STATE Record





AND   BUILDERS'   GUIDE





Vol. yi.





NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1870.





No. 135.





Published M'eekly by

THE REAL ESTATE RECORD ASSOCIATION.

TERMS.

One year, in advance......................$6 00

All communications should bo addressed to

C.   -V^.   SXVUITGT,
106 Broadway, cor. op Pine Strket.





IRON BUILDINGS.
LORD & TAYLOR'S NEW STORE.
The question of erecting our best buildings,
externally, of iron or the time-hallowed mate¬
rials of marble, stone, brick, or granite, is stUl
an open one, and will continue to be so in spite
of every attempt at innovation; for while the
promoters of iron have much to advance in its
favor, it is lio less true that the adherents of the
old-fashioned materials have quite as much with
which to hold good the argument on their side—
commercially as well as Eesthetically—and apart
from their overwhelming advantage of universal
practice throughout long ages. But, however
this question may ultimately be decided, it is
an undoubted fact that the use of iron iu the
frontages of many of our most conspicuous
buildings has lately, from some cause or other,
received an immense impetus; and it is no less
evident that that impetus will be largely in¬
creased by the erection of such a structure as
forms the heading of our article, standing forth,
as it .unquestionably does, the embodiment of
the best thing of the kind that has ever yet
been seen in this city. One principal cause for
this is^ that Messrs. Lord & Taylor's build¬
ing, unlike other iron constructions of the kind,
unmistakably pronounces itself iron at the first
glance. With its profuse ornamentation and
minute rococo workmanship, which may please
or displease, according to the taste of the be¬
holder, it makes no pretension whatever to be¬
ing stone; for stone is not to be easily car\'ed
into such filagree shapes, or rather, only at such
enormous cost as to be out of aU proportion to
the ordinary necessities of a commercial buUd¬
ing. This is as it should be ; for every build¬
ing, whether of iron, stone, or wood, should
honestly proclaim itself what it really is, and
not attempt forms for which it is totally unfit.
Truthfulness is one of the most subtle and im¬
perious elements in the effect produced by every
work of art, and the artist fails or succeeds in
direct proportion as he departs from or adheres
to it. Nothing cftu be more unsatisfactory than
to look at some of our modern buildings, with
their large solid masses of mock-masonry paint¬
ed to represeht stone, 'and then to know that
they are nothing after all but plates of iron
veneering fixed over rough brickwork, and then
coateii^ witH pigments to cheat us. To illus-
trat6-;1^i^a(? aisurdum, imagine what would





be the effect of erecting such a building as the
Equitable Life Insurance Company's, -with its
majestic breadths of space and large outlines,
out of iron plates, and then painting them to
look like granite! The pretehsion would be
monstrous. Iron, being in its application en¬
tirely different from stone or marble, should,
when used for frontages, deal only in small sur¬
faces ; it should be perpetually broken up by.
little projections and recesses; in short, it
should have every sort of treatment in orna¬
mentation that shall be as urilike as possible to
that usually adopted in masonry, vrith which it
cannot have the remotest sympathy. In this
lay the whole success of Sir Joseph Paxton's
grand building of iron and glass, for the first
London Exposition, which has since proved the
model for aU similar structures. He therein ap¬
plied iron and glass to their legitimate uses and
adaptations, cutting himself loose from all con¬
ventional forms connected with the use offsolid
masonry, and thus produced a novel and emi¬
nently truthful result that wiU stand the^^test
of all time.

