December 28, 1907





RECORD   AND   GUIDE





1041















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Vol.  LXXX.





DECL'MBER 2S, 1007.





No. 20T6





INDBX  TO   DEPARTMBNTS.

Advertlslng  Sectlon.

f   '                                        Page.                                              Pago,

Cemcnt   ......................xiv  Luniber   ......................xv

Clay  Protlucts   ................vi  Machiuery   ....................xil

Con.sulting Engineers  .........xili   Mutal   Work   ..................xi

Contractors   and   Builders......iii   Quiclt  Joh  Directory............ix

Electrical    Iiiterests...........sĩii   Rcal  Estate   ..................vii

Firepro(íĩing   ...................11   Roofers &  Roofing  Materials.xvi

Granite   .....................xvli   Stone   ........................xvl

IroE and Stee!...................v  Wood   Products.................xv





THIS, the last fuĩl week of the calendar year, aceordiiig
to all propheeies, should he the ending' of a
períod of flnancial stringency which has continued
some eighteen months. We should know presently
what to expect, whether the period of reaction is
to he prolonged, or if we are really seeing the last o£ the
bank crisis and its sequences; for the flrst ten days of Jan-
uary nsually determine the course of business for a consider-
able portiou of the ensuíng year. Bven with normal conditions
the reaĩ estate market is dull in December usually, but after'
the holidays improves rapidly. If the month of January sees
the usual rebound, the augury wil! be good for even a more
prosperous era in real estate and building affairs than the pre-
vious one, which began in 1S97 and was choked off in 1906
—choked off, as is now known, by pernĩcioiis banking meth-
ods, and not terminated by any rea! exhaustion of resources
or overproduction of material. The present case, tlierefore,
differs from any precediug national panic and should not be
atteuded by a similar sequence of events. The money which
the banks of the city should have loaned to local business
channels, and especially to real estate interests, was poured
into Wall Street instead. Aside from the bank flurry, condi-
tions have never been better in the United States than they
are now, certainly not in New York; but something is funda-
mentally wrong with a banking system whích alîows, yet does
not through its workings, directly cause, these periodical
pauics. In Canada there has been nothing of the sort în
thirty years, while this country has passed through three or
four. The harm done to young business men from
being turned back in their careers by recurring
finaucial eclipses cannot be expressed in words or
set down în figures. After the experience which
the banks and investors have had this year in
Wall Street there ought not to be much ãifficu!ty hereafter
in getting mouey for building loans and permanent reaĩ es-
tate mortgages, and this is the belief with which the allied
interests approach the new year.





IS the Cîty being trifled with by public service corporations?
Several cases that have reeently been exposed to public
view are rather confirmatory of this suspicion. For a while
the Steinway (or Beĩmont) tunnel projection seemed to be
runniiig away with a franchise for a transportation line with-
out making a proper settlement with tke city, For some years
the New York Centraî Railroad Company has been using por-
tions of Twelfth avenue without taking the trouble to inquire
what the rent might be, or to make any payments at all to
the City for the use of lauds which are unquestionably the
property of the municipality, Agaĩn, it transpires that two
railroad corporations chartered to compete for local tralRc
with existing railroad systems from the Harlem River to the
State line are actually owued or controlled by one of these
existing systems, with the probabîlities strong that oue of the





projects, the New York, Westchester & Boston, has been for
several years engineered in the interests of the  corporation
which now avowedly controls all the roads, unknown to the
public.    At any  rate,  the termination of the   long and  cir-
cuitous proceedings in which the projects for the construc-
tion  o,f one  or  more  high-speed  electric  railroads  into  the
northern suburbs Is into the financial arms of the New York,
New Haven & Hartford Raiiroad Company, with prophecies
decidedly against any new  road whatever being built,    For
several  years the Borough  of the  Eronx and the  adjoining
county of Westchester have based large anticipations upon as-
surances of the eompletion of at least one of the two projects,
it did not matter which, but whatever may be the result now,
since the New Haven president has opeuly admitted his con-
trol of both liues through the media of the MiIIbrook Com-
pany, it is apparent that the advantages which property in-
terests expected to follow from a promised competition will
not arise under any circurastances  which the New York  &
New Haven can domlnate.    So numerous have been the dís-
appointments to the public under the head o£ transportation,
the impulse is strong to advise investors never to believe untíl
they see.    Added to this present disappointment is the fur-
the   circumstance  that   the   offlcial  notice   which  has   been
served upon property owners that a railroad has been laid
out from the Harlera River to the cîty line casts a certaln
cloud over the parcels affected, wbich makes the case all the
ĩoore  disagreeable  when taken  with  the  remoteness of  the
probability of the completion of eíther of the roads.    Whcn
the   application   o£   the   New   York   &   Portchester   Railroad
Company for a change of route was made au express aud au-
thoritative  denial was  recorded  at  the  same  time that the
Millbrook     Company     was     in       any     way     allied     with
the     New     York     &     New     Haven     Railroad,     this     de-
nial      being     made       to       the        represeutative     of     the
Board of Estimate, as he has testified to in an oflicial report.
Under all  the circumstances which  eonfront reaĩ  estate  in-
terests and eitizens generally, they have need to gather  up
all the patienee and loyalty that eome from faith ín Amer-
ican principles and wait for the time when the country will
get back into "the old paths" and respeet once again the o!d
landmarks o£ truth and honesty.





Thc Auuual Number of the Bccord and Guide Will
Be Issued Next Week, Saturday, January  4.

It  wíll   be  the  Best  Boview  of  Beal   Estate  and
Building Conditions for the Year 1907.

Articles   by  the  Leading  Authorities  on  the  Sub-
jects Treated,  with Numerous Illustrations.





ADECIDEDLY serious turu is given to the eontempla-
tion of the pollutiou of New ork Harbor and the
Hudson River by a report from a committee of the IVIerchánts'
Association upon the sanitary conditions o£ the waterfront,
together with studies of the consequences of these eonditions
upon the populations on the shores, Only a few observers
of the steady process of coutaminating the waters have con-
sidered it a preseut danger. For the most part people have
regarded the subject with feelings similar to those with whieh
they think of the time the íand will be denuded of forests,
as something not likely to arrive in their lifetime, and as noth-
ing £or them to worry about. They regret that the water of
the river and harbor is not so pure as^it was witkin t]ieir
remembrance; that the flsh are disappearing and that even
the ouce blue waters o£ the central Hudson have become
offeusJve to the eye and the nostrils aud deadly to the taste.
But, like the man who will not plant a tree because he can-
not live to enjoy its shade, they think the case is not up to.
them and therefore dismiss it from their thou'ghts. But they
cannot in truth give it the "go-by" much longer. Over five
thousand cases of tyhoid and other iutestinal diseases
werc réported în this eity within a period o£ three mouths
in this preseut year, and scientiflc investigatiou has actually
traced the fecal bacteria in its course froni the eddying
masses~floatîng on the surface o£ the river, or exposed on the
shores near the outfall of sewers, to the famiĩy boards, io
the homes o£ the people, throughout the eity, It has long
been contended that the discharge o£ sewage into the Hudsou
from the growing cities on its banks was only sentimentaĩly
objectionable, as the disease germs contained therein were
rendered   inuocuous   by   the   natural   action   of   the   moving