Angust 8, 1908





RECORD  AND   GUIDE





283







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Vol LXXXII.





AUGUST 8,  190S.





No. 2108





THE number of plans for new fireproof buildings which
are being recorded continues to be surprisingly large.
Tbe budget of the past two weeks includes two new sky¬
scrapers for the flnancial district, one of which will con¬
tain a thirty-eight story tower and several large apartment
houses for various parts of the West Side. It is evident that
speculators and investors are doing their best to take ad¬
vantage of the temporary cheapness of building, which, they
are fully convinced, will not last very long. How long it will
last is, of course, merely a matter of guesswork; but it is
probable that by next spring tlie cost of building will have
substantially increased. We have heard of one big building
in Chicago for which contracts will be given out before No¬
vember 1, in the expectation that prices will begin to go up
after the election. However that may be, anybody with a
building enterprise in prospect would do well to make his
contracts during the next few months. He certainly will not
be able to build any cheaper next spring; and he may have
to pay a substantial increase for his materials, if not for his
labor. It is a great pity that the City of New York is not
in a position to take advantage of the comparative economy
of constructional work. If contracts for the building of new
SU'bways could he let during next fall, many million dollars
could be saved on the cost of construction, and the city would
consequently be able to obtain much better terms for any
concession it was ready to grant. But unfortunately, the
City of New York is never in a position to make the most of
such  opportunities.





T T^ 7 HAT a misfortune it is that New York does not pos-
VV sess a larger number of squares in the important
busiuess parts of the city! A spacious square provides such
admirable sites for the towering skyscrapers, which are be¬
coming more and more the peculiar note of the city's archi¬
tecture. Compare, for instance, the effect produced by the
tower of the Metropolitan Building with tbat produced by
the tower of the Singer Building. The latter structure can
scjtrcely be seen &rom any of the neighboring streets. It
makes no impression commensurate with its height, except
when looked at from the river or from some other distance
equally considerable; and from these great distances it counts
merely as the apex of a huge pyramid, composed of the mass
of the oiRce buildings of the flnancial district. The Metro¬
politan tower, on the other hand, cau be clearly seen from
any part of Madison Square, and as seen from the square it
looks very well. Its height is not out of scale with the
distance from which people can gaze at it; and this consid¬
eration should not be disregarded in any restrictive legis¬
lation concerning the height of skyscrapers. In such a
situation the tower is not so objectionable from any point of
view as it is wheu placed on an ordinary street and avenue.
There is no reason why their erection should not be encour¬
aged on sites of this description—in which case the chief
source of legitimate regret would be that the plan of the city
provides so few squares on which seven or eight hundred-
foot towers could be built.





TVr 0\V that the Metropolitan Street Railway system is be-
■*- ' ing broken up, the people of New York may begin to
appreciate the advantages which they have enjoyed and lost.
In building up that system the late Mr, Whitney was achiev¬
ing a task of the greatest advantage to New York.    Dou'btless





this fact does not condone the methods which he and his
associates used; but it should determine the policy of the
Public Service Commission and the other local officials to¬
ward the system under the present critical conditions. Every
effort should be used to prevent it from heing disintegrated.
The public has everything to lose and nothing to gain from
the return of the separate parts of the system to their for¬
mer owners. How this is to be done is not apparent just
now. The receivers, who are responsible to the stockholders
for the economical management of their property, certainly
cannot be expected to continue the payment of rentals, which
are not and never can be earned. The only way out of the
tangle would seem to lie in the direction of an acceptance by
the owners of the unprofitable lines of a smaller rental for
their property; and as a matter of fact it is in the direction
of such a consummation that the Public Service Commission
should work. Even if these leased lines are not profltable
under the old contracts, they would certainly be more profit¬
able as parts of the Metropolitan system than they could be
when independently operated. Independent operation might
mean fewer transfers, but it would also mean larger ex¬
penses and fewer passengers. It will be to everybody's in¬
terest, consequently, to keep this system together, and it
should be possible in the end to bring about such a result. But
in the meantime the residents of Manhattan wil! be paying
more for a poorer service than that which they have been get-
ing; and they may well regret the days of the domination of
the street railway octopus.





TJ UILDING operations are believed to he approaching the
-tJ edge of a period of fine activity, but thus far into the
year they have heen indisputably slow. Actual works in hand
have been fewer in number than even the plans filed have in¬
dicated, owing to the holding back of many projects; and the
truest guides to correct estimates of the real state of affairs
have come from the trade unions and from the dealers iu
building material. These have indicated only a slight en¬
largement of New York activities, but a decided improvement
elsewhere throughout the land. In the Eastern States busi¬
ness is more brisk in the smaller cities than in the larger
ones, but almost everywhere else than in New York there
has been a strong forward push since tbe first of July, and
the probabilities are that New York will get it very soon.
Plans filed in Manhattan up to the flrst of August specified
$50,000,000 worth of new buildings, as against about $54,-
000,000 appropriated during the same period last year. This
year's plans represented however only about one-half as many
buildings as last year's, which follows from the delay in re¬
suming speculative work this season. In the Bronx only
about $8,400,000 has been specifled for new buildings so far,
to compare with about |14,000,000 last year; and in Brook¬
lyn the estimated cost of the new buildings for which plans
have been flled is only about one-third the estimated cost in
1907. But more particularly referring to the work coming
out in New York, it consists in a larger degree than usual of
high-class construction, including some exceptionally large
buildings, which are slow in taking form, but will give employ¬
ment to armies of workmen in due course of time, and utilize
a wide variety of material and equipment. Tenement-house
construction, on the other hand, gathers headway rapidiy, and
we note that the business agents of the trade unions expect a
culmination of building operations when there will be a con¬
gestion of applications for mechanics. Many of those belong¬
ing in New York are now dispersed over the country, well
engaged, but subject to two days' notice to return to New
York when their services shall be needed. Thousands of new¬
comers, who added to the total of the unemployed here last
winter, departed in the spring, so that considering this class
with the regular New Yorkers now elsewhere engaged the
amount of unemployment is much less than on the first of
April, when the State Labor Department reported 56.0 per
cent, of the union members idle in the State, as compared
with 37.3 in the year 1907, 11.1 per cent, in 1906 and 21.9
per cent, in 1905, with New York a heavier sufferer than the
rest of the State. The degree of unemployment in the first
quarter of this year was greater than in any previous year
back to 1897, when there was a brief interruption in tbe
steady improvement in business after the panic of 1893. New
York City, apart from its own local building interests, feels
the lifting power that comes from the general improvement
throughout the country, and hence many firms of manufac¬
turers and dealers not confined exclusively to this fleld re¬
port business as fair in their lines, and though this does not
apply to all, the number is increasing every week,