July 2, 1904.





RECORD AND  GUIDE





•-Qy                   •»              ESTABLISHED ^ (.\RRPH £1^

ItairiED 10 REA.L EsTWE. BtnLDifJc AfWifrTECTURE .bloijsnloui DEQCStATIori,
Busiifess jub Theses OF GeiJei^I 1Hter.e31.

PRICE  PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS

Tublisfied etlery Saturdaa

Communications should be nddreaaed to

C,   W.   SWEET,   14=16  Vesey   Street, New York

J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manaser                        Telephone. Cortlandt 3157





"Eniered at the Post 03oe at New York. If. Y.. as second-class matter.'





Vol. LXXIV.





JULY 2, 1904.





,  i&Vi





IT looks as if the summer, in spite of the dullness which has
settled down upon the market, will be even more fertile than
the winter in the annonncement of large and interesting im¬
provements. During the week two new buildings of the first
magnitude have been foreshadowed by the news. One is an
apartment house on Central Park West on the block front just
north of the Daliota, while the other is a monster hippodrome
fof the old car-barn site on Sixth Avenue, between Forty-third
• and Forty-fourth Streets. Both ot" these projects are well con¬
ceived. The block front on Central Park West is one of the
choicest sites in the whole city for an apartment house of the
first class. Several of the largest buildings of this kind are
situated in the vicinity, and have proved to be very successful;
and the availability of the neighborhood for large apartment
houses will be very much increased by the express station of the
subway at Seventy-second Street. Indeed, it may be confidently
predicted that eventually the area within five or six blocks in
every direction from the subway station will be occupied to a
very considerable extent by apartment houses; that it will be¬
come the best distrlct-for this kind of buildinig in the city.
It is significant that the present improvement is to be a house¬
keeping building instead of a residence hotel. A couple of years
ago the other type would probably have been preferred; but the
hcyise-keeping apartments have now resumed the precedence,
which normally they ought to possess. As to the Hippodrome,
that is a venturesome interprise; but the success of the Coney
Island resorts leads one to suppose that similarly novel and
varied entertainments ought to be a popular success in New
York during the winter months. In calculating the chances in
favor of an enterprise that depends on the popular favor of
hundreds of thousands of people, it must be remembered that
the improved communications which are under construction
with the Bronx, Long Island and New Jersey will not only
enable more people to live outside of Manhattan, but they will
enable everybody who does live out of Manhattan to come in to
that borough for their amusements and supplies much more
than they do at present. The proposed site on Sixth Avenue,
between Forty-third and Forty-fourth Streets, is probably the
most available one of the kind left in the city. A location a few
blocks near Herald Square would have been a little more con¬
venient; but it would be extremely dilRcuit and expensive to
secure another piece of property in that vicinity which would be
large enough for the purpose. As it is, the old car-stable site is
in the very heart of the amusement section. It will be as con¬
venient as possible to all the people who use the elevated roads
and the subway, present and past, and to all those who are or
will be served by the Grand Central terminal. Furthermore, it
will not be actually inconvenient to suburban families who are
obliged to use the Pennsylvania and Long Island trains. It is
distinctly encouraging to see large enterprises of this kind again
being seriously considered. It is such projects which make
Manhattan the playground not merely of the metropolitan dis¬
trict, but of the whole country—thereby adding in more ways
to its prosperity.





T^ HE case of Thirty-fourth Street is very different. From
^ Sixth Avenue to Fourth Avenue it was occupied by
wealthy people, and its business development was hindered by
the high price at which property was held, a.nd by the tenacity
With which the residents of the street clung to their locations.
After the erection of the Waldorf-Astoria and the Astor Court
building, however, it became inevitable that the residences
should yield to business buildings. For a long time, however,
they yielded very slowly; and it is only during the past few
years that rapid progress has been made. The great distinction
of Thirty-fourth Street is that it derives its character from
Fifth Avenue rather than Sixth Avenue, and in the case of Fifth
Avenue, its property values have been steadily increasing, even
during the comparative dullness of the past year.    A number ot