Viewed in this light, the new building of
Messrs. Lord & Taylor, now in course of
completion, comes nearer to a success than
anything we have yet seen. To say to what
style it belongs is not easy to any one who has
the slightest respect for architectural nomen¬
clature, as. the world has hitherto regarded it,
and we would therefore rather ^invent for it
such orders as "Independent" or "Nonde¬
script," than fall back upon the everlastingly
abused '■'■ Renaissance''''—the refuge of all non¬
plussed critics. But, to whatever order the
building may belong, it is pleasing and effective
to the sight. Standing, as it does, on] a very
conspicuous angle—the southwest comer of the
junction of Broadway and Twentieth street—
it afforded the designer a splendid opportunity
for artistic treatment, and [this he -has';]well
availed himself of by cutting off the comer
octagonally, managing the columns and projec¬
tions at the junction with the [sideTwalls very
skilfully, and running this portion of the roof
higher, where its increased height gives a tow¬
ering and prominent comer to the building,
which is bold and pleasing in effect. The
whole surface of the fronts is cut up with
numberless little detached columns and pro¬
jections, elaborate balconies.of curved shapes
richly ornamented, and a profusion of decora¬
tion generally, all of good form, but in such
abundance as would be actually painful to the
eye, but for the knowledge that aU that rich¬
ness is turned out of molds by the yard, instead
of being produced, bit by bit, from the work¬
man's careful chiseL The size of this building,
too, is an important element in its effective¬
ness. With its frontage on Broadway of 110
feet,- running back 128 feet on Twentieth street,





and its rich slated roof rising 122 feet from
the ground, it presents a most conspicuous ob-,
ject to all who are descending Broadway in that
neighborhood. The owners seem to have a
fancy for large central windows, as the centre
of the Broadway front is occupied by an im- ^
mense semi-circular glazed space, corresponding
somewhat in form to that of their old store at
the comer of Crand street and Broadway, and
which has the advantage at least of singularity,
if not of beauty or meaning. Everything about
this building is designed on the grandest scale,
in keeping with our present notions of a modem
New York store. Under the grand circular
space mentioned above—and which forms a sort
of mimic archway open only to the springing
line—is a fine porch 18 feet high, 25 feet long,
and 12 feet wide, paved with variegated mar¬
bles. Through the wide doors on each side is
entered the grand hall on the ground floor,
which is 18 feet in height, and covers an area
of over 13,000 square feet. The eight windows
on Broadway are of commanding dimensions,
being seven feet wide and 16 feet high, each of .
one sheet of plate, glass. The interior will be
fitted up on a scale of corresponding magnifi¬
cence, with counters of dark polished wood,
richly designed offices, grand stairways, eleva¬
tors, and; all the usual appurtenances on the
most iniproved pattern. But our remarks
were more intended for the external architec¬
tural character of this building, and this we
think worthy of study, as a model of its class—
in iron.





INTERESTIMG LAW DECISIONS AFFECTING
EEAL ESTATE.

Before Jtidge -loseph F. Daly and a Jury.

A MISUNDERSTANDIXG IN RE-AL ESTATE MATTERS.

Randall et al. vs. Christian Brand.—This was an action
to recover over §400 as comniis-sions for the sale of some
Harlem lots. Plaintiff testified that about October 1, 1867,
defendant employed him as agent to sell the property, and
that such authority was never cancelled before the sale.
Defendant admitted that he did employ plaintiff, but testi- •
fied that two or three days thereafter he withdrew the
property from his hands, saying that he wanted to find ouj-
what other lots in the same neighborhood would sell for at
a corporation sale then about to take place.

Plaintiff testified, by himself and another,, that on the
night after the corporation salo took place he called upon
defendant at his house, in company \vith the man who sub¬
sequently became the purchaser, and that at that interview
defendant gave no intimation that plaintiff was not still his
agent to make the sale.

Defendant, with a number of other witnesses, testified,
on the contrary, that at the interview mentioned by plain¬
tiff as having taken place on the night after the corppi^^^i^j.
sale, he (defendant) distinctly told plaintiff that tb^^^lf^.
erty was no longer in his (plaintiff's) hands for'Jiii9,.a^
that he had therefore nothing whatever to do wit^ ;t.   ^jTp
further testified that the purchaser of the property yg^f
brought to him by a Mr. Crasto, through whom the sriIq
had been effected, andto_whom the customary aommiBSlo^ji
had been paid.
j   Tho jury found a verdict in favor of the defendant.