214





RECORD AND GUIDE





August 3, 1912







DBfa9TOll»ESwtBiiaj>itl!.*(<o<ire»™i»Koi<SE*U)DEOOi(n^
BU!B*$S MfollttMES Of C«jfcH«L ll«IWf8T

Founded Mirch 21,1868, by CUNTON W. SWEET

Pabtished EVerg ^Saturdag

By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO.

F. W. DODGE. President

F. T. MILLER. Secretary sui Treasurer

Noa. II to 15 East 24th Street. New Vork City

(Telephone. Madison Satiare. 8900.)

"Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as
second-class matter.

Coprriltted, 1912, by Tbe Record and Guide Co.





Mayor Gaynor lias accepted an invita¬
tion to visit San Francisco and the
grounds of the Panama-Pacific Interna¬
tional Exposition next month. Various
functions will "be arranged in his honor
by the municipal authorities and exposi¬
tion directors. The JIayor will spend ten
days in California.





It is announced that, owing to the build¬
ing activity which has developed at
Oceanside In consequence of the electri¬
fication of the Long Beach division of
the Long Island Railroad, the railway
company has decided to move its Atlantic
avenue station there 2,210 feet southward
in the direction of the new center of
population and to rename the station
Oceanside.





The shopping and amusement centers
in the Bronx are said to have been greatly
benefited by the operation of the New
York, Westchester and Boston Railway.
The trip from White Plains, Mt. Vernon,
Xew Rochelle and other places along the
road can now be made in a fraction of the
time required by trolley. However, as
the New Tork, Westchester and Boston
has its terminal in the Bronx, it is ex¬
ercising the same effect on the shopping
and recreation travel as the local subur¬
ban trolleys do, namely, inducing it to
stop in the Bronx instead of proceeding
to Manhattan.





The Public Service Commission has un¬
der consideration the advisability of issu¬
ing an order directing companies oper¬
ating street cars over the East River
bridges to issue transfer slips good upon
the cars of other companies to passengers
in cases of blockades on the bridges. A
public hearing on the matter is to be held
before the commission on Aug. 13. If the
order is issued, it may help materially to
induce the transit companies to reach
sorhe voluntary traffic arrangement for
interchange of passengers without the
payment of two or more full fares.





In order to put an end to the exploita¬
tion on the British market of worthless
"town lots" in Western Canada, the Cana¬
dian Chamber of Commerce in London
has asked the leading firms in Great Brit¬
ain dealing in Canadian real estate not
to handle such real estate unless it is
delimited on maps drawn to scale The
Chamber lays down certain rules with
respect to maps and descriptive literature
which, if adopted by our own real estate
exchanges and enforced as regards their
members, would undoubtedly benefit New
York suburban ■property.





A number of associations have been or¬
ganized to rid particular neighborhoods
of street loafers and other disorderly ele¬
ments. The latest of the kind is the.
Forty-eighth Street Improvement Asso¬
ciation, which is being formed by Thomas
P. Burke, of 310 West 48th street, to clear
up the block between Eighth and Ninth
avenues. It certainly is remarkable that
protective associations of citizens should
be regarded as necessary in a town where
so many millions in taxes are expended
for the maintenance of law and order as
in New York City, but that the necessity
exists can hardly be questioned after
reading the newspapers of the last few
weeks.





Our First Station Hotel.

The new Biltmore Hotel will, so far
as we can recollect, be the first station
hotel of any Importance erected in this
country. As every traveler knows, there
are a great many station hotels in Eng¬
land and some in FTance and Germany,
but until the present instance American
railroads have not participated in the ho¬
tel business in large cities. In the case ot
the Biltmore trains from the West will
deposit their passengers underneath the
hotel building, and the travelers can se¬
cure accommodations without going out¬
doors, taking a cab or bothering about
the transportation of their luggage. Fur¬
thermore, one-half of the building will be
planned and managed for the benefit of
business men. It will contain a large
number of comparatively small rooms and
will charge a somewhat lower scale of
prices.

In all probability the construction of
this hotel will prove to be an excellent
investment for the New York Central
Railroad Company. Quite apart from the
fact that a modern ibusiness man's hotel
is very much needed and that the location
of the new Biltmore is excellent,' the
providing of these accommodations ought
to be of substantial assistance to the busi¬
ness of the railroad. Business men who
use the hotel will, if possible, be sure to
use the railroad, and it will be such a dis¬
tinct convenience to use the hotel that
the number of such people may be con¬
siderable. It would appear that the Penn¬
sylvania Railroad Company will suffer in
competition with the New York Central
unless it builds a hotel which provides
similar accommodations for its customers.
The location of the Pennsylvania Rail¬
road terminal is such that a station hotel
could not compete for the fashionable
trade, but as soon as the new subways are
finished it will constitute an even better
location for a business man's hotel. The
railroad company could afford to make a
really moderate rate for rooms for the
purpose of attracting customers to the
hotel, because a large part of the patrons
of the building would use the railroad in
order to reach and leave New York. It
is true that the new hotel that is now
being erected on Greeley Square is planned
to be a business man's hotel, which would
give any similar enterprise financed by
the railroad stiff local competition, but the
railroad company could furnish its cus¬
tomers the same conveniences as the Bilt¬
more, and it could afford to make a cheap¬
er rate. There is no reason why there
should not be room for both of them. It
must be remem'bered in this connection
that the building of the new Broadway
subway will necessitate the destruction of
the Astor House, because the tunnel, as
it turns west between Park place and
Vesey street, undermines that building
and will render it useless. Many out-of-
town business men still put up at the
Astor House, and their dispersal will ben¬
efit the other commercial hotels.





