Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view
About OCR text.
June 27, 1908
RECORD AND GUIDE
1219
^,
Hsiij^iasa,
DEvfrpfl JO Rea,L EswE.BuiLDijfc' #iRcKrrEffIUI^ .HoUSEliOU) DEGffl?ATlcal.
Bi/snfesVAifoTHEfi&s Of GEifeR^l iKrtRfsi*
WUCB PER VEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Communlcatlona should bo addressed to
C. W. SWEET
*
PubllsAad Everff Satardag
By THE RECORD AND GTJIDE CO,
president, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer. P. W. DODGE
.Vic«-Pres. Sc Genl. Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary, F. T- MILLER
Noa. 11 to 15 East 24ili Sireet, New York City
(Telephone, Madhon Square, «30 to 4433.)
"Entered at the Post Office at Neio
rorft. N. Y.,
OS second-class malter."
Copyriglited, 10O8, by
The Record
Sc Guide Co,
Vol. LXXXL JUNE
2T. 1908.
No. 2102
'-------------•—'----------^"---------""""----------------------<r----------^^
THE process of business recovery is slow, as it should be;
but accounts agree that it is making steady progress.
Manufacturing establishments all over tbe country are cau¬
tiously adding to their employees or increasing the number
of days in which the machinery is operated. The resump¬
tion is most marked in those industries, the prices of whose
product have beeu most sharply cut; and the consequence is
that the resumption does not mean an immediate revival of
prosperity.
Economy remains the order of the day all over tlie United
States. There has been no general reduction of wages; but
the business organization of the country has been tested and
.every possible source of waste and loss has been removed.
Incompetent employes have been discharged, machinery has
been overhauled and the general effectiveness of labor very
much increased. All this will in the course of time im¬
prove the health of the business community; but while the
process is going on it is useless tb expect a sudden or con¬
siderable revival of activity. "When manufacturing plants add
to their forces and return to work on full time it means
simply that an average demand for staple products is ex¬
pected in the fall, and that is what wili take place. If the
existing crop outlook is fulfllled the farmers will be well off,
without being plethoric, and their influence also wil! operate
in favor of a slow well-founded recovery of business rather
than in favor of a quick and unstable one. It really ought
to take the business of the country several years to return
to the volume of trade transacted during the early months
of 1907. Only iu this way can the capital be saved and the
economies effected, whic'h alone can justify a still greater ex¬
pansion of industrial and commercial activity.
----------------«----------------
ONE of the title companies reports a gratifying develop¬
ment in the business of lending money on real estate.
There is now more money being offered, particularly in small
amounts, than there is demand for the money; and the con-
seiinences of this condition may be noticed in the weekly
totals of recorded mortgages published by the Record and
Guide. Ever since the panic the total amount of money
loaned on real estate each week in 1908 has been smaller
than in 1907, and in the aggregate this falling off has
amounted to about 2 5 per cent. Last week, ho'wever, the
tota! for 1908 showed an increase over the corresponding
total for 1907- It is true that the increase in question must
he traced largely to the recording of one hirge mortgage on
the building at Broadway and Chambers street. With real
estate as inactive as it is, and with the total number ofi
weekly transactions smaller than the small totals of last year,
it is not to be expected that throughout the summer as much
money wil! be loaned on real estate as was loaned during the
corresponding -weeks of 1907 or 1906. But there is every
prospect that during the fall and winter a substantial revival
in the borrowing demand and an increase in the amount of
money loaned tvill be observed- The Record and Guide has
already ventured the prediction that during the real estate
season of 1908-1909 a renewed speculative demand would
set in for real estate in certain parts of Manhattan, and such
a speculation could hardly be financed without liberal sup¬
plies of money. As a matter of fact, Iiowever, the increase
in the amount of money loaned will proliably be larger than
any increase in the number of transactions recorded, because
there is every prospect that money will be borrowed cheaper
and more easily next winter than for several years past. Ever
since the fall of 1905 the demand on the part of borrowers
has been more insistent than the offerings made by lenders,
the consequence being, of course that a great deal of money
lias been loaned at comparatively high rates of interest.
