Real Estate Record
AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.
Vol. XXY.
NEW YOEK, SATUEDAY, APEIL 24, 1880.
No. 632
Published Weekly by
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lERMS.
ONE YEAR, in advance....810.00.
Communications should be addressed to
C. W, SAVTEET.
No. 137 Broaoway.
"THE RIVERSIDE AVENUE."
This avenue is now completed by the contract¬
ors, and the property-owners are much interested
in having it opened to public travel. Mr. Chris¬
topher R. Roberts, who is the owner of a large
tract on the avenue, has started a petition to the
Park Commissioners, requesting them to have it
opened on some assurance that they would act
favorably upon it. Hon. James W. Deering has
also for the 'property-owners, a proceeding in
hand to compel the opening of the avenue to the
public and the removal of the barriers which the
contractors have set up, by a mandamus, or some
other appropriate legal proceeding, by which the
legal right of the contractors—in case they insist
on it—to keep the avenue closed can be tested.
Mr. Decker, the contractor, has given permis¬
sion to the Road Club to pass over the avenue on
Decoration Day, the Slst of May next, on their
way to the races at Jerome Park. This is a new
club, which includes the members of the Coaching
Club and many others. In the Coaching Club,
each member must own his own coach and four
horses'; but in the Road Club, two, three, or four
members may Gombine in owning one coach.
Col. William Jay is President of the Coaching
Club, and Frederick Bronson is the President and
Leonard W. Jerome the Vice-President of the
Road Club. The Road Club are to start about
noon on the Slst of May with sixteen four-horse
coaches and, passing through Central Park, will
leave it at Seventy-second street, enter the River¬
side Park, and, passing up the entire length of
the Riverside avenue, leave it at One Hundred
and Twenty-second street and take the Boulevard
on their way to Jerome Park. This is to be an
exclusive privilege, and no one else is to be per¬
mitted to enter the Riverside Drive on that day.
The Coaching Club are to have their annual
Spring parade on Saturday, the 29th of May, but
the courtesy of Mr. Decker is not extended to
them, and they will keep within the Central Park,
as they have done heretofore. It is gratifying at
least, to know that some few favored ladies and
gentlemen will be permitted to enjoy a drive
over this avenue, which has been talked about so
much and has cost so many millions. We hope
they will think it worth the money, and that in
the course of the summer some other party may
be permitted to enjoy a drive over this part of
the public domain.
The troubles of the contractors seem to thicken.
They have not had any money for their work
since November, 1878, although, it is now, ia their
view of it, about completed, and they are very
anxious to get their money. The work done up
to the 1st of January, 1880, was estimated by the
engineers at $528,166.95. Of this, 30 per cent, is
reserved, until the final estimate at the comple¬
tion of the contract. The contractors have
received $224,512.33, there are liens filed against
them for $59,364.49, and the engineers salaries
have been $48,681.20. These last three items
amount to $332,558.02. Deducting this from the
January estimate*given'[above';leaves $195,608.93
coming to the contractor.^, including the 30 per
cent, reserve in case that estimate is correct. The
work done since the 1st of January and up to the
completion of the contract may amount to $30,000
more, increasing the amount coming to the con¬
tractors to $225,608.93. Untortunately for them,
the recent litigation between them and the banks
who are their creditors, has shown, in the settle¬
ment they made, that there is $67,500 due to one
creditor bank and about $170,000 to another,
which, with the amount still due to sub-contrac¬
tors and for materials, will more than absorb the
amount above stated as coming to the contractors.
