Real Estate Record

AND     BUILDERS'    GUIDE.





Vol. XVII.





NEW YOEK, SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1876.





No. 423.





Published Weekly by

THE REAL ESTATE RECORD ASSOCIATION

O. W. SWEET...............President and Tbeasubeb

PRESTON I. SWEET...........Seceetaby.

L. ISRAELS............,............Business Manager

TERMS.
ONE TEAR, in advance....$10 00.

Oommunicationa should be addressed to

Nos. 345 and 347 Broadway.





RAPID TRANSIT AT LAST.

"We have now good reason lo believe that the
long promised "rapid transit" on the Fourth-
avenue Improvement will soon be a fact.

Several stations on this road are being fitted
up, and ' ou the 15th of May next the local
trains will be running.

In these times we want every possible facility
for "quick traveling," and the more such roads
the more populous our city will become.

Owners of lots above Fifty-ninth street and
between Third and Fifth avenues will have
more reasons now for improving their property;
and we hope that builders, at no distant day,
wUl be as busy as bees.





CITY CHARTER COiVllVliSSJON.

Mr. Wm. M, Evarts has notified the Legisla¬
ture that the Charter Commission appointed by
Gov. Tilden will be unable to report this year,
but will have their reformed charter in readiness
at the opening of the next Legislature, in January
of '77. We understand that the conference ot the
Commissioners has been reasonably harmonious,
and that, although there are several "Doctrin-
naires," men with "bees in their bonnets,"
on the Commission, yet they have arrived
at some valuable results. It seems their
whole scheme cannot be made available un¬
less several amendments to the Constitution
are enacted, and it is likely that the dis¬
cussion which will be provoked by the report
of this commission will have a most important
effect upon the solution of that most difficult
problem, municipal government in ihe United
States. The town-meeting theory of govern
ment, which was admirable so long as our
centres of population were small, and property
evenly divided, is entirely inapplicable to large
communities. Politics fall into the hands of pro¬
fessionals; for business men, who have their at¬
tention distracted to more pressing affairs, cannot
supervise the primary meeting or the local caucus.
Hence the story is repeated with painful monoto¬
ny in every large city, of waste, corruption, ex¬
travagance, crime indeed, in connection with
our local governmentB.   We shall endeavor in a





future number to suggest two measures which,
we think, will do something towards helping us
to a better government in the future. Some
very radical changes must be adopted, or else
our whole republican form of government
will break down in a very essential fea¬
ture of the scheme. It is "home rule"
and local self-government which are now
on trial throughou,t the whole of the United
States. If we cannot have honest local govern¬
ment under the republican theory of our iuslltu-
tions, so much the worse for the theory. Of
one thing we are assured, the Americans are a
practical people; ^they will not consent year
after year Lo be robbed under the forms of law,
and by and with republican institutions, or
through and over them. They usill have honest
government.

---------------------------♦—^-^►•►—♦---------------------------

THE ESTATE OF_A. T. STEWART.

Last week we ventured to suggest that per¬
haps A. T. Stewart's fortune was not as large as
was popularly supposed. The transit r last
Saturday of Mr. A. T. Stewart's entire business
to Messrs. Hilton & Libby for the sum of one
million dollars confirms the estimate we made
last week. This transfer of property seems to
have been complete, for it included the entire
business and aU the real estate outside of New
York City.

The ostentation of Mr, Stewart's life, for the
last three or four years, was the shopkeeper's
trick to keep up his reputation when he was un-
doTiibtedly losing money in his business. His
purchase of costly pictures, his dinner-parties,
his large house, were simply to attract attention,
and to convey the impression that he was as
prosperous as ever. It is a matter of serious
doubt whether any business can be permanently
successful which involves such immense detail
as that of A. T. Stewart, What with wholesal¬
ing and retailing an immense variety of arti¬
cles, the values cf which are constantly chang¬
ing, it would require an intelUgence that
would be practically omniscient to manage, so
as to avoid loss ; but Mr. Stewart's admirable
system and method rendered an experiment like
this on his part less risky than it would be for
less careful men. But it will be found quite be¬
yond the task of any large firm to deal in such
an immense variety of goods with the same
economy that one fiim may handle three or
four varieties. The country store rej)resents the
most rudimentary phase of commercial transac¬
tions iu thi^ country. Here the endeavor is
made to supply eveiy want of the little commu¬
nity in which it is located; but as the vUlage
grows into the town, a change gradually takes
place.

. The country store becomes divided, and one
man sells grocerieB,. another dry goods, a thkd
boots and shoes, and so on, it being found by
experience and practice that the minutiae of one





department of trade are enough to tax the facul¬
ties of ordinary men. A great retail establish¬
ment like that of Stewart's on Broadsvay labors
under the disadvantage of the country store a
million times multiplied. For one man of or¬
dinary capabilities to grasp more than one busi¬
ness is simply. impossible; but that great
retail store represents perhaps five hundred
different industries. Tbis involves minute
sub-division of reaponsibilily, with the pos¬
sibility that the employees who superintend
the various departments should not have the
same intense interest in, responsibility for, or
authority over their departments, which a sin¬
gle merchant has who competes in one special¬
ty. We judge that, towards the close of his ca¬
reer, Mr. Stewart must have found out what an
elephant he had on his hands; and we have
strong reasons for believing that it had some¬
thing to do with his death, as undoubtedly the
faU in real estate was not without its influence
upon the mind of the late William B. Astor. A
prosperous era, in which prices are going up,
conceals the inherent defects of such a system
as Mr, Stewart's; but hard times and a gene¬
ral depression in business exposes its short¬
comings.

A. T. Stewart has done Httle to merit the
gratitude of the people of New York, beyond
introducing the one pricesystem and insisting
upon cash sales. These two measures consti¬
tute his only claims to distinction. Of one fact
the public may rest assured, that, with the ex¬
ception of the perfectly useless Fourth-avenue
house for working women, none of the charities
hinted at in Stewart's letter to his wife will
ever be heard of again. The intimations that
the house on Fifth avenue was to be given to
the Union League Club, or to be transformed
into an art gallery, were mere shopkeepers' adver¬
tisements to attract attention, aud the dexterous
way in which Mr. Stewart gets out of it in his
will is more creditable to his ingenuity than lo
his ingenuousness. American art, by the way,
has nothing to thank Mr. Stewart for, as he
spent nearly all his money upon foreigners.
---------------------------> < 1^ > «---------------------------

REAL ESTATE liUHE LEGISLATURE.

IMPORTANT PENDINa ME.iSURES AFFECTING NEW
YOEK TAX PAYERS.

[cobrespondence  of  the real  estate  becord.]
Albany, April 19.

The Legislature will probably adjourn about
tho 10th of May. A large number of bills re¬
main to be acted upon, I send below au ab¬
stract of the more important as affecting real
estate in New York, and the position which they
occupy at present in committee. Doubtless
others will be introduced and attempted to be
rushed through with the closing hours of the
session:

EIVEESIDE AVENUE AND PABK.

This bill was introduced by Mr. Engelhart,