When the situation is reversed, and when money becomes rel¬
atively plentiful, many borrowers will be able to renew their
loans on better terms. This process has not begun as yet,
partly because the loans in question will not begin to expire
until next fall, and partly because money, although more
plentiful, is still loaned at comparatively high rates of in¬
terest- A loan for which four per cent, would have been paid
in the fall of 1904 or the spring of 1905 now brings 4% per
cent- and a loan for which iVa per cent, would then have been
paid now brings flve per cent. Lenders will have to accept
lower rates of interest before borrowers will be tempted freely
into the market. But if, as the title company asserts, there is
already a greater pressure to lend money than there is to
borrow it, the result will inevitably be during the next te'vr
months a lowering of the average rate of interest
THE Everett House, on Union Square, will in the near
future be overtaken by the same fate as the Fifth Ave¬
nue Hotel; when that hotel ceases to exist, there will remain
only two or three important hotels south of Madison Square,
The inability of these older establishments, both because of
their locations and their equipment, to compete with the newer
buildings further north has long been apparent; and the
only question at the present time is the extent to which tho
process of replacement will be carried- Not so many years
ago Madison Square was the centre of the bote! district.
There fronted on the Square the Fifth Avenue, the St- James,
the Albemarle, the Brunswick, the Hoffman House and tho
Bartholdi. All these establishments have gone out of busi¬
ness, except the last two, and it is probable that one of these
will soon follow suit. Madison Square will be bounded by
office and loft buildings, and will compete with Greeley
Square for the distinction of being the most important
uptown business centre. All this is obvious, hut what is not
so obvious is the fate of Broadway, and of the side streets
near Broadway, between 26th and 34th streets. Only five
years ago an important new hotel was constructed on this
part of Broad'^vay and one already in existence was greatly
enlarged. About the same time many smaller residence
hotels were built on the side streets in this neighborhood.
But stil! later a totally different tendency has supervened.
The still newer buildings, both on Broadway and on the side
streets, are all of them planned for business purposes, and it
is a well known fact that the older hotels in this region are
obliged to struggle for continued existence. It would appear
consequently that the whole neighborhood as far north as
34th street would soon be overrun by the northward march
0^" the wholesale business, and that consequently it would not
continue to he a good location either for theatres or hotels.
But in this case appearances may be deceptive. One cannot
predict with any confidence what the result will be of the
establishiTient in this neighborhood of the Pennsylvania, Long
Island and New Jersey trolley terminals; but it is a fair pre¬
sumption that they will increase the patronage of the hotels,
theatres and retail stores now situated south of 34th street.
IF such is the case the displacement of buildings devoted to
the foregoing purposes will be checked and the wholesale
trade instead of overrunning the whole region will be split
!?y this wedge of shops, hotels, theatres and restaurants, and
pushed both further east and further west. The wholesale
trade cannot afford to pay such high rentals as can the better
class of hotels, theatres and restaurants, and it can only
take possession when the hotelkeepers and theatre managers
have a good reason for getting out.
LAST WEEK the Record and Guide published an appeal
of the West Side Taxpayers' Association to the Public'
Service Commission'on behalf of improved means of transit
for the West Side of the city. The Record and Guide fully
sympathizes with the purpose of this appeal. The claims of
this section for new subways are. in our opinion, second only
tn those of the upper East Side of Manhattan. It is scarcely
worth while, however, to urge upon the Public Service Com¬
mission at the present time the claims of any one section- IP
the Commission in response to the appeal should revive the
old Sevenlh and Eighth avenue roule of the earlier Board,
(he construction of tbat route would be open to ob.iectioiis sim¬
ilar to those whicli we have been-urging recently against the
Fourth avenue subway in Brooklyn or the Broadway-Lexing¬
ton avenue subway in Manhattan- The city is not financially
in a position to make any sufficient appropriations for subway
construction. It was all very well to plan the immediate
construction of new routes wben it looked as if the Robinson