April 15, 1888





Record  and  Guide.





C67









ESTABLlSHED^MARpHgl"
I^Si^ TO RfA)- EsTAn:, BuiLDIf/o A^cKlTECTJR^ .KcWSEVtolJ) DEOQS^IHi

Biteiifts J Alto Themes Of CErteR^ S^tc^s;
PRICE, PER ¥GAR IN ADTAIVOR, SIX DOLLARS.

published every Saturday,
TBLBPHONUI        ...        -        COBTLAHDT 1S70.
Oommimicatloiie should be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 14 & 16 Vesey St.

J. 1. LINDSEY, Bitainesa Manager,

"Entered at thv Post-office at liew Vork, N. T., aa second-class maf ter,"





Vol. li.





APRIL i5,  1893,





No. l,20l»





OUT ON MONDAY.

Ihe '^Architectural Record'''' for the current quarter will be out on
Monday and can be obtained on all '■'L" stands, of all newsdealers and
at the office of publication, Nos. 14 and 16 Vesey street. Tliis number is
an especially interesting and handsome one. It contains one hundred
high class 'illustrations of furniture, stained glass architectural details,
office buildings city and suburban residences. Professor W-m B Good-
'Siear i/^rites an article showing the derivation and evolution of conven¬
tional patterns The influence of the Eariy Renaissance on Sculpture
in the work of to-day is traced by Banister Fletcher, A. R I. B. A.
Caryl Coleman writes of modern stained glass, 2he Fagin Buildi-ng,
in St. Louis, is treated as an Architectural Aberration, George Hill
contributes a valuable article of the utinost interest to Architects,
Bitilders and owners, which sets forth some of the practical limiting con¬
ditions in the design of the modern offlce buildtng. tables of great value
accompany this article. There are other papers in this nu-mber on
Byzantine Architecture, etc.   Price S5 cents. ■

THE events of the week have shown that however adroitly and
with whatever strength pricesare forced up by manipulation,
in such a condition of affairs as we now have, they must fall of
their own weight, whenever the outlook appears in the slightest
degree unpropitious.. The public, which bas steadfaatly held aloof,
is not likely to come into the market, now that they see what an
ever-recurring trouble our currency is likely to be until it is radi¬
cally reformed. With this fact eo prominent and the public
thereby made still shy of the market, it is highly probable that
more liquidation and consequently lower figures will be necessary
before it will be possible lo make another advance of important
dimensions, and even of the professional character of the one
seen in the past few weeks. The cool proposal of Dresel,
Morgan & Co., to tbe holders of Richmond Terminal securities,
is not going to help matters. This demand that securities shall
be deposited under such onerous conditions wiihout an authorita¬
tive limit of what the plan of reorganization ig to be looks very
much as if the plan tliFt is to be i)ropo£ed hereafter is not oue
that the Richmond Terminal secuiity-holders would approve if they
had an opportunity to examine it, and they must, therefore, be
coralled inlo a corner where they cannot object when it is opened
out to their indignant gaze. If the plan is an equiiahle one why uot
state itV If it is not the Richmond Terminal security-holders do not
want it. This demand is so estraordinary that it even raises the
suspicion that its makers are not sincere, but are anticipating
refusal in order to escape a venture for which they cannot espect
success. Some holders of Richmond Terminal common are evi¬
dently taking the view that thereis more money in selling their
stock now than in waiting for threatened assessments, whose
amount they have no way of knowing,'and they arejright.





tion of our diflBcultlea would have been arrived at. Mayor Gilroy's
determined opposition to municipal action of any kind left the city
n,t the mercy of tbe Manhattan Co., and it is a matter for con¬
gratulation that under such conditions every public interest haa not
been sacrificed.





IT would be churliEh not to thank the Rapid Transit Commis-
sioners for the result such as it is. They have undoubtedly
tempered the wind to the shorn lamb. The patchwork esteuHions
of the preaent elevated system which they have permitted infringe
upon few of the public decencies or proprieties that remain in New
Yotk city. The giving up of a part of the Boulevard, and a part too
that promised to become one of the chiefest ornaments of the
metropolis, is the only piece of vandalism involved in the new
plan. West street and South street have long beeu past
spoiline; even by auch a hideous structure as the
elevated road. The Barrow street spur and the Greenwich
avenue spur will do little harm aesthetically in the localities
they pass through. Commercially they will probably benefit the
district and hasten its conversion to business uses, IO81I1 street
and the Boulevard north of that street to the point where the new
line branches off eastward to Arasterdam avenue, of course, are
doomed to stores and thecheaper class of flats. Washington Heights,
on the other hand, will be benefited enormously. Its development
from this day on will be rapid. This splendid section of the city
has needed nothing but adequate communication with the lower
part of the island to attract the investor, the builder and the home-
seeker,

