December 23, i^o^





RECORD AND GmDE







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Vol.  LXXVI,





DECEMBER 23,  1905-





No,  1971





INDBJX TO DEPARTMBNT8.
AdTertlalns Section.

Page.                                                       Page.

Cement   ....................xxvii Law   .........................sii!

Clay  Products   ...............xxvi Machinery...................vi

Consulting   Engineers........vii Metal  Work  .................xxiil

Contractors   and   Builders.......x Quick  Job   Directory.........xxxi

Electrical  Interests   ..........ix Real   Estaie   ...................x\

FireproofiDg................iii  Roofers St  Roofing Materials., .v

Granite   ....................xxviii Stone   ....................xxviii

Heating   ....................xxiv Wood   Products   ..............xxx

Iron  and  Steel................xxii

THE real eatate market has not been quite as active during
the past week as it was during the week before; but, con¬
sidering tlie approach of the holidays, such a diminution is only
natural. The business transacted has, however, preserved the
same varied and wholesome character. The chief centers of
activity continue to be the fashionable residential section on
tbe East Side, and the area affected by the Pennsylvania Ter¬
minal. According to the Sun, speculators are directing their
attention more than formerly to Seventh avenue and the streets
adjacent to it, because they believe that more money is to be
made on Seventh avenue at present prices than on Sixth avenue.
Such may be the case; but what property on Seventh avenue in
this vicinity needs is some incontestable evidence that it will
abandon its present rather disreputable uses and will become an
active and respectable business thoroughfare. Once it becomes
evident that the avenue is available for improvement with a
good class of business building, values will advance rapidly, and
a large realty company could effect such an advance merely by
announcing its intention of improving a large parcel purchased
on the avenue. Improvement of this kind is bound to come
eventually, because the Seventh avenue is too central to be
passed by in the business growth of that part of the city; but
the process could be very much accelerated by enterprising
operators. There continues to be a steady absorption by
builders of property on Washington Heights, and another im¬
provement has been announced for the Dyckman tract. Once
the ball is started in this vicinity, it will roll rapidly and in¬
crease as it rolls. The syndicates who are holding large amounts
of property thereabouts cannot do better than to encourage
a building movement at the present time. The result would
soon justify some temporary sacrifice of money in order to make
both builders and residents accustomed to the vicinity.





IT is announced that the site proposed for the new Brunswick
Hotel will be improved at an early date with a twelve-
story loft building,'and that is probably the most sensible dis¬
position which can be made of the property. The changes of
the last few years have diminished the value of the block front
as the site for a hotel. It is doubtful whether even New York
could provide profitable patronage for such hotel any time dur¬
ing the first five years after its construction, because the
Knickerbocker, the Belmont and the Plaza will all be opened
in the meantime, and will take care of any increase of hotel
business. Then, inasmuch as tbe tendency is all in the direc¬
tion of situating every kind of popular and fashionable resi¬
dence further up town, the proposed Brunswick would have suf¬
fered in competition with the new Plaza. The time has gone by
for building anything but business buildings on Fifth avenue
and Broadway south of 34th street. It might have been sup¬
posed that the Brunswick property would have been bought as
the site for a retail dry goods store of high grade; but here
again the location lies somewhat south of the best district for
such improvements. The decision to build a loft building is in
line with the current development of that part of Fifth avenue.
The area south of 23d street on which such buildings can be
erected has become very much restricted, and we believe that
hereafter such buildings will gradually be built on all available
sites between 23d and 34th streets on Fifth avenue, Broadway





and Madison avenue, and perhaps on Fourth avenue and Seventh
avenue as well. Of course the high price o£ land on Fifth avenue
and Broadway will tend to send many builders farther west and
east; but certain sites on both of these thoroughfares will be
available for loft buildings.





THE tribute which Controller Grout received from his official
associates during the past week was well deserved. Dur¬
ing the four years in which he has been at the bead of the
E'inance Department of the City of New York Mr. Grout has
made a record for himself which has not been equalled by any
man who has held the oflice during the past thirty years. The
duties of this office are peculiarly exacting. Its incumbent
is primarily responsible for the economical and honest disburse¬
ment of the city's money according to the prevailing laws and
ordinances, and Mr. Grout has performed this duty with care¬
ful vigilance and with uncompromising devotion to the public
interest- In addition, however, the office requires a man to be
something more than the city's flnancial policeman. As a mem¬
ber of the Board of Estimate and of the Rapid Transit Com¬
mission, Mr, Grout has stood throughout for a wise method of
expenditure and for a sound municipal policy. It is during his
term of office that a method was found to diminish the strain
upon the revenues of the city caused by an overgrown sinking
fund, and in this way to save over |8,000,000 per annum. It
was also during his administration that funds were provided for
absolutely necessary city improvements by a general levelling up
of the assessed valuation of the real estate in New York. It is
safe to say that, without these two financial reforms, the busi¬
ness of the city would have been terribly, almost fatally, ham¬
pered. Mr. Grout's work on the Rapid Transit Commission has
been equally valuable. As a member of the Plan and Scope
Committee, he played an important part in laying out the com¬
prehensive scheme of subways which will be constructed here¬
after, and he had much to do in determining the wise policy
of the Commission in respect to the claims of the several in¬
terests which expect to bid for these transit extensions. In
short, he has shown throughout his career an admirable mixture
of conservative and progressive ideas. He has given to New
York a competent business administration of the city's financial
department, and his retirement will be received with the utmost
regret by the taxpayers of the city.





COMMISSIONER McADOO is right in insisting that the tem¬
porary ropes which have been placed upon the squares
of Manhattan in order to regulate the street traffic, should be re¬
placed by permanent posts. The existing police regulations in
this respect have been entirely justified during the past year,
and arrangements should be made to keep them permanently
in force. Such regulations are always annoying to a few people,
but they undoubtedly serve to make the flow of traffic at these
congested points smoother. They are rendered absolutely neces¬
sary by the stupid planning of our public squares. When these
squares were laid out, the streets were allowed to run into each
other without the slightest prevision of the congestion which
would be eventually caused by such a lay-out, and the whole
purpose of tbe regulations is to divert the trafflc away from
points of intersection, and to make it take its course around
rather than across the squares. This is just what an intelli¬
gent plan would have done; and as an intelligent plan could
only be substituted now at an enormous expense, these traffic
regulations are tbe next best thing. They should be per¬
manent and effective by means of stone monuments.





PRESIDENT TATLOCK, of the Washington Life Insurance
Co., has extraordinary ideas about the comparative safety
of different investments. He believes it good financial policy
to allow insurance companies to speculate in stocks; but he
thinks that real estate investments for insurance funds are
unwise because real estate was about the "most speculative
form of investment known." But if this is so, is it not strange
that the savings banks lock up such a large fraction of their
assets in real estate mortgages? The obvious answer is, of
course, tbat, although money can be invested rashly in real
estate, as it can be in any form of security, real estate in the
central districts of such a city as New York is the safest form of
investment in the world. When an insurance company lends,
ds the Washington Life did under its former management, over
100 per cent, of the value of a piece of property on that property,
it is, of course, making a very dubious investment; but it isr
hardly fair to confuse loans of that kind with any kind of safe
and conservative investment. The truth is, that urban land
values are the most stable conceivable form of property. To
buy unimproved real estate in a large city and on a large scale





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