May 21, 1904.





RECORD AND   GUIDE





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make traffic possible. Tf tliere ever were a group of property-
owners who have been shamefully and persistently abused by
various public authorities, it is the property-owners on Elm
street; and it is an example of this kind whicli makes the own¬
ers of real estate dread more than anything else any proposal on
the part of the city to widen or improve the street on which
their property is situated. In this case the wrong should go no
further; and whatever authority the city administration has
should be directed to the end of restoring to the Elm street
property-owners the use of their property.





^:^t;;^at the PJst 03^e aJN^ Yorlc. N. Y.. as second-class matter."
vol.  LXXin.                     MAY 21, 1904.              '             No.  1888.





THE stock market has behaved during the past week much
as if it had again reached bedrock. The sagging tendency
which has charactt^rized its behavior of late has become daily
less conspicuous, and it would not be surprising in case durmg
the next week or two prices would take a better turn. It is prob¬
able tbat the gold exports are nearing their end, and this de¬
pressing influence will be removed. Every week affords proof
of the statement that the slackening of business and the in¬
creased frugality of people with money is causing the accu¬
mulation of capital—an accumulation which will before the end
of the year precisely reverse the recently prevailing conditions
in the money market. One bond issue after another is being
floated, and always with complete success. Even the weakest
division of the market—viz.. the securities of the steel manufac¬
turing compank'S^cannot be much further depressed, for steel
preferred should be worth about its present price even were the
dividend reduced. Of course, the withdrawal of money from
active business and the reduction of dividend rates cannot be
considered unequivocal bullish arguments; but the point is sim¬
ply that the market is recovering its tone by a perfectly normal
process. No upward movement can travel very far under existing
conditions; but it may well be that the pendulum will now take
a short swing in that direction.





THE speculation m old tenement houses, wbich has been the
distinguishing feature of the real estate market of the
present year, is now rapidly subsiding. The total number of
transactions is still large, and is still well above the totals for
the corresponding week last year, but it is tw.enty-five per cent,
less than it was only a few weeks ago. There is every Indica¬
tion that it has run its course and that both the lower East
Side and Harlem will now enter upon another phase of activity.
There is likely to be more building and less mere trading dur¬
ing the remainder of the present year; and this building will
keep on increasing in volume. There are thousands of small
residences in Eastern Harlem, which will have to be gradually
displaced by six-story tenements, just as there is still a good
deal of room for such improvements on the lower East Side.
It is a singular fact, however, that the pressure of population
on space Vi-^hich has produced the increase of rents on the lower
East Side, and in Harlem, remains for the most part local. It is
intense wherever the East Side Jews are spreading; but it is by
no means intense elsewhere. Some raises in rents have been
successfully made this spring in the middle West Side, although
these increases have not amounted to very much; but the at¬
tempt to raise rents on the upper West Side, has, on the whole,
been disastrous. The increases have frequently been obtained;
but they have just as frequently been followed by vacancies.
The West Side brokers are not at all satisfied with the situation
in that part of the city. The demand for houses and apartments
has not been good this spring. There seems to be an increasing
rather than a decreasing disposition on tbe part of middle-class
Manhattan residents to shift to Brooklyn, and the languid de¬
mand for small houses in this borough is contrasted to a very
lively demand across the river. All this provides food for
thought. If such is the result merely on the promise of better
communicaliions with Brooklyn, what will be the effect on resi¬
dential real estate in Manhattan of improvemeut in interborough
communication when it actually comes? This question cannot
be answered as yet, but property-owners may anticipate some
startling changes during tho next five years.





, F Mayor McClellan wishes to strike a good blow in the public
1 interest, and do a little something to rigbt the wrongs of
a very much injured set of men, he should use what influence
and power he has to restore Elm street to a condition which will





THE Rapid Transit Commission is reported to be very favor¬
ably impressed with the idea of supplementing the longi¬
tudinal subway service with a series of moving platforms run¬
ning across the city; and it may well be. The bid of the Inter¬
borough company, which amounts in substance to a Lexington
avenue, 4th avenue and Elm street tunnel on the East Side and
a West' Broadway, Seventh avenue and Broadway tunnel on the
West Side, with a Battery loop, crosstown moving platforms,
and flnally with free transfers throughout this system and the
elevated roads—this bid seems to the Record and Guide to be
much the ,most attractive proposal as yet submitted for official
and public approval. The use of moving platforms may, how¬
ever, be carried with advantage a step further. This method of
transit is very much the best method for all those lines of traffic,
along which the travel is heavy, and continuous, but does not
run for long distances, and consequently does not require a
high rate of speed. It is precisely adapted, that is, to the traffic
conditions on Broadway, between the City Hall and 42d street.
The short distance travel along this line is probably the heavi¬
est in the world and the surface cars are intolerably congested
at the present time. What the Interborough company and its
ally should offer to do is to construct a moving platform under
Broadway, between the City Hall and 42d street, with which
connections could be made to the rapid transit tunnels, and
from which transfers could be issued. Such a platform would
develop an enormous amount of traffic and would add
largely to the convenience and efiiciency of the subway system.
The traffic requirements of Broadway will never be fully satis¬
fied until sucb a platform is constructed; and one of tbe great¬
est objections to the plan of tbe New York City Railway Com¬
pany is tbat it proposes to use lower Broadway as a rapid tran¬
sit instead of a local transit route. With a Broadway moving
platform (to be constructed without any ditch) added to its pro¬
posals, the bid of the Interborough company would be beyond
competition.

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THE sale of the Kemp Estate proved to be, as was anticipated,
for the most part a family affair; but in the cases of those
two parcels, in which there was any outside bidding, good figures
were offered for the property by would-be purchasers. This
incident probably closes the season so far as activity in Fifth
avenue property is concerned; and, in this respect, a most re¬
markable season it has been. Throughout a year, in which
large real estate transactions were few, and in which retail
business on Fifth avenue was distinctly bad,the demand for Fifth
avenue business property has been active and persistent, with
the result that prices have moved up all along the avenue, and a
number of important new buildings have been projected. The
Record and Guide prints in another column some interviews
with gentlemen whose opinions are best worth having as to
the source, the permanence and the effect of this increase in
values- and It will be seen that these gentlemen are substan¬
tially agreed upon the salient points of the argument. Fifth
avenue is to get the so-called carriage trade, which is enor¬
mous, and which increases with the growth of New York as the
rich American's playground. Firms now situated south of
23d street will be forced eventually to secure situations on or
near Fifth avenue, and there are many such firms remaining.
Business of this kind can afford to pay high rents-rents so
high that apparently the value of Fifth aveuue property may be
expected in another ten years to reach a level, not far from the
level which obtains in the financial district. But this level
cannot well be reached without bringing in its train certain other
changes For one thing, higher buildings than those which
now prevail will have to be erected. For another thing, a num¬
ber of smaller tradesmen who fish in the shallow waters of the
Fifth avenue trade, and cannot afford very big rentals, will be
forced otf the avenue, and oa to the side streets, near the
avenue many of which will take on the present appearance of
SSd street opposite the Waldorf. We expect that the impulse,
which has made the operations in Fifth avenue real estate so
interesting during the season now past, will not lose its force
during the scasen of 1904.5. but will, on the contrary, derive
new momentiim frnm the events of the coming year.