-----------■-----------

A TELEGRAM received yesterday from Albany announces that
the Cantor Re-indesing bill has been passed in the Assembly,
but as it was amended in the lower house it will have to go back
to the Senate. There is scarcely any doubt that it will be passed
by that body. Real estate men must take astonishingly little in¬
terest in legislation which vitally affects their interests when they
can allow a bill like this one to proceed through both houses, with¬
out a single word of protest. Indifference to this degree surely
invites offensive lawmaking. The Cantor bill as originally drawn
and passed by the Senate was a nonsensical hodge-podge of enact¬
ments, which competent jud.tes declare would have adversely
affected every transfer of real estate in New York City. The ridicu¬
lous character of the measure apparently was pointed out to the
Assembly aud it was quickly rewritten by the direction of Comp¬
troller Myers and waa passed yesterday in this amended form, sub¬
stantially a new measure. Re-indexing, as it ought to be, will not
be accomplished under the provisions of the Cantor bill.





THE settlement of the rapid transit muddle announced thia
week is probably the best the city was warranted in expecting
under the circumstances. It hasbeen perfectly clear for many
months past that the Manhattan Company is the onlyjsouice to
which the metropolis could turn for the greater transportation facili¬
ties it needs so badly. From the first that company has com¬
manded the situation from every effective point. It certainly had
strong friends on the Commission; equally certainly it dominated
legislative action at Albanj,and what is perhaps the same thing,
"only more so," it controlled ofiicial action in this ciiy. Through thb
latter it secured itself at the very point where attack would have
■^ "been most effective. Had it been i>ossibte to induce the cily officials
to even consider seriously the advisabiUt> of the municipality's
constructing or lending its aid to the construction of a new transit
system the outcome of tbe long search for better transportation
facilities, would certainly be very different from wliaj; it is. The
Miunicipality waa tha only podaible competitor of tbe Manhattan
Sqj   With ii in the fis]4 denietbing mueb nearer Wi tbe ideai whr'





THE steady moral and intellectual deterioration of the New
York press is the most deplorable of all the sad social phe-
nomen which have marked the past decade. Unfortunately, it
must be taken as indicative of a lowering of the general tone of
society, for newspaper-making is a sort of cookery which depends
upon the taste of those it serves. It was the World—that is, the
World as vulgarized hy "Judas"—that first brought tlie '■ flesh and
the Devil" prominently into metropolitan journalism. We are
forced to admit that the clear'perception of ils new proprietor,
as to tbe intellectual tastes of New Yorkers, was akin to
the divination of genius. Commercially, his policy was a master
stroke, for thereis probably no more difficult task in mercantile
mechanics than the building of a newspaper, "Judas'" discovered
what, properly worked, is always more profitable than the pro¬
verbial gold mine, a real "long felt want." Hefore he arrived,
though New York newspapers might tread occasionally in the gutter,
they did not walk in it exclusively. But there is money in dirt;
and who will deny that, commercially, it is to "Judas'" credit that
he recognized the fact.





FROM the first the World has purveyed dirt with enormous suc-
cefas. In any other city of the world a sheet of similar
character would be read only in the kiichen (regarding the paper
intellectually) and in disreputable places. We are assured by
affidavits that 300,000 people at least are able to read thething
daily. How one has to pity the many affiants as to the circula¬
tion of such a paper, for we cannot believe that anv individuals
can swear without regret concerning their knowledge of so much
human degradation. But the World has done more evil indirectly by
example than directly by practice. The notorious success of its
policy became a tainb which has affected more or less every daily
paper in the city, with the exception of ihe Evening Post. The
last to succumb to it is the Times. For the past few
years tbat journal has been dull but respectable, wooden to the
core. With Mr. Jones'death it passed into a moribund condition
from which reorganization has awakened it recently. The new
life, however, has heen obtained by engrafting something of the
World's policy onto the old trunk. In thia the J'imes has but foi-'
liiwed the exatuplea of Its contenlporarifea Wbd, when they hava





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