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September 29, igo6
RECOKD AND GUIDE
517
i^ftiiii.
ESTABUSHE3)'^^(WiRPH2l«V 1668.
Dev^tiD p Rej^l Estate . BuiLoif/o *;R&ifitectui^ .^{obsa^oul DE(3aR^TioiJ,
Bifsii/Ess Affc Themes of GEficRftl I^ter^est .
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Published eVery Saturday
Communications should be nddrcsaod to
C. W, SWEET
Downtown Oflice: 14-16 Vesey Street, New York
Tolepbouo, Cortlandt 3157
Upto-vn Oflice: 11-13 Enst 24th Street
Tolophono, Madison Square 1898
''Entered at the Tost Office at New York, N, Y..as second-olast matter.'
Vo!. LXXVIIl.
SEPTEMBER 20, 190(i.
No. 2011
INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising Section,
Page Page
Comsnt.....................xxiii Law........................xi
Consulting Engineers..........x Lumber.................xxviii
Clay Produ(;ts ..............xxil Machmery ..................iv
Contractors and Builders......v Metal Work...............xvii
Electrical Interests ........viil Quick Job Directory ........xxvii
Fireprooflng ..................ii Real Estale................xiii
Granite..................xxiv Roofers & Roofing Mater'Is..xxvi
Heating ...................y.x Stone....................xxiv
Iron and Steel ............xviii Wood Products ...........xxviii
REAL ESTATE transactions for the week now closing have
the color and tone of health and good spirits, and have
fiirnisheti a number of evidences that our large capitalists are
returning from their vacations and taking up the strings of
business again. In the first half of the week a remarkable In¬
terest was being shown in dwelling-house properties of the
West Side, and latterly to this was added important transactions
in the business district, and also in the money market. Private
house buying on the west side of Central Park has become a de¬
cided feature after five years of inactivity. Several builders are
carrying forward large operations, hut more than this, is a new
demand for old dwellings as well. Business prosperity has evi-
i3ently turneti the thoughts of many heads of families to the
subject of private houses and for several weeks more dwellings
have been soki on the west Side than on the Bast. During the
current week also two particularly large loans were made, one
for the new Hendrik Hudson apartment house on Riverside
Drive and the other for the new Brunswick offlce building in
Madison Square, affording some evidence of a loosening of the
money market and also of the truth of the announcement re¬
cently made that at least some life insurance companies proposed
hereafter to loan funds ou real estate direct. Attention was
again attracted by important sales and leases in the district be¬
tween Fourteenth and Twenty-third streets, Broadway and Sixth
avenue, where a remarkable rebuilding movement is in its final
stage. Soon tliere will be no dwelling houses remaining in that
once fashionable quarter. So far as the departments of real
estate and finance are concerned, we consider the improving
tendencies permanent rather than temporary, and look for a
continued enlargement of business, but probably within more
conservative guidance. Secretary Shaw has at last come to the
relief of the money situation by releasing some $26,000,000 of the
U. S. Treasury's cash surplus, some three millions of which is
allotted to New York, a sum no larger than is assigned to
Chicago, and quite too small to make us feel particularly grate¬
ful. But while real estate trading is showing improving ten¬
dencies, building projects are unmistakably diminishing: the
plans filed for new buildings this week were very few in num¬
ber, and the brick market is wavering again. However, the
amount of work actually in hand is so immense that it will last
for a long period without receiving many accessions.
THE quarterly reports of the New York traction companies
make an exhibit which is not creditable to their present
tnanagenient. During the year the cash fares on the elevated
roads increased seven per cent., while the car mileage decreased
nearly three per cent. The Subway carried an increase of 38
per cent, in the number of passengers, but did not enlarge its
car mileage more than 12 per cent. On the surface railroads the
receipts were larger by three per cent., but the car mileage dim¬
inished by five per cent. It is no wonder that the patrons of the
various lines are beginning to complain again; and it is surely
most extraordinary that the management of the consolidated
company can adopt such a short-sighted policy. It is not simply
that good business reasons should urge them to offer the best
possible service, because the public immediately responds to an
improvement of accommodation. Neither can the unwisdom of
such a policy be wholly traced to the fact that Inadequate transit
service tends to divert population to the other boroughs. On
both of these grounds it is foolish not to increase the service as
fast as the traffic increases. But there is still another con¬
sideration which ought to weigh even more with the manage¬
ment of the consolidated company. That company is dependent
on public opinion for any increase in its franchises; and it
may be dependent on public opinion for the continued enjoyment
of some of its existing opportunities. It is consequently the
merest prudence for the company to deal fairly and generously
with its patrons, and it will most assuredly reap the fruits of
its recent economies at some future time when it stands most
in need of public confidence and goodwill.
