August 28.1891





Record  and  Guide.





236







DP^Ttfi TO Rpi^L Estwe . BuiLdij/g /^crfiTECTOi^E .Household Decoi^tioiI.

BUSKJESS Alto THEMES' Of Ge^EIVI l^TEHESl

PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.

Published every Saturday.
Tklephone       -      -      -      -      Cortlandt 1370.
Communications should be addressed to

C. W. SWEET,  14 &  i6 Vesey St.

J. 1. LINDSEY, Business Manager.





Vol. XLVIII





AUGUST  23,  1891.





No. 1,233





The publication offices of The Record and Guide have been
removed to Nos. 14 and 16 Vesey street, over The Mechanics' and
Traders' Exchange, a few Jeet west of Broadway.

IN spite of some very active work on the part of the reaczionista
it will hardly be thought|posgib1e tbat there is now, in the face
of the realization of hopes for the crops an uncompromising
bear In existence. Tbe stock market has yielded but little and
some stocks which were not particiil«rly active on the advance
have made gains in the interval of wailing. It is rest rather tban
reaction. If the volume of buying is not quite equal to that of the
selling, it is so great as to be very promising for the next move.
Under the bright prospect of a good foreign market for cereals, the
return of gold this way and consequently plenty of money in the
hands of the people with the consequent enormous expansion of
business, whatever doubts clouded the mind only a few
weeks ago are being rapidly dispelled. It is becoming even
a dangerous matter to hint that free silver legislation
by the ensuing Congress may undo what the agricultural and
industrial prosperity may have done. President Harrison recently
and Secretary Forster previously have given such emphatic expres¬
sion to the opposition of the administration to unlimited coinage of
the white metal that all who share their views, on this point at
least (and they are the best elements of most business circles), begin
to hope that Congress will not be a disturbing iofluenoe only to
find itself checkmated by the President. To come back from
general to particular influences on the market, Union Pacific with
its load of floating obligations has been responsible for most of the
deterring influence, and this it will continue to be probably until
those obligations are safely provided for. All things considered,
the stock has acted well for vhe past few days, indicating a near
end of its troubles with its creditors. Northern I'acifio securities,
which have not advanced like some others, have shown indications
of moving up oii the first favorable opportunity. A reaction of two
or three points would be a very healthy thing, as it wonld at once
decide intending buyers who are uow hesitating. It is not an
altogether unknown thing, oue should remember, however, for
the market to make a much larger advance than seen in this latest
movement without reacting at all, and the strength of the week
suggests that this is one of those occasions.





IT is interesting to note that the Manchester Ship Canal Com¬
pany, vvhich has been spending millions of pounds in the
task, certain to be ultimately successful, of making Manchester a
seaport, is now in financial straits. Either the credit of the
corporation has fallen so low, or the English market is at present
so inhospitable to speculative undertakings, that the company has
been unable to raise fresh capital for the prosecution and com¬
pletion of the work. Consequently the Manchester corporation
has stepped into the breach and tided the company over its
difficulties. Municipal stock to the amount of £1,500,000 has been
issued, and the corporation has sanctioned tbe payment to the
Canal Company for five weeks of money sufficient to meet
running expenses not exceeding £40,000 a week. This, how¬
ever, would not exhaust one-seventh of the total issue of
stock, and the opinion is prevalent that still more assistance will
have to be rendered. The company will shortly issue a report
showing exactly where it stands; and upon such a report will be
based any future action. It is significant, however, of the present
difficulty of obtaining funds in London that an enterprise already
so far advanced and so certain of ultimate success should be reduced
to such straits. The probabilities aro that the city corporation
itself will have to undertake the completion of the n ork. All the
European markets are, however, in a decidedly apprehensive and
sensitive condition. The prices of the securities principally dealt
in on the Paris aud Berlin Bourses have undergone an enormous





shrinkage, from which there is no prospect of immediate recovery.
There is very certain to be a severe drain of gold to this country;
and manufacturers have to face an increased price of labor, owing
to an increased cost of food. In Germany the depression in trade
is creating a great deal of complaint. Two such important indus¬
tries as the iron and steel and the textile trades are described as
" languishing." It is becoming evident that however good crop
may restore to this country most of the commercial activity ot the
years of 1889 and 1890, that Europe will stiffer from a protracted
and severe season of dullness and depreciation.





