SUPPLEMENT  TO  THE

Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





YoL. XXIY.





NEW YORK, 8ATU11DAY, DECEMBER 13, 1879.





jSo. (')1o





Publuihed Weekly by

CbeBcalCBstatcEctortrlissottatxan.

TER5IS,
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v.   W.   SWEKT,

No.s. Ii5 ASD 1^7 BaoAWWAY





THE WEST SIDE.





Mr. Simeon  E.. Church's  Paper on
Street Openings.





Proceedings of  the West
Side Association.





Mr. Cammann  on  the   Removal
of Shanties.





The meeting of the West Side Association, on
the evening of Saturdaj-, December (1, was an
exceedingly interesting one. Numerous projierty
owners listened attentively to the proceedings,
and encouraged the oflicers and speakers bj-
constaufc applause in their laudable efforts to
improve everything connected tvith the west
and northwest side of our city.

Owing to the unavoidable absence of President
Dwight H. Olmstead, Mr. H. H. Cammann pre¬
sided, who called upon Mr. Simeon E. Church to
read his report on Street Openings.

STREET OPENINGS.

Papei' rend before the West Side Association, hy S.
J'j. Church.

Among the duties which this ABSOciation, aa a
a body, has undertaken to perform toward
its members, is that of " Caring for, protecting and
promoting the proprietary interests of the Owners
of Real Estate," within the district known as the
West Side.

To shield our property against unjust and op¬
pressive taxation and assessment is obviouslv
among tho highest interests thus to be protected.
It is obvious that so far aa it tends to the improve¬
ment of x-eal estate and the building up of the
waste places of the city it is not only in the interest
of the particular lot owner whose properiv is im¬
proved out also of every taxpayer of the city, bince
It relieves hiiu of paying taxes by just so much as
somebody else will pay them np'on iuiproveineuts
which thoy are thus encouraged to make. If a va¬
cant lot is worth $1,000, the tax revenue deriveil
from it at 2i per cent, is $25. If by good laws aud
a careful and faithful adminiBtration of them and
by the encouragement of surrounding improvement
and development the lot comes to bo worth $10,000
the owner of the lot i^ a great gainer, bnt so is the
public, for the tax revenue now derived from it is
$250 instead of $25 and if the owner by these same
surrounding improvements, is encouraged to build
a house upon it worth SlO.OOO more, the tax revenue
UOW derived from it becomes $1,250 instead of the
original $25, and the whole city and every taxpayer
in it is a gainer by just so much, in a strictly money
point of view, to say nothing of the general influ¬
ence which such improvements make upon the
general growth, advancement and prosperity of the
city.   If our West Side had felt the influence of





these iniiirovoinoiits, lis  has the Iv.ist Siib', by llic
wist' anil ])rt>])cr ollcl•llrn^'enu■IlI ot iiiii>itiv(iii<riiis
by the   fii'Vt-ral tb (lartmcnts of the ciiy govern-
niMit, fliarifffl with   its  iiitt-rfsts, it wtniM   tu-tlay
havi-bfcii yifldiii;,,' a tax rfVfiim; tti the i-ity trcasni-y
t.f tivfr $;5,00i».(Mi0 itistfatl ufa i<c';!,'MHv trirtc-qiiar- :
tcrs olirnt' iiiillioi!, as now, antl 1 csiiMuitt; this Idss '
to thf pt't.plf ot this cityott)VLT.f2,!!(!i»,ii!(() a year aw j
thf jiriff  they pay lor  'b paiinif iital  atlniiiiistra- ■
tioiis which  fitlit-r  tlti  not or faiintit coniprfiicnil
thf  wants of tliese  jitirtions of the city, or,   with
aiiipit- !f,i;al power, caiiiiot liml   thf way or  means :
to meet them.    1  think we ,ire jnstilifd  in saying !
this,  whfu    rapiil    tiansit,    luUy   aoooniplishetl, i
rencleriiig our whole \V( .-;t .Side iiiori: acet-ssible than '
was  Fourteenth sirt-c-t  le*'(>'-e, fiiitis us without a I
siii^'lf street  or avenue in the whole district eom- j
jiletely fuiisheil, ami reatly ftir iin]n-ovemoiit—many |
of them as Wf shall seo hereafter, not even ii])f iietl. \
And   I   think we may feel  the more ready to say it j
when  .ifter niiieli etlbrt by this Association to t,'et
the Common Comieil  to pass  the  neeessiiry ordi- |
minces for regulating, jiaving and sewering i;ertain |
strt^ots whieh aro imperatively reiiuired ftir imme¬
diate building improvenient we tind  the Mayor
of the city, under the leatl of the Commissioner of
Public Works, iiow ciiiruged in vetoing them.

