April 21,   1906





RECORD   AND   GODE





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Vol. LXXVII.





APRIL 21, 1906.





No, 1988





INDEX  TO   DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising Section.

Page.                                               Paga.

Cament   ....................xxv   Law..........................x.1

Consulting Engineers   ........xvii   Lumber   .................xxTlll

Clay  Products   ...............xxiv   Machinery   ...................It

Contractors  and  Builders.......vi   Metal Work..................xs

Electrical   Interest    ..........vlil   Quick   Job   Directory........xxlli

Flreprooflng   ..................iii   Real   Estale..................xiii

Granite   ....................xxvl   Roofers   &  Rooflng  Materials.,.!

Heating   ...................xxi   Stone   .....................xxvl

Iron and Steel..............xviii   Wood  Products   ............xxtx





THIS bull market started in W'all Street in the beginning
of 1904, since whicli time it has had to overcome more
obstacles than would have seemed possible could they have
been forseen. First came the Baltimore fire, then, the war be¬
tween Japan and Russia, which hept the financial heart of the
world in its throat until the Peace at Portsmouth. This was
promptly followed by revoiution, social and financial in Russia
which made the war seem preferable by comparison. The mar¬
ket has been all the time living in daily fear of some new
disconcerting utterances of Mr. Roosevelt. It never knows
what new condition of things the President may hear of and
make the subject of a message to Congress asking for new
legislation according to his views. As former President Ben¬
jamin Harrison once said of Mr, Roosevelt, "He expects to
remedy before night any condition of which he is flrst apprized
the same morning." However, the bull market has with it this
"uncertain quantity" every day, combined with wars, fires,
earthquakes and occasional 100% money. To these things must
be added what may be designated as the new national game of
corporation baiting. It has been supposed that the Stock Ex¬
change could be relied tipMi as an agency to make riches take
wings, but it would seem that Mr, Roosevelt sees the need of
special legislation to separate successful men from their money.
Now this "week we have the frightful San Francisco calamity,
the latest of the disasters the financial markets have to con¬
tend with. Let it not be forgotten that if Wall Street should be
forced to succumb at last, real estate and general business will
follow fast enough. The mistake is often made by manufac¬
turers and merchants of thinking that Wall Street's troubles
have no interest for them, A man might as well be indifferent
to hi', heart's action. Secretary Shaw keeps repeating that "the
legitimate business interests of the country are not suffering,"
so far as he can observe. His fear that the deposit of money in
the banks will find expression in a rise of prices in Wall Street,
and that he will be charged with having brought about the rise
la pitiful. Does he not know that Wall Street speculators find
their profit in a fall as well as in a rise; that they are the
only class in the country that can turn a financial storm to ac¬
count; tbat the manufacturer, merchant, farmer and planter
cannot go "short" of their own or neighbor's enterprises, but
must fall if they cannot weather the financial storm? The
Wall Street operator will give as much for advance information
that Mr. Shaw is not going to act as he will for information
that Mr. Shaw is going to act. Must the country suffer because
the Secretary of the Treasury is trying to get even with the
shifty and shuffling person, the Wall Street operator? Is not
the country paying a pretty high price for Mr, Shaw's attempt
to beat Wall Street, Without a great national bank such as
England, France and Germany have—with banks that are
but little more than heartless lending institutions, it is only
necessary for this poor country to have a Shaw to be poor
indeed. Last week we said, referring to the stock market, that
it would be influenced entirely by the money rate, and it has
been, and until money settles down it will continue to be. The
market gives evidence every day that it wants to go up, and
will do so when it'bas a chance, and when one has said this all
has been said.          ■    ="





THE transforming touch of improving change has, within
the past decade, reached practically every part of Man¬
hattan, improving values in all neighborhoods and transforming
them in many. An inconspicuous but still notable exception to
this has been found in the river front section between Wall
street aud Corlears Hook at Grand street. The lower part of
this city has borne for many years the designation of "The
Swamp," as the headquarters of the wholesale leather busi¬
ness of New York, and a little further north the drug business,
that is to say, the wholesale drug business, has been established
for many years. But the bulk of the water front and of the
property adjacent to the water front along the main streets be¬
tween Wall and Grand and iu those intersecting streets which
they cross has had only a partial and imperfect develop¬
ment. On the corresponding portion of the West Side, be¬
tween the Battery and 14th street, there have been enormous
gains. That business follows commerce is an established rule
downtown, and the development of the dock facilities of the
lower West Side has brought shipping to it, and through ship¬
ping, warehouses, factories, railroad terminals, and wholesale
houses. On tbe East Side the perils of navigation on the East
River were for many years a bar to the growth of shipping,
and the dearth of wharf developments in Brooklyn, opposite,
had an unfavorable effect. Notwithstanding this, a considerable
part of the Hudson River canal boat traffic is carried around
the Battery to the East Kiver, and some of the largest New
England steamship lines running through the East River have
their landing places on the Hudson.





THE development of Park avenue above 59th street will bear
watching during the next few years. When the New York
Central announced that it was going to run electric instead of
steam cars through the tunnel, it was generally supposed that
the avenue would become available as a site for expensive resi¬
dences, and certain lots w^ere bought and one or two houses
built on that assumption. But the tendency to use the aveuue
in this way has not gained any headway; and recently there
have been indications of another tendency in an opposite direc¬
tion. Two sites between GOth and SOth streets have been bought,
which will be improved by large fireproof apartment houses;
and it looks as if any property on Park avenue in the residential
section which is available for reimprovement would be used
in this manner. The avenue can never become a handsome
thoroughfare devoted to private residences, because so many
of the corners are already improved with apartment houses,
which are too expensive to be thrown into the scrap heap, aud
then the East Side really needs a thoroughfare in which apart¬
ment houses of largest size can be erected. Madison avenue is
not well adapted to the purpose, because the lots are shallow.
The corners are strongly held. Lexington avenue will doubt¬
less be lined with many such buildings; but it is not wide
enough to permit the erection of apartment houses of the
largest size. Park avenue will be quieter than either Lexing¬
ton or Madison avenue, and it is so wide that a twenty-story
building could be erected, if desired. Such buildings are needed,
because of the large and increasing numbers of people who want
to live in taat part of the city. These people may prefer private
houses; but in the course of time all but the very wealthy will
be forced to put up with apartments. The area in which such
people care to live is very much restricted and there seems at
present to be no chance of making It larger.





CONTRIBUTING to the growth of real estate values in Man¬
hattan has been the development of local manufactures
and the large increase in the number of factories in conse¬
quence. For many years the claim was continually made that
high rents so far increased the cost of labor in New York that
large manuf;;ctures could not withstand the competition of rival
factories in suburban towns. New York had, relative to its size,
few factories, though the chief factory interests of New York
and New Jersey were directed from this city. With the re¬
adjustment of real estate values in neighboring New Jersey to
the New York city standard, and with the increase of business
in the lines in which New York excels—clothing, millinery and
artificial flower-making, and printing and publishing, especialr
ly—there has been a decided change. By the last report of the
State Department of Labor it was shown that of eight hundred
and seventy-five thousand factory employees in New York State,
over flve hundred thousand were in New York city, and of these
three hundred and seventy-five thousand in the two boroughs
of Manhattan and the Bronx. Of forty thousand office em¬
ployees of factories (those serving at the headquarters of pro¬
duction), twenty-five thousand were in Manhattan and the
Bronx. It has been tound profitahle and advantageoha for
manufacturers to secure buildings adapted to their use in New
York close to the market of sale and with access to the vast