EAL Estate Record

AND   BUILDERS'   GUIDE.





Vol. VIL





NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1871,





No. 152.





Publi-thed Weekly by

THE REAL ESTATE RECOUD ASSOCIATION.

TERMS.

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

All communications should be addressed to

C   ^V.   S^W3ETGT.      .

lOo Bro.a,i>way, COK. OP Pink Street.





No receipt for rooney due the Ee.AL Estate Eecord
wiU be acknowledged unless signed by one of our regular
coUectors, Henry D. Smith or Thomas i: Cumjiixgs.
AU biUs for collection will be sent from the office on a regu¬
larly printed form.





THE WEST SIDE ASSOCIATION.

The regular monthly public meeting of the
West Side Association was held on Wednesday
evening last, at the Harvard Kooms, Sixth Ave¬
nue and Forty-second, Street, Mr. W. R. Mar¬
tin, presidfent, occupying the chair. The subject
of rapid transit again received its full share of
the attention of the Association, and able ad¬
dresses on its importance were delivered by the
president and Mr. W. B. Ogden, who is officially
connected -with the New York City Gentral Un¬
derground Railway Company. From the draft
of a memorial about to be presented to the
Legislature by the railway company represen¬
ted by Mr. Ogden, we copy the f oUo-vving im¬
portant statement as to the cost of construction
and the engineering difficulties in the way of an
underground road:

The entire cost of a double-track'underground
railroad, complete, and with heavj' steel rails
of eighty pounds to the yard, and fully equipped
with cars and engines sufficient to carry 230,000
passengers daUy, equal to 72,000^000 per annum,
which is about 23,000,000 less than the number
carried by the horse railroads of the city in the
year 1868 (and probably about half what is now
carried upon the city horse railroads) will not
exceed $3,000,000 per mile. It involves no en¬
gineering doubt or difficulty whatever. Sewers,
water, and gas pipes can all be readily adjusted
to it, and without excessive expense. It can be
built as quickly and as certainly as an elevated
or other railroad, and its entire cost of construc¬
tion to completion, with full equipment and out¬
fit, ready to run^ will, it is apprehended, be found
to cost less than an adequate right of way (or a
lesser right of way and consequential damages)
alone will cost for an elevated railroad through
blocks and over streets, the question of cost
between these two plans being the main differ¬
ence, perhaps, although the underground plan
is believed to possess other advantages of a de¬
cided character, as hereinbefore enumerated.

Mr. W. R Martin, spoke at some length on
the same subject, taking the ground that, 1st.
Broadway is the best route; 2d. That the un-
dergroimd is the best plan; 3d. That the city
should aid voi the ciinstriictibn of it.

There can be no two opinions in regard to the
first of Mr. Martin's propositions, that Broadway
is the best route, toeaning, of course, the line of
Broadway as-far as Union Square, above which





there is no opposition to an underground road;
and there is no doubt but that there is plenty
of capital, both foreign and native, ready at any
minute to take hold of such, a road as soon as a
charter can be procured. In regard to the prin¬
cipal opponent of this route, Mr. Martin spoke
as follows:

The gentleman who is the leader of ^this
opposition has taken a position, over and over
again, of direct antagonism to an underground
road on Broadway. He opposes it on the
ground that it shall not pass by his property
nor interrupt his use of it; but, "with a mag¬
nanimity only equalled by Artemus Ward, whose
patriotic impulses made him -willing to sacrifice
all his wife's relations by sending them into the
army, he lends his favor to the road provided it
does the injury, as he calls it, to some other
street and some other men. We concede to him
the right to take a position against his own true
interests, and to assume, falsely, that the prop¬
erty-owners on Broadvyay have any rights
against the people; and we thus take hiin on
his own ground. We make this concession be¬
cause men trained by long business experience
to regard- exclusively their own personal inter¬
ests, and not to base their public action on gen¬
eral principles and public interests, by the time
they become miUionaires become also in many
cases incapable of taking a complete and weU-.
rounded view of their own interests, incapable
of seeing that the measure that serves best the
public interests also serves best their own.

