850





RECORD   AND   GUIDE





-April 27, 1912





AN OCEAN FRONT OF UNSURPASSED GRANDEUR

Fifteen of the State's Accessible Thirty Miles of Seashore are Included
in the Rockaways—The Finest Beach Between Maine and Atlantic City.





IT seems but yesterday when the
i whole Bockaway neck was only a
stretch ot waste beach and sand dunes,
lipon which grew cranberries, holly and a
few cedar trees. No person who could live
elsewhere cared to reside there. It was
thought flt only for cattle, which were
cared for by Hallet Abrams and his happy
■family, ■ who lived in a hut like Charlie
the Hermit's. Land sold for $2o lo $30
an acre when a purchaser could be found,
and many simply "took" the land be¬
cause no one else claimed it.

To-day this same land is in such de¬
mand that prices range from $1,000 to
^6,000 per city lot. The sand dunes have
been converted into stucco and morlar,
and a city has grown up, stretching from
Belle Harbor to the Nassau Counly line
and having a summer population of over
100,000 people.

Within the last ten years the property
along the coast has enhanced in value
from 500 to 600 per cent. Eut do not be
misled into thinking that Far Rockaway
has suffered a "boom." Its growth has
been steady, flrm and natural, an evolu¬
tion from farm to country, from country
to village, and now to a city suburb, due
primarily to ils geographical location, its
unexcelled drinking water and its climate.
' Long Island is blessed with more sun¬
shine than any other spot east of the
Mississippi River. Its Atianlic coast is
ten degrees warmer in winter and ten de¬
grees cooler in summer than the City of
New Tork.    Here the warm balmy breeze





the point of the beach. It is the natural
metropolis of the South Shore, and the
only place located directly on the At¬
lantic Ocean, between New York City and
the Hamptons, having natural gravel,
loam and top soil. This wil! give a firm
and solid foundation for future skyscrap¬
ers, and a perfect drainage and natural
soil for trees and foliage planted about
the magnificent hotels that will line the
ocean   front.

Edgemere is now devoted almost exclu¬
sively to hotels and private boarding
houses, and will continue to develop
along these lines, following Arverne, where
every other cottage is  a boarding house.

Hammels has its attractions for the
Eastsider until he saves sufRcient to move
to Arverne. thence to Edgemere and on
to  Far Rockaway.

The Beach at Seaside is New Tork
City's playground, and will naturally de¬
velop along the lines of Dreamland. From
its beginning it has been a place of con¬
centrated fun and frolic. No one takes
it seriously unlil he attempts to buy a
lot, hire a house, a room or a tent. He
then realizes he is still in New Tork City,
and not far from the Eowery at that.

I remember in 1900 Mr. Frederick Lan¬
caster was advised not to sell his hold¬
ings at Belle Harbar for less than $4,000
an acre. I believe he was offered $2,000
an acre. Now you can gel that sum for
a good lot. Belle Harbor is one of the
ideal seashore home sections, a clean open
boach  and   Ihe  ocean   in  front,   with  an







HOUSE   ON   THE   ROCKA'WAY   COAST.





from the gulf stream tempers the coldest
•winter day, often removing a heavy
snowfall in a few hours. Here the cool,
refreshing, summer breezes come sweep¬
ing in from the Atlantic. Hot land
breezes we linow not, being surrounded
on three sides by water.
■ Far Rockaway was the site of the chief
■tribal camp of the Rockaway Indians.
■Later the early settlers converted it into
farm land, which was fringed and dotted
here and there with stately oak trees.
Its farms in turn gave way to large es¬
tates, the homes of liie rich. The Blener-
hassets, the Livingstons, the Van Ren-
sselaers, and, later, E. H. Harriman, the
-Dickersons, the Brinkerhoffs, the Cheevers,
and many other prominent families lived
on the Far Rockaway Peninsula. 'We
are, however, no longer burdened with the
-landed aristocracy. 'Their descendants
■have moved eastward like the Rockaway
Indians a century before them, only to
be followed by a new population, with new
idea.s and ideals, some better than their
predecessors; and a few with lower and
cheaper standards of living. AU this
change within my memory; largely within
the last fifteen years.

'We have witnessed this phenomenal
growth. Eut what concerns us most is
what the future of the Rockaways, includ¬
ing Far Rockaway, Belle Harbor and the
intervening places, is to be. The large
estates ot Far Rockaway are being cut
up into lots and the mansions are giving
way to cottage homes. Land is now too
valuable to hold in acreage. Adjacent
to the business section cottages will soon
be followed by apartment houses or ho¬
tels. Far Rockaway is destined to be the
business centre of a community of homes
extending solidly from the county line to





equally clean open bay in tlie rear; fine
streets, all new houses, no nuisances; ex¬
cellent boating, bathing and fishing.
What more can be asked?