THE Rapid Transit Commissioners have given out a description
of the West Side route above 131st street. As every one
familiar with that part of the city knows, the ground is very
irregular all the way to the Yonkers line, and any road on which
the grades are not to be steep must alternately run well below and
well above ground. Consequently a succession of tunnels and viar
ducts will have to be built, the latter of which will be very expen¬
sive to construct. A detailed description of this will be found in
another column. Here it is sufficient to say that the first of these
viaducts will be 3,500 feet long, and at highest ;>oint 64 feet
abovfe the surface. This, however, does not compare with
the viaduct that begins at Fort George and continues to
313th street, a distance of 4,300 feet. At the crossing
of Sherman's Creek it will be 110 feet above high
water mark. The rest are small compared with this difficult piece
of construction ; but some of them run through private property,
which will, of course, have to be condemned. At the present, as
we scarcely need say, there is no traffic along the line of the route
sufficient to pay for the large cost of such a road. For some years
any corporation operatmg the route will rtm trains north, say of
the line of Washington Bridge, at a heavy loss; and it will be
necessary to do this in order to build up the district. The bidders
for the franchise will fully understand the full bearing of this fact,
and it is likely to make them touch that part of the route most
gingerly—at all events until they can see more clearly what their
trafflti returns will be on the southern portion of the route. If they
are forced to bid on the franchise all at once, the portion of earn¬
ings, if any, which they would be willing to make over to the city
will be largely diminished by the knowledge that several miles of
expensive road will have to be operated for future rather than for
present returns. Now that the financial situation is clearing up,
however, and it looks as if the year 1893 was going to be most
prosperous, the prospects of selling the franchise advantageously
are far better than they were.





WHILE thoroughly sympathizing with residents roundabout
the Boulevard and 133d street, who are trying to prevent
the Standard Gas-light Company from erecting a gas tank in their
vicinity, we very much fear that their efforts will be ineffectual.
President Wilson of the Health Board doubts whether the Health
Board has power to interfere; and his doubt is justified by common
sense. It would be very difficult to show that a gas tank is
unhealthy. It is not, of com'se, a pleasant object to have next door,
aiid it will undoubtedly injure the value of real estate in the neigh¬
borhood; but we cannot understand in what way any injmy which
it may inflict will come within the jurisdiction of the Health
Board. It is a case where the prop;rty-owners ought to have pro¬
tected themselves. Experience has repeatedly shown that
the ,only safe method of preserving a neighborhood from the
nuisances of undesirable improvements is by an adequate restric¬
tion of the property against them. Otherwise it is dangerous for
anyone to build a good row of houses or to cry to create a neighbor¬
hood of a uniformly pleasing and unobjectionable character. The
buyers of the houses are always subject to be blackmailed by some
rascal who files plans for a stable in order to be enabled to sell his
lot at an extortionate figure ; and this project of the Standard
Gas-light Company is but an exaggerated instance of what may
happen to any locality not thus properly protected. The most
desirable parts of the West Side have all been built up under
restrictions that excluded not only nuisances in the ordinary sense,
but any building that would tend to lower a certain high standard
of improvement. We have frequently pointed out that the
property-owners of Washington Heights must needs follow this
example. That part of the city is next in line of improvement,
and it possesses every natural advantage fitting it to become a
delightful residential section. In certain parts of the Heights
these restrictions have been made ; but if the section is to have
even such a small measure of uniformity as has been accorded to
the West Side, the restricted area must be largely increased.





A NOVEL suggestion is made by the THvies for incorporation
into the next bill amending the building laws—a suggestion
which we very much fear was dictated rather by the natural
refinement of the writer than by any very careful consideration of
what should or should not be included within the ample limits of
such a statute.   The opening by the Association for Improving the