a result of suggestions made hy the
Merchants' Association, Boi^ough Presi¬
dent McAneny has planned to adopt the
Liverpool style of pavement in re-paving
Canal street, west of Broadway. This
will be the flrst "really modern pave¬
ment" to he laid in this country and it
is expected to serve as a standard for
future work. Small, closely dressed
stone blocks on a carefully laid founda¬
tion insure a long life to the pavement,
besides giving a firm foothold to horses
and   keeping dcvwn  the  noise of  trafRc,





In the last two years the Committee
on Budgetary Publicity of the Board of
Estimate has disseminated information
about the budget estimates of the vari¬
ous departments through the medium of
the Budget Exhibit, departmental bulle¬
tins and statements to the newspapers.
It has found that, during September and
October, while the budget wa,s in the
process of making, suggestions were re¬
ceived from many sources, urging the
addition of some items and the amend¬
ment of others. Most of these sugges¬
tions were disregarded, because they were
received too late to be passed upon by
the heads of the departments concerned.
The committee, therefore, asks for sug¬
gestions in regard to the 1913 budget at
the earliest possible moment, as depart¬
ment heads have been notified to submit
their estimates not later than July 15.
The committee consists of George Mc¬
Aneny, President Borough of Manhattan;
John Purroy Mitchel, President of the
Board of Aldermen, and Comptroller Wm.
A, Prendergast,





Broadway Subway Traffic.

There is said to be a dispute under way
between the Interborough Company and
the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co. as to
the extent to which the new Broadway-
Seventh Avenue Subway is to be utilized.
The Brooklyn company wants abundant
room for switching at the two ends of
the Manhattan section of the through
route so that a large number of trains
can be operated for the beneflt of the
local Broadway traffic. The Interboro
Co. is said to be protesting against such
a service on the ground that the Broad¬
way, subway is intended merely for the
purpose ,of enabling the passengers on
the Brooklyn lines to obtain an entrance
into Manhattan. If any such protest has
been rnade, it should be effectually ig¬
nored.

Subways are not being built for any
single purpose. They are being built to
accommodate all the traffic which can be
developed by the best train service along
that particular route. It w^ouId be absurd
not to utilize the Broadway-Seventh Ave¬
nue line to the very limit. Indeed, it
would be impossible, as weU as absurd,
not to do so, because passengers would
demand a full service—even if it were
not spontaneously supplied. As a matter
of fact an excellent local service on the
Broadway line will be an extraordinary
convenience to the residents of Manhattan.

There always has been oongestion of
traffic on the Broadway isurface cars, be¬
cause of the almost unprecedented den¬
sity of local trafiic along that particu¬
lar route, and business thereabouts will
be enormously benefited by improved
means of com-muni cation. Particular
effort should be made to develop purely
local travel in the Broadway iSubway.
Local stations should be placed unusually
close to one another, so as to tempt pas¬
sengers to use the subway. Broadway
real estate and business needs the stimu¬
lus of such an improved service, and
New Yorkers need the convenience of
many   trains and  many stops.





Express Stations
The Record and  Guide trusts that the
Public   Service   Commission  will  consider
carefully the location of the express sta¬
tions   on   the   subways   of   lower  Manhat¬
tan,      When   the   Lexington   avenue   line
was   being   planned,   v\'e   argued   that   the
express   stations   should   be   situated   not
at 14th  and  42d   streets,  as  on  the  exist¬
ing  subway,   but at  23d and  59th   streets.
The    reasons    for    such    a   change    were
obvious.    An express station has a power¬
ful   effect  upon   the   distribution   of  busi¬
ness.    If express stations on all the longi¬
tudinal subways are situated at the same
streets,  there tends to be an undesirable
congestion of business at these points.  It
is    better    both   for    the   convenience    of
travellers and for the better distribution
of  business   that   the  express   stations  on
different   subways   should   be   situated   at
different streets. Now that the Lexington
avenue line has been abandoned south of
40lh   street   there  is   no   longer   any  ques¬
tion about a 23d street express station on
the East  Side,   although  one  undoubtedly
should and wil! be situated at 59th street,
so   as   to   tap   the   great  stream   of  traffic
which will follow  that line.     On the new
Seventh Avenue Subway an express sta¬
tinn will surely be situated at the Penn¬
sylvania   station  which   will   also   supply
34th   street  and   Greeley 'Square with  the
benefits of an express service.

