EAL  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS^ GUIDE.





YoL. XXV.





NEW YOEK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, 1880.





No. 618





Published Weekly by





TERMS.
ONE YEAR, in advance... .$10.00.

Communicationa should be addressed to

C.   AV.   SWEET,

Nos. 135 AND 137 BaoAnwAY





\VH.1T THE LliGISLATURE SHOULD DO.
Of course. New York City will be made the subject
ot some new experiments by tlie legislature now in
session. The Republicans have possession of the
state government in all its branches and they will
naturally seek to so arrange matters as to make it
profitable to their partisans. New Tork needs, if
not a new charter, yet such amendments to the
pesent one as will fix responsibility and give us a
better government. AU the many-headed com¬
missions should be replaced by single heads of
departments. One Superintendent of Police, who
should be subject to the orders of the Mayor, would
simplify that important branch of the public service,
and so through all tho departments of the city
government. Nothing can be better or more per¬
fect than the organization of an army, with its
Geueral-in-chief; its Major-Generals; its Brigadier-
Generals, Colonels, Captains and so on down to
the lowest officers. Everywhere, individual re¬
sponsibility coincident with individual authority.
Councils of war never fight. No army could stand
the control of three or four generals, each supreme
and with equal authority. Then, our Mayors should
have real power. He now has responsibility
enough, but the lawyers and courts have managed
to strip him of every power which the statutes
clearly intended to give him. All the Slayor can
do is to veto. He has a certain amount of negative
authority, but the greater part of his time is taken
up in signing warrants and in doing merely cleri¬
cal work.

Then we should have civil service reform. That
is to saj', all the minor ofSces of the city government
should be chosen from the graduates of our ptiblic
scliools or rather of the colleges in and near New
York. Whenever there is a vacancy, let there be
competition and let the most efficient and scholar¬
ly person secure the appointment. In time, our
whole city government, in its minor departments,
would be equal to the famous civil service iu Eng¬
land and India, and might compare perliaps with
the British Post Office in its marvellous efficiency.
Then, there should be a reduction of salaries. Our
judges are paid altjgether too much. Om- courts
cost three times more than is necessary. All the
new policemen appointed should be paid only .$16 a
week. There is no need of reducing the pay of
those who are already in receipt of the present un¬
necessarily large wages, but let it be within the au¬
thority of the Chief Executive of the Police Board
to punish or fine delinquent policemen by reduc
ing their pay aud also give him the power to in¬
crease the pay of patrolmen who have deserved
well of the city. Let the meritorious be rewarded.
Every sinecure should be rigidly cut off. With
proper laws, tliree to fotir millions per annum can
be saved in the expense of our city government.

There is one other suggestion which has repeat¬
edly been made in these columns. Why not make
t tbe duty of the tax payers to investigate ^very





bill or chaigeagains^t the eitj? Tjot those who pay
the b Us audit them. Let there be no charge
against the city iroaflury that ir^ not fully investi¬
gated by a togal rfprGrieTiiativ.' of the tax payers.
We would not give this new [agency i)ower to
say a bill shall or sliall not be paid, but let it be on
file in the Comptroller's Department wliat the rep.
resentatives of the tax payers think o ' e\ery bill
that is tendered. This would induce caution on
the partof the Comptroller, and wouhlbc a serious
impediment in the way of the collection of fraudu¬
lent claims or overcharges. We believe that in tliis
simple proposition there is more merit tlian in any
of the pretentious schemes put forth to reform our
city government. This duty of the tax payers in
this matter should be the same as jury or military
d ty. It would result, wo are sure, in saving the city
large sums of money. Perhaps it is idle to make
these suggestions. They may not be heeded and
matters will probably go on in the old bad way
We are probably entering up:)n a new era of local
mis-government. Our people are busy just now.
Trade is reviving and there is not enough imblic
spirit in our merchants and'^ citizens to provide
against the evils of municipal mis-government. It
must be frankly confessed that our democratic
theories, ae applied to the government of localities,
especially of large cities, are a pronounced failure.
People who travel abroad and see liow well policed
and cleaned .are European cities; how much care
is take 1 of the public welfare; how much honesty
ia shown by autocratic and aristocratic oilicialy, are
grieved and sh.amed at tlie spectacle wliicli is pre¬
sented when they return home. There is an effi¬
cient civil service; hero all is looseness aud waste.
There are clean streets, and a creditaijle police;
here—why pursue the p.arallel ?