The rule under whiidi these departments profess
to aet of reqtiiriiif; such street imiiroveineiits to be
prcceeded by a p.-tition of a majority of tho lot
owners, is a rule of obsolete utility. It may have
had some apology before rajiid transit was accom- ■
jdisiied, but now, when every street is retpiired i
for imiirovement, when building is only kept hack i
boinuise lhe streets are not ready for it, to insist i
upon enforcing such a rule ar^'ue-s an entire want |
of appreciation of these departments that this
ptirtioii of our city has uiitlergone any cliange. !
" It must be easy,"these ticntlemeii tell us, "to ^et j
a petition signed by a majtirity of the lot tiwners,
if they want a street opeueii or improved;" but if }
they think so, they manifestly have had but little i
experience <.>f what they speak. A block ol ground
ortliiiarilv contains sixty-lour lots, of which by sub-
divisioiis'of titles, there are oftentimes more than
a hundred owners. They do not resitle on the
land ; their names are rarely fonnd correctly upon
the tax or assessment btioks. To hunt these up—
to find where th»y live, to exphiiu what is wanted,
and to get their signatures, imposes an amount of
labor oftentimes exteuiling into months, which
few- can comprehend, except him who undertakes
it. It will servo to illustrate this by a case iu
point. The Board of Health, moved by the action
of tliis .Association, have been actively engaged for
tho past four weeks in the effort to timl who are
the owners of eight lots on Ninth avemie between
Eighty-second aud Eighty-third street, upon which
and in front of a row- of brick dwellings is a pesti¬
lence breeding pond of stagnant water, formed by
damning np a city drain in order to make a floating
place for ducks, with the intent that the nuisance
shall be abated ; but, uj) to this time, their labors
have bee'li in vain, the ow-ners are "still onknown,"
and tho nuisance continues. If it takes a whole
department with all its facilities a whole month to
finil who are the owners of eight lots, how long
should it naturally take private intlividuals to hunt
up tbe owners or a majority of them of half a
dozen blocks, in order to ^et their signatures to a
petition for the opening or sewering or paving of a
street. The time and labor is none the leas
though evt'iy signature, as it usually is. Is cheer¬
fully Kivcn when the owner is found. The labor
usually falls upon the most euterpriHing and striv¬
ing of our citizens and is, by just so much, a jiun-
ishment for enterprise, and a penalty lor improve¬
ment.

To remedy this evil, in a great measure, was
one of the objects of the formation of this Associ¬
ation. It ia made up of property owners on the
w-holc West Side. It rellccts the sentiments and
presents the wants of tho whole West Side. Its
past history and past influence iu shaping tbo
leatures of the West Side, are not unknown to the
departsienta and to the public, and we think it hut
reasonable to ask that its call formally made for
spcciflc improvemeuts, in specific streets shall
be recognized by the depaitmcnts, as some evidence
that these impi-ovemeuts aro needed. Ihe rule re¬
quiring petitions preliminary to a street opening
or gradiug, never had any legal authority or sanc¬