The Astor House and Its Site.

Every New Yorker of long standing
would regret the enforced tearing down
of the Astor House. It is almost the only
important building in the hands of a pri¬
vate owner that belongs to the same pe¬
riod as the Sub-Treasury and the old
Custom House, and it has the somewhat
severe and forbidding dignity of the pub¬
lic architecture of that day. According
to our modern notions of what a hotel
' should be, it is a gloomy edifice, but it has
played an important part in the history
of New York and has many associations
for old New Yorkers. It is a pity that
after surviving the passion for replace¬
ment, so characteristic of New York real
estate history, it should be torn down for
the beneflt of a public rather than a pri¬
vate improvement. It seems as if the
subway might have turned west at Park
place rather than Vesey street, particu¬
larly in view of the fact that Park place
is the broader street and the damage done
to private property would be considerably
less. The selection of Vesey street means
that a building occupying a whole block
front will probably be rendered undesir¬
able for its present purposes and will ulti¬
mately have to come down. How will it
be replaced?

The owners of the block have frequently
considered   the   substitution  of  an  oflBce





building for the old hotel, but they have
never been able to figure out any sufficient
profit in the substitution. The hotel was
curiously enough, a profltaible enterprise.
The doming year would not be a favorable
one in which to erect an offlce building,
because the Woolworth Building will pro¬
vide all the additional space needed in
that neighborhood for some time to come.
Very much the best possible disposition
of the property would ibe to sell it, if pos¬
sible, to the United States Government,
subject to the subway easement, and to
have a new post office building erected
on the site. The Federal courts should be
provided with a building of their own near
the new County Couit House, but the post
office should remain near its present loca¬
tion, and with the Federal courts housed
in a separate building, there would be no
impropriety in making the new post offlce
a skyscraper.





The  Market  For  Private  Dwellings  in
Manhattan.

The fact mentioned in the Record and
Guide last week that development com¬
panies on the outskirts of the city are
frequently approached by would-be cus¬
tomers, who want to exchange private
houses in New York for suburban resi¬
dences, is a very extraordinary one. It
indicates that private residences in Man¬
hattan do not sell any 'better than they
should at the present time, and that their
owners, when they vacate them, are as
likely to move to the suburbs as into an
apartment. It is undoubtedly the fact that
the number of people in New York who
want to live in an undetached private
house is becoming less and less. They
want either an apartment or else a sub¬
urban house, 'With the better air and the
increased space which a suburban bouse
includes. Those families who already own
a house In Manhattan or Brooklyn would
move to the suburbs faster than they do
in case they could dispose of their houses
to better advantage.

But private houses in Manhattan are not
easy to sell unless they are situated in
neigh'borlioods which are being converted
to business uses, or unless they are avail¬
able as part of the site of a large apart¬
ment house. When they are situated on
an avenue like West End avenue, which
can be improved with high-class apart¬
ment houses of sufficient height, they, may
even increase in value, but if they are
located on an ordinary sixty-foot street
there is little demand from speculative
builders. The nine-story flreproot build¬
ing which alone can be erected on a sixty-
foot street, does not pay except in very
good locations. In the future it may be
expected that even a larger percentage
will migrate to the suburbs, because un¬
der improved transit conditions they will
be able, in spite of their suburban resi¬
dence, to enjoy more of the amusements
and advantages of strictly urban life. They
will be able, that is, to dine m Manhat¬
tan and go to the theatre without being
obliged to reach home at between one and
two o'clock in the morning.





So far this year big transactions, es¬
pecially purchases of high-price (business
premises and the erection of costly apart¬
ments and mercantile buildings, have
been a notable feature of the real estate
market. They have been furthered by
easy mortgage loan conditions, the result
of an abnormally meagre demand for
commercial loans. At present, however,
trade and industry are expanding under
the assurance of a rich grain harvest
and the prospect of a giant cotton crop;
and money is becoming more actively em¬
ployed throughout the country. A con¬
siderable hardening of interest rates is
therefore to 'be expected. Meanwhile,
building material prices are also taking
an upward turn. It looks, therefore, as if
big real estate transactions, particularly
'building operations, may not he so numer¬
ous in the near future as they have been
for some time past. But the general em¬
ployment of large holdings of capital in
manufacturing, commerce and transpor¬
tation will mean rapid savings to retail
storekeepers, professional men, skilled
mec(hanics and other classes from which
buyers of homes and investors in the gen¬
eral run of property are recruited.