May 31, 1902.





RECORD AND   GUIDE.





995







,y                  -            ESTABUSHED-^ SWCHsm^lSBa.

Dr/oTEDitjREA.LEstate.Suii.oit.'g *gKJ<rTECTUHEi{ouaEiJoii)DE(3anfrail,
BusiTiEss Afio Themes of GErJEf?^ IKiwfst.

SRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX   DOLLARS

Vuhtisbed eVerg Saturday

Communication9 ahould be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, New YorK





>, 7, UNDSEY, Buainess Manager





Telephone, Cortlandt SI87





Entered al the Post Off,re at New York, N. Y.. aa second-class matter.''





Vol. LXIX.





JUNE 1, 1902.





No. 1785





AS the year goes on the commercial demand for money
lessens. This makes more ample the funds available
for eiiiployment in the speculative markets, which show con¬
siderable strength considering the circumstances. This strength
ia particularly noticeable in the coalers, which, according to
ordinary reasoning, ought to be very much depressed as a re¬
sult of the strike. Why they are not is because there is a be¬
lief prevalent that arrangements are maturing for closer rela¬
tions among the anthracite roads, and that part of the advance
in the price of anthracite coal will be retained when the strike
is over, which will improve dividend prospects, especially in the
case of Reading. It is also asserted that the Atlantic shipping
combination has for one of its objects the pushing of American
coal in Europen and other markets and will thereby create the
demand which has always been needed to allow Reading to
more fully exploit its large holdings of coal lands. A good deal
of tbe general buying of the week has been based on the belief
that peace in South Africa will be announced in a few days,
and with it will come a new demand for all kinds of investment
securities both here and abroad. It is easy to see why the an¬
nouncement should be made, but not so easy to see why it should
be followed by a boom in the security markets, seeing tbat the
significance of the South African negotiations was in the fact
that they were begun on Boer initiative, first through Dr. Kuy-
per, and later directly from the leaders in the field. This fact
gave a guarantee of a favorable result; or if not that, then
that hostilities could only be resumed in opposition to the judg¬
ment of the military leaders, and could not, therefore, be for¬
midable or last long. This feature of the negotiations has not
been overlooked, and in fact, accounts for whatever improve¬
ment has been seen in the financial outlook across the seas,
and reflected in the advance and strength of British Consols,
whose upward movement is not ended yet.





ON another page of this isue we publish a second letter from
Alderman Ware on the subject of window and other build¬
ing extensions, which contains an extract from an opinion of
the Corporation Counsel as to the Board of Aldermen's powers
in regard to these projections.   It appears that according to the
opinion of the legal adviser of the city, the Board of Alder¬
men have no power to allow  windows,  cornices, balconies or
other structural projections beyond the street line .except under
general ordinance drafted therefor, and in the drafting thereof
must fix a deflnite license fee for each.   That is a view that
may naturally be expected to be expressed by the Corporation
Counsel in response  to a  direct guestion  as to  whether  such
and such a projection is an authorized obstruction or structure
In the street, just as an affirmative answer might be expected
if he were asked by the Mayor whether saloons should be closed
on  Sunday.    It remains  with  tbe  Board  of Aldermen ,to  say
what the language of the ordinance shall be and what the fees
required, and then the citizen wiil have the right to ask judi¬
cial interpretation of the law.    We need not point out that most
of the projections from buildings gratify artistic taste, rather
tban supply practical requirements, and that if theyiare taxed
severely they will disappear and the architectural appearance
of our streets wil! suffer.    Moreover, it would, be a preposter¬
ous thing to attempt to force from owners compensation for the
comparatively small amount of aerial space that they occupy,
which space cannot be of the slightest use to the city, if for
no other reason than because it is pre-empted to the owner's
light and air easement. We have no desire to question the sound¬
ness of the Corporation Counsel's opinioi, but we do not think
it was the legislative intent to give sucb sweeping effect to the
provisions of the charter on which the opinion was based.    In
the event of the regulations being severe and.the fees, more than -.
nominal, the property owners and trade organizations--ftrill .have'





