530





RECORD   AND   GUIDE





October 14, 1916





W^xREAL   ESTATE                   ^f^)   BUILDERS

Devoted to Real Estate

Building Construction and BuildingManagement

in the Metropolitan District

Founded March 21. 186S, by CLINTON W. SVVr.EET

Published Every Saturday

By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO.

F. T. MILLER, President

W. C. STUART, Vice-Pres't Jt General Manacer

J. W. FRANK, Secretary 4 Treasurer

119 West 40th Street, New York

(Teleplione. 4800 Bryant.)

"Entered at the ro.it Office at Ifew Tork, A'. 1'., as
second-class mailer."

CopyrJcht. 1916. by The Record and Guide Co.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

•                (Section   One.)

Problem of Ash and Trade Waste Removal..52.3

Legal   Notes   Affecting   Realty..............524

Ninety-Nine Year Leases;   H.  C. Robinson. .525

Effect ot Zoning Plan  on Other Cities......527

Uses  and  Advantages of   Incinerators.......i):^S

Editorials    .................................530

Query   Department   ........................531

Real   Estate  Situation;   John'Finck.........532

Annual  Election ot Real  Estate Board......5.32

New   Home   tor   Destitute   Blind............543

Building    Material    Market.................542

Classiflcd   Buyers'   Guide   ..................550

Current   Building   Operations   ..............542

Leases    ....................................537

New   and  Useful   Appliances................529

Personal   and   Trade   Notes.................544

Private   Sales   of   the   Week...............534

Real   Estate   Notes   ........................541

Statistical  Table ot the Week..............o-ix

Trade and  Technical  Society  Events........549

Wholesale   Material   Market................543





Assessed valuations have risen rapidly
in Manhattan since consolidation, and
the reductions m.ade this year should
strengthen the realty market consider¬
ably. Lower taxes are a strong argument
with investors.





Eighteen thousand tons of structural
steel will go into the new Pennsylvania
Hotel, and 15,000 into the New York Cen¬
tral Hotel. At the current market price
for plain material, which is 3 cents a
pound or more at tidewater, as the mini¬
mum for ordinary delivery, the cost of
the steel in either case runs into huge
figures, without counting the charge for
fabricating and erecting.





The Grand Central Station, in the
opinion of the Tax Department, is the
most valuable building in the city. For
•ta.xation purposes building and site are
estimated to be worth $21,500,000. Next
is the Equitable office building, assessed
at $20,500,000, and then the Pennsylvania
Railroad Station, which is considered to
be worth $15,980,000. The most valu¬
able dry goods store is Altman's, assess¬
ed at $14,100,000; the second most valu¬
able office building, the Metropolitan,,
$12,500,000; the most valuable hotel
building, the Waldorf-.A.storia, $11,650,000.





The total estimated cost of new
buildings for which plans were filed
during the first nine months of the year
was so swelled by tentative filings in
July as to render the Manhattan statis¬
tics almost useless for purposes of com¬
parison with corresDonding periods in
former years. The Bron.x. Brooklyn
and Queens figures are fairly indica¬
tive of real conditions, and prove that
Bronx tenement builders continue their
waiting attitude, but that in Brooklyn
the erection of frame dwellings has not
been lessened, though brick dwellings
and tenements have been erected in
fewer number, in consequence of higher
building costs. The stagnation in
tenement house construction is mainly
responsible for the low Bronx record.
The Bronx is, however, building an un-
WsUal num.ber of garages.





Madison Avenue Values.

It is interesting to note in the Land
Value Maps for 1917, which were issued
as Section Three of the Record and
Guide last week, the extent to which the
appraisers of the Tax Department con¬
firm unofficial opinion regarding the rise
and fall of values on Madison avenue,
a thoroughfare in which there is much
professional interest at the present time.
Both north and south of the Murray
Hill residential section Madison avenue
has been the scene of numerous trans¬
actions and operations in real estate for
business purposes in the last five years.
The popular prediction of years ago
that it would change from a residential
into a business thoroughfare, for the
most part, is being fulfilled.

Comparing the unit foot values given
in the 1917 maps with those reported
five years ago, in the 1913 maps, it will
be seen that in the district south of 33rd
street Madison avenue land has not
shared in the increase in values that has
taken place between 40th and SOth
streets. Instead, from 24th street north
to 33rd there has been a recession of
from $100 to $300 a front foot. At 24th
street the front foot valuation has fallen
from $4,200 to $4,000, at 30th street from
$3,200 to $3,100 and at 33d street (east
side) from $3,500 to $3,200. The stated
declension on the opposite, or west side,
at 33rd street, is from $3,600 to $3,400 a
front foot.

The accretion in land value north of
40th street, on the other hand, has been
large, amounting to a rise of from $6,000
a front foot to $8,000 for the southeast
corner of 42nd street, where the Heck¬
scher Building is being completed; and
from $5,000 to $7,000 for the northwest
corner. At 47th street the increment
has been $1,000 a front foot, or from
$3,800 to $4,800. Above 50th street for
a mile or more there has been no change
in   the  Tax  Department's  valuations.

