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â– April 16, 1904.
RECORD AND GUIDi:
ESTABUSHED "W tfWPH BV
iJetjIlD P RfA,L ESTAJE. BuiLDIf/G ApCt^fTECTUI^ .HoUSOlOLD DEQOtMlDH,
Basufess Alto Themes Of GETiER^. iK^ERfs^i
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS
Published every ^atardag
Communications should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET. 14-16 Vesey Street. New Yorfe
S. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager Telephone, Cortlandt 8157
""Mitiered »( (he Post Office at New Tork. N. Y.. na aecon^claes TnaJtor."
Vol. LXXin, APRIL 16, 1904. No, 1883.
of dealing in it. The outside investor, w.ho pays commissions
and does not personally take care of iL, flnds it a much less
remunerative form of investment than does the local and pro¬
fessional dealer. A great deal of excellent buying still con¬
tinues to be consummated by large business concerns. Last
week it was the United States Express Company which bought
on Trinity place. This week it is announced that the New York
Life has ,been buying a site back of its present building as a
twelve-story workshop for its clerks. Thus the tide of expan¬
sion shows few signs of ebbing,-and it it is one section of the
city or one kind of property, it is another. Yet all this is being
accomplished, not after the completion of a great group of
transit improvements, but in advance thereof. It may be im¬
agined what there will be still to come.
The Quarterly.
The first Record & Guide Quarterly for 1004 will be ready for
delivery on Wednesday. This publication includes all the convey¬
ances, mortgages, projected buildings, alterations, auction sales
and leases, arranged alphabelically and numerically, recorded
from January 1 to March .^1, 11)04. Price, %G; yearly subscrip¬
tion, $20.
THE Stock Market has heen dull and hesitating for the great¬
er part of the past week. The operators who bought
stocks dui-ing the preceeding week have either been slowly sell¬
ing them or have been waiting to receive support in continu¬
ing the movement toward a higher range of values. This sup¬
port has not been forthcoming and brokers are again complain¬
ing about the lack of business. The truth is that while prices
still continue to be below values, there are many reasons why
the recovery should be slow. The iron and steel business, for
instance, although it is recovering from the extreme depression
Jf December and January, is by no means in a thoroughly whole¬
some state. At best it can look forward during the coming
year to nothing more than moderate activity in certain lines.
The railroads are still out of the market and will not resume
very much buying until they can raise money more easily.
Railroad earnings are decreasing very generally. The decrease
is not sufficient to cause much alarm, but it does not encourage
buying. General trade is no more than fair, and has a down¬
ward rather than an upward tendency. All this is merely part
of a^process of gradual readjustment, but while it is taking place
there is not room for a very considerable bullish speculation.
The general trend of prices will be upwards, but there will be
many weeks of dullness and recession sueh as the week now
ended.
SfTi HE number of conveyances of Manhattan and Bronx prop-
• erty recorded during March of the present year was 1,859
against only 1.495 for the March of the preceding year. This
constitutes an increase of about 20 per cent, in one year, which
is unprecedented. The number of conveyances recorded during
the first week in April was almost 50 per cent, greater than
the number during the corresponding week in 1903. In Brooklyn
the average increase is still greater and runs nearer thirty
than twenty per cent. The number of sales reported in this
issue of the Record and Guide is double the number reported
in the corresponding week of last year. These flgures tell the
story of the current real estate market better than any amount
of speciflc description—particularly when there is also to be con¬
sidered tbe many causes which are making against activity in
the New York real estate and building market. It should also
be remarked that the plans flled for new- buildings to be erected
during the coming season in Manhattan and the Bronx call for
the expenditure of just as much money as did the plans filed
during the corresponding period of 1903. Thus, the decrease of
business which was noted during January, and to a small ex¬
tent in February, has been wiped out; and since business is stilt
increasing, it may be expected that the margin will soon be
.credited to the prospective work of 1904. Moreover, the buying is
improving in quality. In the early months of the year the small
number of private dwellings purchased was a matter of much
unfavorable comment. In the past week 35 dwellings were sold
against only 29 a year ago. Of course, the bulk of the increase
is still confined chiefly to flat and tenement house property,
but this is as it should be, for this class of property is the one
which has been most beneflted by the events of the past year.
