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The   Record  and  Guide.





July 2, 1887





Tlie Block System of Indexing.

Among the lost latch of bills to receive the Governor's signature at
AU uny waa the act providing for Tihat is known as the " block system" of
rt'cording and indexing conveyances, etc., relating to land in New York
city. The details of this important measure have already been set forth in
The Kecord and Guide. Futting afide the disputed question as to
whether this act is as radical as it might be, even its opponents admit that
it is an important step in the right direction towards simplifying our
present very badly tangled system of lard transfer. It is pretty certain to
have considerable beneficial (ffect upon real estate. In the " block system"
no new principle of land transfer has been introduced. It is only the old
system simplified—narrowed down from the entire city to a single block.
This is the quick of the whole matter. Conveyances, mortgages, etc.,
which are now. recorded under the entire city as it were, will henceforth
stand against the block in which the property affected may be situated.
The " machinery" necesfary to set the new system in working order com¬
prises a map of the city tu be made under the direction of the Mayor and
the Begister, showing "all blocks of land whose exterior boundaries aie
fixed and estabUshed by lawful streets, avenues, boulevards or roadways or
waterfronts." These *'blocks" are to be numbered on the map consecu¬
tively, beginning at No. 1, which is to be near the Battery. One of such
maps is to be deposited in the office of the Register aud another in the
cffice of the County Clerk. Duplicate sets of books are to be
made, each volume bearing the number of the block to which it
relates; and in one of such sets are to be entered all conveyances
and in the other all mortgages. Each volume is to have a nominal
index and a map of the block. Such is the block system stated roughly.
It is to go into operation on the 1st day of January, 1888, but power is
invested in the Mayor to postpone it for a period not exceeding six months.
If vigorous efforts were made the necessary maps could be completed
within ninety days, and the necessary books and indexes within the same
period or a little longer. Hence there is no reason why the act should be
delayed one day after the first of the year.

A gentleman who has been greatly interested from the first in the system
says tbat the only trouble will arise from official procrastination and
"shilly shallying," He thinks the measure wUl be "throttled" before a
fair chance has been given to it.

" A reform of this kind," he said, " requires the vigorous co-operation of
all oflicials. It has now become a law, and should be met by no covert
opposition from any quarter. For years the matter has been before the
public for criticism and opposition, and the time for such has now
passed."

The number of books required at first by the new system ia 6,000—two
for each of the three thousand blocks in the city. The cost of these books
will probably amount to $36,000. There will be no need to increase the
present clerical force in the Register's office. On the first of the new year
the old system will be closed with all its imperfections and confusions on Its
head and the new books opened. By and by when the block system has
proved a success the old records may perhaps be untangled and arranged
in books in accordance with the new methods. But this is for the future.
The one thing above all others for the present is to see that the requirements
of the uew act are faithfully carried out without delay.

Assistant-Deputy Register Watts, when questioned about the new system,
said- " It's not likely to be seen in working order in my time. It's a ridicu¬
lous idea altogether. Each of the 6,000 books and maps will cost $50 apiece
or mt re; that is $300,000 for the lot. Then there is the surveying for the
new maps which will cost no one knows how much, I think three or four
millions will be required to put the new idea Into practice."





Shopping in New York.

An Irishman would say that a man must get out of Now York to be able
to see the changes that take place in it. Quite so. Within the last few
yeai'8 changes have been made in many of the principal thoroughfares
which very few persons notice. Take one of these, viz.: the alteration in
the form of store fronts or windows. Five years ago there was scarcely an
attractive store front from one eud of Broadway to the other. The win¬
dows were mostly insignificant in size, and the approach to them obstructed
by railings or vault and area lights, so that passers-bv gave little attention
to the generally miserable display of wares thereiu. But now wide plate
glass windows are the rule rather than the exception; obstructions are
being removed, and storekeepers, by the pains they are taking to make an
attractive display of goods, show that at last they have realized how great
au adveitising medium their windows may be. In all this we are following
what has been done for the past quarter of a centiu*y in the large European
cities—especially Paris. We are a long way behind them yet. What is
needed in all shopping streets is a level, unobstructed pavement from store
front to curbstone; wide plate glass windows to within three or four feet of
the ground, and colored awnings running on springs to be extended about
half-way over the pavement. If these conditions existed from one eud of
a street to the other,   "shopping"  would be in New York what it is in

Paris.

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Since 72d street and the other streets leading from the Central Park to
the other parks have bttn put under the control of the Park Commis¬
sioners, it has been recommended that the elevated stations ou the wide
street:*, such as 72d, be removed a block above or a block below. This for
the bsuttit uf the numerous carriage horses which pour with a continually
increasing stream to and from the Central Park over these wide parkways.
This should be done, for though not many accidents occur due to the
liig'iteuiiig of horses, still everything should be done to insure perfect
SHtoty. By all meaus let the stations on the wide streets be abandoned on
every thoroughtare where many carriages are driven.