We are not going beyond our proper province
of examining his arguments when we look at
his property interests. He has made a pur¬
chase of land at Hempstead, on Long Island,
which is equal in area to aH the unoccupied
space on Manhattan Island; and he is prepar¬
ing it for the site of a city. His effort to make
population settle there is in direct competition
with our effort to settle this island. He is a
single owner. - We are numbered by tens of
thousands of all conditions. He has a site
which has, for two centuries, been regarded as
the least desirable in the whole circuit of the
suburbs, so that it was well sold at $50 the acre.
We have a site that has, in every respect, the
greatest iiuinber of natural advantages, and
has been so from the beginning. The settle¬
ment of our region benefits every other region,
and every trade in the city ;, the settlement of
his depletes the city of population, fat taxpay¬
ers, and industry. Our region is in f he best line
of naturalimprovement, along the borders of two
rivers, along main trunk railway lines leading to
the east, north, and west, and -wiU grow, if we
can only get to it,,unaided -with its own spontane¬
ous vital force. His is a region so far out of the
way that no one ever goes through it, or to it,
except for that express purpose; and it can be
settled only by force—that is, by the forced
application of capital. A real estate man read¬
ily sees the distinction between a site which is
in the natural course of improvement and one
which is far away from it, where settlement
was to be attracted, induced, forced. Twenty
years ago the effort to build up the lower end
of the Second avenue into a first-class residence
section was an illustration of the forced appli¬
cation of capital, as contrasted with the natu¬
ral flow of aU the elements to the Fifth avenue/;
and the result is. one that repeats itself every¬
where under like conditions. "He needs a rail-
roaxi to reach his place, and we need one to





reach our land. Would he not regard it as a
monstrous injustice if we opposed his railroad,
and, mosib of aU, if we did it on the ground that
one of us had a farm or a house through which
his road would cut ? And yet he wiU have his
road, and also do his best to hinder ours; be¬
cause it is-evident to every one that if we have
our road, and bring this island within reach of
settlement, the population, which for five years
past has been flying away in every direction,
will return to the island; and that all the
money spent in building a city on Hempstead
Plains -will establish one fact, and that fact
alone, that capital planted without foresight
■will yield no harve.st of profit.

There is to-day an immense amount of city
capital and enterprise employed in this suburban
building. Its eft'ect -will not be damaging to
the down-town business, for, as the suburban
population will approach the city down town,
they wiU keep the business there, and retard
the natural tendency of the best retail business
to follow the population up Broadway, so that
we may as well recognize clearly the fact of this
great rivalry against the settlement of the
upper wards on this island, and the great root
and hold it has in the personal interests of so
many men of wealth. We have nothing to say
impugning any man's motives; but a view of
any man's personal interests furnishes a rule to
judge of his actions; and it gives us the reason
for closing up the argument against him, and
pressing before the people that the public inter¬
ests should not be overborne by the personal
interests of any man or class of men.





MECHANICS'   LIENS    AGAINST    BUILDINGS
IN NEW YOEK CITY.

Feb.

3  A Av., E. s. (Nos. 28 (fe,30).     Adam

Brandt agt. Robt. C. Bolton......     $372 15

8 Sajie fropertt.    Ukfricht and

Schach agt. R. C. Bolton.........       750 00

6 Baxter st., s. or w. s., (No. 20).

Robt. Boyd agt. Lena Finelite___    4,903 95

8  Broome.ST., n. s. (No. 123), bet.

Pitt & Willett sts.    Herman Ger-

land agt. Mrs. Elsbach............         15 80

9  Broome st., n. s. (No. 122).   Fred'k

Reincke agt. Julia Esbach........         78 00

6 Delancey st., n. s. (No. 211).
Peter E. Fitzpatrick agt. Peter
Seebald..........................       280 00

4  Eightieth st., s. s., 22 houses Ex¬

tending  from   Lexington  to   4th
av.     Nathaniel   Wise   agt.   Wil-

feliams, Britfc &,BuMey............    4,000 00

4 Same pROPEKTy.   J. W. Stevens &

Bros. agt. same................... . 9,151 12

4 Same pROPERTr.   Candee, Arnold

& Martin agt. same................    3,578 55

4 Same property.   Patrick Sclli-

VAN et aL agt. same...............  33,633 00

6  Same property.   Thos. & Michael

Maher agt. same..................    4,167 07

7  Same property.   Winters, Hunt

& De Camp agt. same.........___    4,CC0. 00

4 Fourth av. & 80th  st., 6 liens.

(Refer to 8Cth St.)   .
4 FrFTY-NINTH ST., N. S., COMMENCING

200 ft. w. llth av.   J. W. Stevens

& Bros. agt. P. A. Stafford.......       595 92

6 POKTY-SIXTH ST., a S.; commencing
about 175 w. Broadway. Abm.
Ackerson agt Cl H- Beman.......       240,00