At this point, Commissioner Lane comes in with
his damaging statements, and claims that the con¬
tractors, by reason of defective work and legal
irregularities, are not entitled to one dollar of the
$225,608.93, which the engineers estimate would
give them, and insist\that this will clearly ap¬
pear as soon as a correct engineer's estimate is
made out. He says that a great deal of their
work does not conform to the contract, that the
$15,000 charged for the parapet wall should be
wholly deducted, that they have built a dirt road
which will not last a^week, in place of a stone
road which the contractcalled for, and which it
will cost $50,000 to construct. That the mistakes
about the temporary bridge at Eighty-sixth
street and the error of five feet in grade from
Eighty-sixth to Eighty-eighth street will cost
$35,000 to rectify, and that in addition to this,
there are legal irregularities and errors in the
work which will have the effect of invalidating
the assessment, and which will reduce the total
of the contract at .least $100,000. These are very
serious questions, and in the interest of the prop¬
erty owners, the contractors, and the public,
ought to be settled immediately. The matter
has now reached a point where something will
have to be decided, for three warrants have been
sent; from the Finance Department to Mayor
Cooper to be counter-signed as follows: Davis
Tillson, $16,000; Charles H. Haswell and others,
$3,424.80; L. Laflin Kellogg, $12,500, and ^he can¬
not very well counter-sign these without forming
some opinion on the merits of this controversy,
particularly when he has so experienced a man
as Andrew H. Green, the new Park Commissioner
to guide him.
It would be a public misfortune if this matter
were settled so as to make a voidjassessment, and
throw tbe whole cost of the work] on the City, as
it is now a public misfortune that these con¬
tractors are permitted, without shadow of legal
right, to exclude the public from so beautiful a
drive.
THE OUTLOOK IN MINING.
The promoters of mining companies report an
exceedingly dull market. The public, for the
present, have had quite enough of mines and
mining shares. In other words, the "boom" is
over, and the investing public are cured of any
mania for mining stocks. The collapse of the
Little Pittsburg did the business.
The situation stands thus : The rage of specu¬
lation having partly spent its force in the Stock
Market, was directed towards mining investments
as the next most promising field of operationa.
The remarkable developments in LeadviUe were
taken'advantage of to induce certain capitalists to
invest largely in mining companies, with a view of
disposing of their shares at high figures to the gen¬
eral public. The bank presidents and capitalists
who gave their names to these schemes, had no
notion of holding the shares they purchased, but
expected to pass them over to their customers and
the retail dealers. But the Little Pittsburg catas¬
trophe, sharing, as it did, bad faith on the part of
a number of heretofore respectable men, fright¬
ened the general public, and caused the whole
speculation to collapse—at least for a time. There
must be, at least, fiffcy important mining compa¬
nies, representing tens of millions of dollars,
whose stock is now in the hands of capitalists who
have no market for it. The names of the compa¬
nies one sees advertised in the papers does not tell
half the story. It is, perhaps, well that the fever
burnt out as soon as it did, for, had it continued,
it would have been the general public, and not the
rich promoters, who would have been injured. A
good deal of the depressed feeling in the regular
Stock Exchange, is due to the diversion of large
gUms of money into these unproductive channels,
and the killing of the mining craze will have a
favorable effect on the prices of other securities.
We are saying nothing against mining as an
industry. We have more mineral wealth than
any nation under the sun. Our bullion pro¬
duct is greater than that of all the rest of
the world put together, and yet we have but
barely scratched the surface of our 'mines. In
ten years time our present product will be doubled,
but it is very desirable that mining should be pros¬
ecuted as a legitimate industry, and not as a stock
speculation. Unfortunately for us, the city is now
swarming with Oalifornians, who intend to work
the mining field for all it is worth to them. They
are shrewd, adventurous, and generally very un¬
scrupulous. Not satisfied with the mining field as
developed here, they have organized a mining
exchange of their own, of which nearly all the ofl!-
cers are Californians, while the membership will
represent the Pacific rather than the Atlantic
Coast. Some of the visitors have very poor reputa¬
tions at home, and all the mining tricks which have
created so much unpleasant comment in the West
are being naturalized here in New York.
We feel very well satisfied with the course of The
Record. We have the satisfaction of knowing
that alone of the press of New York, we have told
the truth about mines aud mining. The daily
papers did not seem to be aware of what was
going on when the fever first began to rage, and
they came in at the death to help blow up a burnt
out fire. The Graphic was the only daily paper
that appreciated the importance of the movement
into mining ventures, and it profited by its fore
cast But the ofcher daily papers are as blind now
in commending this dying interest as they were
last year in not realizing its importance.