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June 22, 1907
RECORD AND GUIDE
1197
ESTABUSHEIl-^ii\ARPH£l'4*^l868.
Dev&tid to REA.L Estate . Em Loifib %a<iTEeTunE .h(ousa(ou) ItosBiATOrf,
Bi/sii/ess AfijThemes of GeiJer&I l^TERfMv
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Publisfied every Saturdaii
Oommnnlcations should bo addressed to
C. W. SWEET
Madison Square: 11-15 East 24th Streel
Telephone, 4430 Madison Squaro
'-f —^——----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.—â– —-------------------------------------------------------------^—---------------------ri
"Entered at the Post Office at ^eio Yoi'k. iV. I'., as second-class mallei:"
Copyrighted, 1907, by The Record &. Guide Co.
Vol. LXXIX,
JUNE 22, 1907.
No. 2049.
INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS.
Avertising Section,
Page. Page.
Cement .......................vii Lumber .......................xx
Consulting Engineers ..........vi Machinery..................viii
Clay Products ................xviii Metal Work ...................xv
Contractors and Builders.......iv Quielt Job Directory............xx
Electrical Interests............ix Real Eslate..................xl
Fireproofing...................ii Roofers &. Rooflng Materials, .xix
Granite .....................xvi Stoue.......................xvi
Iron and Steel.................x Wood Products ................xx
DULLNESS has prevailed during the week in tlie Stock
Market and there have been lew new or impor¬
tant developments. But 2 40,0 00 shares were dealt in on
"Wednesday and at times the ticker moved at long and un¬
certain intervals. Some significance, however, may he at¬
tached to the large engagements of ^old for export. Some
say that the movement may reacli $50,000,000 before the
first of October. This would include the amount that Berlin
is said to need. Europe has been selling ns back many
millions of our securities largely on account of its view of
Union Pacific flnancing and the controversy between that
railroad's interests and the Federal government. The gen¬
eral soundness of business throughout the country reduces
any anxiety that may be felt at the specie shipments from
this side to a minimum. Time was when a few millions
of gold sent abroad would cause an immediate slump iu
stocks, but now the market is not aifected. Some surprise
and disappointment were expressed at the Reading directors,
who adjourned without action on the dividend. The fact
that there was no quorum was looked upon by some traders
as based on the pending litigation in the Federal courts in
connection with the combination of the coal roads, but
other authorities said that there was no intention of in¬
creasing the dividend. All declarations of dividends, how¬
ever, sink into insignificance compared with the action of
the Adams Express Company in announcing a distribution
to their stockholders of $24,000,000 forty-year 4 per cent,
bonds, which is equivalent to a dividend of 200 per cent,
on the capital stock. To do this the Adams Express Com¬
pany has to amend the articles of its association. The ex¬
press company's action is forced by the new law which de¬
clares express companies to be common carriers, which are
now obliged to make to the Interstate Commerce Commis¬
sion a full statement, including capital stock and surplus.
Such a prodigious amount of surplus for distribution among
stockholders in a single company is unprecedented in the
history of tiie financial world. Money rates have hardened
' and they are not likely to recede. Call money touched Zy^,
though some loans have been effected at 2%, Time money
rates have also advanced, which will not be good news to
real estate and bnilding interests, but changes may come
suddenly and unexpectedly.
THE owners of the cooperative apartment house in
West Sixty-seventh Street, who are in difficulties con¬
cerning the tenement house law, are only getting their
deserts. Any lawyer could have told them that a ten-story
apartment house erected on a narrow street such as Sixty-
seventh Street was a violation of the law, and the fact that
the owners of the earlier huildings erected on the same
street escaped the consequences of their temerity in con¬
niving at the violation of the law, was no excuse for a con¬
tinuation of the process. The whole incident is a curious
one, inasmuch as large and responsible financial institutions
have been induced to lend hundreds of thousands of dollars
on what were substantially illegal buildings. The plans of
the cooperative apartment houses erected .in West Sixty-
seventh Street were all filed as hotels, instead of tenements,
and their occupation by their tenants was subsequently per¬
mitted on the ground that being hotels, they did not need
to conform to the tenement house law. As a matter of fact,
however, they were always, in the legal meaning of the
term, tenement houses, because there were fourteen apart¬
ments in each building provided with kitchens. At the
previous session of the Legislature a bill was passed which
legalized the flrst three of these buildings, but the fourth
building has been left out in the cold, and its tenants will
be obliged to obtain their meals from a common kitchen.
