Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS^ GUIDE.





Vol. XXYI.





NEW YOEK, SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1880.





No. 646





Published Weekly by

Cbe Eeal Estate ^erartr ^ssodation.

TERMS.
ONE YEAR, in advance....SIO.OO.
Cnraraunications should be addressed to

C.   W.  SWEET,

No. 137 Broadway

. ROOM FOR THE MANUFACTURING

INTEREST.
The official figures showing the foreign
trade of the country during the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1880, are at last published,
and cannot fail to produce that confidence
in the permanence of prosperity which is the
main source of   prosperity itself.   That a
country constantly growing in population
aud full of thrift, contains a vast army of
consumers of home products, needs no illus¬
tration, but that in the face of this steadily
increasing home consumption we have been
able to export merchandise, the value of
which was $125,000,000 greater  than  the
amount exported during the previous fiscal
year mxist be, indeed, encouraging to those
who can at all comprehend how sharp is the
competition in the neutral markets.   AU this
is aside of the exports of gold and silver coin
and buUion.    It is the result of energy and
thrift on the part of Western farmers and
Eastern manufacturers, who can produce and
make more than we require, and sell that
surplus to foreign lands at a profit.   That
profit in some manufactured articles may not
liave been great, but it is a healthy sign of
I   the times when capitalists and producers
[   generally begin to understand that it is bet-
I   ter to keep on manufacturing, and sell say
i   one-fourth of their products at a low rate in
I   a foreign country, if by so doing they keep
I   up the employment of labor, and can sell the
I   remaining three-fourths of their products
I   more readily and to greater advantage to
I   home consumers.   AU these intricacies that
I   underlie the progress of manufacturing in
I  this country have become better understood
I  during the past five years, and whUe the East
I is losing more and more its hold upon agri-
I culture, the manufacturing interest is slowly
I and steadily coiUng, anaconda Uke, in and
I around the great Eastern cities.   We know
I of retired merchants, stiU in their prime of
I life, who once more have gone into business
I during the past six months, and, when the
I nature of their business was enquired into, it
was in every instance manufacturing.   More
than this, most of these new establishments
make articles of fashion and luxury, thus
showing that wealth in our midst is con¬
stantly on the increase, and sufficiently wide¬





spread to place the home manufacturer on a
par, if not ahead, of the foreign importer.
It nray, perhaps, interest our readers to know
that one of our large jewehy establishments
is now exporting gold bracelets to Europe
and selling them at a profit in Paris.

Of course, where, in the presence of so much
competition, it becomes a virtual science to
reduce working expenses to their very mini¬
mum, it cannot be expected that these estab¬
lishments can aU find room on the high-priced
soil of Manhattan Island ; but our suburbs,
where real estate is yet obtainable at low
figures, will be taken in hand for the erec¬
tion of numerous  new manufacturing  es¬
tablishments.    It was only a few years ago
that cotton merchants continually growled
at the high price of real estate in New York,
as they could not afford to build on Manhat¬
tan  Island  cotton warehouses sufficiently
large to store the thousands of bales they
had constantly on hand.    They growled long
enough till somebody fixed their attention
upon the suburbs, and now we can boast of
possessing the largest cotton warehouses in
the world.    Not in the midst of our city, it
is true, but on Staten Island, in Brooklyn
and Jersey City, where the thousands of
bales are stored just as close to the shipping
point as if they were packed in mammoth
warehouses on Manhattan Island, and with
a considerable reduction of price for the
ground occupied.   The example of the cot¬
ton men will, ere long, be foUowed by the
large manufacturers, who are increasing aU
around us and caUing for more room.    They
will in vain look for permanent extensive
quarters on the island at rates aUowable by
the cost price at which their manufactured
articles must be produced if they at aU desire
to be successful.   It is beyond the Harlem
and beyond the Hudson that they can be ac¬
commodated, and as there is plenty of land
there yet to be had by the acre at reasonable
rates, it  is  important  tfiat  those having
charge of manufacturing interests should not
overlook the advantages which the suburbs
of New York offers in this respect, for it is
an interest, indeed, which year after year
becomes a more and more important link in
the great chain containing the sources of our
national prosperity.





A WORD WITH SOME UP-TOWN LOT
OWNERS.
The Real Estate Record has time and
again blamed the public departments, not¬
ably the Department of PubUc Works, for
neglecting those necessary West Side im¬
provements that must precede the construc¬
tion of houses by individual lot owners.





We have pointed out how, in some sections,
capitalists and owners stood ready to buUd
if their respective streets were only regulated,
curbed and guttered, so that those desirous
of improving could have no excuse for re¬
tarding their operations.   There are West
Side sections, however, where this excuse
does not hold good, and we therefore address
ourselves to-day to West Side owners who
have no reason to find fault with the work
done for them by the public departments,
and who can, if they wUl, begin at once the
construction of much needed houses.   The
section we particularly allude to is bounded
by One Hundredth and One Hundred and
Sixth streets,  Eighth and Tenth avenues.
The streets in that locality are all in a con¬
dition for immediate improvement, and it
only needs a little energy on the part of one or
two lot owners to make them all foUow their
example and do likewise.   To show that there
is capital enough, and more than enough,
to do all the buUding that is required to make
this section remunerative to the owners of
the soil, and at the same increase the value
of adjoining property, we give a few names
of owners who own lots in the district above
described.   There is the estate of Wm. D.
Murphy, owning about fifty lots; Orlando
B. Potter,  about thirty; Alexander Roux,
twelve or fifteen; ex-Governor Edwin D.
Morgan, about forty ; Robert MarshaU, some
fifty lots; David Knapp, about forty ; Ed¬
ward Kearney and wife, or heirs of the Glen-
denning family, about twelve lots, and Miss
Susan King also owns quite a number of lots
there.   If a few of the parties named above,
and nearly all of them are public spirited
citizens, would set to work and build some
forty or fifty houses there at once and with
out delay, it would be indeed a pioneer move¬
ment for that locality, which would result
in profit to the owners and general benefit to
the city at large.   It only needs a start.
Who will open the baU ?   Let two or three or
four of the most energetic men of those men¬
tioned confer together.   If each individual
should only improve a part of his vacant
property, it would at once tend to increase
the value of his adjoining lots, and a begin¬
ning wiU have been made toward providing
domiciles for families that prefer to Uve on
the high, salubrious ground there, rather
than on the low ground of the East Side.
Whatever has been done in that line south of
the section named above has been f oUowed
by good results, and the time is ripe now to
go to work at once with the practical im¬
provement of the blocks lying north of One
Hundredth street.    The owners named, if
they f oUow our advice, wiU thank us in less
than a year for the suggestion we now make,