Real Estate Record

AND   BUILDERS'   GUIDE.





Vol. VIL





NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1871.





No. 155.





.....Published Weekly by

THE REAL ESTATE RECORD ASSOCIATION.

TERMS.      .

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

All communications should be addressed to

C.   "W.   S^WEITGT.
106 Broadway, cor. of Pine Street.





No receipt for money due the Real ESTATE RECORD
■wUl be acknowledged unless signed by one of our regular
coUectors, Henky D. Smith or Thomas Jb'. Cummings.
AU biUs for coUecfcion wiU be sent from the oflace on a regu¬
larly printed form.





Patent binders for preserving the Record can be had
at the ofiace, or wUl be sent to any address in the city upon
the receipt of one doUar.





THE INSUEANCE   OF   TITLES   TO  REAL
ESTATE.

A PAMPHLET by Theodore Aub, entitled "A
Plan for the Insurance of Titles and Mortgages,"
and showing real estate transactions as they are
and as they might be, has just been issued by
the law-publishing firm of Baker, Voorhis
&Co.

The author in his preface states that the plan
of a Title Warranty Company had been written
^and communicated to a small circle of friends,
when the discovery was made by one of them
of the charter of a Title Insurance Company
among the acts of the legislative session of
1869, and he therefore does not come before
the public claiming originality for the idea.
What Mr. Aub does claim, and is certainly en¬
titled to, is the credit of being the first one to
put the idea of a Title Warranty Company into
a practical shape, and to demonstrate its neces¬
sity and feasibility.

The tendency of everything iu this countiy
is towards consolidation; and the maimer of
transacting the business of real estate bids fair
to be no exception. The vast and cumbersome
. machinery now in use, and which one is com¬
pelled to bring into requisition for the purpose
of. driving through a single real estate transac¬
tion, must give place to something more simple
ane effective. A grand stride ia this direction
win be the organization, and, successful work¬
ings of a company, organized on some plan
sinailar to the scheme of Mr. Aub.

Of course any plan of this kind ,^will involve
the opposition of gentlemen of the legal pro¬
fession ; but with that we have nothing to do.
The real estate interest demands that many of
the disabilitiea under which it now labors in
the shape of the embargo which lawyers and
searchers,place .on every change of ownership
"shaU be removed. With the rising importance
of, real estate as an article in our daUy markets
it becomes a great question to solve whether





it cannot be placed in a more convenient and
marketable form than it at present occupies.
That an Insurance Company which would
insure a title to real estate, and guarantee the
security of a loan thereon, would be highly
successful, scarce admits of a doubt. ' Capital
which now dreads anything in the shape of real
estate, because of the want of knowledge of its
value, would be attracted immediately, were it
secured by the guarantee of a corporation of
recognized standing. We trust that the matter
will receive attention from our real estate ope¬
rators.





THE DOCK BOARD.

A WRITER in the Evening Post of a recent date
reviews very fully the labors of the Dock Com¬
mission, since the formation of the Board to
the present time, from which we condense the
following, as being of interest:—

The act passed a year ago creating the new
Dock Board was a part of the new city charter.
It provided for the appointment of five com¬
missioners, who have exclusive charge and con¬
trol of all wharf property belonging to the city
—wharves, piers, bulkheads, slips, basins,water-
fi'onts, land under water, appurtenances, uses
and rights of all the city now owns or may here¬
after acquire. From this the Commis.sioners of
the Sinking Fund except the twenty-five ferry
shps, which are held as a city franchise.

For this Board Mayor HaU selected five men
of the highest ability and integrity and of great
experience in business and public affairs, and
above aU suspicion, it is believed, of partisan
ambition. He deserves credit for its high
character—a Board which is to devise, con¬
struct, and control the most important work, in
many of its aspects, on the continent. John
T. Agnew, its president, is one of our solid citi¬
zens, for over thirty years a merchant in the
export tobacco trade with foreign countries;
Wilson Gr. Hunt, long known as an able and
high-toned merchant in commission dry goods ;
WilHam Wood, for a long period of the firm of
Dennistoiin & Wood, bankers, and one of the
most competent men in our Board of Education;
Hugh Smith, proprietor of the Madison avenue
line of stages, a, man of superior capacity and
judgment in business ; and Richard M. Henry,
a la-wyer ■ of abihty and good standing. Mr.
Smith, from pressure of private affairs, was
compelled to resign, and is succeeded by Mr.
Henry A. Smith, a man of high integrity and
exceUent business character. The Board ap¬
pointed Major-General George B. M'CleUan its
chief engineer, who is. devoting aU his time and
eminent talents to the work.