As was explained by the Record and
Guide last week, when property is rising
in value the assessed valuation must be
somewhat less than the actual value, be¬
cause the assessment is based on the
evidence of the past; and when property
is falling in value the assessment must,
for the same reason, be a little more.

Fifth avenue land values at 40th street
have risen in five years from. $12,000 to
$14,000 for a unit foot; at 42d street,
from $14,000 to $20,000; at 47th street,
from $12,200 to $14,000, and from $11,200
to $14,000 at SOth street.

It is evident from the foregoing that
the limit of Fifth avenue values has not
yet been reached, and that Madison ave¬
nue, if it is ever to rival its neighbor,
has a long distance to go in the ascend¬
ing scale of realty values. This, to be
sure, instead of being a note of despair,
only measures the opportunity for the
investor. For between Madison Square
and SSth street Madison avenue repre¬
sents three miles of varied opportunities
for real estate investment—varied in the
nature of the possible improvements, and
varied in the amount of capital required
•—and it ought to see decidedly more ac¬
tivity in the next five-year period.





Coming Commercial Crisis.

Much significance for New York City's
shipping interests may lie in the fact
that the new United States Shipping
Board will have a control over steam¬
ship lines and forwarding agents in the
foreign trade sim.ilar to the control which
the Interstate Commerce Comniission ex¬
ercises over railroads in the interstate
trade.

In view of the commercial struggle
for foreign markets which all the author¬
ities predict will follow the cessation of
hostilities in Europe, a struggle in which
the United States will find itself on the
defensive, the Shipping Board is not like¬
ly to let New York, as the first and most
available seaport of the country, rest
satisfied with its present facilities for
oversea  commerce.

The possibility of Europe dumping
manufactured goods here after the war
is much less a difficult problem for us
as an industrial country to deal with than
the problem  of developing and  holding





markets for the sale of American com¬
modities, the surplus output of the coun¬
try's enlarging industries. The dumping
menace can be held back by a tariff wall,
but in order to retain permanently the
foreign trade, in competition with the
great powers now at war, more ships
and docks, with better terminal equip¬
ment, will have to be provided at Amer¬
ican  seaports.

The new Shipping Board is authorized
to expend fifty million dollars as a first
installment for the construction and pur¬
chase of suitable ships, to sell or lease
them to private corporations, and to es¬
tablish and operate steamship lines to
South American and other ports when
they will not interfere with private en¬
terprise.

If the necessary dockage and loading
machinery for the new shipping cannot
be found or constructed in this harbor,
the Shipping Board will not hesitate to
look for or create them, at rival ports.
The board will not be content with any¬
thing less than expeditious freight hand¬
ling. With these probabilities and stand¬
ards to meet before very long, it be¬
hooves the city government and the or¬
ganized business interests not to delay
preparation. With such forehanded na¬
tions as Germany, Japan and Great Brit¬
ain to compete against, no time should be
lost.

What a great foreign trade can do to
revive real estate, and especially to ten¬
ant vacant business buildings, has been
observed in Manhattan this present year.
The complete reversal of the local real
estate situation can be attributed to the
direct and indirect effects of the enor¬
mously increased foreign commerce. As
a beginning, real estate interests should
demand the immediate consummation of
the negotiations between the city and the
New York Central Railroad Company
for the West Side terminal improve¬
ments.





Business  After the War.

Charles M. Schwab does not expect
any sudden change in manufacturing
conditions in this country immediately
upon the conclusion of peace in Europe,
but if within six months or a year after
the close of the war new markets have
not been prepared to absorb the pro¬
duction that the war orders have en¬
gendered, he fears an industrial collapse
will  ensue.

If the war is to continue several years
longer, as seems probable, speculation
at this time upon what will be prevail¬
ing industrial conditions afterward has
a very uncertain basis of fact to start
from. But there is a reasonable curi¬
osity as to the prospect of business on
the continent of Europe at that time for
American building materials, including,
of course, steel and other metal prod¬
ucts,  besides  lumber  and  cement.

In France, at least, it is obvious that
there must be a large amount of re¬
construction. Eight hundred communes
have so far been seriously damaged,
2,500 are still occupied by the invaders,
together with nine-tenths of the iron
mines, and a large proportion of the iron
foundries of the country. Until these
works are re-established. France will
not be prepared to furnish much ma¬
terial of a metallic nature for her own
use. Only within the last three or four
months has building work been resumed
in Paris, and advices from there are to
the effect that steel is almost out of the
question for private work, and timber is
almost double its former price; cement,
bricks and all those materials requiring
labor, coal and machinery for their pro¬
duction  are very costly.

In consequence, there will be from
France immediately after the close of
the war, and also from Belgium, a great
deinand for materials of reconstruction.
In Germany and Austria-Hungary there
will be extreme need of miscellaneous
commodities which America can furnish,
even if the war should not devastate
their cities as it has the cities of France
and Belgium. But ocean freights will
continue high after the war, and if the
existing customs duties stand, it is doubt¬
ful if very many kinds of common build¬
ing supplies can be delivered to Europe