February i, 1908





RECORD  AND  GUIDE





203







Dn^fHfl lb REA.LEsTAji,BuiLDiifc AppKrn:cTUR?.KousEitoiitDEGaRATiorf,
BUsn/ESS AttoTHEBES Of'GEjteR^l IKTCRESI..

PRICE   PER   YEAR   IN   ADVANCE   EIGHT   DOLLARS

Communications  should be  addressed to

C. W. SWEET

PablisfJed Every Satarday

By THE KECORD AND GUIDE  CO.

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

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

Noa.  11  to  15 East 24tl»  Street,  New  York  City

(Telephone,   Madison   Square,  4430  to  4433.)





as the new water-supply system. Nothing, however, was done;
and the city again finds its borrowing power wholly insui-
flcient for its imperative needs. The insufficiency is so od-
vious that at last every responsible municipal official is in
favor of it. The Governor and the Public Service Commis¬
sion hav,e recommended it, and both the Mayor and the
Comptroller have admitted its necessity. It will take, how¬
ever, at least three years to consummate the amendment;
and the process should consetjuently he commenced by the
passage of the first bill, submitting the amendment during
the current session. Organizations, both local and general,
representing the real estate interests, should work actively
and persistently on behalf of such legislation. It is abso¬
lutely necessary for the future welfare of the city and for
the prosperity of its property-owners that the amendment
should be passed with the smallest possible delay.







"Entered




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Copyrighted,




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Vol.




LXXXL




FEBRUARY




1,




1908.














No,




2081.





INDETX TO DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising Section,
.    Page                                                 Page

Cement   ......................xii   Lumber   .....................slii

Clay   Products   ................xlv   Machinery    ..................iv

Consulting   Engineers   ..........x   Metal    Work.................ix

Contractors   and   Builders......iii   Quick Job  Directory   ..........vii

Electrical    Interests    ...........x   Real   Estate...................v

Fireproofing   ..................li   Roofers   &   Roofing   Materials.xii

Granite   .......................xv   Stone    .......................xv

Iron   and  Steel..................xl   Wood   Products   ..............xiil

CERTAIN regulations for the use and occupation of the
streets, recommended for adoption to the Board of
Estimate by a special commission, would abrogate the right
of builders to occupy one-third of the street, and leave the
determination of the area to be occupied, as well as the
time of occupation, to the Commissioner of Street Cleaning.
As in effect they would under arbitrary enforcement limit
the term for the completion of building works, it will be seen
that the proposed regulations possibly hold grave conse¬
quences for the building trades, and at any rate should re¬
ceive their attention. The suggestion emanates from a com¬
mission of three engineers appointed last June by the Mayor
to investigate and report on some new and improved system
of street cleaning. Tendencies and conditions resulting from
rapid city growth have so complicated the herculean task of
keeping the thoroughfares in order, the Mayor considers
that a better method is imperatively demanded. The com¬
missioners have, after studying the problem here and abroad,
made an exhaustive report. While they regard the general
use of street flushing, rather than sweeping, as the most im¬
portant of their recommendations, there are other directions
in which changes are.suggested. The laws and ordinances
relating to street-littering of all kinds should be rigidly en¬
forced, and as permits to occupy the streets for building
purposes affect the operations of the Department of Street
Cleaning more than any other city department, they believe
that all such permits should be issued by this department,
that a flxed license fee,, based upon the area occupied and
the locaton, should be exacted from builders, and that a date
of expiration should be named in the permit. A renewal of
the permit at double rate would be entirely discretionary
with the head of the department. This is a proposition
which we think should be carefully studied. No doubt it is
well intended, with the object oF reducing street obstruc¬
tions to the minimum, but the power oE determining within
what period of time a building work shall be executed is one
which, if exercised at all, should scarcely be reposed in such
unaccustomed hands.

--------.-----«—.-—.—^

WHILE it is improbable that any plaii of charter re¬
vision will be sufficiently developed in detail to pass
during the current session of the Legislature, there is one
recommendation of the commission that should not fail to
receive favorable action. There should be no hesitation in
passing the proposed amendment to the State constitution
which exempts money spent on remunerative improvements
from inclusion within the debt limit, and this amendment
should be so worded__as to include dock improvements as well
as subways. For years the Record and Guide has been in¬
sisting upon the necessity of action to this effect. When
under Mayor Low's ailministration sqme relief was obtained
by a general increase of real esta-te assessments, we pointed
du-t t>.at such relief could only be temporary; and the time
grained should be used in passing an, amendment tbat woula
put subway and other paying improvements in the same class





BUT whether or not the Legislature passes an amend¬
ment excluding money spent upon remunerative im¬
provements from within the debt limit, the beginning of new
subway works concurrently in Manhattan and Brooklyn—
even if it is only a section at a time—should not be de¬
layed to that extent. Every effort should in the meantime be
made to advance them, with or without private capital. The
Record and Guide has always favored as a matter of gen¬
eral polcy the construction of subways by the city, but we
fear that just at present the city may lose more by waiting
for municipal construction than it would by offering private
capital a sufficient inducement to construct the subways that
are immediately needed in Manhattan and the Bronx. In
view of the over-crowded condition of existing means of tran¬
sit, the disastrous effects of delay iu starting new construc¬
tion does not need much emphasis. Furthermore the con¬
dition of the city's credit is such that for some years as little
money as possible should be borrowed. No doubt the value
of New York's securities will improve with the general im¬
provement of good bonds, but if the city is obliged to keep
on borrowing at the rate it has borrowed since 1900, it will
still be obliged to pay excessively for its accommodation, A
city such as New York should be able to borrow at 3% per
cent.; but it will never reach such a position as long as it
keeps on flooding the market with more of its securities than
can- be conveniently assimilated. If there is any way, con¬
sequently, of diminisiiiug substantially the output of city
stock, such a diminution will mean that the city will be
able to save just so much interest on all the securities it
issues; and this saving might well amount to many million
dollars. Yet the burden of raising-the $100,000,000 soon
to be needed for subway construction could be transferred to
private corporations, and the result would be undoubtedly
to improve the city's credit by half a point during the next

few years.

-----.------.^------------

WITH the Parker buildiug as an illustration, a commit¬
tee of the Merchants' Association has endeavored to
make particularly plain to the Board of Aldermen the mean¬
ing and intent of the building code recently proposed and
now again the subject of attention at the hands of a com¬
mission. It seems to be necessary to repeat for the benefit
of some that the Parker building was not erected under the
provisions of. the existing code, but was fairly typical of the
speculative operations of the period. Had the building been
constructed under specified regulations identical with those
in the code recently proposed for enactment it would no
doubt have been a safer repository of goods and light ma¬
chinery,' but would have required a heavier investment of
capital and resulted in a building with less rentable space,
because of decreased height. The cost per, square foot being
greater, the rental schedule would have been in the same pro¬
portion, and the question is would the iuvestment have been a
paying one in those times and for that quarter of the city?
The building would not have been more than 150 feet high;
the large floor area would have been divided in two by a fire
wall: the heavy safes and other weights would not have
broken through the floor arches; the columns would have
been protected by four inches of fire-resisting material, the
girders by three inches and the beams by two; and wire-glass
windows in metal frames would have shut off one of the
lirincipal routes by which flames extend themselves through
a building. But would the fire department have been any
more efficient in a crisis, au'J can anyone say positively that
there might not have been other mischances by which the
consequences to the tenants and the insurance companies, if
not to the building, would have been much the same as' in'
the recent conllagration? SinCe the point has been raisea, it
might be well to suggest to the expert builders of the new