Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Vol. XXYII.





NEW TORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1881.





No. 681





Published Weekly by The

Real Estate Record Association

TERBIS:
0]VE YEAR, in advance.....$6.00

Communications should be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 13T Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.





Would it not be well for the editors of
the daily papers to revise the articles on real
estate in which the subjects of rents are
discussed ? In commenting on this subject,
the reporters of the Tribune and other
papers have been allowed to indulge in com¬
ments which read like the emanations of
Justus Schwab in an East Side beer saloon
at an anti-rent meeting. The reporters
indulge iu criticisms on landlords entirely
unwarranted by the facts. Up to 1879 the
tenants had the best of the landlords, and
owners of real properfcy were the most
impoverished of the well-to-do classes, for
taxes were heavy a/id rents light. There
lias been a change, however, and because
landlords are charging a fair interest on
their money, they are abused. It would, of
course, be a misfortune for the city if rents
were so high as to drive people over to
Brooklyn or Jersey. But this is a matter
which will adjust itself. A particularly ven¬
omous attack is made upon the owners of
real estate in Harlem, but rents have not
advanced in that quarter more than in other
growing portions of the city. Tenants
would do well to take advantage of the
present rates and secure long leases. There
is no likelihood of lower rents in this city
for many years to come. Everything is con¬
spiring to make real property on this island
more valuable every year.

It may be that in certain sections east of
the Bowery and Third avenue there will be
no improvement in prices, but the southern
end of the island and the whole western por¬
tion from the Battery to Spuyten Duyvil is
certain to increase in value, with a corre¬
sponding increase in rentals. The news¬
papers should bear this in mind and not
permit their impecunious reporters to write
nonsense respecting the rentals of New York.





In Broadway, from Canal street down¬
ward, there is to be very little tearing down
and rebuilding this season, that part being
already built up so high and so solidly as to
call for little change for years to come. A
large portion of the structures in this part
of the city have been well built by good archi¬
tects, but many of them that were put up by
mere builders twenty or twenty-five years
ago, more with a view to a flne appearance
than to solidity, will have to come down
gradually before many years. Further up¬
town there will be considerable demolition
and reconstruction after the flrst of May.
Between Madison square and Forty-third
street the increased rents, consequent upon
the large advance in the price of property,
have caused many stores and offices to be





placarded " To Let," the present occupants
being disinclined to agree to the advance.
The reasons of the advance in this quarter
are the improvements on Broadway, above
Forty-first street, the proposed Opera House
at Fortieth street, and the probability of the
property being needed for large business
structures, as trade moves up-town.





ATTENTION, BUILDERS !
Before the year 1891 there will be a large
addition to the population of New York. A
conservative estimate is that in ten years
time 500,000 people will be added to our pop¬
ulation, of which 400,000 will be on this island
alone. This estimate is based upon the
result of the several censuses, state and
national, taken since the war. Indeed,
there is reason to believe that our progress
in the future in numbers will be greater
than it bas been in the past. It follows, if
this estimate is correct, that there is no dan¬
ger of overbuilding. Indeed, as a matter of
fact, the erection of houses has not kept
pace with the growth of our population.
The following table, compiled from official
sources, tells its own story :

Total No.     No. of       Apart-         No.

buildings   first-class      ment    other than

Year,     erected,   dwellings,    houses,   first-class.

1868..       2,014             8.53             0             1,161

1869..       2,348              840              1              1,.507

1S70..       2,351              822              0              1,.529

1871..       2,782           1,049              0              1,733

1872..       1,728              499              1              1,228

1873..        1,311              206              0              1,10.5

1874..       1.388              3.34              0              1,1.54

1875..       i;406              382          112                 912

1876..        1,379              439          115                  825

1877..       1,432             421          157                 8.54

1878..       1,672              .525            99              1,048

1879..       2,065              764          253              1,048

ISSO..       2,252              900          516                 836

The above figures are worth studying. We
did not erect as many houses in 1880 as we
did in 1871 by five hundred and thirty, and
of first-class houses not so many by one
hundred and forty-nine. But sioce 1874 a
new class of buildings has come into fashion
which were unknown before that period.
We mean great apartment houses. In
1875 we erected one hundred and twelve of
these ; in 1879, two hundred and fifty-three,
and in 1880, five hundred and sixteen. We
doubt if so many large apartment houses
will be built this year, but there will un¬
doubtedly be a large increase in the number
of smaller flats of a cheaper kind. The
number of rich people who want to live in
elegant apartments and yet not be hampered
with a whole house is steadily increasing,
while families from abroad will prefer apart¬
ment houses, as it gives them a sense of
luxury and comfort which they cannot get
at the public hotel or private lodgings in an
ordinary family house.

New York, to-day, wants from seven to
ten new and magnificent hotels, superior to
any now open. Whether we have a World's
Fair or not. these great caraA^ansaries are
needed to supply accommodations for the
rich strangers who are thronging in increas¬
ing numbers to our city. Our first-class
hotels to-day are over full, and they are not
all well located.   Now that we have rapid





transit, a hotel further up-town than the
Windsor would not be out of place. Indeed,
the neighborhood of the Central Park is
peculiarly suited for hotels that would be
attractive to invalids coming to the city for
medical advice ; to rich strangers who wish
to take advantage of the drives in and above
the park, while they would not be out of
place for merchants, who can easily reach
down-town stores by our luxurious elevated
road cars.

We judge that there has been too much
building of houses which cost anywhere
between 116,000 and $40,000; or rather not
too much, but tbat the demand for such
houses has been better supplied than those
designed for the very rich or very poor.
What is needed to-day are accommodations
for the two extremes—the millionaires and
the working population. These last ought
not to be encouraged to remain on this
island. The rapidity with which cheap
houses have been sold north of the Harlem
Eiver, near the railroad lines, furnishes a
hint, which builders should take advantage
of. New York is destined to become a great
manufacturing city, but the homes for
the mechanics and working people will be
found in the Twenty-third and a portion of
the Twenty-fourth Ward. Land is becom¬
ing too valuable in every part of this island
to furnish houses at low rents. True, more
tenement houses might be built, but it
seems impossible to provide cleanly and
wholesome homes for working people in
any tenement house system that has been
devised. The poor should be encouraged to
own their own little house and lot in the
outlying districts. The dangerous classes in
a large city are those who occupy poor and
densely populated neighborhoods.

But the buildings that will j)ay best, and
of which ma.ny are needed in New York to¬
day, are those which would be attractive to
very ''ich families, who wish to reside in the
metropolis. We live in a luxurious age and
New York, from this time forth, will vie
with the most costly capitals in the world.
A glance at the above table, will show the
steady increase which has been going on in
the number of first-class houses, but it does
not seem improbable that ten such will be
built in the coming ten years where one
was constructed within the last ten years.

To sum up then, New York wants :

1st. A number of new hotels and costly
French flats or apartment houses.

2d. Residences for the very rich, who wish
to make New York their home and enjoy
the advantages of our public parks, drives,
amusements, art galleries and educational
institutions.

3d. Homes for working people, to be loca¬
ted north of the Harlem River, and east of
the New York and Northern road.





Sixth avenue is stUl alive in spite of the

dismal forebodings which the building of

the elevated railroad aroused, and it leads

Broadway a sharp competition  for retail

; traffic.   Gapifcalists are seekiag for eligible