June 39, 1889





Record  and  Guide.





905





^Jy     -         ^           E5TABUSHED-^WAHCH2I'-i* 1868.'^

De/oJeD TO_HeA,L EsrWE, BuiLolf/C AfICHiTECTJI^E .HoUSElfOLD DEGOf^AHOtJ.

- BiisiflEss AfJo Themes op CtfJErtftl- 1;^tei\es^





PRICE, PER YEiR IIV ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.

Published every Saturday.
TELEPHONE,          .   ■*     .          .          jqhn  370.

Commuulcations should be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, T91   Broadway.

K T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.





Vol. XLIII.





JUNE 29, 1889.





No. 1,111





It is safe to say that the market for the past week disagreed
pretty nearly with everybody. Wifcli tlie exception of the Trust
jtocks prices moved only fractionally, so that neither the bulls nor
;he bears had anything to make merry over. Conservative operators
:oiild regard the spasmodic activity of the Trnst stocks only with
aneaeiness, and it is very probable that the raaniimlators themselves
ire far from satisfied with the week's work, for the forced advance
in price which took place in the sugar certificates could not
be retained any more than froth couid be retained ou a glass of
beer with the north wind blowing. The news of the week was nofc
iuiBcieiitly depressing to warrant any considerable selling of stocks,
j-et the bulls cannot be confident of an advance of prices in fa'ie of
heavy gold exports and the rate troubles out West. The market
fias, however, and will probably continue to ]iave as long as crop
arospects remain good, a strong undertone.





It would be curious if out of the little storm in a tea-cup over
ihe Samoan difficulty the use of English as the language of diplo-
nacy should arise. Hitherto French has been the language for
nternatioaal bickering, lying and polite incivilities ; bufc in fche
recent negotiations in Berlin it was agreed for the first time in
bistory, by a vote of 6 to 9, that English should be used instead of
French. This must have been an immense comfort to our diplo¬
mats. The treaty, too, was written in English, Perhaps it is due
to this fact that so much was acceded to us in the conference. A
man can  be so mnch more pugnacious and insistent in his owu

language.

---------•---------

The remarkable difference between the amount of the awards
made by the commissioners appointed by the Supreme Court aud
the estimates made by the Boai-d of Education iu the matter of the
aew school sites shows tlie wonderful elasticity which the word
' value " has when applied to real estate. The law regulating the
lending of money on real estate by savings banks decrees that the
imount loaned on a piece of property shall not exceed 50 per cent,
af its •' value." But what is meant by '■ vaLie?" To set up a 50 per
:ent, barrier to directorial recklessness without defining " value " is
tike trying to inclose an open space with merely a closed door.





Economists make a distinction between value in use aud value in
exchange. Of course it is only the latter which the law has in
mind. Worcester defines the word '■ the estimated or rated worth
or price—cost." But all of these terms are very elastic when applied
to real estate. For instance, the property on the northeast corner
of Washington and Cortlandt streefcs, of which we spoke last week,
and upon which the Poughkeepsie Savings Bauk loaned §183,500,
was "estimated" by some of the prominent real esfcate agents of
the city to be worth over $360,000. It was '' rated " by the city to
be worth $45,000 before the alterations were made to the buildiug
the expenditure for which the architect estimates was $95,000,
while the "cost" of the property to its owner was probably not
more fchan §175,000. Upon which of these would the law have the
"value" based.





It may be said that the " value" of any piece of property is what
it would sell for. Putting aside the difficulty of determining tliis,
the question remaius: Does the selling price represent the value?
For instance, what was the value of the fifty-six lots—the entire
block between 63d and 64fcli streets, 10th and llth avenues, with the
exception of the IOth avenue front—which were sold in April of
this year for $300,000, and were resold a few days ago for i(;500,000.
Accepting one set of figures a savings bank could lend only
$150,000^ while accepting the other it might lend $250,000. No. 53
SuSolk street, near Grand street, was sold on June Gth for i§13,000,
again on the same day for $18,250, and on June 10th, four days
later, for $30,000. What is 50 per cent, of the value of tliat piece of
property? Again, taking property of the most staple kind: In
February, last year. No. 42 Broad street and No. 38 New street
were sold at auction for $108,500. Title did nofc pass to the buyer
)iutjl March, 1889, when 3, mortgage was placed on it for $85,000 at





5 per cent. Yet a few days ago ex-Mayor Wm. H. Wickham con¬
tracted to buy the same property for §135,000. And for another
illustration there is the case of Pythagoras Hall at Nos. 134 and 136
Canal streefc, which was sold last week, on the SOth, for $57,450. In
December, 1886, the New York Protective Association paid $70,000
for the property. In May last it was sold under foreclosure and
fetched $50,000, but the referee thinking the buyer, who had left
the Exchange to g<Jt a check for the 10 per cent, purchase, did not
intend to complete purchase ordered then and there a resale when
the property brought only $40,500. Basing "value" upon what a
piece of property would sell for, whafc is the "value" of Pythagoras
Hall, $70,000, $50,000, §40,500, or $57,450?





