136





RECORD  AND  GUIDE





July 24, 1915







Devoted to Real Estate

Building Construction and BuildingManagement

in the Metropolitan District

Founded March 21, 1868. by CLINTON W. SWEET

Published Every Saturday

By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO.

F, W, DODGE. President

F. T. MILLER. Secretary-Treasurer

119 West 40tli Street, New Yoris

(Telephene, 4800 Bryant.)





"Mntered at the Post  Ofice at New York,  N. T.. as
second-class matter.'-

'       Copyright. 1915. by The Record and Guide Co.

TABLE OF CONTENTS





(Seetion   One,)





Page,

.\ Conference on West Side Improvements..  131

Opposition to the New Electrical Code......  132

New Amusement Center in Broolilyn........   133

Powers of a City Planning Committee : Rob¬
ert H. Whitten   .........................  134

Evolution of the Apartment House; Francis

S. Bancroft .............................  154

Terminal Project at Long Island City......  1,57

Advertised Legal Sales.....................   148

Auction Sales of the Week.................  147

Attachnjents   ..............................   1.51

Building Loan Contracts...................   151

Building Management.....................   154

Building Material Market..................   170

Chattel   Mortgages   ........................   151

Classified List of Advertisers........Third Cover

Current Building Operations................   157

Departmental Rulings  .....................  151

Directory of Real Estate Brokers...........  14.^)

Foreclosure  Suits..........■................   14f)

.Judgments in Foreclosure Suits............   140

Leases ....................................   143

Lis Pendens  ..............................   14!)

Mechanics' Liens...........................   150

Personal   and  Trade Notes.................   160

Private Realty Sales of the Week..........   140

Real Estate .Notes .........................   14.5

Real Estate Appraisals.....................   146

Useful   Appliances.........................   156

Satisfied Mechanics' Liens..................   151

Statistical Table ot the Week..............   146

Trade and Technical Society events.........   160





R. D. West, of Rockville Center, is
certain that he oicked up a bar.gain when
he paid only $42,500 for the sixty acres
in the Milburn reservoir property which
the city owned at Baldwin and valued at
$125,000, But his friends are not so
sure and are wondering what he will do
with the  reservoir.





The regents of the University of the
State of New York have not yet named
the members of the Board of Examiners
of Architects, and there is nothing to be
done by the architectural profession in
respect to registering until the board
which is to be appointed can prepare
regulations. This will answer many in¬
quiries.





Notice that Queens will get another
transit tunnel route. It already has two
other tunnel systems at its command,
besides the Queensboro bridge and the
ferries. Not much perspecuity is re¬
quired to see that by no means all the
money to be made in Queens has al¬
ready been pocketed. Buy, build and
sell in the right place in the right way
and you will make money.





While the large price movements in
non-dividend paying industrial stocks
may fascinate the inexperienced observer,
it is the young man who quietly invests
his savings in a real estate equity, pay¬
ing it may be eight or ten per cent., or
in a real estate mortgage bond at five
per cent., who will be best satisfied with
his business judgment in the years to
come.





The annual convention of the Real
Estate Association of the State of New
York will be held at Saratoga in the
middle of September, from a Friday to
a Monday. The association performed
a duty at Albany during the Legislative
session in behalf of real estate interests
at large which had never before been
attempted and which was of great ef¬
fect and value. The forthcoming conven¬
tion should be very successful.





A   Billion-Dollar   Country.

Leaders in finance feel sure of pros¬
perous times. Exports cannot continue to
overrun imports at the rate of $2,000,000.-
000 a year without vitalizing business.
Another great harvest of crops is as¬
sured for this year, a harvest that will
break all records. The value of the corn
crop alone in 1913 was $1,692,000,000, and
the total value of all grains was nearly
$2,900,000,000, The marketed products
of the barnyard, which include the poul¬
try and dairy nroducts, are worth ap¬
proximately $1,500,000,000 annually. Al¬
together the farms of the country add to
the wealth of the people over $10,000,-
000,000 of dollars every vear. This is
indeed "a billion-dollar country," as the
late Thomas B. Reed used to say.

But that is only a part of the story.
.\griculture is not the sole American re¬
source. In times when so much has been
said hypocritically against the country,
about its backwardness in business and
its unreadiness to defend itself, it is re¬
freshing to recall to mind things that
make America truly great—the wealthi¬
est, the most formidable nation in the
world, .\fter you have made a mental
note of the billions of dollars that the
1915 farm crops and products are adding
to the country's accumulated wealth, j'ou
can set down further billions that will
be added by other resources. Thus, the
value of the mineral products of the
United States now exceeds $2,000,000,000
annually. The per capita mineral pro¬
duction in 1913 was three and a half
limes what it was in 1880. Every year
the miners take out of the ground in this
country $150,000,000 in gold and silver.
The value of the anthracite and bitumin¬
ous coal footed up close to $760,000,000
in 1913. Then there was over .a billion
dollars' worth of forest products and a
vast sum from the fisheries,

