Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS^ GUIDE.





Vol. XVIII.





NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1876.





No. 449





Published Weekly by

TEEMS.
OSTE YEAR, in advance....$10.00.
Communications should be addressed to

C.  W.   SWEET,

Nos. 345 AND 347 Broadway.





FASHION AS AN ELEMENT OF VALUE.

In no city in the world, perhaps, does fash¬
ion enter more largely as an element in the
calculation   of the value of land, than in
New York City.    From the time when the
Bowling Green was the center of fashionable
life, and the representative wealth of the
city was contained within its small compass,
up to the present day, this element has been
a mai-ked feature in the history of our real
estate, and has asserted its arbitrary limita¬
tions, and fixed its transient values as in no
other recorded  instance.     In other cities,
both in our own country and abroad, fashion¬
able localities are known to exist, but so far
as our knowledge extends these localities are
so numerous, varied and scattered that they
fail to have any concentrated effect.   It is
remarkable in our own city to note, that a
locality once abandoned by fashion is for¬
saken forever, and is never reclaimed as a
place of fashionable residence.   All attempts
to retrace the steps of departure have been
utter failures, and the belated and persistent
occupants of these obsolete localities have
been held up as examples of stubborness and
quixotic devotion to old associations.   With¬
in the memory of living people this movable
quantity in our real estate values has passed
from   Bowhng   Green,    along    Broadway,
through Murray and Chamber streets, with
a slight diversion in the Seventh Ward, to
St. John's square, Washington square  and
Union square.   Each, in its time, has been
respectively prominent as a fashionable lo¬
cality.   Bleecker and Fourth streets, Wash¬
ington and Waverly places, are names that
were, not many years ago, redolent of wealth
and   culture.     Second  avenue  and  Stuy¬
vesant square, under the patronage of the
great family whose name it bears,  essay¬
ed to  claim a share  of   this  remarkable
quiality without any notable success.   Final¬
ly, by a common movement and by uni¬
versal  suffrage   the   pre-eminent   distinc¬
tion was conferred on Fifth avenue, and
its   adjacent  streets  within  very  narrow
limits.   From that time to this, fashion has
successively asserted its despotic sway over
continuous districts of a mile in length from
the Square to the Park.   Washington square
and Madison  square  were the boundai-ies
within which the fashionable "ro-orld of twenty

years ago confined itself,   At a later time





this district became obsolescent, and again
the limits were established between Twenty-
third street and Forty-second street. With¬
in the past decade of years the growing
fashionable quarter has been clearly mark¬
ed again, and shows the further advance
of a mUe along this favored thoroughfare;
so that now, within tho limits of Forty-
second street and Fifty-ninth street, and of
Fourth and Sixth avenues, this peripatetic
Mecca of fashion is re-established.

In defining what is at present considered the
growing fashionable quarter of our city, we
simply state a fact which, we think, cannot
be gainsaid. It is well known that in this
quarter the most costly structures, public and
private, have been erected. The churches
built therein comprise representatives of all
the leading denominations, are of the most
costly styles of architectiu-e, and in their
congregations embrace exponents of the
most substantial wealth of our city. Within
these precincts also, the most expensive pri¬
vate residences can be found, furnished and
appointed with regal magnificence.

It is noteworthy that real estate within the
sharp boundaries prescribed by fashion, has
always commanded prices that transcend
those of similar classes of property wherever
else located. Despite the hard times, dwell¬
ing-houses in this quarter have met with
reasonably ready sale since the panic, at
prices which would have been deemed wild
and extravagant twenty years ago, and the
vacant land therein is held to-day at prices
approximating the highest that were ever
realized.

Such are the facts presented to our con¬
templation in a study of the present situa¬
tion. The important questions to be decided
are: whether these sharp limits of fashion¬
able residence are to be maintained in the
future—^whether the body of our wealthy
citizens are Hkely to transfer their residences
from this, the latest quarter, to another yet
to be chosen; whether this quarter, like the
others, having already seen its early bloom
and its rapid adolescence, will pass very
shortly into the decrepitude of old age, and
be forsaken and discarded. If the process,
which has obtained in the past, is to be re-
enacted and reiterated in an .upward growth
extending the whole length of our island,
the question of land speculation would be
greatly simplified. The main problem would
be to spy out and select the prospective
fashionable quarters, occupy the territory,
and hold it for the profitable market, which
would surely await it.

In considering this subject, we are forced
to join issue w^ith the advocates of this the-
pry,   ^e are led to attribute the upward





march of this fashionable element to the
contracted shape of our island, which ad¬
mitted of no gi-o-v\i;h,  except in a north¬
westerly direction, to escape the inroads and
vast increase of our commerce, the latter
continually   demanding   larger  space  and
scope for  its   exercise.   The   steadfastness
with which the fashionable world has ad¬
hered to  the line of Fifth avenue, demon¬
strates that when left alone and free from
the intrusions of trade, this element is reason¬
ably permanent and apt to continue in one
location.   The natural growth of our city
has demanded the extension of this line, and
as new, more modern and more convenient
houses were erected, they were naturally
sought after by the most wealthy of our old
and new population, so that  the  present
fashionable quarter may be regarded as re¬
presentative of the highest wealth or rather
the plutocracy of our city.   Within the pre¬
sent limits there is sufficient land yet unused
to meet the requirements of this favored
class for ten or twenty years to come, so that
we may assume that, for at least that space
of time, the fashionable quarter of the city
will be fixed.   The structures therein erected
are of a class and extent, and of such recent
construction,  that we may fairly   assume
that, for twenty years or more, no necessity
for a change will be felt on the part of the
present occupants.   To aU intents and pur¬
poses it seems to us that the costly and extra¬
vagant growth of our city is localized and fix¬
ed, and that Fifty-ninth street represents the
most northerly limit of this peculiar growth.
On either side of the Park the city is already
laid out and prepared for residences, and
with the urgency, which must soon be felt,
of rendering this vacant land productive, we
expect to see an indisposition on the part of
the owners to await the creation of fashion¬
able centers, and a widespread movement in
the erection of plain and inexpensive buUd¬
ings commenced on both sides.   This move¬
ment may extend to the complete occupa¬
tion of the principal parts of the east and
west sides,  leaving perhaps some isolated
positions, parts of avenues and streets, that
may be deemed to be of a very choice and
costly character, and which may await ex¬
pensive improvements.   But the greater part
of the vacant land north of Fifty-ninth street
seems to us to be destined for early improve¬
ment of a character that wUl be far from
fashionable, as measured by existing stan¬
dards.   In other words, the hon ton of our
city wUl no longer be at liberty to choose
sections of vacant territory, to the extentnof
a mUe in length whereon their costly edifices
may be uniformly erected, but wiU find a
st yle of buUdings adapted to the great middle