A CORRESPONDENT, writing to one of the daily news-
â– ^*- papers, gives the result of his experience with rents in
Manhattan during the last six years. In 1900 he rented a seven-
room fiat on Manhattan avenue for $30 a month, which was
typical of the rents prevailing in the rest of the house and
throughout the neighborhood. The owner valued this house at
$28,000, for which sum he sold it in 1902 to a speculator. This
house has since 1902 been bought and sold four times, and every
time rents have been raised, so that the flat which was at first
lented for $30 a month now brings $42, and the house, which was
valued at $28,000, is now offered at $38,000. The correspondent
atU'ibutes tlie increase entirely to unwarrantable speculation,
and he cites the case of a neighboring house, bought by an in¬
vestor in 1899 for $27,000, in which the rents have been very
moderately raised, and whose flats are always fuliy occupied.
But surely a speculative movement which succeeded in actually
increasing the value of a house $10,000 in four years cannot be
entirely without warrant. Undoubtedly there has been a per¬
vasive speculation taking place all over the city, particularly in
old law tenements and apartment-houses; but this speculation
would have been utterly unsuccessful if conditions had not justi¬
fied it. In 1900 flat and tenement-house property in certain sec¬
tions was unduly depressed. Since then many conditions have
contributed to make it more valuable, and the speculators have
merely taken advantage of these conditions. It is possible
tbat in certain sections of the city they have gone too far, and
that during the next few years many tenants will follow the ex¬
ample of the correspondent, and seek pleasanter homes and
lower rents in the outlying boroughs. In that case we shall
witness another readjustment of rents and values, which ought
to place them upon a more permanent level; and in that case
the speculators will suffer from their bad judgment, just as
they have in the past profited from their good judgment. But
in any event the speculator cannot make real estate values. He
can only anticipate them. He takes his risks and he makes or
fai.s to make his profits. It is true that he is generally a bad
landlord, for his ownership of the property is only temporary,
and he is averse to making improvements. It will be a good
thing for tenement houses in New York and their occupants
when they are less frequently owned by speculators than they
are at present; but we imagine that during the next few years
tlie speculator will become a decreasingly important factor in
the renting situation. For the present the speculation in tene¬
ment houses is over.
THERE is no doubt that one of the crying evils of the day
in connection with Ihe congested teneraent districts with
its half million school population is the paucity of play grounds
for children. They have but the pavements of the streets and
avenues, wbich are necessarily full of danger to life and limb.
More small parks and recreation piers should be provided by
our city authorities in convenient and accessible locations, as a
writer in the Tribune puts it, "Wherein all, both young and
old, can enjoy amid inviting surroundings, heaven's pure air
and cooling breezes. To bring the country to them is what
we all would like to do. As we cannot give them the reality let
us strive to furnish them with as near an approach to it as
possible." A good beginning has been made, but many more
of these playgrounds are wanted. Libraries, school houses and
hospitals are, of course, indispensable, but there must be op¬
portunity for healthful out-of-doors exercise for school children.
It appears that Brooklyn is likely to get a new children's
playground without cost to the city. Borough President Coler
has discovered that a burial ground adjoining the New Lots
Dutch Reformed Church, at the junction of Livonia avenue and
New Lots road, East New York, is apparently not owned by
any one, and accordingly he has appropriated it on behalf of
the city, to be used for a children's playground. The plot con¬
tains about eighteen city lots; but the little ones of New York
should not have to depend on disused graveyards for addlr
tlonal recreation groujid^.