Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Vol. XXIY.





NEW YOEK, BATUKDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1879.





No. 60:i





Published Weekly by

Wibt Seal Estate Sfcorb ^ssonation.

TERMS.
ONE YEAll. in advance....SIO.OO.

Communications should be addressed to

<:.  W.  SAVEET,

Nos. 345 AND 347 Broadway





THE BRIDGE AND TUNNEL ERA.

Year by year the lower end of Manhattan
Island is becoming less and less suitable for resi¬
dences because of the steady encroachments of
business. Whether the times are good or bad it
will be found that the area devoted to ware¬
houses, stores, oflices and exclianges is becoming
larger and larger, and, although population
increases, and will continue to increase for many
years to come, yet this addition to our popula¬
tion is confined to the northern portions of the
island. Even business, in certain .specialties,
which had left New York apparently forever,
has lately .shown a disposition to return.
For instance the jobbing trade, a great deal of
which we lost during the hard times, is gradually
coming back to us and adding to the commercial
importance of the metropolis. At times we have
lost certain branches of manufacturing, but now-
tliero are evidences of the revival of the manufac¬
turing industry on this island. The steam ship¬
ping interest which at one period threatened to
leave us for Jei-sey City, is again returning to
tho metropolis. All our coniinercial. rivals are
forming new connections with New York. Time
was when the Pennsylvania Central Railroad
ended nt Philadelphia. It has been forced to
secure connecting links with this cit3-. The
Reading Company has lately leased the Bound
Brook road and it is one of the probabilities of
the future that the Baltimore Sc Ohio road will,
in time, have an outlet to this city by way ofthe
Jersey Central. When the bridge to Brooklyn is
completed it will, of cour.se, help the other side of
the East River in the way of population, while it
will add to the business area of New York. But
the conversion of this island into a business mart
will proceed with great rapidity when tbe tunnel
IS constructed which will allow railway access to
this island without the necessity of crossing over
the North River or on the ferries. All the enor¬
mous tonnage of the West, or at least such of it
as will not be carried to some point on Long
Island Sound and shipped direct to Europe from
Port Morris, will find its way tlirough this pro¬
posed tunnel to the warehouses on this side of the
North River.

The fact of this rising tide of business in New
York driving the residence portion of the city
further up town towards Yonkei-s and New Ro¬
chelle, or across the rivere by ferries to New
Jersey and by the bridge and fert-ies to Brooklyn,
will necessitate the enlargement of the bound¬
aries of New York so as to include all the country
near enough to admit of occupation as the resi¬
dence of those who do business in this great mart
of trade. It will never do to commit the future
•control of the metropolis to the 'longshoremen,





the porters, the oflice cleaners and tho wntchnien,
who will be the main occupants of the few resi¬
dences in the business part of Manhattan Island.
In other words, and to .secure responsible govern¬
ment, the people who own property in New
York, no matter where they Hve. muse be made
citizens. It is monstrous that the lower wards of
this city, where the bulk of the wenlth of the
metropolis is situated, .should be controlled by the
servants and laborers cf the gentlemen who own
this property, while those who are directlj- inter¬
ested in the commerce of the city, because they
happen to live in New Jei-sey, Brooklyn, Yonk¬
ers or New Rochelle, have no right to say how
they shall be taxed or what they ought to pay to
support municipal burdens. The real citizens are
tho.'je who do business, own jiroperty, or who pay
taxes and rents. It is time to suggest some
amendment to the State constitution giving prop¬
erty holders their Just rights in this re.'peot, or
else the surrounding country should be made a
part of the great niuniciiiality. This latter
course will jirobably be the best and easiest, but
certain it is, that with the growth of rapid tran¬
sit, with the building of the bridge across the
East River and the tunnel on the North River,
NewYork Island is becoming more and more a
great wholesale merchandise and financial centre,
and less and less relatively a place of residence.
We must expect our local government to get
steadily worse as the pojiulation increases which
does not own the property it legislates for and
taxes. We have already suggested one reform
based upon tlie experience of Eiij^lish municipali¬
ties, and that is to shift the burdens of taxations
more upon tenants and householders nnd renters,
and less upon the landlords. The present system
of taxing the landlord and leaving the tenant
free, leads to irresponsible government. To be
sure, the tenant pays now all the taxes, but he is
not aware of it. All he knows is, that he pays a
very large sum for rent, but he is unaware of the
real burdens, and what it costs to run the vari¬
ous parts of the city government. Were all who
keep apartments or rented houses to lie in con¬
stant receipt of vi.sits of the tax collectors for
Board of Education rates or police imposts and
for city improvements, that class w-ould soon see
to it that Aldermen and executive cflicers were
elected who w-ould keep down taxation.

