AND   BUILDERS'   GUIDE.





Vol. XI.





NEW





SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 1873.





No. 2()8.





'iPtibii.'ihed Weeklu bu

THE REAL ESTATE  RECORD ASSOCIATION.

TEILMS.

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

AU communications should he .iddreaaed to

C TV^. s%ve;et.

■7 ANU 9 WAllItEX STUKKT.

No receipt for money due the Real Bst.vpe Recoud
will be acknowled.Lîed nnless sistied by one of our regular
coUector.s. He.nhy D. S.Mi'i'H or TiiO.MAS F. Cummixg.s.
AU bills for coUection svill be sent from the office on a regu¬
larly printed form.

CITY IMPROVEMENTS-UP-TOWN, DOWN-
TOWN.

TiiERE certainly is no organization iii this
city that has done so mnch toward encouraging
uptown improvements as the West Side Asso¬
ciation, coini)osed as it is of public-si^irited
bitizens, who hâve by active counsel and timely
suggestions aided so materially, first the De¬
partment of Parks, and now the Department
of Public Works, which by Act of the Légis¬
lature now controls the streets and avenues
north of Fifty-ninth street. This association,
of which Mr. Wm. R. Martin is the leading
spirit, publishes from time to time the reports
of its opérations. The first document for the
current year, containing in full the proceedings
of a public meeting held at Lyric Hall on the
22d of January, is now before us, and the
pamphlet, containing as it does ail the addresses
delivered at said meeting, together with reports
and correspondence, ail gotten up ia a neat
form and illustrated by a map, shouid bein the
hands of ail those interested in the vast im¬
provements now going on in the northern part
of the island. The association, aside from its
ordinary labors, has certainly rendered property-
owners a real service by laying before them in¬
formation, communicated at a meeting which
ail could not attend, and which the haste of
sending morning pa[)ers to press prevented
firom being published at the time the meeting
was held. .

We are hère for the first time made acquaint¬
ed with " the présent condition of west side im
provements " on which Mr. H. B.   Bacon re¬
ported at the time of the meeting  (Jan. 23) in
substance as follows:—

"That the Boulevard from the circle at Fifty-
ninth street to One Hundred and Fifty-fifth
can be completed by July, 1873, except the
planting, which cannot be done until the water
pipes hâve been laid and the sewers con¬
structed.

That the Seventh avenue from One Hundred
and Tenth street to Harlem river can be com¬
pleted by June next.

That no work has been done upon the Sixth
avenue from One Hundred and Tenth street to





One Hundred and Forty-sixth street since 17th
June last.

That the Tenth avenue from One Hundred
and Fifty fifth to One Hundred and Ninety-
fourth street can be completed on or before
December-Ist, 1870.

That the whole of the Avenue St. Nicholas
can be completed on or before September 1 st.

That the Morningside avenue, West, can be
completed by the Ist of May if the work is
prosecuted vigorously.

And that the Morningside avenue, East, can
easily be completed by the Ist of December."

Aside of the addresses delivered by Mr.
Martin on the Broadway Widening; and the
Rapid Transit Question, by Wheeler H. Peck-
haih ; on the Taxation of Bonds and Mortgages,
by S. E. Church and by John W. Pirsson, the
pamphlet contains the report on appropriate
names for the new avenues on the west side,
part of which has only been published hereto¬
fore, and to which JMr. Martin has added the
following note :—

" Sinco the présentation of the report, some
attention has been given by lîroperty-owners
and the public to the subject of thèse names,
and to the sélections suggested. Some of them
hâve been judicious, and the report, as now
published, has been in two respects modified,
with the hope of satisfying the claims of good
taste."

In other respects the criticisms hâve found
fault with the sélections proposed, which it is
not difficult to do, but hâve not passed to the
useful point of proposing either any better or
any other names. The task of selecting ac¬
ceptable names is not so easy as at first sight it
may seem.

