Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view
About OCR text.
January 26, 1907
RECORD AND GUIDE
22a
ESTABUSHEIl^iiyiRCK£LM,^l868,
DdM) P RE\L ESTAJE.BuiLDlKo A,RCJ^ITECTUnE.KoUSElfOLD DfCQIi^ncii.
BJsit/ESs a(Id Themes ofGEjJEi^ftL It/TEfiESi.
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Published every Salurdap
Communications should bo addressed to
C. W. SWEET
Downtown Oflice: 14-16 Vesey Street, New York
Taluphinie, Cortlandt 31.^7
Uptown Ollice: 11-13 East 24th Street, New York
Teleplionc, 4430 Mftdleon Sipmre
'•Eidered at the Tost Office at .N'fw TnrJ.; if. I',, nn uprond-class mallei-."
Vol. LXXIX.
JANUARY 26. 1907,
No. 202S.
INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising Section.
Page Page
Cement .....................svli Lumber ......................xxii
Consulting Engineers .........viii Machinery .....................ix
Clay Products ..................i Metal Work ..................xvl
Contractors and Builders......iv Quick Jot) Directory........xxlll
Electrical Interests ...........vl Real Estate ..................xl
Fireprooflng ..................11 Roofers & Rooflng Materials.. .xx
Granite ....................xvlli Stone.....................xvlii
Iron and Steel..................xv Wood Products ...............xxii
j The Index to Volume LXXVIII. of the Record and
I Guide, covering the period between July 1 and De-
I cember 31, 1900, is now ready for delivery. Price $1.
I This Index in its enlarged form is now recognized as
I indispensable to every one engaged or interested in real
I estate and building operations. It covers all trans¬
actions—deeds, mortgages, leases, auction sales, building
plans filed, etc. Orders for the Index should be sent
at once to the offices of publication, 11-15 East 24th St,,
and 14 and 16 Vesey St.
IRREGULARITY and uncertainty continued in Wall Street
this week. The market has been dull and weak by
turns with an occasional spasm of strength. It is not an
uncommon admission in large Stock Exchange offices these
days that customers have not made any njoney during the
past year either on the long or short side of the account. The
violent swings up and down while theoretically constituting
an ideal trading market have instead practically wiped out
traders on both sides. The result is that operators are
afraid of the market and one of the biggest of them made
the remark this week that "an archangel couldn't beat it."
Its natural tendency seems still to be upwards, but it goes
down just the same. Money is getting very easy and plen¬
tiful and a good bank statement today is a fair expectation.
On Wednesday President Schuster of the Union Bank of
London, at a meeting of that institution in the British
metropolis, said in speaking of the financial situation in this
country, "signs are not wanting that your great activity is
now nearing its end and a period of liquidation is at hand."
He added, however, that the contraction of husiness would,
in his opinion, be gradual and that over-speculation and
over-trading would be checked without material harm re¬
sulting to the welfare of the community. An opinion from
so high a source is worthy of note, but even British bankers
are not infallible in their predictions regarding the develop¬
ment, the progress and the material prosperity of this coun¬
try, for it has broken all records and precedents and rendered
former standards useless. Financially and commercially
the United States is in a class by itself. The appointment
of Chairman Theodore P. Shouts of the Isthmian Canal Com¬
mission to the presidency of the Interborough Railroad
Company in place of .August Belmont was viewed with sat¬
isfaction by Wall Street. Mr, Shonts has resigned from the
Canal Commission and his continued prominent connection
with the Toledo, St. Louis & Western Railroad, better known
as the Clover Leaf, is by his Interborough presidency looked
upon as an argument in favor of an advance in that stock.
In the transactions in the stock market this week much of
the buying of the general list represented covering of the
"shorts," of which there is undoubtedly a large number out¬
standing. - - .
â– pROPERTY-OWNERS in the vicinity of Twenty-third
A Street can certainly make a strong argument in favor
of an express station at that street in the new East Side sub¬
way. There is no valid reason why the express stations
should be situated at equal distances one from another, or
that the express stations on the different underground routes
should all'be at the same streets. The one consideration of
dominant importance is the convenience of the public; and
the public convenience will surely be promoted by the loca¬
tion of the express stations at different streets in different
subways, so that a passenger can more quickly reach any
particular destination by taking his choice of routes. Thus
Fourteenth Street has au express station on the Fourth Ave¬
nue route; Twenty-third Street should have one on the Lex¬
ington-Fifth Avenue route, and Thirty-fourth Street on the
West Side route, which passes near the Pennsylvania Ter¬
minal. An express station at Twenty-third Street would be
of more use to more people than one at almost any other
single street. The cross-town traffic on that street is the
heaviest in the city. Madison Square is destined within ten
years to be surrounded by sky-scrapers; and whatever it
may lose by the shifting of retail trade to points further
north it will gain in the number and population of its office-
buildings. Moreover, at the end of ten years, it will be the
centre of a wholesale section, including a multitude of tall
buildings. Taking all these conditions into consideration the
Record and Guide believes that it would be a grave mis¬
take not to situate the express station at Twenty-third Street.
A very good distribution of these stations would be to locate
one at Ninth Street, the point at which the subway would
cross the Astor Place extension of the New Jersey tunnel;'
one at Twenty-third Street and one at Fifty-ninth Street
Assuming that the East Side subway will be constructed south
of Forty-second Street, we fail to see any sufficient reason
why there should be an express station at Forty-second
Street. The existing subway contains a station at this point,
and that subway should be for the time being sufficient for
the needs of the people who wish to travel to and from Forty-
second Street quickly. Everybody cannot be entirely satis¬
fied; and the object should be to give the best possible ser¬
vice to the largest possible number of people. Given the
existing express stations at Fourteenth and Forty-second
Streets, that object would be best attained by similar sta¬
tions at Ninth, Twenty-third and Fifty-ninth Streets in the
new subway.
The Condemnation of Land for Public
Purposes.
THE Record and Guide has received among others a letter
from Mr. Lawson Purdy, President of the Tax Depart¬
ment, in reference to the proposed changes in the method of
condemning land for public purposes which reads iu part as
follows: "I am particularly interested iu your proposal that
when the city condemns land for a public improvement it
shall condemn a larger area than is required for the improve¬
ment, in order that it may reap the increased value given to
the adjacent land by reason of the improvement. I am
somewhat familiar with the experience of the City of Loudon,
and that experience demonstrates that the city may gain so
large a profit iu the enhanced value of the land condemned
as to pay the entire cost of important improvements. We
shall be* lacking, indeed, in a proper progressive spirit if
we do not obtain the power necessary to follow this good
example. I trust that the Record and Guide will keep the
matter before the people until such power as may be neces¬
sary is gained for the City of New York."
The Record and Guide has been preaching the necessity
of such a reform, for a great many years, but until recently
the responsible city officials, whose approval is necessary be¬
fore the matter can be carried to the Legislature, have ex¬
hibited little or no interest in it. Yet there can be no doubt
that increased power in condemning land for public pur¬
poses is as necessary in its way to the future welfare of
the City of New York as is increased rapid transit or an
increased water-supply. The necessity is not so immediate,
and the consequences of inaction would not be so distressing
iu the near future; but most assuredly tbe extreme difiiculty
with which new streets are laid out at present in the older
parts of the city will, unless it is remedied, seriously and
permanently impair the prosperity of the city. For reasons
which have frequently been pointed out the existing lay-out
of Manhattan makes in every way for congestion; for the
concentration of business and traffic along certain lines and
at certa.in points. The result is not only that thoroughfares