One of the papers has a story that the New York, Connecticut & East¬
ern Railway is to build a y^aduct forty (40) feet wid? on the west side,





between Oth and 10th avenues to the circle at 5;tth street, where it is pro¬
posed to have a handsome depot. West side property holders are said to
have received notices from the company's ollice telling them to file their
claims for damages. All this seems incredible. The cost of the projected
line would be something phenomenal.    It is rather late for what seems an

April fool joke.

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The Proposed Cathedral.

Editor Record and Guide :

If this structure is intended to be used in a spirit of progressive ideas,
modern habits and customs, and not based upon anything inherited or
traditional, then it stands to reason that no particular style of known
architecture will be adaptable or admissable to be carried out in the com-
formable purity of architectures gone by, and which " hive been" perfected
in their own way.

There are but two distinct, well-deflned styles, true and honest in spirit
and construction, that have been wrought by high civilization and climates,
viz.: Greek and Gothic. "Greek is built" in its possible purity, and we
could improve nothing in the completed perfections, produced, "as things
quite their own," by nations of by gone ages.

"Gothic" is also completely "built" and improvements are simply
impossible, though, I grant, that the latter would undoubtedly make the
best "original," if a " copy " were intended. The very fact that we are not
yet a nation proves the absence of a national architecture, which is a thing
that cannot be forced, but must grow itself, bloom, bear fruit and go to
tradition, the same traditions that we are now living upon. Why, therefore,
should anything be copied at all'. Do architects admit of so little genius
among their brotherhood that they consider anything but a copy an
Impossibility? Where is the freedom of design of architecture conformable
to the uses of our subject to be hidden? Among antiquated, contrary
ideas of extinct peoples?   I hope not.

I hope that in this building a stimulant will be gi veu to make '' our own "
mark among the "builders" of the earth. The subject is worthy to draw
forth not only the " favored," but also the " unknown " talent of the land in
the most impartial manner possible by a competition of true parts, able
judges and unbiased awards in order to secure the most fitting monument.

Max Schroff.





The New Lumber Region.

Changes are taking place in the lumber trade in the Northwest which
ere long will have an important effect upon the Industry at large and its
many correlative branches. lb is only natural that as our country grows,
and population flows into the sparsely settled regions, the seats everal
industries should shift from one locality to another. This has he ppened
with iron, wheat, furniture, petroleum and a score of other articles

To-day, New England is complaining of the loss of many manufactories
which are either "going West" or moving South nearer to the cotton
fields. Hitherto the Northwestern lumber trade has been confined to pine
taken from the virgin forests of Minnesota,, Michigan and Wisconsin. It
was a wood that required only such rude labor as the few settlers could
command to prepare it for market. But the pine forests are being
exhausted aud the populatiou is being increased, and capitalists in &t. Paul
and Minneapolis are turning their attenion to the vast wealth of hardwoods
—oak, elm, maple, ash, beech and ironwood—that awaits developments.
Only a short time ago there was scarcely a saw mill in the State of Minne¬
sota capable of converting hardwood into lumber. This state of things is
now being rapidly altered, extensive facboriej are being built, and the
Wisconsin Central Railroad has decided to erect shops at St. Paul's, and
the Sault road will do the same ia Miuneapolis. There is no doubt that the
lumber industry of the great Northwest will baa matter to be talked about
in a few years.

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Petroleum as Fuel.

The newspapers bave had a great deal to say of late regarding the recent
so called successful use of petroleum as fuel on the Pennsylvania Railroad
This is not by many times the first time we have heard the story. Indeed
it is a sort of stock scientific—commercial " chestnut"—that is printed once
or twice a year. The World and the Times have both had their editorial
»' say " on the subject, and having again startled the coal merchant with an
ominous prophecy or two, and outlined for inhabitants ou the line of the
elevated railroads the prosp3ct of a time when ihey will breathe an atmos¬
phere smelling less like st ile gun barrels than at present, they bave, no
doubt, dropped the matter until the next occasion. Putting aside the fact
that the most successful experiments do not insure the successful commer¬
cial use of an article employed not under the most favorable circumstances
as in a trial, but under the average conditions of overjday use, there
has been hitherto one insuperable objection to the use of petroleum
as fuel, viz.: that of cost. Bulk for bulk petroleum has possibly
twice the heating power of steam coal, but eveu at the present
low i)rice of oil it is many times more expensive. The New York Times
cites as a proof of the practicability of using petroleum as fuel in this country
the fact that it is used by steamers on the Caspian Sea and on Russian
railroads. It is true that oil is used in place of coal in the mercantile
marine on the Caspian Sea and the Volg"^, that Ihe Russian gunboat
flotilla use it and also some of the railroads. But with this, it must be
remembered, that forty gallons of oil has sold at Baku for eight cents, and
at one time seven cents American money would purchase a ton of it. No
wonder it is used as fuel ia preference to coal mined in England or lumber
drawn from the diminishing forests of the Caucasus. Russia to-day is
producing about half as much petroleum as the United States. This pro¬
duction could be increased enormously. Some of the wells at Baku have
flowed fifty thousand barrels in a day. But for this immense wealth there
is at present no adequate market. Unlike the oil producer in the United
States the Russian has yet to acquire his customers. Just now he can sell
only the.illuminating and lubricating products^of hisoU.^The remaimnj|