February 27, 1904





RECORD AND  GUIDE







i)WilT«IIIDR|EM.E:CTAJZ.BuiLDI)fc ft;J!Ci(nZ{:iUBP,H<WSDtoLDDE8(l|Win(,
BU3ii/E3S ju^Theues Of Get^er^, iKTEfifap

PiFlICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS

Vubtishcd eVern Satardap

Communications should he addressed ta

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

$, T. LINDSEY, BuslnoBa Manager                          Telephone, OortUndt 81ST

"Wmtered «( Ihe Post Office at New Tork, N. T., as second-clan motfw."





^IIL





FEBRUARY 27, 1904.





No. 1S76





The Index fo Volume LXXl of the Record and Guide, cover¬
ing the period between July 1 and Ducember 31, 19**3, is now ready
for deliver!/. Erice,$l. This Indexinits enlarged fomiisnoio
recognised as indispensable to every one engaged or interested in
real estate and building operations, li covers all transactions—
deeds, mortgages, leases, auction sales, building plans filed, etc
Orders for the Index should be sent at once to the office of publica¬
tion, l4andlG Vesey St.

THE most interesting development of the week in the real
estate marliet is the announcement made in another col¬
umn that the syndicate controlling so much vacant property
on vk^ashington Heights is now prepared to proceed with the
sale of a certain part of that property. The area selected to be
placed flrst upon the market is naturally situated in the south¬
ern part of the district, near a subway station, and includes
several blocks between 134th and ISTth streets. Riverside
Drive and Convent avenue. Practically all the property included
within this area is either owned by the syndicate, by the city
or by large institutions, so that the syndicate has it In its
power alsolutely to determine the chai'acter of the neighborhood.
Not all this property is, ho^wever, olfereed for sale at the present
time, the blocks between Broadway and Amsterdam avenue, south
of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, being reserved for future dis¬
position. The lots in this vicinity on the side streets will be
practically restricted to private dwellings; and on the avenues
a good elass of flats will be required. The outcome of this first
offering of Washington Heights property for improvement on a
considerable scale will be watched with the utmost interest.
Real estate operators of so much experience as those which com¬
pose the syndicate would not come upon the market unless they
believed that conditions were favorable for opening up pros¬
perously what is practically a new district. They must believe
that the demand for residence accommodations is sufficient to
offset the less favorable aspects of the situation, such as the
high prices of money and materials; and in this conviction the
Record and Guide believes that they are fully justified. More¬
over, we may now look forward confidently to a revival of
small residence building oa Manhattan Island— to a restoration
of the conditions which prevailed during the early "West Side
movement, when a man could buy a new and pleasant private
dwelling for $15,000. Apart from this announcement, the im¬
portance of which is very great, there is nothing new to be
noticed in the real estate situation. There has been the usual
activity in the business section of 5th avenue, and considering
the other rich firms to wliom a location on or near the avenue
is essential, this activity will continue throughout the spring.
The scale of prices on the avenue, however, is so high that there
is a constant overflow to the side streets, not only below, but
above 34th street. It may be expected, indeed, that eventually
business will monopolize all the cross-town streets between 34th
and 40th streets, Sth and (jth avenues. The only other announce¬
ment of interest has been that for some fireproof elevator apart¬
ment houses in Harlem—indicating that a few expensive houses
will be built in that section, as well as many cheap ones.





"^p HE plan of the New York City Railway Company for an
■^ independent subway system promises great advantages to
the city in some respects, while in other respects its advan¬
tages are dubious. It is designed, not for the purpose of carry¬
ing express passengers from the Bronx to the Battery,
but for the purpose of providing the upper East and the
lower West Sides with an adequate rapid transit machinery.
Its northern terminus is just on the other side of the Harlem
River, so that it could tap the Bronx trafiic only by means of
transferring passengers from the surface roads. Of course this
terminus might be pushed further north at a later date;  but