Why this rusli to the Rockaways? Be¬
cause there are many acres of inland, but
mighty few acres of ocean front. The ac¬
cessible area ot ocean frontage in the
State of New Tork is limited to thirty
miles, and one-half of that is in the
Rockaways. The reason for the tremen¬
dous activity within these few miles is
therefore apparent. The owners of ocean
front in this section have a monopoly.
The value of our land does not depend
upon the existence of any factory, busi¬
ness, oil-well or mine, which may be de¬
stroyed or exhausted. The market value
of lots in the Rocltaways is as certain
lo increase as the ocean is lo last. It
does not require prophetic vision to fore¬
see that improved train service tunnels
under the East River, and canals, and
bridges connecting us by road with Man¬
hattan, will tend to make our fair land
more attractive as a year-round resort.

The proposed dredging of Jamaica Bay
will naturally make a great harbor along
our coast for shipping interests. Inasmuch
as a boulevard, to run parallel with the
Long Island Railroad tracks across the
bay, is contemplated, a piece of engineer¬
ing that ^vill connect this isolated Fifth
'^Vard (tbe flfth wheel of Queens) with
the rest of the city, it is obvious that
Hiammels or Seaside w^ill become the
wharf  of  this  greal  Harbor.

Here, then, will be the terminal of port¬
age from the West via the Great Lakes,
the Barge Canal, across the Empire State,
the Hudson River, the iE-Iarlem River, the
Flushing Eay Canal. Around this harbor
will develop a market,  which will supply





the Soulh Shore of Long Island with coal,
lumber and grain.

The effect of the dredging of Jamaica
Eay upon Rockaway real eslate is some¬
what uncertain. "Values of residential
property will be affected but slightly.
Building and living will be cheaper when
lumber and provisions can be brought by
boat from tbe "West, and this must re¬
sult in an increasing year-round popula¬
tion,

WILLIAM   S.   PETTIT,





LIGHT AND POWER PROBLEMS.





The Low Rates for Power Service Should
Attract Manufacturers.

In gathering together the separate mu¬
nicipalities that make up Greater New
York, the borough of Queens brought into
the city a great variety of territory. In
area it equalled Brooklyn, Manhattan and
the Bronx combined, though its popula¬
tion was, comparatively, as small as its
area was great. Outside of Long Island
Cily, the population was located in nu¬
merous small villages, each trying lo
maintain a separate electric light com¬
pany, none of which supplied day service
tor power. In 1900 the New Tork and
Queens Electric Light and Power Com¬
pany was organized, its charter authoriz¬
ing a general electric business throughout
Queens, excepting the Rockaway penin¬
sula. The first electric company it ac¬
quired served the Third Ward, a territory
larger than Manhattan Island in area;
this was followed by the acquisition of tha
Jamaica and Long Island City companies
and the Newtown franchise. These con¬
cerns were maintaining separate plants
and charging varying rales. The plants
were antique and inefficient; some ot them
had tried and abandoned the supplying
of day service, and the great problem was
their arrangement and reconstruction in
a manner that could afford to give the
service that the public demanded through
this great territory of 12-5 square miles.

The site of the Long Island Cily plant
on the East River al Asioria was selected
for the main generating plant. Trans¬
mission lines were built to Flushing, Ja-
.maica and Newtown, where the old gen¬
erating plants were replaced by modern
sub-stations that transfer the electric
energy from Astoria tor distribution to
customers. On the completion ot this
great engineering work, day service was
inaugurated for the encouragement of
manufacturing by eleclric power and the
rates were standardized at a lower figure
than any maintained theretofore by the
multiplicity of small plants.

Most of the original electric service
problems were thus met, but the rapid
growth of the borough has produced prob¬
lems that by comparison makes the orig¬
inal ones look insignificant.

In a territory like Queens, made up of
former municipalities, the developments
center about the former villages and pro¬
duce innumerable centers of supply and
distribution, continually calling for the
construction of additional sub-stations
and new transmission lines. In the last
few years sub-stations have been de¬
manded at the rale of one each year,, and
without a corresponding increase in in¬
come. Each new sub-station is much like
starting a new company. Il is pioneering
with lean days while business ig being
built up to the point of support. In the
last two years three million feet of wire
and cable, using nearly 2(X) tons of cop¬
per, has been used in this work and, aa
"In Queens there is Room for All," the
end is far offi. The confidence of the
electric company in the future has led its
stockholders to supply the necessary
funds for these extensions; and though
the expected returns continue to be in the
future, it is believed that their confi¬
dence will ultimately be rewarded. The
company "that lights Queens" hopes that
the borough it serves be the biggest thing
of its kind in New Tork.

Because of its proximity to Manhattan.
Queens provides congenial industrial and
residential surroundings, and the local
electric company, in providing adequate
service at as low or lower rales than any
power rates in New York, offers an invit¬
ing proposition to faclory or home
builders.

■C. G. M. THOMAS,
N. T. & Queens Elec. Light and Power Co.