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NOVEMBER 9, 1912





WALL STREET READY FOR BUILDING MOVEMENT





Nearly 50 Per Cent, of the Houses in It c/4re Low Structiores of Five Stories or
Less—High Land Values and Rising Taxes Demand Modem Improvements.





CONSIDERING the high level of its
land values and the concentration
of great financial interests within its
limits, Wall street is a thoroughfare of
comparatively low buildings. Compared
■with lower Broadway, from Bowling
Green to the City Hall, it has few tall
structures. Its average of tall buildings
is, indeed, very low. Of the sixty-three
structures on its entire length, nearly
fifty per cent, are five stories or less,
only a dozen are twelve stories or more
and only two are more than eighteen
stories high.

This is more  clearly demonstrated  in

an accompanying table which establishes

in a striking way the fact that although

Wall   street   in   the   popular   mind   is   a

thoroughfare of gigantic trusts and sky-





are  of the  sort  that  stamp  a  street  as
unusual even in New York City.

Wall street, at no time in its history,
has experienced any remarkable build¬
ing boom. Its development, almost since
the days of the Merchants' Coflfee
House, thee Phoenix Coffee House
and the Tontine, has not been
notably spectacular from a construc¬
tional point of view. Yet while its build¬
ings have for nearly 100 years expressed
more or less the conservatism that is
synonymous with the banking business,
its land values have just as clearly re¬
flected a certain disregard for expensive
things that comes of familiarity with
wealth. Most of the establishments
along Wall street are identified with
finance.    High levels of land values were





May, 1909, the sale of 52 Wall street by
the National City Bank to the New
York Life Insurance & Trust Company
for $1,000,000 and of the 12-story build¬
ing at 64 and 66 Wall street by the Bank
of Montreal from a realty company for
$800,000.

Sensational Realty Events.
In July of the same year, Mrs. Adele
Livingston Sampson, Duchess de Dino,
leased the old Stevens Building at 14
to 18 Wall street with an "L" to Nas¬
sau street, to the Bankers' Trust Com¬
pany. The land had been bought by her
father in 1840. The Stevens Building
■was erected in 1880. It was seven stor¬
ies high and when built represented the
best type of office construction. The
lease made  in  1909 was for  twenty-one







WALL  STREET,  WEST  FROM  WILLIAM  STREET.





THE   DREXEL   BUILDING.





scraper banking structures, it is as a
matter of fact underbuilt, according to
the modern standards applied to lower
Broadway, or even to such prominent
sections as Herald Square, Times
Square, and the Thirty-fourth street
section of Middle Fifth avenue:

Since the era of construction seven
ot eight years ago, which added several
new buiWings to the street, Wall street
real estate has been relatively dull. It
is interesting to note, however, that the
most recent real estate projects in this
remarkable thoroughfare, include one of
the tallest and in some respects one of
the most spectacular structures in the
city; and the other, not yet actually car¬
ried into effect, will result in the erec¬
tion of the most expensive private bank¬
ing structure in the world. The Bank¬
ers' Trust Building at the southwest
corner of Wall and Nassau streets and
the structure at the opposite southeast
corner that is to supersede the old
Drexel building as a home for the bank¬
ing firm of J.  P.  Morgan  &  Company,





established in Wall street earlier than in
any other part of the city. As far back
as in 1872 the street attained a record
land price that has only been exceeded
once outside of the financial district
and twice on Wall street—in quite re¬
cent years. It still holds the highest,
and next highest record prices. And yet
is worth noting that its variations in
prices are more marked than in any
other prominent thoroughfare.

If it were not for the fact that two of
the most recent transactions on this
thoroughfare furnish startling excep¬
tions to the statement, one might be
tempted to account for the compara¬
tively few sales there by emphasizing
the permanent character of Wall street.
But whether partly from the fact that
real estate has been through a period of
dullness, or partly from the established
character of its business and the high
level of valuations, it is true that for
the past four years only about half a
dozen sales of real property have been
made on Wall street.    These include in





years, with the privilege of three renew¬
als at a rental reported as being, for the
first term, on a net basis of four per
cent, on an appraisal of $2,000,000. This
is a net income of $80,000 a year, or
$1,680,000 for the first term and ap¬
proximately $7,000,000 for the life of the
lease. It was proposed to erect a six¬
teen-story building on this site, which
fronted sixty-nine feet on Wall street
and 23.5 feet on Nassau street, with a
depth of about 122 feet, and completely
surrounded the Gillender Building at the
northwest corner of Wall and Nassau
streets.

The Gillender Building was owned by
Mrs. Helena L. Gillender Asinari,
Marquise de San Marsano. It was
erected in 1897, was nineteen stories high
on a lot so small that the Gillender
Building had the distinction of being
the tallest building on a lot of its size
in the city. The site was 25 x 73.10 feet,
or 1845 square feet. The owner had
inherited the land from her grandfather,
George Lovett, in 1849,    The old Union