All the cooperative apartment houses subsequently erected
on the East Side and elsewhere have conformed to the law
in this respect; but it is certainly extraordinary that so
many people could be found in New York who would invest
money in an illegal building. Hereafter the cooperate
apartment house will he built under the provisions of the
tenement house law, and the perils of the people who in¬
vest in them will be derived from other sources. In the
opinion of the Record and Guide the planning of these
buildings is certainly being overdone, and the public should
be warned from going into these enterprises without exam¬
ining very closely into the details of the financial arrange¬
ments. In almost every case the enterprise is promoted by
some speculator who furnishes the preliminary expenses and
who expects his remuneration from the resulting profits. It
is right, of course, that the man who does all the prelimi¬
nary work and takes the risks involved should be compen¬
sated, but the tendency is for the promoter to take an even
larger share of the proflts. A possible result is that the
stockholders get a constantly smaller share, and the flnan¬
cial standing of the whole enterprise and its ability to
weather a period of poor renting become mor,« precarious.
—---------------«------------------
THE most important question before the Buildiug Code
Revision Commission has been raised by the follow¬
ing amendment, which has been suggested by Mr. John W.
Hamilton, and which was published last week in the Record
and Guide among other amendments proposed by Mr. Ham¬
ilton. This clause reads as follows: "All buildings here¬
after erected of any height o*r class whatsoever in certain
specified congested areas, and all buildings over three stories
or 5 0 feet in height within the fire limits, should have all
walls, floors, columns aud partitions of flreproof construc¬
tion. All material entering into the construction and upou
which the strength or stability of the building depends,
should be protected by at least iVs inches of fireproof ma¬
terial on all surfaces." The purpose and effect of this pro¬
posed amendment is obvious. It would forbid the erection
of non-fireproof tenements or business buildings within the
fire limits. In certain residential areas private dwellings
three stories in height could be built, which need not "be
fireproof; but with this exception there would be no com¬
bustible buildings, barring au occasional taxpayer, within the
fire limits. If this amendment can be incorporated in the
new code, it will mean that New York will, in the course of
the next generation, became an uninfiammable city, that the
insurance rates will be substantially reduced, that life and
property will become much more secure, aud that the Amer¬
icau metropolis will dually have reached the European stand¬
ard of building construction. The benefits, that is, would
be enormous, and really the only question to be considered
is whether they would be obtained at too high a price. The
economic effects of such a higher and more expensive stand¬
ard of construction would undoubtedly be very serious. It
would mean an increase of at least 20 per cent, in the cost
of the ordinary tenenient and a corresponding increase in
rentals, and this would mean, of course, either more con¬
gestion in Manhattan or a further shifting of population to
residences outside the fire limits. Before consequently any
such provision is introduced into the hew code a careful in¬
quiry should he made as to its probable influence on rents
and population.
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IN obtaining permission from the Legislature to erect an
offlce bnilding over the new terminal for the Brooklyn
Bridge adjoining City Hall Park, the city government has
adopted what is substantially a wise measure of economy.
The city is acquiring titlo to these three little blocks at a
very heavy expense for terminal purposes, and the erection
of an offlce building over the terminal will enable the city
to obtain a large amount of office space at what will be com¬
paratively a small expense. The many city departments whieh
now inhabit the Stewart and the Park Row buildings could
be congeiitrated in the new building with the result of