Au^st SO, 1884





The Record and Guide.





S89





THE   RECORD  AND   GUIDE.

Published every Saturday.
191   Broadway,   N.   Y.





TEKMS:

ONE ¥EAR, iu advauce, SIX DOLLARS.

Communications should be addressed to

€. W.   SWEET,   191   Broadway.

J. T. LINDSKY, Businesa Manager.

AUGUST 30, 1884.

The frost to the north and east of us early last week chilled the
stock market. It iviade the bull operators apprehensive that the
next visitation might strike the corn-growing region of the West
and Northwest. Should there be frost in any part of the corn belt
within the nest two weeks, the bears would soon get possession of
the market. Luckily tbe corn is some two weeks in advance of its
growth last year, and if there is no serious frost up to the 15th of
September we are tolerably sure of a yield of nearly two billion
bushels of corn which, if secured, will " whoop up" prices on the
Stock Exchange. All the recent reports are very good, but it bas
been a cool summer here East, and an untimely cold wave is among
the possibilities.





The events likely to affect the stock market are, first, the fate of
the corn crop. This will be settled by the second week in Septem¬
ber, and then look out for a decided rise or fall, the former if the
crop is a good one and the latter if it proves a partial failure. The
next thing to affect the market will be the result of the State elec¬
tions preceding the struggle in November. If the Republicans do
well in Maine, Vermont, West Virginia and Ohio, it will be inter¬
preted favorably by the street, as it will end the free trade agita¬
tion for a couple of years. Cleveland, it is conceded, would be a
safe President, but his election would encourage the free traders to
reopen the tariff question, and that. Wall street infers, would be
bad for business.





As the news from China comea through English channels, and as
John Bull just now is anything but friendly to his nearest neigh¬
bor on the continent, we may expect that the doings of France in
the far East will be put in the worst possible light. A repulse will
be called a defeat and a victory a massacre. The American press
should be on its guard in this matter. But, of course, in this
Chinese war France is as clearly in the wrong as was England in the
bombardment of Alexandria and the attack on Araby Bey. It was
plunder in one case and black-mail in the other. The sympathies
of the civilized world ought to be with China. Of course she will be
whipped in the end, but it is to be hoped that she will fight with
enough vigor to make other nationsreluctant to attack her without
cause. China is in far better trim to defend her shores than is the
United States, for she has a modern navy and many Krupp guns,
while we 'are absolutely defenseless, for which Robeson and the
Republicans and Randall and the Democrats are about equally to

blame.

----------•----------

It is exasperating to some Americana at least that all the great
powera should be intent upon extending their commerce while the
United States looks on supinely. We have no ships, no colonies, no
navy nor prospect of either. Yet here is France, Germany and
Great Britain annexing distant territories, founding colonies at the
antipodes, and subsidizing steamship lines to all parts of the
world. We have no foreign policy for we have neither ships nor
navy of our own ; henoe our political discussions are contemptibly
low in tone and temper. The political press of the day is divided
into two camps; one trying to prove Mr. Blaine a rascal and the
other Mr. Cleveland a libertine. Our national issues gives them no
better themes to discuss.





firming power after this year, we believe Mr. Edson would make
excellent appointments and win the good will of the community.
If a new man is needed, why not Cliarles A. Dana or Oswald
Ottendorfer, Still the ideal candidate would bs Theodore Roose¬
velt. To him we are indebted for the reform in the city govern¬
ment, aod he ought to be given a chance to prove that he ia as
good an executive officer aa he has been a legislator.





Joseph J. O'Donohue is said l^to be John Kelly's candidate for
next Mayor of New York. Should the Democrats of all factions
agree on O'Donohue, KeUy, it is said, will support Cleveland. If
the bargain is made all good citizens should unite to elect a better
candidate for Mayor. Mr. O'Donohue is personally honest; indeed
what popularity he possesses ia due to his having acted as treas¬
urer for certain religious bodies, but he is no more fit to be Mayor
thau Maud S. is to be Pope of Rome. Johu, Kelly has missed it
every time in his selection of a Mayor. All of his candiaates have
turned against him, from Wickham to Edson. He appears to have
hit upon O'Donohue because of the latter's conspicuous incapacity
in transacting public business. The present Mayor would fill the
bill far better. He may uot be an ideal chief magistrate, buthe has
had a very hard part to fill, which was to serve the public without
tfliLditg the Aldeimen.   As the latter will be stripped of the oon-





On the West Side.

