July II, 1908





RECORD  AND  GUIDE





69









ESTABUSHED ^ M.ftRpH SIV.^ 1863.

De/oth) to RuvLEstate,Bb^LDl^b %cKitecture,HouseKcu)DEeoRATiorf,
Basii/Ess Mo Themes or GiKeraI Interest,

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By THE RECORD AJVD GUIDE  CO.

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

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

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(Telepboue,   IVIadisoa   Square, 4430 to 4433.)







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cixd at the Post Office at New 1




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Copy rigli ted.




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The




Record




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Co.















Vol.




LXXXII.




JULY




11.




lOOS.



















No.




2104.





THE plans for the New Equitable Building, as published
last week, have provoked less comment and less' oppo¬
sition than might have been expected. This new building
project raises the w-hole question of the desirability of un¬
restricted construction of skyscrapers iu its most acute form,
and if any action is ever to be taken it should be taken at
an early date. The new Equitable Building makes two
points tolerably definite. It probably indicates the limit of
safe and profitable construction at the present time. Until
engineering and economic conditions alter very considerably
it is inconceivable that any taller building and tower,than
this will be projected. On the other hand, it is also prob¬
able that wherever an opportunity for a building of this size
can be created capital and capitalists will in the course of
time be found to take advantage of it. The Equitable Life
Assurance Society doubtless has special reasons for wishing
to construct the biggest building and tbe highest inhabited
tower in the world, but other financial institutions will be
impelled by similar, if less lively, motives. These sliy-
scrapers are far from being mere freaks of advertising.
They are being erected by speculative building companies,
because of the opportunities for profit which they contain,
aud unless prohibited or restricted they will continue to be
so erected. If thirty-four story buildings remain a legal,
an economic and an engineering possibility property owners
may soon be tearing down twelve-story buildings in order
to replace them with structures thrice the height, and such
structures will be erected as fast as it will pay to erect
them—as fast, that is, as tenants can be found to occupy
them. This will necessarily be a somewhat slow process
even in New York, but it will be so fast that in case any
public interest is involved in the restriction of the height of
such buildings it should he promptly asserted. And it can
hardly be claimed that no public interest is involved. A
financial district covered with twenty-story buildings may
be a safe locality .in which to do business, but a lower New
York even partly covered with buildings from thirty to forty
stories high would no longer be either a safe or a wholesome
place in which to live. The congestion would be too great,
considering the miserable street system, in which these
buildings would stand. The erection of buildings covering
whole blocks thirty-four stories high should be postponed
until the problem of aerial navigation has been completely
solved.





THE increasing popularity of the Galveston plan of
municipal government is one of the most interesting
developments in the forms of American municipal govern¬
ment. The Record aud Guide has frequently called its
readers' attention to this plan which was adopted in Gal¬
veston as an emergency measure after the partial destruction
of the city In 1901. It consisted in the abolition of the
Mayor, the Common Council and the "other ordinary Ameri¬
can municipal officials and tbe centralization of their power
in the hands of a commission of five men, each one of w^hich
was responsible for one important administrative depart¬
ment, and w^ho were jointly responsible for the good govern¬
ment of the city. The experiment succeeded so well in
Galveston that it is gradually being adopted in other Western
cities. According to an account of the progress of the move¬
ment contained in the Outlook. Houston was the first city
to follow the example of Galveston. Fort Worth, CbJllas and
El Paso, all in Texas, followed in quick succession,    Last





year Iowa and Kansas enacted general laws permitting cities
in those States to adopt a modified Galveston plan; and
already Leavenworth, in Kansas, and Cedar Rapids and. Des
Moines, in Iowa, have taken advantage of these laws. Of
course it is too soon to predict that the experiment, which
has been so successful in Galveston, will be equally success¬
ful elsewhere; but the results have up to date been all that
could be desired. In the Texan cities the plan has worked
with uniform success, while Des Moines is congratulating
itself upon the cleanest streets and In general the most
efficient government of its history- The success of this ex¬
periment should provide the New York Charter Revision
Commission with food for reflection. It is not to be sup¬
posed that the Galveston plan could be adopted without con¬
siderable modifications for a city like New York with over
4,500,000 inhabitants, but the lesson of this hitherto suc¬
cessful experiment should nevertheless not be overlooked.
In one way or another administrative power and respohsi-
bility should be centralized; and the only way in which such
centralization can be effectually achieved is by means of the
suppression of the Board of Aldermen. The decision of the
Charter Revision Commission to make another attempt to
renew the usefulness of a local legislative body has been its
one serious mistake. Such attempts have been made again
and again, and they have always failed. It is merely a
superstition which keeps alive this expensive and useless piece
of machinery. Indeed, so far as it is endowed with any
real power and responsibility it is worse than useless, be¬
cause it merely acts as a hindrance to the efficient and
smooth operation of the local administrative machine. The
lesson of New York's experience in municipal government
has been that its best servant is a Mayor and a Board of
Estimate, endowed with full administrative and legislative
responsibilities; and in the new charter advantage should
be taken both of this experience and of the success of the
Galveston plan.





AT the expiration of their first year of service the chair¬
man of the Public Service Commission sent to the
newspapers a detailed account of all the commission had
accomplished in the course of the year, and some little dis¬
cussion followed as to the value to the city of the services
of the commission. The truth is, of course, that it is en¬
tirely too early to assert that the experiment in local govern¬
ment represented by the commission is either a success or a
failure. No one will question for a moment the ability and
the integrity of the members of the commission or their
honest desire to serve the city; and their appointment has
undoubtedly been followed hy certain improvements in the
service of the several corporations submitted to their juris¬
diction. In the long run the mere fact that a commission
possessed of such enormous supervisory power exists will
uudoubtedly help effectually to keep the corporations under
its control more solicitous about the standard of their serv¬
ice. Any question as to the effect of the establishment of
the commission must be in a wholly different direction; and
the chief question, which remains very doubtful,-concerns
the ability of the commission to secure the co-operation of
private capita! in providing those additional facilities re¬
quired by the growth of the city. It remains, that is, very
doubtful whether capitalists will wish to place their money
iu enterprises over wdiich they retain no effective control.
The commission, in its relation with these corporations, is
placed in an extremely difficult position. It must serve the
public, without at the same time alienating- tbe corporations
and private capital. Every order it issues for an improve¬
ment of service costs more money to some corporation; and
if in the long run an accumulation of such orders makes the
property of these corporations less valuable the consequences
are easy to predict. Private capital will refuse to invest in a
kind of business which is subject to such drastic supervision.
The commission will have sacrificed the greater benefit of a
constant construction of new lines to the smaller benefit of
an  immediate,  but  still  inadequate  improvement  oT service.





/T^ HE Record and Guide does not mean to predict that the
-*■ commission will prevent the investment of private cap¬
ital in the services under its supervision. We wish merely to
point out that such in the long run may be the case, and
that a possibility of this hind constitutes the gravest question
connected with the success of the commission's work. More¬
over, it is particularly in relation to improved means of
transit that the question must be posed. The orders of the
comraiseion have resulted in a certain improvement in the
transit service; tjut t!i? iPiprovement has not served to make