Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE,





Vol. XXIX.





NEW TOEK, SATUEDAY, MAT 20, 1882





No. 740





Published Weekly by The

Real Estate Record Association

TERMS:
ONE ¥EAR, ia advance.....$6.00

Communications should be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY. Business Manager.





Now that bricks are lower and the price
of other building material seems in a fair
way to decline, there is some renewed ac¬
tivity in building. O. B. Potter has, it
is said, decided to go on with his great
structure on the site of the old World
building. He had, it seems, made up his
mind to postpone the building till such time
as labor and material would be down to
lower figures. We hear of several instances
where builders have decided to go ahead, as
they feel confident that the present prices of
labor and material cannot be maintained.
The stoppage of work on account of the
high price of material all over the country
was very serious. Building in Cincinnati
was paralyzed by the demands of the labor¬
ers. Should we have good crops and cheap
food work wUl be resumed along the whole
line, for then the laboring classes wiU not
have the present excuse for demanding such
high wages.





The stock market has been very stupid
during the past week. Business has come
to a standstill, and the tape records more
quotations than transactions. The strength
of the market is surprising in view of the
rather blue outlook. The season is very late
and the crops are backward. The weather
in not unfavorable for winter wheat, but it
will limit the area of corn to be planted.
General business is undeniably dull. The
exchanges in sixteen of the largest cities
show a heavy falling off compared with last
year. Gold is leaving this port in alarming
quantities, the price of wheat and corn keeps
up the high figures. Laborers everywhere
are clamoring for higher wages, but the out¬
look for them is anything but reassuring, as
there are no new enterprises, and manufact¬
urers everywhere are curtailing the number
of their hands. But the average American
investor is always hopeful. He will believe
the crops will turn out all right untill the
contrary fact is established beyond the possi
bility of a doubt; and so prices are flrmly
held. May not this unnatural quiet be a
weather breeder? It is very certain that if
we are to have good crops a lower range of
figures will be established in order to make
a profitable buying market; while if the
crops fail partially, there will be a tempo¬
rary bull market, so that the operators can
put out short lines of stock. It is a good
market to leave severely alone.





Surely Mr. Gladstone's amendments to the
land laws are not likely to establish order in
Ireland. The Government proposes to re¬
mit aU arrears of taxes up to the last three
years.   There are, it seems, about $30,000,000





due the landlords. The tenants are to pay
$10,000,000, the Government furnishes an¬
other $10,000,000, while the landlords are to
remit one-third of their claims. But suppose
this bill is passed, what guarantee have the
landlords for their rents hereafter? Will
not the tenants be emboldened to again be¬
come delinquent upon their rents and ready
to enter upon a new agitation to get a further
remission ? This settlement is full of the
seeds of future trouble. The true solution
of the difficulty was that first suggested by
Bright and Cobden. Let the Government
purchase the land from tbe farmers and re¬
sell to the actual occupants of the soil, who
could be given fifty or sixty years to repay
the debt. By giving Irishmen an ownership
in the soil, the same results would follow as
those witnessed in France after the distribu¬
tion of the lands of the nobles and the church.
The land question is of course a vital one in
Ireland, for the island can never be a manu¬
facturing community in the absence of coal

and iron.

•----------------------< •'►---------------------'

SCAMP  BUILDERS.
Not only the public but builders them¬
selves, are benefited by some regulation in
the matter of new buildings.   If there were
not   some legal requirements,   the scamp
builders would do the largest business for
they would resort to all manner of tricks to
put up cheap and worthlesa structures.   Our
readers will doubtless recall the case of the
houses   purchased   by   Mr.  Steinway some
years ago on Fif ty-second street and Park
avenue.   There were seven in  all,  brown
stone front buildings, ana to all appearances
1,'ood houses of their class.   But it was soon
found that the builder or builders were de¬
liberate rascals.  The roof was a swindle, the
plumbing was insufficient, and in the whole
seven buildings there was only one connec¬
tion with the sewer.   As soon as the houses
were tenanted, the contents of the closets,
having no outlet, overflowed into the base¬
ments  and cellars.   The Board of Health
took the matter up and Mr. Stein-way was
called as a witness, when the curious fact
appeared that he  did not know the   real
builder  who  had   constructed   the   seven
houses.    The Board of   Health seemed to
think that Mr. C. A. Buddensick had some¬
thing  to   do with the construction of the
houses, but Mr.  Steinway declared in court
that he never heard of that gentleman in
connection  with  the construction   of  the
houses.   But here was clearly a villainous
piece  of   work.     The scoundrelly   builder
ought to have been sent to State prison for
life, for he swindled his employer, put re¬
spectable families to great inconvenience,
and imperilled the health of the whole neigh¬
borhood.   It  took,   it  is understood, some
$30,000 to establish the required connections
w^ith sewers and reconstruct the plumbing
work and roofs.   Mr. Buddensick, who, it
seems, was suspected, as he says  without
reason, of being the builder or one of the
builders of the Fifty-second street houses,
has recently constructed stores with apart¬





ments above on the corner of Thirteenth and
Fourteenth streets and Third avenue. He is
also said to own these houses. They have
one peculiarity, the entrance ways and halls
on the ground floor are singularly narrow.

The Fifty-second streefc houses are not the
only ones built by scaxnping house con¬
structors. A French lady recently bought a
front on an uptown street aud found she
had to spend a great deal of money to per¬
fect the plumbing and drainage. She was
deliberately cheated by one of these swind¬
ling builders. It is understood that this same
dishonest person is to build over one hun¬
dred houses in New York this summer.
The Building Department and the Board of
Health will doubtless see that he complies
with the law, but if he gets a chance he
doubtless will put in scamp work and rob
the purchasers of the buildingg he erects.
It is people such as these who bring discredit
upon good work and will discourage build¬
ers who expect to get a fair price for a well
built house. Every interest should conspire
to discourage the scamp builder and hence
laws that will be reasonably stringent and
faithfully enforced will not be objected to
by the honest builders of New York.





FINE PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
Some fault has been found with Congress
because of the liberal appropriation for fine
buildings in varioiis parts of the country.
If however there is a surplus of mouey it
could not be much better employed than in
constructing handsome edifices.    Our post
offices, custom houses and court buildings
should be structures   worthy   of  what   is
destined to be the most powerful nation on
the face of the globe.   In eighteen years the
United States will have as large a popula¬
tion as Germany and France combined, ancl
there will be no richer nation potentially on
the globe.    The federal government doeg
not come in immediate contact with the
people except through custom houses ar.d
post offices, and it is desirable that our vot¬
ing population should be duly impressed by
the wealth and importance of the country
to which they belong.   There is no justifica¬
tion for any waste or extravagance, but it is
manifestly unwise for federal buildings in
any of the States to be cheap   or  mean
structures.     New York  ought  to have  a
superb   custom house,   the finest  in   the
world ; a great emigrant depot should also
be established in this city under the direct
auspices of the federal government, for im¬
migration  is  not  a  local but a national
matter.   Let Americans wherever they go
see in every large city evidences of  the
might of the country to which they belong.
In Athens, in its   glory, architects, sculp¬
tors and artists were not permitted to work
for private persons.   The State monopolized
their services and the Government of the
United States should be the especial patron
of  architects  and  builders   of  the better

class.

------------a-----------.

The Grand Jury are overhauling the HaU
, of Eecords.    They find that the building is





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