January ii, 1908.





RECORD  AND  GUIDE





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C. W. SWEET

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President,   CLINTON  W.   SWEET                      Treasurer,  F.  W.  DODGE

Vice-Pres,  & Genl.  Mgr., H.  W.  DESMOND        Secretary,  F. T.  MILLER

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Vol.   LXXXL





JANUARY 11, 190S.





No.   207S





INDEX   TO   DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising  Section.

Page.                                                Page.

Hement    .......................xiv   Lumher   ........................xv

Clay Products   .................xii   Machinery   ....................vi

CousultiDg Engineers   ........xilL   Metal   Work   ..................xl

Contractors   and   Builders   ___ill   Quick Job Directory  ...........ix

Electrical  Interests   ..........xiii   Real   Estate   ..................vii

Fireproofing   ....................ii   Roofers   &  Roofing  Materials.xvi

Granite   .......................xvii   Stone   ........................xvi

Iron   and  Steel   .................v   Wood Products   ...............xv

MAYOR MeCLELLAN'S annual message is a document
which one lays down, after reading, with the feeling
that the administration has the fullest appreciation of those
questions which for property owners are the real issues of
the day iu this city, and we suppose the same could be said
of ail the matters considered in the pages of the message.
Mr. McClellan faces with directness and fairness an unusual
numher of topics which have heen pressing for determina¬
tion; as, for example, the propriety of a change in the time
of collecting taxes; the city's inability to fully collect arrears
of taxes, and the constitutional limit of indebtedness, in the
departments of finance; the revision of the charter; the Fifth
Avenue widening; the distressing congestion in down-town
streets; better sewers; street pavements and roadways; as¬
sessments for parks; and, also, transit and bridge questions,
besides giving a graphic account of what is going on in all
the municipal departments. Appertaining to the proposal
to widen the roadway of Fifth Avenue, the Mayor is of the
opinion that the time has arrived to proceed definitely in
the matter, as the courts have cleared away the last legal
obstacle, leaving nothing intervening but to give notice of
the dooryard spaces being required for public purposes.
And by order of the Mayor surveys and maps are being
made to show where the encroachments are. The notice to
property owners may now come at any time—by resolution
of the Board of Aldermen, presumably, and particular con¬
sideration wi!l be shown to those who will consent to re¬
move their buildings without forcing the city into the courts.
The net enlargement of the roadway will be about fifteen
feet. For so many years has the probability of this action
been discussed in the public journals, the subject in its
various aspects ought to be familiar to everyone. In many
cases the impending regulation was long ago anticipated
in respect to obstructions beyond the building line, but there
are instances of encroaching columns, and especially of cer¬
tain architeetuTal ornamentations, which no doubt will be
the subject of future consideration with a view to leniency,
seeing that while they may be misplaced they in nowise will
interfere with the general plan to gain more room for ve¬
hicular traffic. Whatever objection in the nature of a gen¬
eral movement on the part of property owners may be
interposed to the widening, it will not be on the ground that
the drive is not too narrow, but rather through fear of the
consequences of an inflexible interpretation of the ordi¬
nances; and hence it might be a proper proceeding to suggest
to the authorities a consideration of the possibility of a
moderation of lines and terms that would eliminate tem¬
porarily some of the drastic and expensive features and yet
not prevent ultimately the. full attainment of the object.





million dollars has been the city's contribution under this
head during the last, five years, and the probabilities are
that this will be about all for the present, or until improve¬
ments more urgently necessary for the general welfare have
been provided. The expenses connected with condemnation
proceedings for new parks have been enormous, over and
above the value of the lands taken, and the authorities feel
that with the large number of local parks that have been
laid out since the consolidation, and the present need for
funds in other directions being so pressing, further expenses
of this character should be defrayed by the localities de¬
siring the improvements; and coupled with this resolution
will probably 'be, if the recommendations of the city engi¬
neers are followed, a scheme for a new and definite policy
in assessing benefits and damages for all public works. The
proportion of cost which the Borough of Manhattan has had
to bear for many purely local improvements elsewhere has
been heavy, and the taxpayers are not likely to object to
the money being used for more general objects. Touching
upon another matter in the message, the propriety of chang¬
ing the financial calendar, it will be observed that the Mayor
accepts the judgment of the Advisory Commission that the
real reason for the demands for a change in the date for the
collection of taxes is the large deficiency in current funds,
due to the city's inability to enforce the prompt payment of
taxes on real estate. The present method of providing cur¬
rent funds was adopted after due consideration for what the
commission believes "good and sufficient reasons," and it
is convinced that it is not desirable to make a change in
this respect. But Mayor McClellan is satisfied that an
amendment to the charter which the commission has pro¬
posed will not only be effective in collecting "all" taxes in
arrears, but wil! also "have the eifect of the Pennsylvania
system, by which defects iu titles to real property can be
cured." The expedient referred to is to sell the lien instead"-
of a lease, and permit the purchaser to realize upon this'
as he would upon a mortgage when due. Should tbese hopes
be fulfilled the city will no longer have to worry about where
the money for a municipal subway is to come from, espe¬
cially as the Mayor is doubtful concerning the wisdom of
changing the statutes so as to extend the constitutional debt
limit.





A RESOLUTION, assessing the costs of acquiring new pub¬
lic parks in accordance with the direct local benefit,
instead of charging the sum to the city at large, is another
importaat recorameudation  of the  annual message.     Forty





BROOKLYN can with reason expect a new era of growth
from the opening of the Battery tunnel this week,
notwithstanding that in some degree the benefit has been
largely anticipated during the years that the construction
work has been going on. The continuous one-fare transit
in actual operation from the office district of Manhattan to
a high-class residential district heretofore accessible only
at the cost of much personal discomfort, through the
"bridge crush," is certain to start a new emigration. The
expansion v/hich Brooklyn has had in the last three or four
years, in part anticipatory of this new subway extension, aud
iu part attributable to general prosperity and natural growth,
has been principally in the suburban wards not directly
to be served by this subway. The Heights and the sections
near the stations on the way to the terminal at Atlantic ave¬
nue have been long settled, and quite unchanged of late years
in their external appearance, and probably would have seen
the same rise in real estate values if the tunnel had not
been building. These are the districts which will obtain
the largest immediate results from this the first real con¬
solidation since the enabling act for Greater New York.
Great numbers of people already living in Brooklyn will
desire to live on the line of "the new subway, so they will
no longer have to cross the Bridge; and there will be many
doing business in our financial district to whom a residence
in the Heights section of Brooklyn will be more convenient
and desirable under the new circumstances than their pres¬
ent places of abode in this borough. No denial can be
entered to this, any more than to the fact that there was a
very large emigration to Brooklyn after the opening of tho
Brooklyn Bridge in 1S83. In this connection the action of
the Bronx Board of Real Estate Brokers, in issuing a call
to al! civic societies on the North Side to "denounce the
Utilities Commission's neglect of the Bronx," is taken as
highly significant of the apprehensions entertained in that
quarter, thoirgh it may be, in view of the recommendation
made last week by the Commission for an East Side subway,
that the intentions of the body have not been understood.
At any rate, fairness demands an even-handed distribution
of public utilities, and tte Bronx is justified In being alert
at this crisis.