June 6, 1914





RECORD AND GUTOE





1007





rounded by factories and warehouses.
There are houses of worship that are
older and handsomer, and besides there
is now another St. John's in the same
ecclesiastical denomination — the great
. cathedral on Morningside Heights. The
' architectural idea of having the sidewalk
of Varick street built through the porch
of the chapel would be excellent if the
trustees desired it, but as they do' not,
and as thev are the most competent
persons to decide, what reason is there
for others to assume the responsibility
and  the  expense?

----------------1----------------

Why Fifth Avenue's Prestige Should Be
Preserved.

Editor of the Record and Guide :

The high-class retail business for
which Fifth avenue is so well known is
the most sensitive and delicate organism
imaginable, depending first on the ex-
clusiveness of the neighborhood; sec¬
ondly, on the nearness to the homes
of the rich and the large hotels, and,
thirdly, on its lack of congestion, es¬
pecially on the sidewalks, so that the
customers are not "crowded or jammed
in a hurly-burly crowd on their way to
and from the different shops.

Wholesale trade, on the other hand, is
crowding the retail as firmly as the re¬
tail businesses invade the residence sec¬
tion, their object being to be as close as
possible to  their  customers.

Fifth avenue, below 34th street as far
as 23d street, has already been doomed.
Below 23d street it is irretrievably lost.
' Nothing of any nature can ever re¬
deem it. Of primal importance, there¬
fore, is the preserving of Fifth avenue
from 42d to 59th street. Loft buildings
have alreadv invaded some of the side
streets with their hordes of employees,
under the guise of "light manufactur¬
ing," and, if the occupancy of the build¬
ings were restricted so that no manu¬
facturing could be done either on Fifth
avenue or from Madison avenue over to
Sixth avenue, the problem would doubt¬
less be  entirely solved.

Employees from these loft buildings
cannot be controlled. They spend their
time during the lunch hour and before
and after business congregating , in
crowds that are doing more than any
other thing to destroy the exclusiveness
of Fifth avenue, as witness below 23d
street, and when the exclusiveness and
desirability of Fifth avenue is destroyed,
the value of real estate on Fifth avenue
will  depreciate  immediately.

This is not a plea for property-own¬
ers, but for the preservation of Fifth
avenue, the most wonderful shopping
street in this country, and in many re¬
spects more wonderful than anything in
Paris or London. The city would lose
millions of dollars in taxes in not pre¬
serving it.

In case that the occupancy cannot be
regulated through the Factory Commis¬
sion or otherwise, the next best step
would be the limitation of the height
of buildings in this zone, thereby_ di¬
minishing the volume of operatives.
From a business standpoint, this would
be no hardship on the owners of prop¬
erty, for the most paying investment
today in the section under discussion is
a six-story building. A large office
building and a large hotel, owing to the
nature of their occupancy, are no dis¬
advantage. A first-class hotel, on the
contrary, is a decided advantage.

If the scope of the commission is
broad enouo^h, I would recommend the
limitation of the height of buildings
through the city into zones, so that the
different sections may be treated in a
manner that would comply with their
local problems. For instance, if the
Greenwich section and the old drygoods
section above Chambers street were
treated as a manufacturing center, this
would work out to the salvation of the
neighborhood. The tenements of the
East Side furnish the operatives for
manufacturers of this city, and therefore
should factories be established in the
neighborhood more convenient to their
homes, which this would do, it would
be of mutual advantage, at it would sup¬
ply a line of tenancy for buildings that
are now nine-tenths vacant.
Values north of 42d street, on the side





streets between Fifth and Madison ave¬
nues, as compared witli those between
I'ltth and 6ixth avenues, are indicative
ot the value of property occupied tor
exclusive business, and that occupied
lor lott business. Between Fitth and
Madison avenues, where there are prac¬
tically no lott buildmgs property is
wortn $4,50U and up a Iront toot. The
buildings are ail used for retail busi¬
nesses, while between i'lfthand bixth ave¬
nues tnere are already a number of loft
buildings which have determined the oc¬
cupancy of the remainder of tnese
blocks and the value of real estate is
from $2,700 a front foot to as high as
$5,000, according to its nearness to Fifth
avenue.

These are the conditions as they exist
today, and it something is not done
speedily to check further inroads, the
same condition now existing below 23d
street will, in a few years, prevail on
Fifth avenue, north ol 34th street, and
t-ifth avenue's prestige will then be lost
to this city forever.

FRANK D. VEILLER.

10 East 47th street, June  1.





New York As a Future Steel Center.

New York City is the largest market
for structural steel in the United States,
as everybody knows, and the Merchants'
Association claims that steel shapes will
be manufactured here at less cost than
in the Pittsburgh district, when the
barge canal is ready for.service. Not
only shall we then be able to get Lake
Superior ores, on which Pittsburgh de¬
pends, for a lower transportation rate
than Pittsburgh pays, but Adirondack,
Newfoundland and Cuban ores can be
put down here for a lower price still;
and the iron and steel scrap used in
manufacturing also costs less in this
port than at Pittsburgh. The Hudson
Kiver valley was once a great iron man¬
ufacturing center, and is likely to be
again, because, when considered with
New York harbor, it is the strategic
center of the world's trade and has the
resources of a continent behind it. The
Merchants' Association points out, fur¬
ther, that in the last analysis the choice
of a location for steel-making is a ques¬
tion of freight rates, and that this dis¬
trict has exceptional advantages in this
respect, not only for assembling the raw
material, but also for distributing the
finished product. Already two blast fur¬
naces are under construction in this har¬
bor, and are referred to as proof that
there are manufacturers in the steel in¬
dustry who hold the same view.