L'ncle Sam's balance sheet shows that
he has laid aside a thousand million gold
dollars ready for use and five hundred
tons more in bullion ready for coining,
and about $700,000,000 in coin is circu¬
lating among the people. Altogether the
gold in the nation is worth about $2,000,-
000,000. You will observe that nearly
all the totals are in billions. Our finan¬
ciers are getting accustomed to saying
"billions," It would require every one
of the fifty thousand bluejackets and ma¬
rines in our navy to shoulder at one time
all of L^ncle Sam's horde of .gold. France
has only half as much. The stores of
Great Britain, Germany, Austria and
Italy combined are less than the sum the
United States can spend. America is
the Croesus among nations. There is
more gold in the mint at Denver than at
any other one place in the world. As
all the nations are on a gold standard,
they are pledged to buy all of that metal
that is offered. About a billion dollars
will thus be added to the hoarded gold
of this country during the present de¬
cade. In every country of the world to¬
day, except the United States, gold is at
a premium.

.\ Northwestern mortgage agency
reports that interest on high-grade
farm mortgages has fallen to five per
cent and that good mortgages are hard
for investors to find. The pockets of the
farmers are bulging with money. They
are paying off their loans with their
grain profits and are not asking for
new advances. The West is no longer
the fruitful field that it once was in
which to plant Eastern loans. The flow
of money is now rather from the West
toward the East. For several years
past while commerce and inanufactur-
in.g have been depressed, the natural re¬
sources of the country—the farms, the
mines and the forests—have been its
main support. The recent advances in
the price of Eastern railroad and indus¬
trial securities have been owing mainly
to the strong buyinii of Western in¬
vestors.

There is abundant wealth in the coun¬
try and its resources are inexhaustible.
What is lacking is public confidence—
confidence in the government, confi¬
dence in our strength as a nation, con¬
fidence in ourselves as a square-dealing
people. .Americans have every reason to
have absolute faith both in their govern¬
ment and  in the  country itself.    Get at





the truth and you will find that no nation
in the world has less real cause to worry.
There is, however, too much money
that can be classified as "timid money";
there are too many investors who are
timid, too many lending institutions that
are afraid to lend at reasonable rates
and too many people afraid to trust each
other in business. The obvious duty of
every man responsibly placed is to take
new courage and resolve to do his own
part to restore public confidence in the
country and its institutions.





The  Slow  Growth  of  Manhattan.

The disclosures to be made by the
census now being taken will prove more
clearly than personal observation can
that the central borough of the city has
passed its maximum rate of growth. A
tentative return from the official enum¬
erators gives the total of the increase in
population of Manhattan since the cen¬
sus of 1910 as only twenty-odd thou¬
sand. This is exceedingly small for a
city which in the previous decade. 1900
to 1910, grew at the rate of 48.000 an¬
nually aufl had a population of 2,331,000
in 1910: but the slow rate is not difficult
to account for. Manhattan Island is no
longer all there is to New York City. It
is but one of five boroughs—it has been
mostly built over and its population is
overflowing to the other boroughs. It
is still the choice section of the great
civic theatre, but the seats are limited
in number and have had to be reserved
and rated at a higher price than those in
the other boroughs.

The five-year period last past has seen
fewer residential buildings planned in
Manhattan than in a similar period with¬
in a generation at least. The average
yearly production of apartment houses
during the period from 1905 to 1909 in¬
clusive was 670. For the five years last
past the yearly average was only 175.
More private and multiple dwellings
liave been demolished of late years than
have been erected. In 1914 no less than
304 private dwellings and 255 tenement
or apartment houses were • razed and
only 133 apartment houses and 21
dwellings were erected. During the
last five years only 875 apartment
houses in all were planned in Manhat¬
tan, a number which appears insignifi¬
cant when comnared with the record of
the single year of 1905, when no less
than 1,413 were projected; or the record
of 1906—the year before the panic—when
tlie Superintendent of Buildings granted
permits to erect 965.

Sixty-seven of the total of 133 houses
for which building permits were granted
last year were to be erected north of
155th street, on Washington Heights.
The other 66 were distributed among the
seven other building districts into which
the Bureau of Buildings divides the bor¬
ough. The district for which the second
highest number (17) were planned is on
the upper West .Side between 96th and
155th streets. Only 14 were built on the
East Side between 40th and 96th streets,
and only 13 on the opposite West Side.
Not for twenty-five years had new build¬
ing operations fallen to a level
so low as in the year 1914, according to
the annual report of the Superintendent
of Buildings, who attributes the decline
directly to the general business depres¬
sion accentuated in large part by the Eu¬
ropean war. There was another con-
t ibuting cause which Supt. Ludwig's re¬
port says must not be lost sight of, and
that was the "numerous laws relating to
building construction," which have af¬
fected adversely and have had a tendency
to retard building operations.

Population follows construction and
never precedes it. The builders of resi¬
dential and business buildings take the
chance of finding tenants for their build¬
ings when completed. They are the real
city builders. When discouraged by ad¬
verse circumstances thev pause in their
work or .eo to more inviting fields. A
large part of the population that has
been displaced by the demolition of old
dwellings and apartments have very evi¬
dently gone to the other boroughs to re¬
side, and the accommodations that have
been provided in Manhattan during the
last five years by the erection of various
kinds of residential buildings have been