May 25, 1907





RECORD  AND   GUIDE





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PRICE   PER   YEAR   IN   ADVANCE   EIGHT

Published eVery Saturdap

Oommunicatlons should be addressed to

C.   W.   SWEET

Madison Square: 11-15 East 24th Street

Telephone, 4430 Madison Square





DOLLARS







"Entered at the Tost Office




at JVeto




For




■k. JV. 3




'., as second-class malter."










Copyrighted,   1907,




by




C. W.




Sweet.















Vol.  LXXIX,









MAY




2o,




190T.









No.




2045.





INDEX TO  DEPARTMENTS.
Avertising Section.

Page,                                                     Page.

Cement   ........................xv Lumber   .......................xx

Consulting Engineers  .........viii Machiuery   ...................vi

Clay Products ................xviii  Metal Work   ...................ix

Contractors and  Builders.......iv  Quick Job  Directory............xx

Electrical. luleresLs  ............vii Real   Estate..................xi

Fireproofing...................ii Roofers  Sr Rooflng Materials, .xix

Granite   .....................xvi Stone-----,.................:Xvi

Iron aud Steel.................x Wood Products.........:......xx

THERE has been during the week a distinctly hetter tone
ia Wall Street. After apparent demoralization in prices
and an unpromising and gioomy outlook, the market hardened
and stiffened under "short" covering and indications of the bar¬
gain hunter heing around. Another contributing cause to the
improved feeling were Lhe remarks of Secretary Oscar S. Straus,
of the Department of Commerce and Labor, at the dinner in the
Waldorf of the twelfth annual convention of the National As¬
sociation of Manufacturers. Secretary Straus spoke'of com¬
merce combinations and labor. He pointed out tliat lhe simple
publication, after laborious investigation of the great system
of rebates enjoyed by favored corporations, was followed by
the voluntary cancellation by the railroads without a single
court process. Mr. Straus dwelt on the fact that at one stroke
the most sweeping and necessary reform was achieved in rail¬
way management. Such utterances emanating from so im¬
portant an authority would indicate that it is not the
intention of the National Administration to urge such legisla¬
tion as would disturb vested rights or the natural and
normal channels of trade. The Secretary further said
that the Government could not eriualize competitors, but
it could equalize the opportunities of competitors and prevent
the use of unfair means to diminish or destroy such equal
opportunity. As a whole, the speech tended to insure more
confldence in the future, which has undoubtedly suffered of late.
Several stocks made new low records for the year, among them
New York Central, while Reading went to 9&'A. The grain mar¬
ket has been easier. Trustworthy advices were to the effect
that the Northwestern farmers had been more successful with
their planting than was thought from the tenor of former re¬
ports. Corn was weaker and all this news aided iu steadying
the security market. Money was slightly firmer because of the
possibility of the Secretary of the Treasury caLing for at least
$25,000,000 of deposits, of which less than half might be taken
from New York banks. The cheap rates for money are, under
present conditions, of little use to real estate and building in¬
terests, as there is no disposition to lend freely even with gilt-
edged security. This state of things will continue until confi¬
dence is more fully restored.





prices, and only a very few modern buildings will have to
be condemned and destroyed. The area benefited will IJe
very large and the amount assessed again'st individual prop¬
erty-owners correspondingly small. It is one of these street
improvements which, in case the city had the power to con¬
demn adjoining property, could be made an actual source
of profit to the municipality, because of the increased value
which will inevitably be given to real estate in the neigh¬
borhood. In fact, the extension of these avenues fits pre¬
cisely into the niche provided by the resolution of the Board
of Estimate asking the City Engineer to consider what part
of the plans of the City Improvement Commission could be
most cheaply and profitably carried out. Moreover, the
whole of the Borough, as well as the immediate neighbor¬
hood, would be benefited. The increased capacity obtained
for longitudinal traffic would be useful to all West Side
business operations. The street cars on the lower West
Side could use the new avenues, and would be able to make
very much better time, while the task of planning lower
West Side rapid transit extensions would be made very much
easier. The property-owners on the avenues should not rest
until they secure the active consent of the Board of Esti¬
mate to this promising street improvemeut. Its need has
been recognized for years, aud its postponement should be
no longer delayed.





THE PROPERTY-OWNERS ou Sixth and Seventh ave¬
nues have done well to ask the Board of Estimate for
a southerly extension of those thoroughfares. Of ail the
street improvements proposed for Mauhattan, these partic¬
ular extensions promise a maximum of benefit for a minimum
of cost. South of Fourteenth Street the city is provided
with only one avenue west of Broadway which is available
for vehicular trafflc. Sixth and Seventh avenues terminate
in brick walls a few blocks south of Fourteenth Street; and
this lack of free means of communication has handicapped the
growth in population and business of the whole of the Green¬
wich district. The needed extensions can be obtained easily
and cheaply. Both of these avenues can be continued south
for comparatively short distances until they meet Varick
Street, and Varick Street can be widened, so as to accom¬
modate the inevitable increase of traffic and prolonged to
Broadway.     The   property   needed   can   be   bought   at   low





The Revision of the Building  Code.

WHEN the building laws of a city like New York are to
be revised the people interested iu the revision natur¬
ally divide themselves into two groups. There is one group who
either from interest or conviction favor the establishment in
the law of a higher standard of construction, so that the city
as a whole will be less exposed to loss by flre. On the other
hand, there is always another active and powerful group of
property owners and builders whose interests look in the oppo¬
site direction. The speculative operator and the builder en¬
gaged in supplying rentable and salable residential and busi¬
ness buildings are naturally afraid of an improvement in the
standard of construction that will make their operations more
costly and restrict the demand for their output. At the pres¬
ent time in New York one can remark plainly the effect of
these two divergent interests. Most of the architects, the fire
underwriters and some of the large builders favor on the whole
a severer Taw, while a larger number of smaller builders are
using their influence in favor of eonflning the revision to cer¬
tain details, that will not affect the genera! standard of con¬
struction.

In this controversy there can be no doubt as to the side on
which the public interest lies. What New York city needs is
on the whole a higher rather than a lower standard of con¬
struction, and the reasons in favor of a higher standard of
construction are the same that have been active and decisive in
the past. Every new building law the city of New York has
adopted has made for safer and better buildings than the pre¬
ceding law. The revision now under way should be no ex¬
ception to this rule. As the city increases in population and
business its commercial interests need the protection of safer
buildings, while at the same time its inhabitants can better
afford to pay the expense of such protection. Since the last
revision of the code, in 1899, New York has been relatively as
prosperous as during any similar period in the history of the
city. It has been a time of enormous building operations, dur¬
ing which the number of "skyscrapers" in Manhattan has
probably trebled, and during which they have been extending
over a much larger area. This tremendous increase in the
number of tall buildiugs and this alteration in their distribution
has been the fact of dominant importance in the building his¬
tory of these years, and the condition which has beeu created
by the erection of so many skyscrapers all over Manhattan is
the fact which will afford the Revision Commission cogent
reasons for a general improvement in the standard of con¬
struction.

If the skyscrapers in Manhattan were concentrated in a
limited area, so that they would protect one another from the
disastrous effects of a general conflagration, the need of a
higher standard of construction would not be so manifest, but
the difflculty with the existing situation is that in the central
part of Manhattan the skyscrapers are only comparatively
uninflammable islands in a sea of inflammable buildings; and
the experience of Baltimore and San Francisco conclusively
shows how dangerous such a condition is. Under a
test these tall buildings, while not entirely destroyed by flre,
are so far destroyed that nothing but their shell remains; and
the danger of this state of things cannot be entirely remedied