This new industry, should it desire to
locate in this district, must, however, be
treated in a broad way by our commer¬
cial bodies and city authorities. They
must not expect that room will be found
for great steel mills on the congested
waterfront of Manhattan or Brooklyn,
or even in The Bronx. More likely the
mills will be on the Jersey side of the
harbor, up the Hudson, where there are
iron mines, coal depots and deep water,
and on the Jersey meadows. No feeling
of jealousy against the suburbs should
be shown in this matter. Let the out¬
skirts have the smoke-emitting mills and
the laborers, and let New York be con¬
tent with the trade and commerce they
will bring in their train.





Transit in Qaeens.

At a joint meeting of the Board of Di¬
rectors and the Transit Committee of
the Chamber of Commerce of the Bor¬
ough of Queens, held this week, reso¬
lutions were adopted opposing any
change in the plans of the Dual Subway
System tending to delay the inaugura¬
tion df that part of rapid transit into
Queens Borough which passes through
the Bridge Plaza, Long Island City, and
requesting the Board of Estimate to make
at the earliest possible moment the
necessary appropriations requested by
the Bridge Department for the recon¬
struction of the Queensboro Bridge to
adapt same for rapid transit trains. It
was also the sense of those present at
this meeting that the Board of Estimate
and the Public Service Commission
should take into consideration the seri¬
ous matter of the reduction in the width





of the present roadway by the operation
of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit trains,
and that if it is finally determined that
this roadway must be reduced in width,
then any such reduction of roadway be
compensated for by providing additional
and sufficient roadway space on some
part of the bridge, or by any other meth¬
od.

Seven separate contracts have been
let to date aggregating $5,601,842, for
every rapid transit extension in Queens
Borough included in the Dual Subway
System with the exception of the lines
across the Queensboro Bridge and the
extension of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit
System from Cypress Hills, Brooklyn,
to Jamaica. Of these extensions which
connect with the station on the Bridge
Plaza, in Long Island City, work on
the Astoria extension is completed, and
construction of the extension to Wood-
side, Elmhurst and Corona is progress¬
ing rapidly. The construction of the
big passenger transfer station on the
Bridge Plaza in Long Island City is
now under way, and it is hoped will
be finished in a little over a year, the
Steinway Tunnel will be ready for ope¬
ration by January 1st, 1915, and its ex¬
tension to Queensboro Bridge will be
finished shortly after. To connect all
these lines across the Q.ueensboro
Bridge it is necessary that work be
started as soon as possible as it is esti¬
mated that it will take two years from
the time the work starts, to complete
the   reconstruction   of   the   bridge.





THE ADVISORY COUNCIL.

(Continued from page 1004.)
live  at  the  eighth  annual  conference
of   the   National   Tax  Association   at
Denver, September 8-11, 1914.

Recodification of the Labor Law.
Recodification of the Building Code.
Secured Debt Law. Billboard Law.
Tax Lien Law. Inheritance Tax Law.
Workmen's Compensation Law. May¬
or's Market Commission. Land Bank.
Law permitting the Board of Asses¬
sors to fix the area of assessment.

"Free port proposition" as outlined
by the Merchant's Association. Im¬
provement of the Port of New York
by the expenditure of $5,000,000, as
recommended by Justice McLean.

"Down-town Hotel" as supported by
the Wholesale Drygoods Centre As¬
sociation.

Construction of a cross-island canal
connecting Flushing and Jamaica
Bays.

Railroad terminals for freight on
river-front.

New Jersey-New York Bridge pro¬
position, as recommended by R. G.
Cooke.

Movement to regulate negro occu¬
pancy of property as recommended
by the proposed Property Owners'
Improvement Association.

Improvement of 34th street and
Fourth avenue, as recommended by
the Murray  Hill Association.

Proposed local assessment upon
Brooklyn Heights property to provide
a route for a tunnel for a subway,
which will run through the heights
without even a station to relieve the
locality.





The Inspection Pest.

(Brooklyn Eagle.)
The system reeks with incompetency.
It reeks with politics. It reeks with
graft. Inspectors with scant idea of
the work before them are getting $1,200,
$1,800, $2,000 and more. Many of these
men owe their positions to the pull of
politicians. It is true that most of them
are on the civil service list, but such
matters are easily arranged by the pro¬
fessional politician. There are a cer¬
tain number of places to give out and
for these places the politicians have their
men in readiness, and in many instances
the men are placed there.





—Ten years of American occupation
of the Panama Canal Zone were com¬
pleted on May 4, 1914. The decade has
seen the virtual completion of the canal
and the beginning of its commercial and
naval use.