A question remains as to where the ex¬
press stations shall be situated on the
Broadway-iSeventh avenue route. One
will doubtless he needed at Seventh ave¬
nue and 59th street, and it only seems
fair that the next one should be situated
at Madison Square. Owners of real estate
in and about Madison Square should cer¬
tainly make a flght for such a station.
The vast recent development of mercan¬
tile construction in this vicinity makes it
necessary that the Square should have
the benefit of an express service on at
least one of the subways. Presumably
a strong claim will be made for the loca¬
tion of an express station at 42d street
and Seventh avenue, and unquestionably
there are many good arguments in favor
of such a location.    But,  42d street and





Long Acre Square Is already supplied
with abundant means of communication.
It will be on the whole more accessible,
from more parts of the greater city than
any other section in Manhattan. Madi¬
son Setuare, on the other hand, has no
corresponding advantages, and the city
should deliberately attempt to keep busi¬
ness further downtown by affording 23d
street and Madison Square the conveni¬
ence of an express station on at least
one subway.





Mr. Frick's New House,

The announcement that a dwelling is to
be built immediately for Mr. Prick on the
site of the Lenox Library, while not un¬
expected, is nevertheless a matter of un¬
usual real estate and architecural inter¬
est. It is very rare in the history of New
York City that mansions occupying a
block front on an important avenue are
erected. The old Vanderbilt brownstone
houses occupy a whole frontage, but there
are two of them. Mr. Carnegie and Mr.
Schwab's houses cover a complete front¬
age with one building, and now Mr.
Frick's will do the same. It is remarka¬
ble that these three gentlemen should all
have made their money in the same busi¬
ness and should have heen at one time
partners. Mr. Frick's enterprise is all
the more unusual because of recent years
the tendency for rich men to erect large
and expensive dwellings in New York
has been subsiding, and it has been sub¬
siding largely because New Tork is not
so good a place to -accumulate a large
fortune as it was, and because the pro¬
cess of business centralization has been
checked by interference on the part of
the government. Not only are fewer
large fortunes being made, but when they
are made their possessors are less likely
to move to New York,

It may be a long time before Mr.
Frick has any imitators; and for that
reason New York is to be congratulated
that Mr. Frick is doing his job so well.
In employing Mr. Hastings as his archi¬
tect, he has made an ad.mirable selec¬
tion, one which assures the erection of
a beautiful and appropriate building. But
from the arrhiteetural standpoint it is
a pity that the new residence no matter
how successful it may be, must stand
upon the site of the Lenox Library. Ten
years ago when the friends of Richard
Morris Hunt M-ished to do honor to the
memory of the dead architect, they placed
his monument across the avenue from the
building, which in their opinion might
constitute his most permanent title to
fame. Yet almost before the monument
has weathered the building is to be torn
down. The Lenox Library is not such
a masterpiece of architecture that its loss
cannot be replaced, but it is nevertheless
distinctly unfortunate that the lightning
should happen to strike it. It occupied
a deflnite and worthy place in American
architectural history, and deserved a
longer life and a better end.





Failure of a Holding Company.

The failure of a large holding company
whicii operates chiefly in mercantile
buildings must not be considered a proof
that the mercantile renting situation is
bad. It undoubtedly is bad in certain of
the older districts, but it continues on the
whole to be extraordinarily and surpris¬
ingly good in the new mercantile district.
In spite of the strong efforts which are
being made to keep important wholesale
and manufacturing houses downtown, the
migration continues with very little
abatement, and an enormous amount of
new mercantile construction is being un¬
dertaken. Four block fronts on Fourth
avenue are being improved. On Madi¬
son avenue a half a dozen large buildings
are being erected. The few remaining
vacant sites between Sixth and Seventh
avenues north of 23d street have for the
most part been bought for improvement,
•A corresponding movement is beginning
in the side streets . east and west of
Fourth avenue; and there is no diminution
m the number of new operations on and
about Fifth avenue as far north as 48fh
street.

The money for financing such a large
amount of construction could not be ob-