The one-sided development of Manhattan laland is a standing sub¬
ject of wonder to the comparatively unfortunate people who bought
land on the west side twenty or thirty years ago, some of which
is still available as goat-pasture or market garden, while corre¬
sponding sites on the eaat side are occupied for miles with populous
tenements. There are a great many explanations of the discrep¬
ancy possible, and some of them are frequently offered. The
ultimate explrnation probably is that people capable and desirous
of owning elegant villas are not so numerous as people who are
compelled to live in tenement houses.

The elevated road, which has built ap Yorkville solidly and is rap¬
idly filling up the space atill left between that eminence and Harlem
flats, bas, of course, given a fillip to building on the weet side also.
In proportion to the total building activity the amount of archi¬
tectural interest Js much the same on both aides. You may walk
for many blocka on either side without seeing anything of which
you have not seen many blocks before. When the Riverside Drive
comes fully into fashionable use, it is to be hoped that the archi¬
tectural opportunities, the use of which will make or mar the
avenue for which nature has done so much, may be intrusted to
good hands. If the building consists of detached or semi-detached
villas, as it is to be hoped it may, the chances for skilful and
picturenque design will be very much better thau if we are to have
a repetition of unbroken street fronts.

There ia time enough, however, to think about all that, although
the new quarter cannot be too early committed to a syatemafcicaDd
uniform plau of improvement, and the West Side Association
might properly-take the subject in hand. In the meantime, after
we go beyond the very interesting "Dakotah" apartment house,
a.nd the not less interesting row of houses behind it by the san?e
architect, Mr. Hardenbergh, there ia not much of interest or
promise.

Au apartment house at the corner of Ninth avenue and Ninety-
eighth street is a striking illustration of a conjunction which we
have pointed out in other cases of absolutely commonplace archi¬
tecture with skilful and artistic decoration. Each front is com¬
posed of two ends flanking a slightly recessed ceutre, the centre
having five openings in each story and each end two. The open¬
ings of the basement are round arches of stone, with shafts of pol¬
ished granite in the pavilions. Then come four stories of square-
headed openings, and then a balcony, not yet in place, though the
shapeless iron brackets which are to carry it are visible. Above
this are too more storiesi, emphasized by pilasters at the angles of
the pavilions. These pilasters are furnished with capitals in sheet
metal, very meagre in design and mean in ijffect. So far there is
nothing worthy of the slightest notice iu the building. The deco¬
ration is confined to the basement and the openings of the pavil¬
ions. These latter are closed with enormous flat arches iu terra
cotta, simulating triple keystones, and above each is a pediment of
the same material enclosing a mask. This feature, essentially ugly
aud raeia ningless as it is, is nevertheless carried out correctly enough
in the atyle of Louis Treize.

The really artistic work occurs in the decoration of the spandril
of the basement, and consists of groups of objects arranged with
grace and modelled with great skill and spirit in Italian Renais¬
sance. It is quite impossible that the designer of the architect¬
ure proper could have had anything to do with the design of the
detail, and there ia a queer incongruity in plastering these pretty
bits of modelling upon the expressionless face of this building.
The good modelling is absolutely without relation to the structure
and therefore without architectural significance, and thia fact,
though in itself a fault, is fortunate when the discrepancy is so
wide as it is here.

On Eighty-fifth street, near the Boulevard, is a round and
straightforward piece of brickwork, a chapel to a church which ia
yet to be built. In its isolated state it naturally looks uugainly,
but of course that is not to be imputed to the designer as a 'fault.
What is built is a two-story edifice with an unusually steep roof
and of which only a narrow street front ia " treated." This consists
of a subordinate baaement with three small pointed archea grouped
at its centre, and a principal story with large traceried windows
aligned over the openings below. The wall is of aelected common
brick of a good color, made more effective by contrast with
the more vivid red of the pressed brick and terra cotta which are
used in conjunction with it. The arches are composed of pressed
brick which is also used in occasional belts, while the tracery of
the upper windows is in terra cotta, which  is also used in a diaper