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Vol. LXXVII.





MARCH 10. 1906.





No. 1982





INDEX  TO   DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising Section.

Page.                                                Page.

C3nieiit.....................x:iii    Law.........................xl

Clay  Products   ................xxi   Lumber   .....................\xvii

CoDsultIng    Engioeers.........vH   Machinery    .....................Iv

Contractors and Builders   ......v  Metal   Work    ................xviii

Electrical   Interests...........viii   Quick  Job  Directory.........xxvi

Fireproofing   ..................iii   Real   Estate   ..................xiv

Granite   .....................xxiv   Roofers  Sc  Rooflng  Materials.. .x

Heating   .....................xix   Stooe   ......................xxiv

Iron   and   Steel...............xvii   Wood Products   ............xxvii





THE construction of the new Pennsylvania Railroad station
is making a great and radical cliange in the distTict about
Thirty-fourth street and the North River. The appreciation of
real estate in the vicinity is a matter of record, but the whole
character of the region is undei-going a transformation. Tene¬
ment houses, decayed residences, rookeries, lumber yards, sa¬
loons, ramshackle shanties and nondescript structures of all
kinds must give place to substantial buildings, some of them of
an important and ornate character. The Thirty-fourth street
thoroughfare must necessarily becom_e a great highway. An an
indication of the future, there is the new Manhattau Opera
House. The erection of the building was begun three years ago,
and it is nearing completion. The structure will he devoted to
grand opera at regular theatre prices. Should this fail, the
house will then become the home of melodrama and spectacle.
The theatre is nearly opposite the entrance to the new Penn¬
sylvania Railway Station.





NO action, nor any action looking to action in the future, has
been taken by the Architectural Profession, the Builders
or the Real Estate Owners of this city in regard to the pro¬
posed revision of the Building Laws. This indifference to an
important situation is scarcely wise. Our people ought to per¬
ceive that the method is almost too negligent to achieve a
satisfactory result from a difficult and delicate problem. Our
building laws, when newly formulated, have invariably been
received in a spirit of profanity. Yet how can anyone take
much stock in the lamentations of objectors who obstinately
refuse to have any hand in the work of revision at the time
when their influence and criticisms would be strictly in order,
and might even be of some service. A piebald committee ol
odds and ends has the building code at present under treat¬
ment. These unfortunate persons cannot be held responsible
personally for the illogical position in which they find them¬
selves, for in accepting office they were of the opinion, no doubt,
that the making of a building law for a city like New York is
"easy." All it needs, according to the notion of the ordinary
individual, is a little law, a bit of building construction, a dash
or two of sanitary science, a word or two of medical advice and
the benediction of the Tenement House Department, and—
there's your perfect, thoroughly compounded Building Law.
Hence the constituents of that Revision Committee! Isn't it
time the persons really interested in the law came to the front
—and did something?





A LEARNED professor of economics remarked the other
day. "What a pity these trusts won't be half-way decent
with the public! If they would only humor people a little, and
not try to hog everything in sight, they could own the earth
peaceably and the fullness thereof. Their present method
seems to be to go for the last cent and at the same time insult
and annoy the victims they are plundering." The present
management of the subway illustrates tbe professor's remarks.
Tbe stations and the rolling plant are fixtures for which the
operating company deserves no credit, but, apart from these
items, how much is done and how much is left undone by the





Interborough people to make travel on the subway as disagree¬
able and as uncomfortable as possible? People are made to
feel that the trust principle flaunts them in the face and kicks
them in the rear. Accommodation is reduced to and main¬
tained at a minimum, and the overcrowding of cars has become
much more disgraceful than anything the city witnessed in the
past, ev6n on the elevated roads. The word decent, no doubt,
has many meanings; but, dilute the term as much as you please,
it would still be hard to apply it to anyone who can tolerate
the scenes visible at certain hours at certain stations. Of
course, necessity compels, and that is about the only excuse
that can be made. But it ought to strike people as absurd to
hear such fuss made in tbe newspapers over the ferocity of
college football while the community tolerates the indecency
and roughness of the daily subway shove. The "standing-
room-only" principle is being worked by the Interborough for
all it is worth. It is bound in time to make the company odious.
Sooner or later, public tyranny will result from the irritation
of tUs community, and then we shall hear a great deal of talk
about injustice, the rights of capital, and the like. It is a fact
that the air at times in the overcrowded cars, breathed and
rebreathed as it is by three or four score of people, literally
stinks; and yet there are signs in the cars forbidding spitting
as a misdemeanor! It is disagreeable to talk about such things,
but let tbe doctors leil us which is the more unwholesome.





UNLESS some evil influence intervenes to prevent, and
there seems none which may not be charmed or dissolved
away upon tbe entrance of Spring, the year 1906 should be
greater in the annals and records of building construction in
Manhattan, and throughout the city, than the preceding one,
Por ai! classes of work. Including the largest forms as well as
the smallest, the year promises to be very prolific; and particu¬
larly so in tliose constructions which employ the best grades
of building materials, the specialized departments of pro¬
duction, and the services of the best mechanics. Should there be
a declension in any marked degree of tenement construction—a
department of activity for which the year 1905 was particu¬
larly distinguished^there will be recompense for this inequality
in a considerable amount of skyscraper production, in which
1905 and the year preceding were both deficient, and also a com¬
pensation in the promised increase of municipal work, while the
other usual forms of structural development would not corre¬
spond with the force and spirit of the times were they to com¬
mand less attention than last year. As much work of a com¬
pulsory nature—that which springs from actual necessity in
consequence of a long period of retardation—remains to be done
as was offered in 1905, while the operations classified as volun¬
tary improvements should even exceed in number and cost
those carried on last year. These are the natural promises and
expectations for a building season which may be said to be
already opening. Even the weather is remarkably propitious,
one building season having succeeded another with scarcely a
line of demarcation; only a very few days throughout the whole
period of winter have been unfavorable for wall building, and
operations might have continued without cessation or diminu¬
tion in every trade. Necessity and inclination being allied
together to create business, and labor schedules being nearly
all accounted for, one of the remaining contingencies is the
course of prices for materials. Totals will unquestionably con¬
tinue large, but, so far as can be estimated, tbe yearly average
will not be very much higher. Full shipments of ail kinds o(
materials, except possibly lumber, will keep quotations close
to present marks even during the spring rush, and afterward
we shall expect to see a level of values for fundamentals more
moderate than obtains now. In every line of manufacture and
production capacity is being enlarged, making certain an in¬
creased output in every field where there is free competition,
and the exceptions under this head are in reality few. Cement
quotations will be advanced in the spring; but the enormous
domestic production, to say nothing of the imminence of
foreign competition, will keep this material, notwithstanding
its growing popularity, not far from the present marks. Brick,
which bas been an article very much discussed, and its career
for two years has been sensational, will probably be character¬
ized by quotations much more favorable to builders, at least
after the new brick begin to run; and until then there is likely
to be a diminisbment of tbe amount of tenement work as com¬
pared witn the spring months of last year. As to production,
tlie net increase in the number of brick-making machines over
last year is very authoritatively estimated at less than twenty
in the Hudson River district, and new machines, or plants, are
not expected during their first year to be half as effective as