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Vol, LXXVIIL





SEPTEMBER 22, 1906.





No. 2010





INDEX  TO  DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising Section.

Page                                                Page

Cement.....................xKiii   Law........................xi

Consulting  Engineers   ..........x   Lumber.................xxviii

Clay    Products    ..............xxii   Machinery   ..................iv

Contractors    and    Builders......v   Metal Work...............xvii

Electrical   Interests   ........viii   Quick Job Directory  ........xxvii

Fireproofing   ..................ii   Real   Estate................xiii

Granite..................xxiv   Roofers & Rooflng Mater'Is.-Xxvi

Heating   ...................xx   Stoue....................xxiv

Iron   aud  Steel   ............xviii   Wood Products  ...........xxviii

WALL STREET and its elements seem this week in perfect
agreement to he scared and remain so as the safest and
wisest course at present. Tlie tape, generally a sure guide,
reflects this tremulous feeling. Stocks are held with a light
hold, Ltnd they are brave bulls who do not part with them on
anybody's whisper. Great deals and combinations are in the
air, but toot their metaphorical fish horns as they will, the
manipulators cannot "sell a clam." As a matter of course, this
state of mind makes for safety, unless the big men were to
begin to sell on each other. The professional traders are very
apt to take the short side again should the halting tendency of
the market continue and money remain tight. It is still almost
impossible to get funds on time, and the situation is bound to
hear hard on real estate buildiug and business interests before
long- The Secretary of the Treasury must know by this time
that something should be done to release the Treasury hoards.
But there again politics comes in. He is apparently first of all
a politician, and that may he the reason he has been rewarded
with the all-important portfolio he holds. Still, it is comforting
to know that matters might'he worse; that Is to say, if no
relief had come from any quarter. This is an age of record
breaking in money matters. The largest amount of gold ever
brouglit into New York iu one vessel arrived on "Wednesday last
in the Cunarder "Carmania." The gold was in 273 iron-bound
boxes, each containing from 250 to 350 pounds of gold, valued
at upwards of two mir.ion pounds sterling, or, to be precise,
$10,328,000- With new gold imports, the total aniount so far, as
announced to date, is twenty-four millions of dollars. One good
feature of the financial outlook is the disposition on the part
of French investors to buy Ainerican securities. The insta¬
bility of Russian investments is the principal cause. That is
why French gold comes so freely to the United States in
exchange for our railroad and other stocks.





THE flling of mechanics' liens against newly built tenement
houses in the upper part of Manhattan still continues to
be the most prominent feature of the real estate and building
market. Many conditions are beginning to work against the
builder with only a small capital. He cannot fill his building
with tenants as readily as he could last year, and it has been
much more difiicult to obtain permanent loans. The title com¬
panies are appraising new five and six-story tenements in the
upper part of the city at much lower figures than they did a
year ago, and the difference is sufficient to wipe out small
builders who cannot afford to wait. Of course, the effect has
already been very much to diminish the numher of new tene¬
ment houses projected, and. it may he surmised that many
years will elapse before as much money will again he spent on
tenement houses in Manhattan as was spent in 1905. Before
the existing over supply has been filled up, Manhattan will
begin to feel even more keenly the competition of the other
boroughs. Within a cjDuple of years trains will be running
under the Bast River to Long Island City and Brooklyn, and
uuder the North River to the suburbs in New Jersey, while
during the same period the local services of the Central, New
Haven, and Harlem roads will he very much Improved. This
competition will not hurt the lower part of the city, nor the





areas to the east and west of the Central Park, but it will divert
large numbers of residents who would otherwise have occupied
apartments on Washington Heights and at Inwood, Washington
Heights will, of course, continue to grow, because practically
all the Increase in population which prefers to live in Man¬
hattan must settle there; but it looks as if a larger proportion
than heretofore of the increased residents of New York City
would seek the larger amount of living room which they can
obtain in the outlying districts. Just how far this diversion
will go it is impossible to say. The fact remains, however, that
New York is on the eve of a transformation in transit, and
consequently in residential conditions similar to that which
took place early ia the nineties. This transformation can
only help centrally situated business and residential property;
hut it may play some unexpected tricks on the owners of real
estate which is less centrally situated.





COMPLAINTS about the service offered by the surface rail¬
road cars in Manhattan are being heard on every side at
tfce-present time, and are eliciting the usual responses from
the officials of the company. These complaints do not concern
the service during the rush hours, for New Yorkers have by this
time reached the conclusion that comfortable travelling during
these hours is beyond human power. It is obviously one of the
Ifiws of nature that men going to their business and returning
therefrom should stand upon their feet and be packed, jambed
and crowded just as far as human endurance will permit. The
current complaints concern the service during other hours, when
the company can hardly allege that it is physically impossible
to move any more cars. It is being found that during all hours
of the day, and on all the more central surface car routes in the
city. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a seat, simply
because the company will not run as many cars as are needed
to accommodate with seats the people who are willing to ride,
and if such is the condition in the summer and fall, when there
is nothing to impede smooth operation, it may be imagined how
much more it will be the case next winter. We do not know
that there is anything to be done about the matter, for the inter¬
ference of the State Railroad Commission is always futile, and
the company believes that it can afford to ignore the opinions
and the comfort of its passengers. Like all the other street
railway companies in the country. Its intention Is to run just
as few cars as it possibly can, in order to accommodate the
traffic- All the public of New York City can do is to bide its
time. The opportunity will eventually come for getting back
at the company. Corporations such as the Metropolitan Street
Railway and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Companies are gradu¬
ally creating in the public an amount of cordial dislike which
will some day, and in the most unexpected manner, overflow
and cause considerable damage. It is the street railway cor¬
porations themselves which are the most active friends of the
movement in favor of municipal ownership, a fact which they
will doubtless discover some day, when it is too late.





OF the "little rivers" of the world the Bronx is the quaintest
and most irregular. The Spree, in Germany, or the Lark,
in England, are not to be compared in insignificance with the
Bronx. The last Legislature provided for tbe appointment of a
special commission on the subject of the Bronx River, acquiring
the land along its banks for park purposes. This commission
was appointed to inquire into the desirability of establishing a
park from the limits of the present Bronx Park to the end of
the Bronx River, with that stream as the dividing line. The
committee organized and has since made two trips of inspection
the whole length of the river and conferred with Westchester
county and New York officials. Under the plan now considered,
New York would bear the expense of improving the river and
its borders inside the city limits and Westchester county the
expense of, beautifying the twenty miles of the river in its
territory. The Bronx is in two counties. As the matter stands
at present the gurgling Bronx, the delight of artists and tbe
confusion of scientists, is a small but rugged stream in winter,
when it is seldom seen by New Yorkers, except out of railroad
car windows, and is a sluggish stream, with muddy banks and a
varying volume of water in summer time, when many thousand
New Yorkers show themselves glad of the opportunity to visit
the Bronx to study its beauties and perhaps, where it is deep
enough, to row upon its surface. A comprehensive system of
improvement which would fix permanent banks and regulate
the volume of water by the installation of dams has long been
advocated by intelligent New Yorkers, who have had the active
co-operation of Westchester residents, whose influence was
sufficient last year to induce the Legislature to take the flrst
step forward towards the improvement of the Bronx River and
incidentally of Bronx Valley real estate.