'* Not so easy" at ail, every one acknowledges
this, and the report of the West Side Associa¬
tion proposing names lilce " the Edgecombe
Road " for the old Ninth avenue along the clifE
over the Harlem river, " the Amabel avenue"
for Upper Eighth avenue, " the IJndercliff ave¬
nue^ ' from Avenue St. Nicholas to One Hundred
and Fifty-fifth street, and so forth for numer¬
ous other ï)laces, with the reasons for propos¬
ing those and other names, shows what a labor
of study and research it has been for the gentle¬
men who prepared this report.

Mr. Martin's letter on Street-openings down-
town, addressed to Commissioner Van Nort,
shows how thoroughly the gentlemen con¬
nected with the West Side Association under¬
.stand the requirements of this great metropolis
to meet not only the tastes of a cultured com¬
munity in its avenues and parks up-town, but
also the demands of a world-embracing and
constantly accumulating commerce down-tovra.
It is to be hoped that Mr. Van Nort's letter in
reply to Mr. Martin's valuable suggestions will
soon be made public, so that ail can see whether





ideas so practically set forth will meet with
oincial sanction on the part of him who now
has the beautifying of New York in his entire
keeping.





It is admitted on ail sides that the Commis¬
sioners of Estimate and P. sessment in the
matter of acquiring title for the city to ^the
new Boulevard from lôôth street north to its
point of intersection with the Kingsbridge road,
hâve made as perfect a proceeding and as just
a report as it is possible to make under the cir¬
cumstances, and this within a shorter time than
any other of a like nature ever undertaken in
this city. We congratulate the Commissioners
on their fairness, honesty and ability, and the
rapid and~economical manner in which they
hâve so far performed their work.





Women as Arciiitkcts.—The London Olobe
thinks it certainly curious that the branch of
Art which, above ail others, comes home to
women is that from which women hâve hitherto
kept clear. Architecture is as mnch the busi¬
ness of women as men, and yet, in ail the
générations of female i^ainters, female musi¬
cians, and female poets, there hâve lieen no
female architects. There may be many reasons,
but the demand which architecture makes for
masculine qualities cannot, in thèse dîiys of
womanly ambition, be taken as one of them.
The only type of female architect known to the
world is that represented by Miss Brooke in
"Middlemarch." But she did not draw her
plans for improved cottages professionally,
even though she probably avoided the error of
that illustrious maie amateur, Balzac, who,
when he planned a country house for himself,
forgot the necessity of a staircase. A sugges¬
tion has been thrown out on the other side of
the Atlantic to the effect thati women v/ould
make excellent architects, with spécial référ¬
ence to interior décoration. Certainly the
grandest of ail the arts does not flonrish so
marvellously in maie hands that we should be
justified in preventing women from trying to
beat us in an open field. l'erhaps their ac¬
quaintance with domestic requirements and
their instinctive good taste might give us
buildings that would be fairly comfortable.
It might be interesting, moreover, if some lady
could be induced ' ' to give us her idea " as
that eminent maie architect, Mr. Pecksniff
would put it, of a design for the Law courts
that we are to hâve one of thèse days.





GOSSIP.

The Board o£ Aldermen hâve sent to the As-sL^tant Al¬
dermen for their concnn-ence a resolution, reqiiesting the
passage by the Législature of an act providing for the re¬
pavement of streets with stone pavements that hâve been
paved with artificial pavements, where it proves that the
cost of maintaining such streets in "repairs" exceeds or
equals yearly one-qnarter of the original coat of lajâng tho
artificial covering ; the Department of Public Parks to be
référées.   The law committee are acting npon it.

Hon. Henry C. Murphy says that there has been no ir-
regnlarity in the condiict of the Brooklyn Bridge''s affairs,
that ail the work has been none according to contract at the
most economical rates ; that the bridge vviU be completed
at a cost of §11,500,000, of which amount .§5,000,000 haa
been secured,