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October 27, 1906
UE( Ol{D AMj GiUIDE
675
ESTABUSHED â– ^Ai\ftR,CH 21^^1838.
DeV&IeD to f^L ESTATE. BuiLDIf/o %&KrrECTJI^E .HoUSEHOU) DEQQIiATIO.l
Busit^Ess Affa Themes op GEffen^l Ir/iErfEsi.
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Published every Saturday
Communications sliould ho nddrossed lo
C. W. SWEET
Downtown Ollice; 14-16 Vesey Street, New York
TeloiilioiiB, CorUniidt 3157
Upto.vn Olfice: 11-13 East 24ch Street
Telephono, Madison S(]ua,ro l(i9G
''Entered al ihe i'os( Office at New York. N. Y„ as second-class matter."
Vol. LXXVIII-
OCTOBER 27, 1906.
No. 2015
INDEX TO DEPART .MENTS.
Advertising Section,
Page Page
Cement....................xxlli Law........................xi
Consulting Engineers ........x Lnmber .................xxviii
Clay Products ..............xxll Machinery ..................iv
Contractors and Builders ......v Metal Work...............xvii
Electrical Interests ..........vlli Quick Job Direclory ........xxvii
B'lreprooflng ..................ll Real Estale ...............xiii
Granite ..................xxlv Roofers & Rooflng Mater'Is, .xxvi
Heatiug....................XX Stone ......................xxiv
Iron and Steel ..............xvlfl Wood Products ...........xxviii
THAT Wall Street, with singular iiuanimity, is bearish is
obvious from tlie contracted voJume of business this
â– weelt. The operator who would ask the advice of any broker
will be told to sell stocks if he has them, or, if not, to wait
imtil after election before buying. Undoubtedly there is
some anxiety as to the result of the November elections and
uneasiness as to the outlook of the money market. It is the
fatuity of Wall Street to be invariably bearish at the wrong
time, and also bullish at the wrong time; and when it is
unanimously bullish it is generally as mistaken as when it is
unanimously bearish. The position" of the short interest
may be judged from the disclosures caused by the failure of
James W. Henning & Co., members of the Stock Exchange,
who suspended business last Monday. It transpired that one
house alone had borrowed 20,000 shares of Reading from
Mr. Henning about the time of his suspension. When specu¬
lation arrives again or the market wakes up, it is still
believed that it will be in the minor railroad securities, such
as have been frequently referred to in these columns. The
raising of the Bank of England rate for discount last Mon¬
day is just what might have been expected uuder the circum¬
stances, when so much gold has been shipped from the otber
side to this country. Yet many professed surprise. Tbe
break in prices naturally followed, and the action of the
Bank of England undoubtedly contributed to the dull and
bearish sentiment prevailing for the time being. What the
market is doing now is of little or no value as an indication
of its future action. Rates for time loans arc heid at 6. per
cent., and some transactions for six months were reported
at that figure. The common stock of the Norfolk & Western
Railway Company has been placed on a 5 per cent, basis—an
increase of 1 per cent. This increase can certainly not be
said to be discouraging to holders of American railway
securities. And what shall be said of Industrials, in view of
the fact that this has been a record year in the steel business
for the production of steel rails? The output for 1906, taking
orders for delivery during the remainder of the year, will
exceed 3,600,000 tons. Secretary Shaw's action in releasing
Government bonds to the extent of $1S,000,000 meets with
approval, and is reassuring. These bonds are, of course, to
be turned into circulation without removal from the Treasury.
T^HE real estate market during the past week has been
^ characterized by a noticeable revival of activity. This
activity has not, indeed, affected those branches of the mar¬
ket which have been of late remarkable for their dullness.
There has been no revival of tenement-house speculation, nor
has there been any increased demand for vacant lots on
Washington Heights and elsewhere. The character of the
transactions has, indeed, recalled the days of 1901 rather
than those of 1905. The properties transferred have con¬
sisted very largely of costly lots In the best business districts.
