Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Vol. XXI.





NEW YOBE:, SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1878.





No. 537.





Published Weekly by

%h %ml (BsMt Setffcb %BBatmiimx.

TERMS. •
ONE YEAR, in advance.. ..SIO.OO.

Communications should be addressed to

C.  AV.  SWEET,

Nos. ;i45 AND 347 BnOADWAV.





CITY PARKS.

It has become the fashion of late with au im¬
pressible public, and a preoccupied press to lay
inordinate stress upon the value of our city parks,
and to decry as a pubHc outrage au}' attempt to
curtail or utilize their dimensions.

Behind this uudiscriminatiiig uiul seutimeutal
drift of opinion, there is a coterie of very respect¬
able and estimable old gentlemen who were bom
in the beginning of the century, and have been
accustomed for fifty yeai-s to extol the value aud
necessity of these parks. The secret of their pre¬
possession it is not difficult to lind out. Many of
them are veteran opei-ators or siieculatoi-s in real
estate, and a small number were w-ise enough to
retire thirty years ago from the real estate areua
with ample fortmies. In the beginning of theii-
careei-s, J'ourteenth screet was the uoi-therly limit
of civilization on this Lslaud, while the line of
building improvements hardly exteuded as far as
Houston street. In those days the omnibus was
the sole motor of local transit, and the utmost
stretch of its capacity was the feat of carrj'ing
passeugers to Greenwich and Chelsea iu from two
to three hours time. In tliose daj's lands uorth of
Fourteenth street wei-e reckoned by the acre, aud
seemed destined to be treated us farm lands for au
indefinite period iu the abseuce of auy expeditious
method of reaching them. The great problem of
real estate speculation then was to absorb as much
as possible of the vacant laud of the island, aud
to take it permaueutly out of the market in order
that there might be a well grounded appre-
heusiou of a possible scarcity of residence sites.

AA''heu we consider the enormous ai-ea of vacant
property that then existed, w-e can imderstand
how irresistibly and legitimately this great prob¬
lem presented itself. No wiser or surer scheme
for reduciug the stock or area of vacant property
could be devised than that of laying out innumer¬
able parks. The inventive genius of the real estate
speculator had not then acquired the boldness to
project a single park of nearly a thousand acres.
In fact, the method of detached and scattei-ed
small parks was more serviceable in the game of
speculation, as it tended to distribute the ideal
charms of these city garden plots through the dif¬
ferent sections of the island.

It required no great prescience, eveu in those
early days, to foresee that New York, as the most
prominent and accessible city of tbe continent,
would attract representative business men from
home and abroad as its ultimate residents. It
became but a matter of time when the island
should be thickly populated, and the very acme
of the real estate speculator's ambition would be
fully reached by appropriating.as much as pos¬





sible of the surface of the islaud to these liberally
defined parks.

In 1807, at the time of the plotting out of the
city north of Fourteenth street into streets and
avenues, a provision more than liberal was made
for park accommodation. In less than twenty
years, however, many of these small parks were
closed and converted into common lauds by act
of the Legislature. As the port of New York at¬
tracted an ever expanding commerce, and the
city sprang from its swaddling clothes into the
form and stature of a municipal giaut, these re¬
spectable gentlemen, pioneers of city land specu¬
lation, looked on complacently and thought they
saw the realization of their prophetic dreams iu
theadvance of New York in wealth and import¬
ance, the same being clearly attributable in their
opinion to the wise forecast which had led them to
suggest, urge and linallj' consummate the plan of
providuig city parks. The burden of their constant
refrain is that city parks increase population and
consequently increase real vabies aud taxable
values. The latter condition is indisputablj- the
natural product of the former, but the argument
is too often inversely stated. It seems to be the
conception of some real estate speculators that
public improvements, such a.s parks and boule¬
vards, directly enhance the value of property;
and that this enhanceiiieut attracts wealthy and
desirable population.

It has been the privilege of the present genera¬
tion to witness the fullest and loftiest develop¬
ment of the park and boulevard mania, and not a
few of us are now sulfering from the reaction
which invariably attends the collapse of a great
fever. The enormoits growth and wealth of the
city that have risen collaterally with the develop¬
ment of the park and boulevard systems, are
phenomena eagerly .seized upon by short-sighted
and impulsive real estate speculators, and de¬
clared to sustain to eac!i other the relations of
elf ect and cause. A candid investigation into the
real state of the case will develop an entirely op¬
posite conclusion.