important retail firms of the better class have bought situations
on the block; and it is also becoming a local business and finan¬
cial center. The North River Savings Bank, which has just
bought, is the fifth bank to secure quarters near the Waldorf-
Astoria, and there w-ll soon be a half a dozen good sized office
buildings ofi the street. All these business enterprices depend
upon a few v/ell-to-do customers, but there are also signs that
the street will eventually assume a more popular and populated
aspect. The store of R. H. Macy & Co. draws, of course, enor¬
mous crowds, and an important dry goods shop will be situated .
at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street. The proposed sub¬
way under the street will also make it much more accessible
than it now is; and eventually, of course, the Pennsylvania
terminal will influence the character of the whole street, and
particularly of those blocks between Sixth and Eighth Avenues.
In the easterly direction business will eventually spread as far
over as the Fourth Avenue subway. The progress during the
next few years will be quite as rapid as it has been recently, for
several of the bigger business and building projects which are
awaiting a favorable opportunity to come to a head, are con¬
cerned with Thirty-fourth Street prospects. On,the whole it is
likely to be the most important and architecturally the most
interesting crosstown street in the city.





"^ HE members of the Rapid Transit Commission who refused'!

■*■ to consent to the abandonment of the Sixth Avenue route
for the proposed subway connecting with the New Jersey trolley
tunnel, should persist in their refusal. The Herald Square
terminal is incomparably the better one; and Sixth Avenue
could not be devoted to a better purpose than the one proposed.
Sixth Avenue runs only from Ninth to Fifty-ninth Streets,
and consequently is not as available for a subway as some of the
other longitudinal avenues. It is true that Sixth Avenue should
be cut through toward the south until it connects with Varick
Street; but even if the avenue were extended, a Sixth Avenue
subway could only run north of Fifty-ninth Street by means of
tunnelling under the park. Neither Fifth Avenue nor Madison
Avenue could be used for the purpose. Central Park West
should be reserved for an Eighth Avenue subway, and with a
four-track undergi-ound road on Eighth Avenue and on Broad¬
way, the West Side would have all the transit service it needs.
It would be very bad economy to cut the trolley tunnel off from
that useful connection .on the ground that perhaps fifty years
from now eVen Sixth Avenue might have its uses for a through
line. While it is possible that a couple of generations hence this
would be true, there can be no doubt that during the first half,
of the twentieth century the proposed Sixth Avenue connection
would be enormously useful to a million or more people. It is
not that we object to a terminal near Mr, Wanamaker's store—
a subway across the city would make a useful feeder to the river
tunnel. Why not build both? If. however, a selection has to be
made, the Sixth Avenue route should be the one selected.





"~r~ HE bricklayers would make a grave mistake in striking
* for an advance in wages at the present juncture. It is not
merely that the increase could not possibly be granted, but that
a cessation of building under existing circumstances would take
bread out of the mouths of everybody connected with the build¬
ing trades in New York City. There can be no doubt that the
strike of last spring diminished by a good many million dollars
the amount of money which is being put into new Manhattan
buildings this summer. It has not stopped the speculative build¬
ing of tenements; but it did discourage the erection of large
buildings, requiring the investment of considerable sums of
money. And if that strike were followed by another shut-down
this summer, the effect would be both to stop the current rapidly
expanding building of tenements, and seriously to affect the ex¬
cellent prospects for a good building year in 1905. While the
Record and Guide has every sympathy with the efforts of the
mechanics to obtain better wages and shorter hours whenever
conditions are favorable, it must be admitted that just nowi
conditions are absolutely unfavorable. The gi'eat necessity is a
decrease in the cost of construction, which is already so high
seriously to hamper building operations. Many of the shrewdest
and best informed architects and builders in New York believe
that building operations will not revive until the labor cost
lowered. In this opinion they are probably wrong. It looks
if building would adjust itself to the prevailing labor cost/'S'tld
even if this adjustment took some time, it would belietter to
wait until the adjustment is made rather than to disturb the
existing peace in the building trades. But while wages may
not have to come down, they cannot be increased for the present.
The margin of profit on building oporalions is already too
small. Furthermore, if the briclc!a!yers were granted an increase
of five cents an hour, th^-efuployers would have many more
such demands on tbeii'"'hands next winter and spring. If the
issue is raised, it must be fought out at once, and that decisively.