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Real Estate Record
AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.
Vol. XXVI.
NEW YOEK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1880.
No. 667.
Pubb'shed Weekly by
TERMS.
ONE YEAR, in advance....SIO.OO.
Communications should be addressed to
C. W. S^VEET,
No. 137 Broadway
The extension of the commission ]iours,
that is the two additional hours each day
when only five cents is charged, has led to
an increase in the receipts of the elevated
roads, so much so as to advance the price of
the three classes of stocks. Why should not
these roads change their method, charging
five cents all day for points below Fifty-
ninth street and ten cents for greater dis¬
tances?
Then, why should not the elevated roads
add to their revenues by having elevators
at the principal stations. Ladies would
gladly j)ay an extra cent tp avoid climbing
the high stairs. Many a lady would prefer
to walk a mile on a level, rather than go up
the One Hundred and Sixteenth street or
One Hundred and Twenty-fifth street stair¬
way. With reduced fare and a system of
elevators, the roads might add very materi¬
ally to their incomes.
THE GROWTH OF NEW YORK AND
THE PRICES OF REAL ESTATE.
[From the San Francisco Bidleiin.']
New York at this time seems to be going ahead
faster thau any otlier city in the United States. In
consequence of the narrowness of the island on
which it is located, it has always been sloppmg
over. Its surplus population built up Brooklyn, a
city of 500,(100 population. Williamsburg aud
Hoboken are also offshoots. In later jears towns
distant sixty miles in other States have taken on
the character of suburbs of the great metropolis.
But the elevated railroads have evidently brought
this centrifugal movement to an end. The growlh
of NewYork until all its oui lying settleuienti are
called on will perhaps be quite as marvellous as
its original start. That city had not jnore than
30,000 inhabitants when Washington landed at the
foot of Wall street to be inaugurated first President
of the United States. The old Federal Hall, now
the Custom House, from the balcony of which
Washington delivered hi? inaugural, was con¬
sidered to be the centre of the town. But now we
hear of streets rising as high as the two hundredth.
Quick transit is giving to New York all the growth
out of which she has been so long kept.
" Quick transit" of course is helping Man¬
hattan Island enormously, but it is not the
only factor in New York's growth. As
prospers the entire country, so prospers the
metropolis, containing the very essence of
the wealth, the brain and energy of the
entire Union. It is the fountain heart of
the Republic, the financial centre so to speak
for all of the vast enterprises that bave ex¬
plored the West and the South. And in this
connection we like to reproduce the words of
a prominent lawyer and large real estate
owner, who only yesterday stated that the
price of land in NewYork', would' be,'ere
long, higher than it ever had been before.
Upon being requested to give the reasons for
his assertions, he said, " If during the last
inflation years when we had only $700,000,-
000 in circulation, real estate could reach
such high figures, why not higher figures
with $1,100,000,000 in circulation? It has
never yet failed in the past, but that after each
panic, the price of real estate rose at least
fifteen per cent, above the previous tide of
prosperity. With the resources now at the
command of our country, with the constant
influx of foreign capital and foreign im¬
migration, with our bonded debt nearly all
held by our own people, with labor in
demand everywhere and the country gener¬
ally prosperous, all being reflected in this
very city, where vacant lots are day after
day decreasing in number, the price of real
estate must go up, and that, too, very soon.
Indeed we are already in th<? midst of a ris
ing market. People say a great deal about
the wilderness on the West Side, but where
could private capital build there while
public improvements were neglected by the
municipality? During the past year some
salutary changes have been instituted in
this. respect and now municipal improve¬
ments are going right along. While the
East Side is virtually built up, it needs only
the enterprise of two or three energetic
builders and you will soon see the West Side
built up as closely as is now the East Side."
CHICAGO REAL ESTATE.
Chicago has had several surprises lately:
one was the ruin of a great number of
speculators in grain and provisions and the
other was the sudden demand for houses and
stores. Indeed, the extraordinary statement
is made, that so enormous was the demand
for residences, that there is not a single
vacant house in that city. The building,
next spring, promises to be phenomenally
large. Accounts from all the other centres
of population are to the same effect. Seasons
of great business activity always enlarge the
population of the urban at the expense of
the rural districts. Our own city builders
are all employed^ but they will not be able to
supply the demand for houses during the
coming year. Some morning New York will
wake up to find a demand for several thous¬
and naore houses than the market can supply.
The growth of our population is shown in
the overcrowded schools, and in the fact
that there are 5,000 more children than can
be accommodated in the upper wards.
New York will hereafter be forced to grow
along the lines of the elevated roads ; we ares
packed in between two rivers and the line of
growth wfll be from the south north, and
from tiie east to the west. Chicago can grow
literally in every direction, north, west and
south. Hence it follows, that the speculative
activity will be greater in this city, as it will
be confined within certain well defljied
limits. So far the demand for lots in New
York has been for buflders, and when
speculation sets in, the present prices wifl
seem very low.
A NEW TAX COMMISSION.
The proposition of Mr. Alvord to convene
an extra session of the Legislature for the
purpose of amending the tax system of the
State shows that our law makers have heard
at last the loud demands for reform, made
not only by corporations but by institutions.
The question arises, however, whether any
ordinary legislature is of sufiicient intellec¬
tual calibre to grasp such an important
question in all of its bearings. Instead of
calling an extra session of the Legislature,
would it not be well to create a commission
with power to sit during the surnmer months
and devise a scheme of taxation that wfll
suit afl the interests pf this state. Such a
commission should be composed of men v.'ho
have made this question a study for years
past. No novices, not even ordinary busi¬
ness men, can at all comprehend the infinite
details that must be considered in devising
such a scheme. Men like George H.
Andrews, Isaac Sherman, Abner Bartlett,
would hav(} no diflSculty in arriving at satis¬
factory conclusions and, if autliorized to do
the work, they would submit to the Legis¬
lature of 1883 a new set of taxation la\Vs,
based upon the experiences of the past ahd
the requirements of ths immediate future.
A SECOND BROOKLYN BRIDGE.
Matters are so far progressed that we are
enabled to state that a new bridge is shortly
to be commenced over the East River. It
will cross at the upper end of Black well's
Island, and it is part of a general scheme
which wifl have important consequences to
Brooklyn, New York and Jersey City. In
point of fact, it is a movement in the interest
of the New York Central & Hudson River
system of roads and is intended to break the
monopoly which, it is feared, may be secured
by the concentration of the Baltimore &
Ohio, Pennsylvania Central, Delaware &
Lackawanna and Erie system of roads on the
Jersey waterfront. In a few years the New
York & New Jersey Riparian Land and Dock
Improvement Coinp&ny expect to complete
a series of magnificent improvements for the
benefit of the railroads now centering in
Jereey City. They wifl have every advant¬
age over the terminal facilities of the Central
pn the Hudspn River. The.only rival pos^
sible to Jersey improvements is to be found