474





RECORD  AND  GUIDE





Sept       ,1- 28, 1907





rare, they indicated the necessity for a thorough cleanĩng of
the steel beEore it is painted,

Furthermore, there is a senso in vvhich the prcservative paint
may defeat the very object at which it aims, by serviug to conceal
badly-rusted surfaces from inspection. Th'e ideal protective cov-
ering, boíh for steel which is to be inclosed from view, and that
vvhich wĩU be permanently exposed lo the attack of the weatber,
would be a covering which, like varnish, would be sutficiently trans-
parent to enable the i-ondition of the underlying steel to be care-
fully ĩnspected, If some composition could be produced which
combineâ transparency vvith protective qualities, a long step would
be takea in the direction oE rendering all steel work, whether ex-
posed   or   conccaleâ,   imperishablc,

Ceraent is one of t!ie most impenetrable opponents oE rust
that Steel has yet callcd to its defence, and one oE the most
effective paints intended for covcring stee! shapes is said to have
cement for' a basic ingredient.





The Safety of Our Skyscrapers.





n





Co-Operative Houses.

CO-OPERATIVE apartment houses, joint building ventures
for artists and those in other proEessions, are making such
rapid headway in New Tork that they have become a
prominent feafure of t!ie realty sĩtuation. Many millions have
been invested in sueh enterprises and the idea is getting more
popular daily.    ^

Mr. Charles A, Gerlach, of Ô^th st and Madison av, the well
known real estate expert and authority, was a pioneer în co-
operative apartment ownership. In 1S83 he bought oE the buîtd-
ers and promoted and sold the "Gramercy" apartment house
No. 34 Gramerey Park. Each subscriber of the capital stock
reeeîved a proprietary or perpetual lease to the apartment, se-
lected also shares of the eapital stoek of fhe corporation that
owned the land and buildlng and elected directors Erom araong
themselves to' manage and handle the property. Some owners
who rented their holdings received over thirty per cent. a year
net on their investment over and above expenses. Under this
system ît is claimed that expensive apartments, cheap flats,
offlce buildings, family hotels and even Earms can be sold and
divîded profltably, and Mr. Gerlach asserts-that ■such prop-
crties will bring a iarger and safer return on the investraent
than any other form of real estate ownership. This has been
demonstrated by actual Eacts and figures,

Tiiere are enthusiasts who say that when this new idea—a
variation of the old prineiple oE co-operation—becomes better
understood that it wilĩ sweep not only New York, but all other
large American cities. The scheme is revoiutionary, is at once
novel and attractive, and its possibiUties are practically with-
out ĩimit,

Walter Russell, an artist, is assoeiated vvith the movement,
Through the brokers, Aiwyn Ball, Jr., Prank Hughes and
Cliarles N. Bliss, Mr, Russell purchased for his company, the
Stuyvesant Co-operative Building, Incorporated, the south-
east corner of 5Sth st and 7th av from Michael Coleman. The
approximate price was halE a million dollars. Here is to rĩse
a studio paiace w'ith a hundred feet frontage on 7th av and a
5Sth st írontage oE 125 feet. The edifice tweive stories high,
after designs by Harde & Short, arehitects, About $1,500,0110
wiU probably be the cost.

Mr. Russell says that the demand for co-operative apart-
ments seems to he uniimited and that the idea is spreading
rapidly, Apparently the new plan has come to the front just
in the nick oE time, because large numbers of New Yorkers are
seinng theîr private houses because of their rapidly growing
land values. An argument advanced is that it is costĩng too
much for the average man who is wel! ofE td live in the centre
of New Tork in his ovv-n home. The luxury is too great. Pro-
vision, then, has to be made for those people who do not care
to live in the country,

Co-operative apartraent houses, co-operative hotels, co-opera-
tive office buĩldings, with the owners having their own apart-
ments, rooms and offices, and owning an interest in the rent paid
by other people are already in course oE eonstruction on an
extensive seale. Mr. Gerlach says the co-opetative plan has
no weak point in it. Getting down to figures the systera has
been briefly outlined as followsi So many years' rental pays
for an apartment outright. That is to say, a man who has faeen
paying $5,000 a year rent for an apartment as big as a private
house under this new plan pays $30,000 or $40,000, according
to the situation of the property, and gets not ownership oE that
actual apartment but the right to occupy it on a perpetual
iease. He becomes also one' oE the co-operative owners of the
whole property and receives what is called a "proprietary lease,"
lîe pays no rent and is guaranteed against any liability of
assessments, For this guarantee he pays a nom'inal per cent
annually as a community tax on the value oE his purchase, The
charge is Eor the management of the property and the guar-
antee. On a $30,000 investment the community tax would be
about $450 a year, Tlie eo-operative owner need not pay the
entire $30,000 down at once. He pays 25 per cent, of it down
in about six months and has ten years in which to pay the
remaining 50 per cent. On an apartment such as would rent
for $5,000 a year the co-operative investor would pay .$7,500
only down and $7,600 in a few months. The entire $30,000 only
costs $1,500 to carry, and with a tax of $450 mentioned the total
^xpense is $1,950 against $5,000 rental.





