Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Vol. XXYII.





NEW TORK, SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1881





No. 689





Published Weekly by The

Real Estate Record Association

TERMS:
ONE TEAR, in advance.....$6.00

Communications should he addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 137 Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Busmess Manager.

The Common Council is talking about put¬
ting the electric light on Riverside drive. If
this should be done, that beautiful west side
avenue might become a famous after-dinner
drive. During the coming summer people
who could not go to Coney Island might, after
the sun went down, take an evening ride or
drive on the Riverside. The electric lights
would make it as bright as day, and the
scene on the river aud from the river would
be fairly enchanting. If there is to be an
electric light, let us have plenty of it. The
only objection we see is the danger that if
the avenue became much frequented in the
evenings, it would lead to the opening of
saloons and might depreciate the value of
property.





What business has the Attorney General
of this State interfering in stock speculation?
He wants, it seems, to have a receiver ap¬
pointed for the Manhattan. But that com¬
pany is not in default. After July, if it
should not pay the dividend, action may be
taken; but it ia an outrage for this country
lawyer, to undertake to represent the majes¬
ty of the State of New York, in helping on
a stock speculation.





On the completion of the New York ele¬
vated road, Mr. Cyrus W. Field gave a din¬
ner to his followers at Delmonico's. It was
then stated that elevated stock was earning
20 per cent., and its price was about 190. But
now Mr. Cyrus W. Field is telling the news¬
papers that the New York elevated is not
earning 10 per cent., and he says Manhattan
stock is worthless. Mr. Field in this matter
has been smart at the expense of the invest¬
ing public. The elevated roads themselves,
have been a great benefit to the community.
They hava increased the area of taxable
property and fiu'nished an ijnsurpassed
means of local travel. But, strangely
enough, the press and the public unite in
abusing the roads, instead of the stock man¬
ipulators, Field, Navarro, Porter, Garrison
and their associates, and the disposition is to
punish the present innocent holders of the
stock by excessive taxation, for the misdeeds
of the speculators, who have pocketed their
profits, and do not care what becomes of the
roads or their victims.





Offices have been opened in quarters of the
city, inhabited by foreigners, for the sale of
emigrant tickets. Of course it is not the
great lines, like the Cunard, the White Star
or the Inman, but the smaller steamers,
which are offering inducements for Ger-
irianLS and'Irish who wish to send to Europe
for their friends.   These offices are open at





night for the accommodation of working
people, and are often crowded with custo¬
mers. This is but one symptom of how high
the fever of immigration is rising. All ac¬
counts from abroad agree that from now to
harvest the numbers wiU be very large and
that immediately after harvest they will be
still larger. The government of Denmark is
becoming really alarmed and proposes to
stop immigration by forcible measures; while
in Germany the organs of Bismarck are tell¬
ing all sorts of absurd stories to check the
immigration. So long as this country is
prosperous and Europe is crushed by taxa¬
tion and the demands of compulsory military
service, there is no stopping the tide of hu¬
man beings that is flowing to our shores.





ABOUT SOME NEW YORK JOURNALS,
The Evening Post has been purchased by
Horace White and Henry Villard, and Carl
Schurz is the new editor, with E. L. Godkin,
late of the Nation, as associate editor. Messrs.
White and ViUard are old newspaper asso¬
ciates, and were correspondents at Washing¬
ton when the duties on whiskey were im¬
posed. It is said both of them made fortunes
by taking advantage of the information they
got ahead of other people, respecting these
same duties on spirits. Mr. White subse¬
quently bought a controlling interest in the
Chicago Tribune, and Mr. Villard entered
Wall street. They both have been vrorking
together recently in Oregon Navigation and
other enterprises and have made a great deal
of money.

There is room in New York for news¬
papers with strong editors behind them.
The Herald, Times and Tribune, when they
were edited by the elder Bennett, Henry J.
Raymond and Horace Greeley, were real
forces in the political and business world.
These papers have little weight to-day, al¬
though in some technical respects they are
better papers than they were under the old
regime. The Herald is strong in foreign
news, and the Sun in local information, but
the whole daily press of New York, to-day,
does not wield the influence which Horace
Greeley did with the Tribune alone.

Carl Schurz, as editor of the Evening Post,
will speak with authority. He will repre¬
sent a very influential section of the Repub¬
lican party. But an evening paper is at a
disadvantage; its circulation is necessarily
limited, as its news is confined to but a few
hours out of the twenty-four. Then, its ad¬
vertising is not lucrative. New York needs
a morning paper, more enterprising than
any now in existence, and with contributors
of nationaFreputation, whose names should
be given.. The Chicago Times last week tel¬
egraphed the four gospels of the revised New
Testament, some 88,000 words. Fifteen
wires were used in the transmission. Who¬
ever heard of such a feat on the part of a
New York paper ? This one Chicago paper
spends more money in a year for telegraph¬
ing, than the cost of the entire telegraphic
I service of the New York press.   The enter¬





prising papers ought to be in this city, not
in Chicago. Our newspapers are also pass¬
ing into the hands of the representatives of
rich corporations, and caimot very well rep¬
resent public opinion in consequence. We
have no doubt that the Evening Post, under
its new management, wUl attract wide¬
spread attention. This may lead in time to
the establishment of a morning paper, with
a staff of brilliant writers, whose opinions
will carry weight with the pubhc.

Those who know the new editors of the
Evening Post, doubt whether they will be
able to pull together. They are opinionated
and crotchety gentlemen, in whom the criti¬
cal faculty has been inordinately developed.
They would naturally criticise one another,
to begin with ; but the disagreement, if
there is one, will end with a survival of the
fittest. Mr. White would do well to issue a
morning edition of the Post and edit it him¬
self. If some capitalists would import Murat
Halstead of the Cincinnati Commercial, and
Henry Watterson of the Louisville Courier-
Journal, journalism in New York would re¬
cover some of its old prestige.





Mr. W. H. Lee points out to a Tribune re¬
porter the benefits which New York city
has derived   from its system of  elevated
roads, and incidentally he calls to mind the
mistakes which property holders are apt to
make respecting improvements which they
fear will injure the value of their property.
It is a settled fact for instance, that property
on Sixth avenue has been very greatly bene¬
fitted by the building of the elevated road.
True, it is not so desirable as a residence, but
its value  as a business  avenue   has very
gi-eatly increased.   When it was proposed to
build large apartment houses, the adjoining
property holders were   apprehensive   that
they would be in some way injured.     So
when the Union League Club was projected,
it was   supposed it would depreciate  the
price of adjoining property, but as a matter
of fact, it has improved the entire neighbor¬
hood.    Property holders have universally
opposed horse cars in front of their possess¬
ions ; yet in every case the street cars have
been a benefit to the street through which
they ran.   The late A.T. Stewart spent his
life in fighting surface  and  underground
railways on Broadway, and he succeeded in
driving them to other avenues, and with the
roads the retail dry goods business of the
city.   It was the^surface and elevated road
which built up Sixth avenue at the expense
of Broadway.   The street cars have very
largely benefitted property on Fourteenth
street and Twenty-third street, and it is a
notable fact that the largest retail trade on
Broadway, is in that section occupied by
the horse cars.   Yet, clear as these facts are
to the blindest, the principal property hold¬
ers on Forty-secoHd street are bitterly op¬
posed to horse cars on their street.   If they
were wise, they would ask for an elevated
road and subscribe to buUd it themselves.
It may be set down as an axiom, that every
improvement which increases the number of