WHAT IT HAS DONE.

In eight months after the organization, since
May, 1870, it has coUected rents aud dockage,
and paid over to, the Commissioners of the Sink¬
ing Fund.$261,361. It has issued dock bonds
to the amount of $500,000. It began active
work abont the 15th of August last, and has
expended since then $250,000. A new system
of piers could not be begun at once, but only
after the. .most careful surveys and weU-ma-
tured, plans. But to provide for our shipping
adequate facilities, while it continues under
the old systeni, it has made thorough examina¬





tion of every pier and sUp on both sides of the
city; it has made thorough repairs of forty-
five piers and bulkheads, in.many cases entirely
rebuUding them; it has expended $40,000 to
$50,000 in dredging around docks and in slips
most seriously obstructed; it has made six
lines of soundings, from' Ninety-second street
on the East Eiver around to Sixtieth street on
the Hudson River, and for two months past has
had two steam machines boring through the
mud. to measure the depth of the hardpan,
along the entire water front of the city. In
these soundings and surveys the most intricate
points connected -with the channels and cur¬
rents of the rivers have received careful study.

The most difficult problems have been solved,
a complete map of the water-front has been
made, and the plans of the Board aro rapidly
maturing. These plans cannot yet be made
pubhc ; but the sohdity of piers and the method
of construction, and the breadth of the river
street, as foreshadowed in a recent speech of
the Mayor, 'wdU be adequate to the transporta¬
tion of freight and passengers around the whole
island. The piers wfil have an average length
of about five hundred feet. They wUl be con¬
nected -with the bulkhead by soUd iron bridges,
leaving an open space along its entire front for
the free flow and ebb of the tide, and the piers
wUl be specially adapted to the business for
which they are to be used. The large steatners
'will have piers from eighty to one hundred feet
in width, with all the faciUties needed for land¬
ing goods rapidly; and passenger steamers wUl
have perfect protection for passengers, from
heat or storm.

It proposes to give a certain section of water¬
front to the grain trade, and also a certain sec¬
tion to the coal trade, where every facility wiU
be given, in elevators and other machinery, for
quick receipt and despatch of cargo.

The system of hydrauUc machinery and power
used in London, or its like, -wiU probably be
adopted. In Liverpool and London the rise
and faU of the tide is from twenty to twenty-
five feet, whereas in New Tork the average rise
and faU is only four to five feet. Hence our
system wiU be far less expensive. We need
no such pro'vision to float large vessels and
steamers into our docks at high water.

Under our old system of piers the new Board
have no power to alter the wharfage, but of
the new piers they -will have entire control of
rates. They hold the opinion that ships should
pay a dockage as low as possible, and that goods
should pay a moderate wharfage, as in Boston,
and thus equalize the burden.





MECHANICS'   LIENS    AGAINST    BUILDINGS
IN NEW YORK CITY.

Note.—The dates 24, 25, 27, and 28, placed before the
Uens, are for Feb.    The others are for March.

Peb. and March.

24  A Av., E. s. (ifTos. 28 and 30).    Cok-

nelius Vreeland. agt. R. C. Bolton.        $92 00

25  FOKTT-SEVENTH  ST.,   S. S., 75 E. 8th

av.    Robert Heam agt.  P. Blaney        60 00
Fortieth st., n. s., 39S e. 2dav.. '

Qrj FOBTT-FIRST ST.,   S.   S.,  398   E.  2d

"*'   av..................___...;...

And 11 HOUSES on new st., run- j

ning from 40th st...............J

Thomas & Michael Maher agfc. W.

L. Cutting (Ex.)..................       300 75

28 Forty-eighth st., s. s., 2 houses,
com. 100 e. 3d av. Jos. Marren agt.
John Sexton.....................       490 qQ