tion. Theibityof the dt-partnieiits is to nse thiir
le'^id {unctions so as to proiiitite the intt-rests of
the wholf city, ami not to stay ihfir action ujioii
the ap|>fal or remoiistriiiifi; of a iiierti imlividual.
It is a riih'whifh has coiitribtiicd lai:j;ilyto kf"p
liufk the West Side to wlieie it iniw i^. ami if stii!
lurtlit-r cnroi-fi-il will teml to fontinU" it iu th.-it
eomlilion lor years to toiiif. The thpart'iiint.-
shoultl nmUrstaiiil ilvA sincf tin- ailvint tii !;tpi.l
tran.-it, the whole Wtst Siiif is wantftl lor im-
lirovfimiit a.ml eainiot Ix- put in condition for it a
iiioim-jit loo s.itiii. II' thiif is aiiylioily in a p::r-
tii-iiiar localion who for a iiartieiilar reasiiii df.~ires
that his strei:t shoultl not he improved, it is siiit Iy
timt; now to reversf tlie rule ami re<iuirt! the ob-
stnifiioiiist to biinsf If take tb'' laboring oar. ami
bunt up [lersons to sign a reiiionstiance a^'aiiist
the iiuj)rovt;ine!it if he can timl them, and we will
make no objeetitm tti the department aetiii;; upon
such a remoiistrauee whenever they shall see one.

It is jiassing strange that real estate, that s|iecifs
of jiropertv which pavs nearlv tive sixths of all our
taxes, or iiearly $-2G,iil')0,l!l'a out t.f tbtr .J3(),000,iKi() ,,f
onr annual taxalittn, should seem to bt; selecteil as
the Jiroperty to be oppresseil by either unjuiit hj,'-
islation, or by w-eak, incompetent or ilowmiglit
maladministratioii of the laws. Personal property
can hide itself or run away,whcii the a.^sessor ctjiues
round, but real estate, never. It must always come
to the front, and staml strippetl of all disguises be¬
fore the keen eye id' that othcial, and be written
dow-n for all it is w-orth, in the sums necessary to
maintain courts, schotds, charities, jiolice and lire
depariments, ami all the machinery necessary to
good government, and to the security which per¬
sonal property enjoys under it, and from which alone
it has any value. Yet it has been tiuite the fashion
ftir some years past, more so than it will probably
be f .ir some years to come, for real estate to be
scolled at, kicked and loaded w-i^li all manner of
oppressions w-bieb nmde it a burden and terror to
him who unhappily hold it. It is tpiite w-ithin the
memory of most of us, that not many years since,
when some of our property ow-ners who had paid
several million dtill.ars for improvemeuts which
had never been made thought it right to ask that
they should be either refunded their money or the
improvements niade, that a leading journal of this
city mot the demantl by declaring that it was only
a lot of "real estate speculators" who were com¬
plaining, and it served them right to let them pay,
while it advised the city to do nothing. Yet these
same real estate speculators had paitl Hrst aud last
into the city treasury $l):l,0OO,0OO, one-half by direct
assessments for improvements iucluiling the Cen¬
tral Park, and the other half by taxation upon in¬
creased valuations for improvements promised, but
never made to thia day—as the Jlorningside and
Riverside Parks.

But this time is happily passing away. It is
seen now that the only hope of any material re¬
duction in our tax rate is iu the large increase iu
the taxable wealth of the city, and that tiiis must
come almost wholly trom the improvement of real
estate. Rapid transit, and the " better times '
that are coming upon us, are rapidly bringing
about this result. What is uow needed to com¬
plete the work is to free real estate from every
form of legal ob.struction and ollicial opi ression,
and give to it the same encoura<;emeiit we %voultl
give to any other public interest upou w-hich so
much of public good depends—to reduce elevated
railroad tares, so that w-hile dealing bountifully
with these companies their rates shall not operate
as an oppressive taxation upon the property aud
industry of the whole city—to lift these loads
from us, and tho energy ot the people may be
relied ou to do the rest, and the work of increased
property and reduced taxation will be speedily
accomplished.

Begging pardon for so long an introduction, I
come now- to that, one special form of real estate
oppression, from which we have ao long sufi'erod
on the West Side, and which was made the special
order for this evening.

STBBET OPESTNG.

Ever}' public street in New York, before it could
be built upon as auch, or used for any purpose,
bas had lo undergo the operation of what is
called a street opeuiug. What is a street opening 7