So far nineteen sites have been selected in thecity for new school
houses. According to the awards of the several commissions
they wiil cost over a million dollars. The Record and
Guide showed last week fchat fchis sum was considerably too
high, and the entire press of the city has .I'oined in denouncing the
awards of the commissioners, and now it is reported that the Board
of Education has instructed the Corporation Counsel to oppose the
confirmatioi] of some of these awards by the Supreme Courfc. Bufc,
aparfc from the too high price, there is another facfc that might be
urged as an objection to these sites—the greater number are not in
localities where new schools are most needed. Of the 15,000
children which, it is said, are going witlioufe education, because the
city has uot sufiicient school accommodation for them, the greater
part live north of 59tli street, in the newly built-up wards. One
would naturally expect to find most of the new school sites in this
district. The contrary, however, is the case. Of the nineteen
sites selected thirteen are situated soutii of .^9th street, and of these
eight are soufch of 14fch sfcreet. Yet population is shifting up town,
as the election returns show and new building indicates.





In an article elsewhere the delay in opening streets in the 23d
and 24th Wards is discussed. From this it appears that it takes
from two to six years to open a street properly for public use,
owing to the red-tape system which now prevails. In the matter
of opening TVemont.avenue the commissioners were appointed in the
fall of 1884 and that thoroughfare will hardly be open for public use
until the fall of lfc91. The remedy suggested by a prominent lawyer
who has had considerable experieuce on commissions for opening
streets is that streefcs should be regulated, graded, curbed, guttered
aiad otherwise improved iu the very first instance, and the dam¬
ages and area of assessment settled upon afterwards. At present
the tedious and lengthy process usual in these cases is undertaken
beforehand, a proceeding which is something like "putting the
cart before fche horse." We -recommend the change to the JIayor,
who has taken some interest in this matter recently, and wouldj
suggest his consulting with the Corporation Counsel as fco meas¬
ures  to change the law ou the subject duriug the next session of

the Legislature.

---------•---------

Another case of delay caused by the circumlocution of red-tap-
ism is furnished by the iron viaduct on 155th street, from St. Nich¬
olas place to Macomb's Dam Bridge. This matter was first brought
before the Board of Estimate and Apportionment in October, 1887.
Plans were made for a structure, costing, as estimated, §750,000,
and submitted to the board for approval, bufc up to this day no final
decision has been reached. For over eighteen montiis this matter
has been under discussion. Boards and commissioners have met,
and "resolved" and " laid over," called for "further information,"
"instructed," "rejected" and "authorized," yet this necessary
improvement is as far off as ever. In answer to an inquiry by
ex-Commissioner D. Lowber Smith, the counsel of the corporation
said that, legally speaking, the matter is "still under considera¬
tion," and the only power he had was to call the attention of the
board to the plans they had before them for eighteen months. As
announced in The Record and Guide lasfc week, property-holders
uiwn Washington Heights called upon the Board of Estimate and
Apportionment, and then the board finally decided to reject the old
plans, and ordered the new Commissioner of Public Works to have,
others prepared for a viaduct to cost between$300,000 and $400,000.
And thus fche matter is started de novo.





There is not any doubt in the minds of people competent to judge
that asiihalt properly laid forms a lasting and economical pavement,
possessing advantages on tbe score of cleanliness and quietness not
possessed by any other pavement yefc devised. In the repavement
of a large part of New York, soon to be commenced, it is acknowl¬
edged by the officials in charge of the matter thafc asphalt should be
used much more extensively than hitherto, but doubt is expressed
as to the wisdom of putting it in any secfcion where the traffic is
heavy. On second thoughts this must seem a queer notion even to
those who hold it. Tbe chief value of asphalt as a pavement is that
it is noiseless and clean. Wherever it is adopted it is because of
these qualities, and obviously those qualities are most needed, are
of most value, where traffic is heaviest,   An asphalt pavement in