By F. W, FITZPATRICK,

AS is the habĩt of our insurance friends, who invariably
come in at the eleventh hour and say how things Oiii/ht
to have been done, we are now informed by Mr. Babb, the
President oE the New Tork Eoard oE Underwriters, that it is
only a question of time when the downtown, the skyscraper,
district of New York, will be utterly wiped out by fire. This
must be the cruelest cut of all, particularly to the big in-
surance companies, who have been advertising their build-
ings as "absolutely íîreproof,"

Fortunately, Mr, Babb's alarm need not he taken too seri-
ously, for while, of course, such a catastrophe is possibĩe, there
is slight probability of its com'ing to pass, Tet it is a most
favorable opportunity, for bis remarks cerlainly have raised a
hubbub in the building and financial circles, to emphasize that,
while those buildings are weli constructed, still more could be
done to perfect thera and make tlie fulfillment of his prophecy
utterly impossible, The aggravating thing about it is that
it has always been, and is in the povver oE those same insurance
corapanies to oblige the builders oE skyscrapers and oE all other
structures to erect those buildings well and to make them far
nearer absolutely fireproof than tliey are, and in spite of the
fact that the buiĩding regulations do not compel it. The com-
panies know well enough how things should be done, but they
have never had the snap or the courage to make their rates
accord with their knowledge. Some people are so constituted
that they will only build as well as they are obliged to, and
the standard of construction has, unEortunately, been the low-
est the insuranee companies would permit under what was
deemed a reasonable rate, Had the corapanies ever made a
commensurately low rate on real flrst-class construetion, and
a virtually prohibitive one upon shoddy construction, it would
not have taken us twenty-five years to get the people into the
humor oE building as well as they do today.

To me this sudden discovory that our skyscrapers are dan-
gerous structures does not ring vcry true. It sounds more like
a premonition, a sort of little prelude, a pav'ing o£ the way to
an establishing oE higher rates all around and more proflt to
the companies than any real misgivings as to the stability of
the New Tork skyseraper construction, The companies are not
infallible, you know, and, naturally, desire to recoup them-
selves for San Franciseo, a flre, by the way, for vvhich they
were very largely to blame, Eor they had wantonly nursed and
eneouraged cheap, wooden, shoddy construction by a ridicu-
lously low rate, granted because oE the wonderEul excellence oE
San  Franciseo's  Fire Department!

Most oE tbe New Tork tall buildings are very well built; as a
class tliey are far superior to the tall bnildings oE San Fran-
cisco or Baltimore. Danger of fire Erom within is not alarm-
ingiy ĩmminent, and externally these buildings are surrounded
by a pretty fair class oE minor structures. The entire district
is what might be termed "fair," and the fact that there are
so many ta!l buildings together constitutes an element of
safety. It was the Eew tall buildings of Ealtimore, though they
were  damaged  themselves,  that  saved  the  city  beyond  them.

But since attention has been centered upon them, it would be
well, indeed, to so protect those buildings, adding to them the
things that really ought to have been done in the flrst place,
and making tbem truly, absolutely flreproof and undamage-
able to any serious extent by flre from within or without. Their
stair and elevator walls should at once be closed up with
fireproof partitions of some sort, and with self-closing fire
doors, making of each story a separate unit. The wooden sash
and ordinary glass of the windows should be replaced with
wire-glass and metal sash. Cut off the window route and you
bave cut down your fi.re risk full SO per cent. Provĩde abun-
dant water supply, tanlís, ctc, on the buildings, and drill the
employes of the buildings so that any incipient blaze in any
one unit can be readily handled and without calling in the
aid of tlie city departments, Surely these are not extraordi-
narily co'stly provisions to 'make, particularly as their eost
eould be more than raade up in a siiort time by reducing the
amount of insurancc carried on those buildings, If one would
only build wcll enough in the ,first instance he need bother his
head very little, if at all, with insurance companies and their
idiosyncrasios.





Compai'ative Efficiency of Certain Electric Lights.

Notes of eomparative tests made between three types oE
electric lights, appearing with the sanetion oE the Electrical
Worĩd upon their accuracy, convey information 6f rare im-
portance—inasmuch as the experiments and measurements
seem to have been impartially conducted, Moore tubes, Nernst
lamps and ordinary incandescent lamps vvere the three kinds
selected for the tests, The Moore tube used was 179 feet ĩong
and 1% inches in diameter. It was placed 17 inches below the
eeiling, which latter vvas 10 feet 11 inches from tlie floor. There
vvere seven six-glower Nernst lamps, having opaĩescent globes of
a bluish tint. The incandeseents 'were 113 in number, 88
being of S candle povver each, and 25 of 16 candle power. All
w§re wired to moiding on the eeiling, exeepting 20 of the larger