March 14, 1908





RECORD  AND  GUIDE





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

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

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LXXXl.














MARCH




14, 1908.



















No.




20S7.





INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising  Section.

Page.                                                Page.

Cement   ......................xii   Lumber   ..........;..........xiii

Clay   Products    ...............xiv   Metal    Work    .................ix

Consulting  E'ngineers   ...........x   Quick   Job    Directory..........vii

Contractors   and   Builders    ----iii   Real   Estate    ...................v

Electrical    Interests    ..........vii   Roofers &  Roofing Malerials. .xii

Fireproofing   ..................ii   Stoue    .......................xv

Granite    .....................xv   Wood  Products   ..............xiii

Iron   and   Steel................xi

THIS paper has always favored, as a matter of general
policy, the construetion of subways by the city, but
it also believes that tlie method of obtaining them is sub¬
ordinate to the necessity of possessing them. We quite
agree with those civic bodies which hold that it is not
necessary to charge against the city the fu-ll cost of a com¬
pleted road at the time of its inception, and that a-road can
he built in sections, several each year, and so distribute the
resulting benefits equably between the three boroughs in
greatest need, with the preference to Manhattan as the largest
taxpayer. If there has been a fund set aside for carrying
forward the construction and completing an underground
road anywhere, it is a fair appeal that it be divided for the
benefit of the three boroughs instead of beiug given exclu¬
sively to one. While regretting the divergence of views re¬
garding alternative municipal policies, we fear that just at
present the city would lose more by waiting for municipal
construction than it would by offering private capital a
sufficient inducement to construct the tri-borough system
immediately needed. This the Record and Guide has said
heretofore, so that its position has been made plain. The
disastrous effect of delay upon Manhattan-Bronx does not
need much emphasis, either in view of the near completion
of the Hudson River tunnels or the subsidence of business
in the buildiug trades. The growing sentiment in favor of
the indeterminate franchise and the construction of subways
by means of private capital, is not because it is thought to
be the best way possible, but simply because it is thought
to be the only way in which subways can be budlt within a
reasonable time. Under all tbe circumstances it would seem
the part of wisdom for real estate interests to take the ad¬
vice of the administration and urge the amending of the Els¬
berg law, particularly the hill prepared by the Allied Real
Estate Interests along the lines of the Public Service Com¬
mission's recommendation, A good philosophy is, when we
cannot get the best, to take the next. If we cannot get
subways built by the method we prefer, it is better to obtain
them in some other way rather than get none at all. Whether
or not the Legislature passes an amendment excluding
money spent upon remunerative improvements from within
the debt limit, the beginning oE new subway work should
not be delayed to that extent; and it must be apparent that
puhlic sentiment should be immediately concentrated on a
particu'lar legislative measure so that the measure can get
the benefit.





seek any one quarter of the city in order to engage in their
daily employment. . It is perceived that dependence on rapid
transit  means  the  continuance  of  a  shuttle  motion  on  the
part of the population when this could in a large degree be
obviated  by  inducing  the  textile   factories,   for  example,  to
move permanently into various separate sections of the met¬
ropolitan   district,   far   from   the   present    congested    parts,
where the operatives may be comfortably disposed around
them   within   walking   distance.     The   process   repeated   in
various occupations would result iu building up a large num¬
ber of self-contained urban groups, as the educational aud
other   facilities  of  a   fully  organized  community  would  re¬
establish themselves at the same time.    The Governor in his
speech on  Monday night indicated the direction of his own
thought on the subject when he repeated the prediction that
if  the  northerly   and   northeasterly  suburbs  were   all   built
over  with  habitations  merely  there  would    not   be   streets
enough in Manhattan for transit lines to carry all the people
to business.    In other words, after the city shall have done
its utmost in building transit lines the necessity for more
will still exist, unless certain business divisions are made in
the course of time to grow up, so as to segregate the work¬
ing masses and remove the necessity for so many coming to
one part of the city as now.    Very painful consequences must
come from a continuation of the crowding into the lower half
of Manhattan, which no exhibition such as that now open at
the Museum of National History will be able to depict.    A
partial remedy lies in limiting the height of buildings so as
to compel a spreading out of business, but a more effective
one is to distribute the shipping, interstate railroad and local
manufacturing  industries   more   evenly  around   the   port  of
New York,   deepening waters now  shallow,  building moire
terminals like the Bush terminals at South Brooklyn and so
building   up   numerous   self-sustaining   urban  groups,   as   in
London, where people can work as well as live.





AUTHORITIES are inclining more to the opinion that the
answer to the civic problem of congestion lies not
so much in rapid urban transportation as in multiplying the
number of local business centers and distributing among
them the working population. Not in trying to bring the
workers living in a hundred square miles of territory all to
one center within the limits of an hour's ride, but in so
arranging industrial affairs that not too many will have to





AT the hearing given by the new Committee on Limits
of Height and Area of the new commission engaged
in revising the Building Code, the weight of opinion as¬
sented to the broad proposition that proper regulation of
the height of buildings with respect to the area of the lot
could solve the three-fold problem of congestion, ventila¬
tion and light in the financial district. Restrictions in con¬
struction, in style and shape, and in area with respect to
the size of the lot, would produce an automatic limit for
office and hotel buildings; but as for non-fireproof buildings
it was agreed that their height should he restricted to the
elevation within which fire can be readily conquered by the
fire department. Eminent authorities, however, advised
arbitrary limitations in height for ail classes of buildings
without regard to the proportion of the lot covered. Mr.
Flagg would first establish a general height for all, hut
he would permit an owner c&vering only one-quarter of
his land to go to any height he chose, as engineering and
economic considerations would furnish all the check needed.
Around thi^ proposition a large body of supporting opinion
is likely to chrystalize, and a suggestion by Prof. Humphrey
is also commended—that the word "fireproof" be entirely
eliminated from the code,—and that we should be asked to
consider simply the question of first and second class con¬
struction. The question of height and area is one of the
most interesting before the commission. The problem is
how to accomplish the end which everyone feels must some¬
how be reached and at the same time conserve the great real
estate values that are at stake. But these values are not
all concentrated south of Chambers street. The rest of the
city would be benefited, of course, by a spreading-out. As
a profit-producing limit of height is plainly one not to be
depended on to stop the congestion already become painful
ill the lower part of the city, some legal demarkation fair
to all—but not necessarily an arbitrary one—must eventually
be  hit upon.





^ PRING, warmth and the partial resumption of naviga-
O tion on the Hudson indicate the imminence of the per¬
manent return of building weather. While the winter
has been the slowest for the building trades in a decade,
it has not been a time of distress for mechanics, although the
number of unemployed is very large. A long period of con¬
tinued work under higher wage scales than ever before
known has made the term of inactivity very endurable.- In
view of this moderating fact it is a less unpleasant subject
of consideration than otherwise it would be. Further, there
is every prospect that business will regume at the usual time