LOCAL MANUFACTURINCI.
Oue of the most potenfc agencies which in the
future will work for the advantage of this great
city is that it will inevitably become the centre
of large manufacturing industries. Heretofore,
Philadelphia, Newark, Bridgeport and other
towns in the Middle and Eastern States have had
the advantage over ISTew York in cheap rents
plenty of ground, accessibility to water and rail¬
roads v.?hich makes manufacturing cheap. But
the elevated roads, utilizing as they will large
sections of the unimproved property connecting
as they do or will with wharves and the railroads
which run out of New Yorlc, are to be important
factors in giving this city large manufacturing
establishments. At this point where goods can
be readily bought and sold, where they can be
shipped by rail to any part of the country, or put
on board sailing or steam vessels for any port in
the world, here will,be found the great manufac¬
tures of the country. We have this advantage
over Philadelphia, tbat our harbor is never clo.«ed
winter or summer, and we will have equal
facilities with Philadelphia hereafter in having
ground upon which to erect cheap houses for our
working people. The i-oads which are in contem¬
plation on the other side of th^ Harlem River and
which WUl soon be built will give abundant room
for towns, villages and large settlements where
our operatives can live who are employed iu
manufactories yet to be built on our water fronts
and adjacent to the stations of the East and West
Side  elevated  roads.    There   is  room   for a





million inhabitants in the Twenty-third and
Tvventy-fonrth Wards and on the routes of the
railways, elevated and surface, which are soou to
traverse them. The new road from High Bridge
to Brewster'.s Wt.atlon runs through a country
eminently adopted for workinginen's homes and
in.stead of the operatives in the manufactories j'et
to be started in the Nineteenth and Twelfth Wards
coming down to our tenement districts for homes,
they will be accotnmodated in cottages adapted for
them aud as cheap as any which can be found hx
Philadelphia. New York, in other words, is des¬
tined in addition to being a great financial centie
of tlie country and the great commercial entre¬
pot of two CDntinents, will also in time be the
greatest manufacturing centre in the Union, be¬
cause of its unequaled and natural advantages for
the cheap manufacturing, storage aud distribu¬
tion of domestic goods.





CHOICE LOC-ITIONS.





One of the puzzles of investors in realty is where
to put the money where it will do the mo.st good.
It is very evident tbat in every period of depres¬
sion there are certain portions of the city where the
rise in values, when the rise comes, v/ill be greater
than in certain other portions. Nay, it may even
happen that in a general rise of values there will
be some parts of the city where property is de¬
preciating or is likely to depreciate. It is not
given to humtm sagacity to point out oil the
places which are likely to improve greatly in
value, but it woukl seem as if it were quite safe to
indulge iu some speculation as to the probable
erfect of improvement in certain special locations.
. For an investment in business property proper
it is evident there are many good chances down¬
town. In the immediate neighlioi-hood of the
City Hall Park there is a probability of a sub¬
stantial rise in values; this particular location,
apart from any special busine.ss, being the con¬
verging point of travel from several directions—
from the East Side, the West Side and from the
various streets leading to the Brooklj-n and Jersey
City ferries. It is evident tbat the buildings
around the Post Office and the City Hall Park are
likely to be greatly enhanced in value. The im¬
mediate neighborhood of the Stock, Cotton, Pro¬
duce and Mining Exchanges are also certain to
become higher priced. As New York growp,
those who do business in its leading exclianges
will need accommodations in the immediate neigh¬
borhood of tbeir places of business aud we will see
a very decided advance in the value of property
wherever merchaut.s and brokers most do congre¬
gate. Then those portions of the city where the
importing and drygoods bitsiness have their
centres are also pretty sure tc advantage by the
improvement of the timei and the growth of the
population of the city, and country. Even along
those portions of the river front wliere the metal
business is chieliy transacted, we may expect to
see a substautial advance in values. Broadway
has been under a cloud but it is evident that th&
wholesale business of an attractive character is
steadily creeping up beyond Canal street. Four¬
teenth street and Union square have, within the
last ten years, increased very greatly in value be¬
cause that, too, is the centre of the tides of human.