Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Vol. XXYIII.





NEW YOEK, SATUEDAT, OCTOBEE 22, 1881.





No. 710





Published Weekly by The

Real Estate Record Association

TERMS:
i»\E YEAR, in advance.....$6.00

rJommunications should be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 137 Broadway.

'. T. UNDSEY. Bnsmess Manager.





THE PROPOSED "TEN MILE" PAEK.
The diagram below gives an idea of the
great park which it is proposed to lay out
north of the Harlem river. It tells its own
story and there is no need of any further
description of the locale.





WHAT   VANDERBILT   IS   REALLY
AFTER.

William H. Vanderbilt is the railroad war.
All the leaders of the street, bears as well as
bulls, are eager to have it ended. There is
not a railway corporation in the country
that would not be willing to make any rea-
i^ on able sacrifice to have rates restored and
the railroad system of the country again in
harmony. The war, so far, has been a direct
<letriment to the Central road and all its tribu¬
taries. Since it has been raging, Michigan
Central has fallen from 114 to 87; Canada
Southern from 83 to 56; New York Central
from 153 to 135; Lake Shore from 135 to 117.
Strangelj^ enough, the rival roads show no
such decline. Erie sells for some 6 points
lower, and Pennsylvania Central and Balti¬
more & Ohio have scarcely been affected at
all. There has been an increased business at
this port, but it is the Pennsylvania Central
which has profited by it, not the New York
Central.

What, then, can be Mr. Vanderbilt's mo¬
tive in keeping up a war in which his roads
are the principal sufierers? May not the
solution be found in liis determination to
ruin the Erie Canal? Under the law, ex¬
penditures on the canal are limited by the
amount of its receipts. According to the
State Engineer, the tolls this year are wholly
inadequate for keeping the canal in repair.
During the coming winter an application
will be made for additional funds for the
support of the canal. But the New York
Central always controls the legislature of
this state. The Senate has ever been faith¬
ful to the private fortunes of the owners of
this great monopoly. Wagner, Vanderbilt's
sleeping car partner, is the perpetual chair¬
man of the railway committee.

The legislature which meets next winter
will also have the deciding of the free canal
question. If it refuses to submit the vote
to the people making the canals free, that is
the end of the matter for a couple of years.
The Republican legislature last year failed
to pass the amendment taking the tolls off
the canal. The next legislature may be
Democratic; but whatever party it repre¬
sents, the members will vote as they are paid
by Mr. Vanderbilt.

Should Mr. Vanderbilt succefd in ruining
the Erie Canal, then good-bye to the great¬
ness of New York. Its growth will be
checked at once, and desirable unimproved
lots become unsaleable. It is probably too
late to organize so as to elect the right kind
of a legislature, but it is quite time that the
New York public knew just what; William
H. Vanderbilt has in mind,





Spu





5,000 feet.





* Hastings.





* Yonkers





5,000 feet.





150
feet
wide.





150
feet.





150

3,000 : feet wide.l feet
Iwide.





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3,000ft. I*^wide.8feet.





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The 3,500 acres embraced in the park
will cost, on an average, about $1,000 an
acre. In ZX per cent, bonds, guaranteed
by the counties of New York and West¬
chester, the interest will be |108,000 per
annum. The increased value of the adjoin¬
ing property would, it is estimated, give an
increased revenue of over $500,000 per an¬
num. A portion of this increase might be
used for improving the park. It is under¬
stood the next legislature wiU be asked to
appoint commissioners to begin the work.

The scheme is not so chimerical as it would
seem at first sight. A park will be needed
in the annexed district. There is already a
large population that could use the drives
at once. Yonkers. Hastings, Mount Vernon,
Woodlawn, and other centres of population,
would find it immediately available. Our
Central Park is now overcrowded on fine
days with splendid equipages and baseball
matches, croquet, and lawn tennis games
cannot well be played within its limits.
The new park would naturally be the scene
of all athletic sports. Paths could be set
apart for the lovers of the bicycle. Great
mass meetings could be held, a parade ground
could be made, and monster shows might be
permitted. The ground should be taken at
once, while still cheap.





The variations in the price of the elevated
stocks are due to the manipulations of Jay
Gould, Cyrus W. Field and Russell Sage.
The intention clearly is to shake the public
out of the holding of the* stocks and then
a grand deal with advancing prices for each
of the jsecurities.    We are^upon record for





the past year as predicting that Manhattan
stock would never be wiped out, but would
be recognized and the leases kept in exist¬
ence. The result has justified tlie forecast.
The terms made at the last meeting of the
high contracting parties were intended to
shake out the long holders of Metropoli¬
tan. The triumvirate, Gould, Sage and
Field, seem to be buying that stock. The
next arrangement will probably be to reduce
the quotations for elevated and so the thim¬
ble rigging game will go on. When the
proper time comes it will be found that the
bulk of the stock of the companies is in the
hands of the three manipulators. Then the
fares will be raised, new economies effected,
and out of town connections made which
will largely benefit the elevated railroad
system. Eventually all the stocks will be
very valuable. But it will leave the citizens
of New York at the mercy of three of the
most unscrupulous speculators that have
ever appeared on any Inoney market.





THE STOCK MARKET.

The believers in higher prices on the Stock
Exchange have not had much encourage¬
ment during the past week. The Treasury
disbursements made money easy, the rail¬
roads are doing a better business than at the
same period last year, business has been ex¬
ceptionally prosperous all over the country,
yet the market was weak, feverish and the
tendency towards lower figures until Friday,
when the offer of the Treasmy Department
to take the called bonds as fast as they were
presented, made quite a spurt in prices.

For this condition of affairs the bears
give very cogent reasons. Exchange is
so high that there can be no more shipments
of gold for the present, and without such
shipments we have never had a bull market.
Then, there is no hope of any further help
from the United States Treasury after the
105th call is exhausted. All the money paid
in from the customs will be needed for the
ordinary disbursements of the Treasury De¬
partment and for the sinking fund. There
will be little or no surplus. Then, affairs do
not look very promising across the Atlantic.
The struggle for gold continues, and bankers
believe the rate of interest in Paris, London
and Berlin must go still higher. This will
lead to the sending back to us of many of
the securities sold at higher figures in Lon¬
don, Paris and Amsterdam.

Then, it is argued, the very large business
of the railroads is due to the cutting of rates,
and that finally the roads will loose as much
as they are now gaining from the artifioial
movements of manufactured products. In
other words, it is believed that the low
rates on the railroads are making business
active now, only to become inactive a few
months later; that the crop deficiences and
the other drains on the railway freight will
show themselves next spring, and that this
condition of affairs is now being discounted.

It is to be seen how this condition of the

stock market will affect real estate.   Very

* large amounts of property are to be offered