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RECORD  AND   GUIDE





January 27, 1912.





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Birsi((ESS>TlDTHEMESOfCEtJET\lLIKreHEST

Communieiiioiis stioul.l be addrejicd to

C.   W.   SWEET

Published EVt'rp Saturday
By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO.

President, CLINTON W. SWEET

Vicc-Prcs. and Genl. Mrf..  H.  VV.  DESMOND

Tfeasurer. F. W. DODGE                 Sccrciatr, F. T  MlLLiER

Nos. 11 lo 15 Easl 2<lh Sired, New York Cily

(Teieplione,   Madison Square. S900.)

'■Entered at  the Post  Office at New York.  .V. 1'.. as
secund-class matter."

Copyiiebied, 1912, by Tbe Record and Guide Co.





According to the yearly financial state¬
ment just issued by Comptroller Pren¬
dergast, this town now has the unenv-i-
able distinction of possessing a bigger
debt than the Federal government. Dur-
Inj' 1911 the funded debt of this city in-
■creased by $71,432,4So, reaching a total
of $1,037,811,718, or about $20,000,000
more than the debt of the United States.





Commissioner of Accounts Fosdick, in a
report to the Mayor, estimates that the
hotels, clubs and restaurants of the city
enjoy an income of $360,000 a year in
rents from cab stands. The stands, being
in the streets are on public property, and
the Commissioner thinks the city should
charge more for cab stand licenses and
also let the public have a lower schedule
of fares.





R. P. Bolton, in his presidential ad¬
dress to the American Society of Heating
and Ventilating Engineers, which met
this week at the Engineering Societies
Building, in West Thirty-ninth street,
estimated the waste of coal in Manhattan
at $774,000 a year. The ashes from the
borough contain 20 per cent of uncon-
sumed carbon, representing a heating
value equivalent  to  168,000 tons of coal.





Borough President Connolly, of Queens,
asked the Board of Estimate this week
for an appropriation of $3,872,618.85, to
be raised by an issue of corporate stock
and expended on public improvements in
his borough. His request was supported
by an. argument of undeniable force. In
no other borough, said he, would an in¬
vestment of money in municipal improve¬
ments yield so handsome a return in the
form of higher tax values as in Queens.





The opening next Wednesday of the
Queensboro Bridge line, belonging to the
Third Avenue Street Railway Company,
will mark a new era in surface car trans¬
portation for Queens. The first cars to
leave the Long Island City P.laza are
scheduled to depart at about 4 o'clock
with members of the Long Island City
Business Men's Association and the
Queens Borough Chamber of Commerce
as   guests   of President  Whitridge.





A saving of $2,000,000 a year in the ex¬
penditures of the Federal government
will be possible under recommendations
already made by the Commission on
Economy and Efficiency, which President
Taft appointed last year by virtue of an
appropriation of $100,000. The annual ex¬
penditures of the government foot up
nearly $1,000,000,000. To continue the
work of the .Commission during the pres¬
ent year an appropriation of $130,000 is
asked for.    A good investment.





The annual report of the Chief Post-
office Inspector for 1911 says that pro¬
moters of worthless mining, land and
other get-rich-quick schemes put out of
business during the year by the Post
Office "have obtained approximately $77,-
000,000 from the public." Invested in
legitimate enterprises, this amount of
capital would have given steady employ¬
ment to a iot of workingmen who have
made but a precarious living since the
panic. The prosperity of the country de¬
pends upon the purchasing power of the
working classes.





The   "Grand   Central" District.

The Record and Guide recently pointed
out what was, indeed, sufficiently obvious
that one of the parts of Manhattan in
which during the next few years the de¬
velopments will be most interesting is
what may be called the "Grand Central
Station District." As this gigantic im¬
provement approaches completion the
truth of this statement becomes more and
more apparent. A good deal of property
on Lexington avenue near the station has
recently been changing hands, and these
purchases, which have been attributed to
the Lexington avenue subway, have real¬
ly been provoked far more by the station
than by any other single cause. In the
same way there have been many pur¬
chases of property immediately to the
west of the station on or near Madison
avenue, which have evidently been deter¬
mined by an inevasive sense of the in¬
fluence of that improvement upon the dis¬
tribution of business. In this respect the
effect of the Grand Central Terminal will
be different from the effect of the Penn¬
sylvania, because the Ne«' Tork Central
Railroad Company is not confining itself
merely to building a trainshed and a
concourse. Its trainshed covers such a
large area of expensive property that it
has been obliged to use the space above
the tracks for remunerative purposes. It
has already built one exhibition hall and
it is said to be planning another. On the
Madison avenue side a new hotel is in
course of construction and these are only
a beginning. It has enough space remain¬
ing to build many additional buildings
as large or larger, and when they are
built they will enormously increase the
business importance  of  the  district.

