April IO, 1897.





Record and Guide





597







ESTABUSHED-^ MMtpH aV?> 1868.











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'Entered al the Poslr-officeat New York, N'. Y., as seeond-class mailer."





Vol. LIX.





APRIL   10, 1897.





No. 1,517





Over $25,000,000 new buildings have been planned for so far this year.
Have you obtained your share of it? Do you know of the many other large
jobs now being prepared, and of the hundreds of customers in your line wbu
are about to come into market for materials? Tou can obtain this informa¬
tion daily from the F. W. Dodge Co. (Inc.), .310 6th avenue, southeast corner
6th avenue and 20lh street,

TRADE and speculation both continue affected by the dulling
influence of an unsettled tavitt' and a pre,i«dice against
businessorganizatioiistliat are absolutely necessary in operations
of such gigantic proportions as our advanced commercial con¬
ditions require. We pointed out .some weeks ago that the fale
ot the Tariff bill would not be known until it could be definitely
seen how the Senate regarded it. That statement is proved this
week, not that we had the real views of the Senate uponthebill,
but because we see clearly that the party responsible for it can¬
not insure its passage, and there is no telling what concessions
they may have to make to protect it from defeat. Tn reference
to trade combinations, there are indications that an open dis¬
cussion will show their necessity and usefulness aud pave the
way for a wiser and kindlier public feeling toward them, which
will finally influence our law makers to provide a way by which
combinations may be controlled and at the same time preserve
their good features. The fact fhat the appeal in the Joint
Traffic Association's case cannot be heard until next October
has its favorable side, inasmuch as the association can be con¬
tinued op tbe strength of tbe decisiou in the lower courts and
the present arrangement for hearing the appeal from that decis¬
ion gives a year, probably, in which thought upon this whole
matter of trade combinations can mature and a proper remedy
found for the very anomalous situation created by the Supreme
Court decisiou intheTran8-.\lissonri case. Byholdingthe East¬
ern Association together, a strong influence will exist to minim¬
ize cutting on Western rates and the whole railroad system
thereby benefited,

TX THEN the Bank of England rate of discount is reduced,
Jt V notwithstanding the condition of affairs in Crete and
on the Turko-Grecian frontier, that fact may be accepted as a
fairly good indication that there will be no war. The decline in
the price of wheat, which had its initiative in Liverpool, is also
testimony to the same effect. The European markets have
never during this crisis given rauch encouragement to the belief
that war would lesult from the extraordinary attitude assumed
by the King of Greece and the buccaneering expedition now in
Crete by his orders. There were and still are dangers to be
apprehended in the situation, and for this reason there was and
ie a disinclination to trade, but there was uo liquidation, such as
a belief in au unfavorable outcome of the difficulty would inev¬
itably have produced had such existed iu official minds. Euro
pean business interests are probably far more exorcised over
the taritt discussion in Congress than over the trouble in the
East. The threatened revival of high dnties upou .so many
things supplied from abroad not unnaturally creates disturbance
in trade, which is uot compensated by an immediate demand for
goods and materials in advance of legislation, nor do threatened
custom reprisals quite satisfy the manufacturer or producer,
however much they may soothe national pride. It is no real
comfort for a maker of woolen goods to know fhat if his trade
wif" the United States i;'. killed or curtailed by the uew tariff
his friend the farmer will be benefited by a duty on either
live or dead meat; nor can it satisfy the people generally, and the
working people in particular, to k DOW that their food is to be made
dearer because the amount of work oftering is to be lessened to
whatever extent their fellow coimtryiuan, the manufacturer, is
hurt hy the American farifi'. The American trade, however, is
80 important and so great that the disturbance of the tariff, in
creating uncertainty as to the conditions that will have to be
met in the near future, has an appreciably deterrent effect upon





European business in general, and its outcome must be made
known before a new move cau be made. It is for that reason
that the Senate will now be watched with as much interest and
anxiety from across the Atlantic as here at home.