Two notable sales have been announced of inside lots on
Fifth avenue in the forties, and â– in both cases the prices
obtained were equivalent to 5150 a square foot. Values on
that avenue In the retail (Jistrict are now pretty well estab¬
lished in the neighborhood of $150 a SQuare foot for inside
lots and $200 a square foot for corners—truly an extraordi¬
nary range of prices for a strip of property on both sides oC
an avenue over a mile in length. Another large transaction
was the purchase by the McAdoo Terminal Company of the
Morrison holdings in the block needed for the new terminal,
Tbe price paid, which is about $2,000,000 for over 11,000
square feet, does not, under the circumstances, seem extor¬
tionate; and it is a matter for public congratulation that the
company has succeeded in acquiring practically the whole of
tbe needed site. The other transactions affected Broadway
and William street property. In a number of these transfers
the Century and the United States Realty companies appeared
as sellers, and it will be interesting to see whether tbis iarge
corporation will take an active part in speculation during the
coming year. It has been comparatively quiescent of late,
and the City Investing Company has shown a much more
enterprising disposition in opening up new fields for specula¬
tion and investment. But if the current season is to be one
favorable to the large rather than the small speculator, both
of these companies will have an important influence upon its
course. The next month should afford au accurate indica¬
tion of the course of the market during tbe season.
THE opening of the Knickerbocker Hotel, at tbe corner of
Forty-second street and Broadway, adds another to the
large number of hotels which it has been the traditional
policy of the Astor family to erect in New York City, Begin¬
ning with the Astor House, about 1S30, which was in its day
the great American hotel, they have erected successively the
Waldorf-Astoria, the New Netherlands, the St. Regis, the
Hotel Astor and the Knickerbocker, In addition, one branch
of the estate is building a huge apartment house and hotel
on upper Broadway. There can be no doubt that the'con-
struction of a hotel in a good location is one of the most
remunerative and safest ways of investing money iu the
world, and it would not be possible to find in New York City
a location better than that upon which the Knickerbocker
stands. Of course, no hotel on Broadway can compete for
the best class of trade with a hotel on Fifth avenue, but
among the Broadway hotels the Knickerbocker has the per¬
fect location. It is in the heart of the district devoted to the
amusement and refreshment of New Yorkers at night, and it
is much more accessible than the Hotel Astor, because it can
be reached by crossing Broadway at a narrow point instead of
by the good stretch of asphalt called by some people Loug
Acre aud by others Times Square. Each new hotel must
have its novel features, and the particular novelty of the
Knickerbocker consists in the manner in wbich certain of its
walls are decorated. It is becoming customary to place a
certain amount of painting on the walls oC Dig hotels. The
Manhattan and the St. Re^is have been so decorated, as well
as some of the newer hotels in other American cities. But
the trouble with such decorations hitherto has been that they
have not been sufficiently amusing. In court houses, libraries
and capitols it is all very well to paint on the walls pictures
based on historical, legendary or symbolic subjects, but
people live in hotels, and while living there wish to be
amused. Wall paintings of the ordinary kind may be beau¬
tiful and imposing; they may be admirably composed and
perfectly subdue the surrounding architecture, but they do
not add to the gaiety of life. From the point of view of the
sojourner at a hotel, they are unquestionably dull, and they
contribute absolutely nothing to the popularity of the cara¬
vansary in which they are situated. But in the Knickerbocker
it is different. Mr. Maxfield Parish has a painting over the
bar representing the merry-making of Old King Cole; and,
quite apart from the technical merit of the painting, it would
be impossible to place a more amusing treatment of a more
appropriate sul)ject in that particular spot. It is not merely
a mural painting which is trying hard to be good and keep
its place upon the wall; it is a happy and a living illustra¬
tion of merry-making which should and will make its appeal
to the patrons of the bar. It will, if you please, make those
patrons "smile," and in so doing it will do what very few
works of art have ever done-^it will pay its way. So it is
with the painting of Mr. James Wall Finn in the Flower
Room. Mr. Finn also has not sought merely to be good. He
has been fancy free in the imagining and iu tbe peopling of
his garden of flowers, and tbe consequence is that it is not
only a very beautiful picture, but it is also a most entertain¬
ing one. It is full of amusing incident which will attract
and repay the attention of the people eating in the room and
help them to have a more diverting time. It is to be hoped
that this lesson will not be forgotten in ttie decoration of
subsequent hotels,