November 24, 1906





RECORD   AJND   GUIDE





853









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DEviriED XO f^L ESTMI.BuiLDIjJo AF;Cif[TEeTin^E,H0Usal01LDEGCiEiAT:ctJ.

Bi/sif/Ess aiJd Themes of GEHE^^,^l 1Kter,esi .

PRICE   PER   YEAR    IN   ADVANCE    EIGHT   DOLLARS

Published   eVery   Saturday

Commnulcatlons should Ijn luiarcsscU to

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. Vol,   LXXVIIl,





NOVEMBER 24,  190G.





No.  2019





INDEX  TO  DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising Section.

Page                                               Page

Cement   ..................xxiii  Law  .........................xi

Consulting Engineers   .........x  Lumber..................xxvii

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

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

Electrical Interests ..........viii Quick Job Directory  ........xxvil

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

Granite   ...................xxiv  Roofers & Roofing Mater'Is.. .xxvi

Heating  ...................xvii Stone   .....................xxiv

Iron aud Steel   ................xx Wood Products   ...........xxviii





FOR SOME weeks it has been pointed out in this column
that the stock market iias acted as if it wanterl to go
up. Its action in the last ten days has more than justified
that view_ It must be very clear to everyone that were it
not for the fear ot stringent money rates a bull market,
transcending all it.'i predecessors, would now be witnessed on
the New York Stock Exchange. Intrinsic values of al! the
standard stocks are greatly in excess of the market prices
for the same. It may fairly he said that neither values nor
the futUTe are being discounted when it is recalled that St,
Paul stock, when the railroad only earned $30,000,000 a
year, sold at approximately 150, whereas this year the earn¬
ings will not be far from $70,000,000 and the stock is hut
186. This comparison could be repeated indefinitely, and a
like showing made with reference to nearly all the old line
railroads. New York Central, for instance, flve years ago
sold at 175. Why, then, should it be 135, as it was a few
days contemporary with the increase of value of real estate
all about it. Almost the principal asset of a railway nowa¬
days is its real estate, as witness the amount the Pennsyl¬
vania will have and has had to pay merely to enlarge its
terminals. Yet here is the stock of a company, the New
. York Central, which has been steadily declining in price for
five years, while its property has been steadily advancing in
value and its business increasing up to its capacity to handle.
That this price action of its shares will right itself is as
certain as the day follows the night. The one fear in the
situation is money. As was predicted in the Record and
Guide a month ago, the shoe is beginning to pinch real estate
badly, and we shall be fortunate indeed if we get through the
year without a repetition of the fifty-seven varieties of rates
witnessed iu Wall Street last December. Barring that the
way is clear for an advance all along the line in good stocks
and bonds, one cannot go far wrong in purchasing now by
anyone able to pay for or carry same without undue charges.
The annual statement of the Bank of Montreal shows that
this hank is lending in New York $10,000,000 less than a
year ago. This is due. of course, to the great business
activity in Canada, which enables the money to he more
profitably loaned at home. It is conceivable that the com¬
bined Canada banks may be soon loaning $50,000,000 less in
New York than a year ago, and if soil would account in
some part for the present stringency, as it is in effect a con¬
traction of our available credit. This view of the money
niarket has never before appeared in print, and has not been
taken by any financial writers.





IT IS very much to he hoped that the authorization of new
rapid transit routes in Manhattan will not be delayed
very much longer. There can be no doubt thai the uncer¬
tainty as to how much and what kind of rapid transit Man¬
hattan is going to get is the greatest single drag on the cur¬
rent development of the city. Two new bridges and three
new tunnels to Long Island are actually under construction,
and the same is true in respect to the various new tunnels
to New Jersey. But in the meantime, while various new
transit  routes extending through  Manhattan to  the  Bronx