A good deal, however, depends upon the
purpose for which these new buildings
are to be used and in this respect there
are indications that the policy of the
Railroad Company has recently changed.
Some years ago the officers of the com¬
pany publicly invited the Metropolitan Op¬
era Conipany to build a new Opera House
on Park avenue north of the station, and
it also invited the Art Societies to use an
adjoining site tor a new Fine Arts Build¬
ing. It looked consequently as if the
directors of the conipany desired to have
erected a group of semi-monumental
buildings and were perhaps willing to sac¬
rifice the earning power of the property
for the sake of the architectural em¬
bellishment of the station surroundings. It
is known at all events that an informal
offer was made to the Fine Arts Feder¬
ation of a lease of a block on Park ave¬
nue at a sum decidedly below the value
of the site. We understand, however,
that this offer, which was never made in
writing, has now been withdrawn, and it
iooks, consequently, as if the directors
had decided upon the improvement ot the
property with buildings which will bring
in the maximum income. If such proves
to be the case, the change in policy will
have important and perhaps decisive ef¬
fect upon the character of Park avenue
north of 4oth street. Property owners
along Park avenue should bear in mind
this probability.

Unquestionably the most remunerative
purpose to which the sites on Park avenue
to the north of the station could be put
would be some kind or several kinds of
business. T^^hat kind it would be vain
to predict, but assuredly the natural
function of real estate near the busiest
railway station in the heart of a great
city is trade. The station itself, no mat¬
ter how monumental in appearance, is
an engine of traffic. The people it attracts
make the transaction of business in its
vicinity economical. Under certain condi¬
tions the station might become one of a
group of monumental buildings, as is pro¬
posed in Cleveland and Washington, but
these conditions do not exist in ?;ew
York, The Grand Central Station is sit¬
uated on an avenue which is destined to
become one of the busiest arteries of
traffic in Manhattan and which conse¬
quently is advantageously adapted to
business improvement.

One has only to consider what the sit¬
uation will be after the station is com¬
pleted in order to realize what a business
future Park avenue has. Fourth avenue
is already by way of displacing Broadwav





as the greatest thoroughfare of the mer¬
cantile district, and its loft buildings will
have a tendency to push up Park avenue
north of 34th street. This tendencv de¬
layed though it be by restrictions' will
eventually prevail, and will be acceler¬
ated by the current of traffic on Park ave¬
nue after the station is completed. That
avenue will compete with Fifth avenue
and will divert from Fifth avenue a large
and increasing proportion of its vehicles.
It has the advantage of being a very wide
thoroughfare without any trolley cars
and hence can accommodate quite as
much traffic as can Fifth avenue. A
stream of motor cars and carriages will
travel down from the upper East Side
along Park avenue around the station
and by passing over 42d street escape the
delays caused on Fifth avenue by the
intersecting streams of traffic at that
point. A similar saving could be made
at 34th street by virtue of another ar¬
rangement of grades. Thus Park avenue
would be so much used and so accessible
that south of SOth street it would be cer¬
tain to become a business thoroughfare.
Of course its lack of trolley cars has made
it very desirable for improvement with
apartment houses, but as the vehicular
traffic increased it would become less de¬
sirable as a residential avenue. In any
event south of 59th street it will be more
valuable for business than for residential
purposes. Property-owners on that part
of Park avenue would do well, conse-.
quently, to wait for a little while before
undertaking any residential improve¬
ments. The plans of the New Tork Cen¬
tral are likely within the next year to be
much more definitely developed, and
thereafter the immediate future of the
neighborhood will be much more certainly
predictable.





Where Manhattan   Is   Growing Most,

The population bureau of the New
York Federation of Churches has made a
tabulation of the changes in the dis¬
tribution of population in Manhattan from
l!>0.j to 1010, and the results of this
tabulation should have some interest for
real estate owners and brokers. The fol¬
lowing table shoe's the population of cer¬
tain districts of the borough in 1910 and
their increase since 1905:

Population. Growth.

IMO  190a--iO

E'olow   Uth   street............   768,300      26,22a

14tti street to 62d street......   508,221    •29.91S

(;2rt   street   to   llOth   street___   565,12o      79,832

llOth   street   to   155tli   street. .    446,9.S1    124,384

Above   155th   street...........     42,905      28,326

Totals    ...................2,331,542    228,849

»Loss.

This second table shows what propor¬
tion of the increases or decreases in these
districts are to be credited to the East or
the West Sides:

—-------East Side.—-------—■------West Side.----------

Population. Increase.        Population. Increase.
1910.     lOCo-'lO.                   1910. 1905-'10.

1___    542,061    23.703         1___     226.299      2,402

2___    246,270    '5,794         2___     261.951*24.124

3.... 393,058 56,675   3.... 172,067 23,157

4___ 211,084 46,369    4___  2:i5,247 78,015

5....  42,905 28,326

Tl..1,39,3,07a 121,013            Tl..    938,469 107,836

938,409 107.836

General   total :

2,331,542 223,849

*Loss

It will be seen from these tables that
south of llth street there was an increase
in the five years of 26,225, or a little over
three per cent., but almost all of this in¬
crease took place on the lower East Side,
The gain is small compared to the rate
of increase in the whole city or in the
whole borough, but it is considerable con¬
sidering how small the number of new
tenements erected of late years south of
14th street. It is growing smaller every
year, and the next five-year period will
indicate a very slight increase. On the
East Side the Jewish quarter is overflow¬
ing into Brooklyn and elsewhere, while
on the West Side mercantile buildings are
being erected. The district between Mth
and 62d streets actually decreased in
numbers by about 30.000 of which decrease
five-sixths must be credited to the West
Side. This is, of course, the area in which
old  residences  and  tenements  have  been