l''ebrnary 13, 1904.





RECORD AND   GUIDE





325







lli^lis TO RfA^ Estate . euiLoijfc ApCJ^nECTUi^ ,h{ousErioiD
Buao^s Alio Themes of GeiJzi;^. iKiEi^'Id





PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX  DOLLARS

Tublishud every Saturday

Communications should bo addressed to

C. W. SWEET. 14-16 Vesey Street. New YorH

%. I. LINDSEY, Business Manager                          Telephone, Cortlandt 8157





^SMtered at the Post Office at New York, JY. T.. as second-class maUer."





Vol. LXXIII.





FEBRUARY 13, 1904.





The Index to Volume LXA'T of the Record and Guide, covering
the period between July 1, (uid Dcc.vmhcr 31, 1903, ig now ready
for dcHvery. Price, ^1. Thin Judex in its enlarged form is now
■reeognised as indispensable to every one engaged or inierestedin
real estate and building operatioun. It covers all transactions—
deeds, mortgages, leases, auction sales, building plans filed, etc.
Orders for ihe Index should be sent at once to ihe office of publi¬
cation, 14 and 16 Vesey St.

ALL that can be said of the stock market during the -week is
that it has sustained a good dealof bad ne-ws with fortitude.
The Baltimore fire, a serious foreign -war. declining railway earn¬
ings, and the continued borrowing on the part of railways,
were all calculated to have a depressing effect, and did so to a
certain extent; hut. on the whole, prices held pretty -well.
There can be no doubt that the money situation continues to
dominate the market, and whatever they may be for other
people, these are good times for money lenders. When big
railway corporations can be made to pay five per cent, for their
money, it is obvious that the times are not propitious for an
advance in the prices even of investment securities. It is much
better, however, that railroads like the Pennsylvania should
continue their improvements, even at tlie cost of keeping prices
in the stock market low, than that all such improvements
should be discontinued. The effect of sucli a discontinuance
would be to produce a period not merely of normal business,
but of acute depression. The best promise for tlie current and
the coming year consists in tbe fact that these vast works are
still underway and that they will carry over the last period to
the next period of business activity.





THE real estate and building market in this city gives the
impression of a very powerful force which is being held in
check temporarily by a still more po'werful force. The still more
powerful force which is holding it iu check is the condition of
the money market, which remains decidedly unpropitious, and
what is worse, there is apparently small chance of really easier
money conditions during the coming spring. The international
market will be unfavorably affected by the war in the Far
East, while the domestic money market will have as much as
it can do in keeping the municipal and railroad corporations
supplied witti cash for improvements, in making up for the
loss in Baltimore, and In paying for the Panama Canal. All of
the money raised for these purposes except that paid to France
will stimulate business; but it will produce a constant strain
upon the lending capacity of the people and companies tliat are
concerned largely with real estate. The one thing that might
ease matters very considerably would be the passage of the
mortgage tax exemption bill, which would help to increase the
popularity of real estate as security for loans. But in any case
the money situation will impede both real estate and building
operations. They will be carried on chiefiy by people who have
exceptionaly good security to offer. It is fortunately true, how¬
ever, that a good many builders will have exceptionally good
security to offer. The new building plans which are coming
out at the present time are of a very high quality, and indicate
a continuation of the excellent damand of former years for
new locations by important business houses. Such is the char¬
acter of the lease of a 5th avenue lot hy Ovington Bros, for
the purpose of erecting on it a new ten-story building; such is
the new office building for the Produce Exchange Bank, on lower
Broadway, and the new factory for a prominent milling com¬
pany. On 5th avenue the pressure for available business loca¬
tions is such that some part of the block between 47th and
48th streets which Columbia is now offering for sale wiii he
turned into business properties, unless the present owners of the
houses should  combine to prevent it.    The demand for resi¬





dences conrtinues to be hetter than it ■was a month ago, and it
should be still better this spring. So far as the cheaper grade
of dwellings is concerned, the plain facts are that almost none
of them have been erected for four years, and none will be
erected until a year from the coming spring. It seems incredible
under such circumstances that the demand for existing dwell¬
ings 'of moderate price will not be sufficient to force up the
price of them somewhat, for a certain number of people will
continue to wish to live in that kind of a habitation. As for
property available for improvements with tenement houses, the
sale of the Morgan Iron Works shows how easily that is ab¬
sorbed. The prices obtained at Mr. Golding's sale of lower West
Side property were not so good as the prices obtained at the
sale of the East Side lots hy Mr. Ingraham; but they fairly rep¬
resented values prevailing in that neighborhood. In fact, the
success of the auction sales held during the week will encourage
further offerings under similar conditions.





"D ALTIMORB is the third large American city which within
■^"-' the space of a little over a generation has been partly
destroyed by flre; and since, at least, in the 19th century, such
fearfully destructive confiagrations have not occurred abroad,
this fact constitutes a significant comment upon the standard
of American house construction. The difference between our
own country and European countries in this respect is not due
to any lack of efficiency in the fire departments of our Ameri¬
can cities, which are probably the best organized and equipped
In the world. It is undoubtedly due to the fact that we Ameri--
cans constructed most of our buildings, as we construct our
other machinery, for comparatively short service, and that a
large group of houses built according to such methods is al¬
ways peculiarly liable to go up in one big blaze. There was
a time when such methods were economical; but as Baltimore
is learning to its cost, such does not always continue to be
the case. The difficulty always is in our American cities to
raise the standard of construction commensurate with the
growth of the city and the general fire risk involved. This is
the fact which should be borne in mind when any proposal
is made to improve the standard of construction. Such attempts
are bitterly opposed by people who can make more money tem¬
porarily by building cheap structures; but even at the cost of
delaying certain improvements, the higher standard should pre¬
vail, because the general public interests endangered are much
more important than the particular private Interests. A cheaply
built three-story residence may, for instance, be safely built,
so far as the protection of the life of its inmates against a fire
originating in that buildiug is concerned, and yet such a
building may nevertheless constitute a serious danger to ad-
joining"buildings of a much more expensive character. What is
needed, consequently, is a standard of construction which
varies less among particular classes of buildings than the stand¬
ard which prevails at present, so that a fireproofed building
will be protected, not merely against fires originating within a
structure, but also against fires originating in neighboring
buildings.

T N Baltimore there were a number of tall buildings constructed
.according to good if not the best methods of fireproofing.
The precise condition in which the fire has left these buildings is
yet to be determined; but it is apparent that, however well
they were built, they were exposed to serious flre risks as long
as they stood in a district which was covered chiefiy with ex¬
tremely infiammable structures. It is not sufficient, conse¬
quently, merely to insist that structures (Tver a certain height
should be thoroughly well and safely constructed. A certain
standard should be established which should apply to all build¬
ings within a definite area, and while regulations of this char¬
acter cannot be made retroactive, they can with the help of
the flre insurance scale bs made extremely effective. At the
present time the difference between the premiums paid upon
a safe building and the premiums paid upon an infiammable one
is only a small fraction of the difference between the cost in
interest of the two methods of construction, the result being
that it is frequently cheaper to build badly and insure to the
limit, than build well and insure reasonably. The whole sub¬
ject of premium increase in relation to the infiammability of
buildings requires readjustment parlicularly with a view to re¬
ducing the risk which fireproofed buildings suffer from non-
firepi'oofed neighbors. The decrease in insurance cost, for in¬
stance, that an owner obtains from the use of wire glass and
metal sashes and frames instead of wooden sashes and frames
and plain glass is so small that it is not worth considering, yet
one affords complete protection against "exposure" fires aud
the other none at all. It should be added that the question of
legally restricting the height of buildnigs is also involved in