have been laid out, it is still uncertain how many and which
of them will be authorized. Nobody can tell as yet whether
the city will be able to reach an agreement witii the Inter-
borough-MetropoHtan Company in respect to the early con¬
struction of one or more new routes, or whether no fair agree¬
ment will be possible, and the delay of planning and building
a municipal subway system will have to be incurred. There
is no way of getting rid of this uncertainty, for the city can¬
not afford to do merely what the rapid transit combination
may want to do; but the condition is extremely regrettable,
because there can be no douht that the existing situation in
respect to rapid transit lias again become critical. The
subway is as crowded during rush hours as the elevated
roads used to be. It supplies a more efficient service to the
part of the city which it taps, hut there is much of the city
to which it is of no advantage, and it is approaching the
limit of its serviceability. Its value to the residents of the
Bronx is very much diminished hy the fact that its route is so
circuitous, and by the fact that the express service for that
borough does not run north of Ninety-sixth street station,
while the building up of Washington Heights and the Dyck¬
man tract, will be very much hampered by the fact that it is
not a four-track road in that vicinity. Neither the Bronx
nor Washington Heights can develop freely under ex¬
isting transit conditions, and during the next flve years they
will lose thousands of inhabitants for this reason. The truth
is that the subway merely filled a vacancy which was already
created and really did not provide for future development,
Manhattan and the Bronx will have to pass through another
period of at least five years in whicii its traveling accommo¬
dations will be wholly inadequate, and the worst of it is
that there does not seem to be any practicable remedy for
this condition.





Our Distressing Streets.

WE print this week anotber installment of "exhibits"
showing the disgraceful condition into which our
streets have fallen. No doubt there are "reasons," good, had
and indifferent, why the main thoroughfares of the metropolis
o) the Western Continent should present an appearance that
we associate strictly with Constantinople or the dacayed and
decaying cities of the East. It seems to ns quite incredible
that the authorities can be at all cognizant of the extent of
the dilapidation permitted in our streets. No part of the city
has heen spared. The poorer sections have always been
abominably kept; now the ruin from pickaxe and spade is
spread like blotches all over the face of the town. The evil
has extended so insidiously that the citizen who curses the
inconvenience and filth of his own daily route does not stop
to think that the conditions that annoy and incommode him
are equally prevalent elsewhere and have equally inflicted
most other citizens.

The truth is. New York City to-day might well be dubbed
"The City of Uncomfortable Locomotion." One need not even
allude to the Subway. The nightly scenes thereon are not
only disgraceful, but filthy. They are a positive challenge to
our claim upon civilization. One could not ship hogs from
Chicago in anything like the- same way that one can ship
human beings to Harlem. The elevated roads are only better
than the Subway inasmuch as they are ahove ground and are
able thereby to make a larger draft upon fresh air. The
street car service, from the point of view of sanitation and
decency, is a trifle better at times and in spots than the ele-
vjited road, but where and when the street cars are bad, by
Jove! they are very bad.

The citizen, male or female, who did not wisli to breathe
the hundred times concentrated breath of other human be¬
ings, or be submitted to the indecent packing of body against
body (men and women intermingled and interlaced), which
must be tolerated by all who ride, could some time ago at
least turn to the natural mode of locomotion for escape.
But of all such comfort tbe aforesaid citizen is now deprived.
Let any pedestrian take a walk from any of our ferries, say, to
the City Hall. Let him note the conditions of the streets he
has to traverse. Particularly, let him remark these thor¬
oughfares in rainy weather, when the greasy mud is thick
and the inequalities of surface are pools of slimy mud. Let
him in dry weather note the little simoons of dust and
manure that whirl into nose and eye. Let him count how
many times in a distance much less than a mile he will he
halted by obstructions, and how often he will be compelled
to pass out into the driveway—that is, if he can get there—
by climbing over obstructions, trenches, piping, conduits,
cables, heaps of dirt, piles of paving blocks, to say nothing of
the crates and other business impedimenta whicii merchants
are permitted to dump and leave upon the sidewalk.    The





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