good ground for going to the Legislature to ask for amendments
to the law. A serious objection to such movements as that
with which Alderman Ware is now identifying himself is. that
they put double charges on property. Custom having allowed
the projection of bay and show windows, cornices and balconies,
for instance, the value of the privilege, where it has any, comes
to be Included in the value of the property and, of course, also
in the assessed value for taxation. Later the city puts a charge
on top of that without making any allowance for it in the as¬
sessed values. Another is that it is poor wisdom to add to
the expenses of development, and what is now proposed is a
considerable expense, and would fall heaviest in the outlying
sections where development needs most encouragement





Study of a City Plan.

"p HE City Parks Association of Philadelphia has just per-
■*■ formed an unusual and valuable public service. It haa
compiled and published a special report of the city plan, and
by copious illustrations from photographs and drawings it has
made its argument very concrete and intelligible, so that no
Philadelpbian to whom the report goes can fail to see the
pertinence of the discussion, or fail to grasp the need of it and
the desirability of the changes, both in fact and theory, that
are therein advocated. The result, though it should never pass
from knowledge to action, will be a forward step in popular
education on a subject too little imderstood and that is still
of prime importance. In the narrower and commercial sense
there is no matter of deeper concern to the owners of real
estate than the adoption of the city plan and the character
of its suburban extension or modification; in a larger and pub¬
lic spirited sense, nothing is so fundamental to the improve¬
ment of cities as this science—if it may be so called—of urban
geography. It is a good, notable thing that in at least one lead¬
ing community an association made up of people of civic spirit
has undertaken the study of this subject, the disinterested set¬
ting forth of the principles that ought properly to guide it, and
the local application of these principles.

As to the pertinence of the discussion, there is a very com¬
mon impression, even among well informed citizens, that the
eity plan cannot be changed, or that if it can, only an enor¬
mous amount of energy will serve to do so. On this point the
report says that the notion, or doubt, "is a smoke without the
smallest spark. Any street on the plan may be changed by
precisely the same method as it was first adopted—by an ordin¬
ance of Councils. And not only may the plan be changed, but
it is changed constantly. Streets that have been plotted are
changed, streets that have been opened are vacated, actually,
every day. It is lilte chasing a bug-a-boo to say so, but that
bug-a-boo must be chased." The trouble is not, then, that a
city plan can no longer be changed, but that the changes made
are too seldom an improvement on the original plotting.

Philadelphia is like New York in having early had thrust
upon it the grid-iron plan. In Philadelphia the blocks, ac¬
cording to Penn's plan, were mainly to be square instead of
oblong, as with us; but there is the like monotony of straight
streets without curve or diagonal. William Penn, however,
was not quite as ill-advised as our own Ciinton and the other
members of the old New York street commission, or else the
more generous space for growth that nature seemed to offer
to Penn's settlement inspired a more generous altruism in the
gentle Quaker's mind. At all events the frontispiece of the
report—illustrating "William Penn's plan for the city of Phila-
delphia"^shows the provision of five open spaces, each half
as large again as an ordinary block, for the area between Vine
and South streets and the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers.
The report notes that had the same protection of small parks
been secured for the closely built up sections of the city—as
the Consolidation Act of 1854 directed should be done^the city
of Philadelphia would have had to-day 280 small parks instead
of forty-five!

The prestige of Penn's name, or the force of a horrible but
simple example, is shown by the fact that in the thirty or more
outlying towns and villages that were consolidated in the
city, the same plan of square blocks and straight streets had
been adopted, the main connecting roads being taken as the
bases. It is curious, remarks the report, that the advantage
of diagonal streets did not more impress itself upon the early
settlers. The saving of time was, perhaps, not as important
to them as to us, but tbe inconvenience must have been felt.
As to the later generations they—and we—have certainly no
lack of visible illustrations of the value of diagonal thorough¬
fares. We do not even have to go to Washington to see this.
In Philadelphia Ridge avenue, comments the report, "is a line
Of shops—and the shop keepers go where the travel is."   Our