AND   BUILDERS'   GUIDE





Vol. XL





NEW YORK, SATURDAY, F.EBRUARY 8, 187





^o





No. 256.





Published Weeklu by

THE REAL ESTAIS RECORD  ASSOCIATION.

TBtlMS.

One ye:ir, in advance......................Ç6 00

AH commiiiiicatious should be addressed to

■7  AMI a  WAllREX STIIIîKT.

No receipt for money due tlie Rioal Estate Rkcoro
WiU he acknowledgod unless sitçued bj' one of our rc.s?ular
collectors. Henry D. Smith or TnoM.vs F. Cu.m.mings.
AU bills for collection will be sent from theolUce on a regu-
I.arly printed form.





It is clear that Commodore Vanderbilt will
not touch tlie underground road nntil lie gets
additional législation. He now sees what has
long been patent to ail who hâve investigated
the matter, that an nnderground road to be as-
snred against possible rivaliy must run under
the line of Broadway—the back-bone of the
island. It was this journal which first urged
upon the Commodore the project of uniting
down-town with his 42d street dépôt—thus
utilizing for local traffîc the steam roads above
that point—and we hâve reason to believe that
to the Record is due Mr. Vanderbilt's conver¬
sion to the necessity of taking hold of this
enterprise. But we naturally supposed that
any charter he might procure would give him
the best available route. It so happens that
the road he has got is an impossible one, and,
if built, would not supply the demand for local
travel, the bulk of which will always be along
the line of Broadway. So this improvement is
at a stand-still until the Commodore corrects
his blunder.





But, after ail, New York City wants a road of
its own built by the municipality, not to take
people off the island, but to help populate the
vacant spaces on each side of and above the
Central Park. The Vanderbilt and Gilbert
schemes are, after ail, in the interest of railroads
which want to convey people beyond the city
limits, for which they propose to charge a very
heavy tariff. The interest of our property-
holders is very différent. They désire to keep
people upon the island, to increase the area of
taxable property, and make available our
splendid parks and pleasure drives. Even if,
as an investment, the municipal road would
not pay, it would be worth ail it would cost as
an accommodation to our citizens, and in adding
to our taxable property. If we sunk as much
in it as it cost to construct the Central Park it
would be woi-th twenty times that magnificent
improvement. By ail means let us hâve our
own road.    The cost of transit from one end of





the island to the other should not be more than
ten cents, and during certain hours of the day
only fi.ve cents should be charged.





THE JEHÏÏS OP NEW YORK.

Few matters of public interest are more
closely connected with the prosperity of owners
and renters of city property than the clogging
of the great arteries of commerce—the down-
town streets. Their obstruction is becoming a
chronic evU. But curiously enough. not the
least of the bad results of the shortsightedness of
our ancestors in making narrow streets is found
in the fact that it has produced an exceeding
demoralization among the drivers of vehicles.
The truth is that the New York driver is one of
the most extraordinarj'^ spécimens of the human
famiiy. He is a striking corroboration of the
truth of Darwin's theory as to the survival of
the "strongest" if not of the " fittest." The
ty-pe that now prevails universally, and has
crowded off almost ail the others, is a lineal
descendant of the Broadway omnibus driver
of thirty years ago, who prided himself on his
ability to race down the great thoroughfare at
ten miles an hour, brushing past his competitors
by a hand's-breadth at f arthest.

But the later developments of this genus
show an aggravation of the most vicions pro-
pensities of the old stage driver. The crowded
state of the streets now usually preventing
rapid locomotion, the force and ingenuity of
Jehu are exercised in the "direction of worm-
ing forward, "by hook or erook," through the
struggling mass of vehicles, and pushing aside
ail those of lighter build, and drivers of less
brawn and pughacity. This necessary class of
citizens seems to hâve accepted as its motto the
saying of the first Napoléon, " Heaven is on
the side of the heaviest artrllery. ' ' Wo be to
the carriage or light wagon that stands in the
way when one of thèse vehicular Dick Turpins
and kings of the highway sees a gap ahead into
which he may possibly squeeze. If, no watch-
ful and impartial '"Cop" is in sight, there
shall be presently a battered hub or a gouged
panel. Lucky, too, the remonstrating victim if
he escapes with an nncracked sconce.

The golden rule has been utterly abolished
by your représentative New York driver. The
man who will not shove himself past ail
weaker-w^heeled and weaker-armed competitors
is voted an ass. Anything like ordinary human
courtesy is despised. The buUy-rook rushes
past any one w^hom his torrent of Billingsgate
induees to yield the way with shouts of dérision
and volleys of contemptuous profanity.

The necessities of the situation hâve com¬
pelled the merchants to countenance this dé¬
plorable state of things. They hâve found
that respectable drivers did not get their goods





through the blockade half as quick as the
" Rip-tearing Johnnies," and so, in many cases
of course with great reluctance, hâve dismissed
the décent drivers and taken on the energetic
shoulder-hibters. Perhaps after a îevr more
murders, like that in Chatham Square, the
public will begiu to think that mère brute force
and energy must not be allowed to override
the gentler virtues even in so rough a business
as wagon-driving.

The prodigious energy of thèse drivers often
leads them to overshoot the mark. In their
eagerness to transport the greatest isossible
number of packages in a given time, they over-
load their trucks, and then their horses get
stalled—e.specially in snowy weather. Again,
ill their détermination to get forward, they will
often push into a gap in a way that comiiletes
the blockade, and the whole street is jammed
for half an hour.

As for pedestrians, they hâve no rights any
more that drivers are bound to respect. One
hundred and sixteen were killed outright on our
streets and last year, hundreds more were wound-
ed. This thing has gone so far that a " Pedes¬
trians Rights Association "  has been proposed.

London has narrower streets than New York
and many more vehicles in them. But a
blockade seldom occurs there, because the dis¬
cipline of the police is so perfect. We hâve
found the English sparrows effective for the
abating of one nuisance ; let us import a few
English police captains, as one means of re-
opening the thoroughfares. Then, with the
widening of Ann street, and a few others, we
may begin to see the waj^ out of this difficulty.





ARCHITECITJSAL EDIJCATIOIf.

The whole system of modem éducation has of
late years undergone a thorough sif ting, and many
of the most gifted minds of phe âge hâve come
to the conclusion that we hâve been hitherto
utterly wrong in the application of studies to
youth—to use a homely simile—literally putting
the cart before the horse. And what is true of
éducation in the universal acceptation of the
term is equally true when applied to the study
of Art in spécial, and Architecture in particular.
Helvetius, in his work on " Man," says se-
verely, that "there are many books and many
schools, but few persons of understanding ;
there are many maxims, but they are seldom
applied ; man is old, but still a child. " Her¬
bert Spencer, Comte, Dr. Spurzheiji, and
other deep thinkers of that school, hâve equally
shown that our whole system of modem éduca¬
tion is irrational, inasmuch as it necessarily gives
results quite incommensnrate with its influence.

The radical error in the prevailing system ^
according to thèse authorities, is in not paying
proper attention to the physical laws of nature