OUR attention has been called to some figui-es prepared by
E.,R. L. Gonid, aud ptiblished iu tbe "Yale Review" of
iVIay, 1896, to show that improved tenements can be built to
pay. These figures were sent to us by a correspondent who
took exception to a recent article in this paper, referring to the
London County Council iodustrial dwellings experiment at
Bethnal Green, iu which it was stated that such experiments
were impossible to private enterprise iu New York City, where
the cost of land, material and labor are greater than in London.
The cost of the Bethnal Green buildiugs was $320 per head of
population housed. We did not say that any enterprise in the
way of improved tenements was impossible in New York City,
uorcoald we consistently say it, in tbe face of what we have
several times pointed out, that some have already been success¬
ful here. It follows infevcniially that others carried out with
the like .judgment may and will be successes. There have been
conspicuous failures in this line as in all other lines^ and in view
of the elemi nt of UDcertainty that prevails in all human affairs,
it is not unreasonable to believe that there are still failures to
come. However, Dr. Gould's reputation and study of the sub¬
ject of the housing of the poor entitles anything he says thereon
to the greatest consideration, and we .submit his table for the
consideration of our readers.   It is :

MAXIMUM   OUTLAY   PEK  ROOM   THAT   AT   A   GIVEN   RENT   WILL
YIELD  A  GIVEN  RATE  PER  CENT.   PER  ANNUM.

(In all cases 30% has been deducted from the gross rental for laxes, re¬
pairs, unoccupied dwellings, etc., to arrive at the net rent upon which the
percentage has been  calculated.)

Gross rent

per room               Maximum Outlay Per  Room That Will Yield  Each Year

per week.            6^%     QVi%       6%       5%%     &'A%     5%%       5%       4%%

25   cents........S140      1^145      $150      $155      $165      $170      $180      $190

31      "   ........175        180        185        195        205        215       225        235

37      "    ........210        215        225       235       245        255       270        285

43      "    ........ 245        255        265        275        285        300       315       335

50      "   ........280        290        300        315       330        345        360       380

4^^%     4W%       4%       S%%     ZW7o     3M,%      3%

2!>     cents..............$200      $215      $225      $240      $260      $280      $300

31         "    ..............250       265        280        300       325        350         375

37         "    ..............300       320       340        360       390        420        450

43         "    .............. 350        370       395       420       455       485        530

'50        "    ..............400       425        455        475       520        560        605

There are other conditions besides expenditures at a given
rate per room necessary to produce a given percentage of in¬
come. Some of these are pointed ont in the article from which
the foregoing table was taken. Good judgment must be exer¬
cised in the selection of location; land must be acquired at a
moderate price. $5 per square foot is stated by Dr. Gould as the
probable outside limit, "and this sum can only be paid where a
good-sized plot is built over. It is essential to get land much
cheaper if possible." Convenience of access and moderation iu
building cost are both necessary to be considered, besides
special aud intimate knowledge of the economic conditions of
the people in fhe section in which it is proposed to build.
Where these aud other important facts are recognized the larg¬
est amount of success in improved housing of the poor ought to
be attained, if success can anywhere be attained.





AMONG the many peculiar measures that are now in the
Legislature that of Senator Featherson to amend the
tenement and lodging house laws (if this city deserves a place.
This bill proposes to prohibit the erection of a building for
tenement or lodging hcmse purposes upon any lot containing
another building, or the use of the rear bnilding as a tenement
or lodging house, and finally requires all rear buildings used as
tenements, lodging houses, stables and workshops to be re¬
moved within sLx mouths of the passage of the bill, failing
which they are to be rcntoved by the Superintendent of the
Department of Buildings. In effect this is a bill to remove
every rear building in the city. The title of the bill .suggests
that it has the countenance of the Department of Health, but
hy direct inquiry of the presidentot that body, we find tbat that
is not the case. The Department of llpalth has all fhe powers
it desires to deal with either rear buildings or lodging houses.
The act of 1895, uuder which so many rear tenements have
been condemned, ha.? been sustained by the courts and is worli-
iiig to the entire satisfaction of the Department. Who, then,
suggested the necessity for the bill under discussion !f The bill
is very clumsily drawn, inasmuch as it first says rear buildiuj-'s
shall uot be used as tenements or lodging house.s and afterward
requires the removal of all rear buildings. The last provision
most effectually disposes of the first and renders them ehtirel,y
unnecessary. Supposing the bill passed, whiit would be the re¬
sult % From twenty-three to twenty-four hundred rear buildings,
many of them substantial aud in good condition, used for other
purposes besides those of tenement houses and lodging houses.