Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





YoL. XVIII.





NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1876.





No. 453





Published Weekly by

Cfje §led Estate %uaxti %%SQtmimx.

TERMS.
ONE YEAK, in advance... .$10.00.
Communications should be addressed to

C. W.  S'WEET,

Nos. 345 and 347 Broadway.





CENTRAL PARK LOTS.
The difficult and perplexing questions that
now agitate the minds of many of the owners
of lots facing the Central Park are: What
improvement is suitable for them ? What is
to be their ultimate destiny ? In what Avay
can productive income be best secured upon
their present enormous cost ?

From the inception of the Central Park
as a public enterprise, the overwhelming de¬
lusion has beset a certain portion of  the
real estate   community,   that  around this
center would speedily congregate the fastid¬
ious   and   representative  wealth   of   our
city.    With only 1,100 lots directly facing
the Park, it was maintained that at least
5,000 of our men of wealth were in eager
haste to possess them.     The dicta of but
one   Central  Park, and   but one  margin
surrounding it, possessing an  untold and
ravishing beauty, and, as  a dwelling-site
incomparably transcending any in the world,
have been the rallying cries and the shibbo¬
leths of a whole generation of land specula¬
tors.   These themes have been heretofore so
fuUy discoursed upon, written about, har¬
angued over, and  their, ingenuousness   so
lauded to the sky, that it has become almost
an undoubted axiom'that none but the most
wealthy and most select of our population
would ever be able to enjoy the rare privi¬
lege of possessing these building sites, and
luxuriating amid this supernal beauty.

What have been the results of these
theories during ten years of the most un-
paralled prosperity that this city has ever
known, a period especially propitious for
their developnient? As a matter of his¬
tory we know that these rare and choice lots
have served the purpose of the speculator in
a manner that has never been equalled in
the annals of land speculation in this or any
other country. Whatever vicissitudes and
fluctuations attended the great speculation
during its ranipart career in other portions
of the island, its course around this wonder"
ful margin held its even and steady way, in
a constant and unfaltering ascent of values
until lots, which Avere originally sold ^tt 1-500
reached the fabulous prices of $50,000 and
even $100,000. To all appearances the Park
as a speculation Avas a success, as the opera^
tors themselves proudly proclaimed when
thejr drew attentiQU to the magnificent trans¬





actions which yielded these fabulous sums.
Certainly, as a mere football for speculative
ventures, we must confess that the Central
Park has realized the wildest visions of its
most sanguine projectors.

But what are the practical results ?   How
many of this fastidious, wealthy class have
erected  residences  on  its  border?     How
many, or rather hoAv few holding lots to-day
contemplate the erection of dwellings there¬
on?   Must it not be admitted that at the
time of the great crash in 1873, the bulk of
these lots -were found to be in the hands of
mere speculators holding them on small cash
payments   contemplating   an  early turn?
The revulsion has left many of these lots
without OAvners save the credulous and con¬
fiding mortgagees, who have been busily en¬
gaged during the past two years in acquiring
title to them as the only return which they
are able to obtain for the loans made on
them.   It is a fact of current history that in
the supreme crisis these lots were found to
possess a snaaller modicum of real reliable
value than lots elsewhere situated.   The vast
accumulation  of  wealth which found its
way into the coffers of our citizens during
the ten years of prosperity, and which sought
an appropriate expression in costly residences
contributed at the most but ten representa¬
tive dwelling-houses facing the Park ; and
of these, it is no breach of propriety or in¬
trusion upon the privacies of life to  say
that scarcely any have afforded the satis¬
faction and enjoyment to their owners, which
they expected to derive from them.   In truth
it musjt be said, that the great majority of
those who acquired wealth during the past
ten years selected and located their residences
elsewhere than about the Park mainly in
the present  growing fashionable  quarter
of the city.

It is an open and debatable question to-day
whether residences facing such an immense
area or unbroken tract of land, as Central
Park, affording no opposite neighbors, will
ever be satisfactory to: persons of wealth,
culture and social proclivities under the
separate dwelling-house system. The smaller
parks which abound throughout our city,
and which have heretofore been the centers
of fashionable life, to wit: St. John's and
Gramercy Parks, and Washington, Union
and Madison Squares are all small tracts of
land, which admit of a ready oversight and
offer the benefit even to near-sighted persons
of opposite neighbors, and thus present no
analogy to Central Park.

As exclusive and fastidious as we know
our wealthy people to be, they are also gre¬
garious and social beings, and pre-eminently
of all classes are depen^eatoa daily, even





though dumb intercourse with their neigh¬
bors. Thus, Mr. and Mrs. McMimsey, and
their daughters desire above all things, in
connection with their magnificent establish¬
ment, that they shall be permitted to enjoy
as a vis-a-vis the spectacle of Mr. and Mrs.
Shoddy and family, as they disport them¬
selves in their palatial mansion, along with
the parade of an elegant equipage, and the
display of costly garments in their ingress
and egress'. This craving of exhibitory dis¬
play, and counter display which the lack of
opposite neighbors would wholly thwart,
underlies and permeates the whole fabric of
our fashionable social life. To our minds it
is questionable, whether a reaUy fashionable
quarter could be established without opposite
neighbors or without at least, the interven¬
ing space being so small as to admit of visual
contact.

With the apparently permanent and settled
establishment of a fashionable precinct that
already exists south of Fifty-ninth street, it
becomes a matter of the liveliest interest to
the owners of Central Park lots to know
what final disposition shall be made of them.
In this connection, we eschew the theory
that these lots are bound to undergo the same
experience as lots in the lower part of the
city have heretofore undergone in the matter
of  their  building improvement,   namelj'- :
first, the dwelling, then the boarding-house,
then the dress-making  establishment, and
finally a reconstruction for the purposes of
trade.   We claim that the enormous outlay of
cnpital, which has been already made in the
bare cost of Central Park lots, involving
sums greater than was ever before paid for
similarly situated lots in this or any other
city, precludes the idea of making any merely
temporary or transient, improvement and
would stamp as injudicious a,ny improve¬
ment which failed to yield the promise of an
early and ample return for the total capital
invested.   The present seUing prices of these
lots though greatly reduced are still so high
that taken together with the bitter experi¬
ence of the two or three builders who have
heretofore attempted speculative  building
ventures on the face of the Park frustrates
any supposition that these lots are likely tc
interest or attract speculative builders.   Tht
ultimate disposition of them rests with theii
present owners.    Whatever improvements
may be contemplated or agreed upon mus1
be made with reference to permanent owner
ship rather than prompt sale of the premises
and this fact presents the key note to ou]
present argument.

It is idle to think that any existing o:
future Astor or Goelet will acquire these loti
and benevolently erect residences upon them