there would not be much advantage In so doing, because the
proposed tunnel could not contain more than three tracks, and
consequently would afford inadequate accommodations for ex¬
press traffic. This is, we believe, a serious and a doubtful limi¬
tation to any scheme of rapid transit, because of the enormous
prospective population of the area north of the Harlem River,
am. th'e necessity that this area should be served by more
express tracks than those which the existing subway
contains. If the plans of the City Railway Company should
be adopted as they stand, it would mean that within a few
years a tunnel would have to be built chiefly for the use of ex¬
press passengers. Another objection to the plans of Mr. Ryan
is, in our opinion, that they propose the use of lower Broadway
for a rapid transit subway, thus excluding the much more de¬
sirable plan of placing a moving platform under the surface
of this most important longitudinal thoroughfare. On the
other hand, the routes have been very cleverly laid out for
the purpose, which the owners of the surface roads frankly
propose to accomplish. They would give the upper East Side,
which Is entirely neglected by the existing subway, excellent
connection both with the Battery and with the lower West Side;
and since the residents of the upper East Side use the surface
cars for long distance travel more thah do the residents of any
other part of the city, the congestion In the streets would be to
that extent relieved. The proposed tunnels would also be ex¬
ceedingly useful In distributing properly the traffic arising from
the Pennsylvania, Long Island and trolley tunnels. Finally, the
free transfer system between the surface and the subway cars
would be an immensely beneficial arrangement to the residents
of Manhattan, so beneficial, indeed, as to outweigh many other
disadvantages. The plans, consequently, deserve and will re¬
ceive the most serious consideration.





THE Baltimore fire will have one excellent result upon this
city in case the plans for obtaining salt water for fire
department purposes are carried out. The difficulty which the
Baltimore flre department had in managing the conflagration
arose largely from tbe fact that after the original flre was well
under way sparks carried by the wind started other Area at a
number of different points and at the same time. The New
York fire department is undoubtedly far better equipped to
cope with such an emergency than was the Baltimore depart¬
ment, but its worlt in the event of a large flre would be much
simplifled in case it did not have to use pumping engines to
the extent that it now does. The proposed salt water sj^tem
would do away with this necessity to a large extent over tho
area In which it was installed. The water would be pumped in
from some place in the Bay, carried up Broadway, at least as
far as 42d st, in an enormous main, and distributed to the east
and the west by a sufficient number of smaller mains running
through the side streets. On all of these mains the pressure
would be about 200 pounds to the square inch, which would do
away with the necessity of movable pumping engines and would
greatly simplify the mechanism for flre extinction. With such
a water pressure within a block of any possible flre south of
42d street, that part of the city would be protected absolutely
against any extensive conflagration; and the system would
have the collateral advantage of giving the street cleaning de¬
partment an abundant supply of water wherewith to flush the
streets. In case, however, the city goes to the expense of in¬
stalling and maintaining such a system as this, there should
be some understanding to the effect that tbe Board of Fire Un¬
derwriters would help to reimburse taxpayers for the outlay
by a reasonable reduction in insurance rates.





A REPETITION of the attack upon the Tenement House Law
was perhaps to be expected this session of the Legisla¬
ture. Apparently, it needs more than two or three years to pro¬
duce a final settlement or disposition of the "roily element"
disturbed by tbe original upheaval of reform. The demand
of tbe enemy this year would grant to the Tenement House
Department a practically unqualified "discretion" in regard to
the provisions of the law, and is, of course, a particularly In¬
sidious and dangerous attack upon the very principle itself of
the law. Amendments proposing to abolish or modify any par¬
ticular provision of the law are readily comprehensible as to
scope and purpose, but "discretion" is too blind a term and
any admittance of it would be as dangerous as the wooden horse
to Troy. A law that may or may not be a law, according to
the dictates of personal Ideas, with provisions that may or may
not be operative according to circumstances—a sort of legal
sliding scale—is too autocratic an enactment for a reform the
purpose of which is entirely democratic and humanitarian, and,
is, moreover, sure to be a source of trouble to all concerned,
for far from removing any inequality and arbitrariness com-