We are entering upon a new era of prosperity,
our active business people will be hard at work
making money, and will leave the city more and
more in the hands of the trading politician.'^. We
expect gi-eat abuses and the fbrnialion of new
and powerful rings to eat up the property of the
people who live on this island, hut some day
there w-ill be another explosion, and then either
the surrounding country will be taken in and
form a ]>ortion of New York, or else the voting
population will be disfianchised and property
have its rights in the matter of taxation. But in
the meantime, everything goes to show- that New
York will, year by year, become more and more
an exchange and mart for commerce — a
huge warehouse—and less and less a place for
living. The business centres will steadily en¬
large, while, owing to rapid transit, to bridges
and ferries, a growing proportion of our people
will reside at greater distances from business
centres.





ABOUT CHURCH ARCHITECTURE.

It was the good fortune of the writer to be
present at the opening discourse ot the Rev. Rob¬
ert Collier, late of Chicago, but who commenced
his ministry in this city, at the Church of the
Messiah, last Sabbath. He is a man of fine pre.s-
cnce, nnd has a charming manner, and will
doubtle-sa prove popular and'useful in the .«ect to
which he belongs. As a trade journal, we have
nothing to do with religion or sects, and onh-
refer to the commencement of Mr. Collier's min¬
istry in this city, to point out some grave decocts
in our prevailing church architecture.

It is sjife to say that seven out of eight of the
Protestant churches in this city and Brooklyn
are unlit for the purposes for which tliey are de¬
signed. The Church of the Messiah is one of those
mistakes, and this was painfully ajiparent while
Mr. Collier was preaching. Our Christian church¬
es, architecturally, are modeled upon religious
conceptions which have come down to us from an
idolatrous age. It is believed by many antiqua¬
rians that the church spire is a reminiscence or
survival of Phallic w-orship. The Corinthian and
Doric s'yles of architecture have each come rlown
to us from ancient Greece, and were not de¬
signed for speaking. The great oblong temples
were intended for sacrifices; for the olfering up
of the entrails of beasts to the favor of some god:
hence, every church in town which resemble the
Grecian temples is an anachronism. The difii¬
culty of hearing in these edifices, as well as the
solemnity and gloom which pervades them are
thus explained. It is absurd to replace the priests
with his vestures and pomp, and sacrificial knife,
readj* to slaj- the inimal at the sacrificial altar,
bj' the modern minister dressed in frock coat and
a white necktie. The altar is out of place. Nor
is the Catholic Cathedral form a proper one
for a modern Protestant Church. The G< thie
architecture of the middle ages was intended for
the performance of high mass; for aweing the mul¬
titude; for personal devotions before the image
of the Virgin or some favorite saint, and for the
hearing of religious music. The " fretted
vaults and long drawn aisles," where "music
lingcied on asloth to die," were never designed
for ordinarj- speaking by the human voice, and
the Catholic hierarchs have made a mistake in
following their Prote-stant rivals in allowing
preaching in their Cathedrals. The ancient
temples, be it remembered, were intended for
sacrificial performance.s, for priests in gorgeous
vestments, showj- procession-s, and were thus
spectacular in their character. The human voice
was uot brought into play. The Cathedral, the
church of the middle ages, was intended for
high mass, for music, for personal devotions but
not for speaking. But the preacher is the pro¬
duct of modern times. His presence involves a
desk or rostrum, an audience, and a hall or
edifice where everj- one can see and hear per-
fectlj-. These considerations were first found in
this countrj-, so far as we know, in the old
Broadway Tabernacle, situated not far from Leon¬
ard street, in which the late Joseph P. Thompson
preached. Thej- are found iu the Rev. Henry
Ward Beecher's Church, in Rev. De Witt
Talmage's Church, and in the edifice on Madison
avenue   erected for Dr.   Hepworth.     But the