The growth of New York has beeu obedient to
laws whicii are more or less obvious and defined.
Its possible magnitude and volume can be better
measured by a calculation of what we have lost of
resident population, of the overplus that has flowed
into adjoining suburbs, than of what we have
actually gained. These suburbs sm-ely.had few or
no attractions in tho way of parks and boulevards
when they so easily carried away a full half of
the population that naturally belonged to New
York. So far from being an advantage to the
city's development it could easily be proved that
the elaboration of numerous and expensive parks
and boulevards has really restrained its growth
and repressed its population and wealth. Be¬
cause the absorption of so much vacant land has
the tendency to unduly enhance the specu¬
lative price of remaining property, while the
expense of organizing and maintaining these differ¬
ent parks compels an unwelcome addition to
local tax rates. These two forces of high land
values and high taxation have been the principal
levers used in transferring our great middle class
population from this island to Long Island and
New Jersey.

Next to the folly of imagining that any great
amount of territory can be spared for park pur¬





poses on an island of the limited dimensions of
New York must rank the absurd infatuation of
now resisting any curtailment of these parks or
proper utilization of their surfaces. AA''e have at
length reached a point in the development of the
park sj'stom where over one thousand acres, com¬
prising the area of sixteen thousand city lots,
have been thus appropriated, a sequestration and
direct loss of real estate which is now being
seriouslj' felt.

As stoutly as the advocacy of these parks may
be maintained, there is uo likelihood, judging
from past experience, that sentimental and
iRsthetic considerations will entirely overcome
the common sense of our people. A review of
park history is decidedly instructive in forming
an opinion as to the probable future of the exist¬
ing parks. AVe have no record of the number of
small parks which were closed and abandoned by
the Legislature of 13'27, but it is matter of recent
historj' that Observatory Park and a large por¬
tion of Hamilton Park have beeu sold bj- the
sinking fund coniinissionei-s, while the remainder
of Hamilton Park has been donated to various
charitable and protective associations. Manhat¬
tan ,S(iuare ha.s been dedicated to the uses
of a natural museum. Citj- Hall Park has been
so far encroached upon as to obliterate if not to
completelj' destroj- its original outlines, and
the Batterj- has been so far shorn of its pristine
features as to threaten and almost to in¬
vite its total abandonment as a ]>ublic resort.
Its iiartial occupation as an einigi-ant depot and
barge oflice, maj' be littinglj- followed bj- its
complete surrender to the general government
for the uses of the Custom House and Sub-
Treasurj-. That most obnoxious development of
the park sj-stem, known as the private park, has
been so far condemned as to receive but two con¬
spicuous illustrations. One of these, St. John's
Park, has beeu taken up bodilj' for busiuess pur¬
poses, while the other, Gramniercj' Park, is only
awaiting the iiieviuible extension of Lexington
avenue to bisect and secularize it. Reservoir
Square was once, and maj- be again, appro¬
priated to iiublic purposes. But recentlj a
movement in favor of utilizing what is left of
AA''ashington Square was all but successful, imd
doubtless the historj' of this famous parade
ground is drawing gradually to a close.

AA'hatever anticipations maj- have beeu once
indtdged of laj'ing out New York as a garden
citj-, its i-apid and invincible growth has deter¬
mined conti-ariwise. A sj-stem of public parks
and gardens is appropriate to retired inland
towns and places abounding in accessible cheap
land, but is not at all suitable for a great, ac¬
tive and irrepressible insular seaport like New
York. The scarcitj- and value of land render buch
appropriation too costlj', and the invidious and
exclusive character of any isolated or scattered
projections causes them to be objects of di.sdain
rather than of envy. It is a noteworthy fact,
that the property surrounding the several exist¬
ing parks in this city, is relativelj- the cheapest
that can be found on the island, and even
our great Central Park has failed to realize its
early and vaunted promise of becoming the
centre of most fashionable residence. Repre¬
sentative private residences have been erected
arotmd that great park since its completion, atthe