It is not to be expected that much outside capital will be in¬
vested in these buildings, because under existing conditions
they can best be owned and managed hy small purchasers,
resident in the locality, or by operators, who make a business
THE plea, which Mr. N. Poulson made before the Board of
Estimate and Apportionment, on Friday, for immediate ac¬
tion upon the important matter «f improving the present service
on the Brooklyn Bridge, is worth the most careful consideration.
For years past the service offered by the Bridge to the
residents of Brooklyn has been acknowledged to be not
only a source of the harrassing inconvenience to many
thousands of people, but really dangerous to public safety.
Yet one administration and one Bridge Commissioner follows an¬
other without succeeding in accomplishing anything. The dif-
flculty seems to be that the improvement of the service at the
Manhattan terminal is complicated by other important questions,
such as the proper distribution and collection of the passengers,
and some provision for effecting the convenient transfer of
traffic between the Bridge, the elevated roads and the subway.
The Bridge terminal question alone has been dealt with in a
somewhat half-hearted manner, pending the satisfactory solution
of the larger problem. What Mr. Poulson urges is that the
Bridge terminal service should be divorced from the complicated
and expensive business of a general terminal and transfer sta¬
tion, and should be treated as an emergency question to be
solved without further delay. He admits that if the satisfactory
improvement of the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge as a
terminal should interfere with the ultimate arrangements for the
proper collection, distilbution and exchange of the trafflc con¬
centrating at that point, the lesser matter should be postponed;
but he claims that the capacity of the terminal could be greatly
increased without interfering with any completely satisfactory
solution of the local trafflc problem. Whether or not this claim is
valid, is, of course, a technical question which can be settled only
by engineers; but if it is valid, there can be no doubt that Mr.
Poulson's view of the best mode of procedure is correct. The
most important and pressing of all transit improvements
which, if posible, should obtain precedence over all other im¬
provements, is that of the terminal facilities at the Manhattan
end of the Bridge.
AS is well known, Mr. Poulson has a plan of his own for the
improvement of the Manhattan terminal which, if it will
accomplish all that he claims, should be immediately placed in
commission. The object o^ this plan is to improve the switching
machinery of the terminal, which is wasteful and inefficient, and
which, as Mr, Poulson believes, could be doubled in capacity, and
at the same time to increase the number of platforms. These
platforms can be arranged so that the terminal can contain at
one time eight, five or six-car trains, four on the ground floor
and four on the upper floor, so that the amount of platform
space can be increased by eight times, so that each train can, if
necessary, stop eight times as long as it does at present for
loading and unloading, and so that the incoming and outgoing
passengers will be separated. As the switching capacity would
be doubled, there would be nothing to prevent running at least
twenty per cent, more trains an hour, and as the trains could
contain six instead of flve cars, a further increase of twenty per
cent, in the service could be provided. This increased service
would be suflieient to relieve the congestion directly on the ele¬
vated cars and indirectly on the trolley cars. The trolley service
is, of course, limited hy the capacity of the bridge, and not like
the elevated, by the switching capacity of the terminal; but it
can he gi-eatly improved, first by reducing the number of pas¬
sengers using the service, and, second, by the abolition of the
loop system. In the place of the loop the trolley cars could be
unloaded on the north side of the bridge.and the cars switched to
the south side in order to be loaded again. Whether or not this
plan is feasible is a technical question which must be left to the
engineers; but if it is feasible and can be carried out without
any interference with trafiic, it presents so many advantages that
it should be made a part of the general scheme of bridge ter¬
minal improvements. There is no conflict between it and tbe