August 29, 190S





RECORD  AND  GUIDE





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Vol. LXXXII.





AUGUST 29, 1908.





No. 2111.





BUILDING operations in the last week of August are
exhibiting more ability to move ahead than at any
time this season. August, under metropolitan conditions, is
always the nadir month, hut with the autumn close at hand
business has already regained the strength !oSt in midsummer
and has taken on more force than it had during the first part
of July. The oncoming of new work is not manifest yet in
every trade, hut rather in those which first take hold of new
works, as the steel fabricators for city work, and the planing
mills for suburban work. The structural steel interests ave
getting a decided uplift. The fifty-three million dollars'
worth of building projects scheduled in Manbattan alone since
the first of the year (in comparison with sixtymillion scheduled
during the same period last year) is beginning to make an
impression on the trades. Everything came almost to a dead
stop last winter, and it takes time for new work, and especially
for the large operations which are now characteristic of Man¬
hattan, to gather momentum. The structural steel mem¬
bers of a bu'ilding are the first material for a skyscraper that
the general contractor usually arranges for, and hence we
have learned to look for the first signs of new force in actual
operations to the structural steel interests. It is perceived
that these are more active at the present time than for a year
past. The railroads are also again enquirers and purchasers
for bridge material. Large orders are becoming more fre¬
quent in several of the fundamental trades, as for example,
the contract for over five million dollars' worth of cement,
which came to the Atlas company this week from the Panama
Canal works. It is the largest single order in the history of
the cement trade, and is equivalent to the production of five
thousand barrels a day for three years. Several of the East¬
ern cement mills are again running at a normal rate, and in
this city the state of employment among cement masons is
better, at this stage, than in any other building trade, eighty-
five per cent of the union membership being at work. Last
week announcement was made of the order for common brick
for the terminal building of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the
largest single contract of which there is any recollection in
the trade. This week tenders were invited from builders
■ for the construction of the new Grand Central Depot Building.
In the huilding trades, business flows, like water in an irri¬
gating ditch, through one line into another, successively,
from all reports, the tide has turned. Money is easy to ob¬
tain at five per cent by trustworthy builders, which is a much
lower rate than could be obtained earlier in the year, Brook¬
lyn is the only part of the city which gives evidence of an
oversupply of housing; in Manhattan the fall months are ex¬
pected to provide tenants for most of the residuum of vacan¬
cies in residential apartments. Building costs are estimated
to be close to twenty-five per cent lower than two years ago,
and one favorable circumstance unites with another to bring
back normal conditions in building affairs.





T^HE recent report of the receivers of the New York City
*■ Railway Company does not offer much encouragement
on behalf of the early release of that system from the re¬
ceivers' hands. The deficit is so big that no reorganization
can be undertaken until the receivers succeed either in de¬
creasing the expenses or increasing the income to a very
considerable extent; and these two processes will occupy, in
all probability, some years. The income can^be increased
ODij' by providing ?>, better service, and by gradimHy su'i)-





stituting pay-as-you-enter cars on all the important lines.
But the effect of these measures will be necessarily very
slow; and in all probability the receivers will not be able to
equip more than one important line each year with proper
rolling stock. As for the reduction of expenses, that will
have to be brought about by pruning from the system those
leased lines which are unprofitable, but in accomplishing
this work all sorts of legal questions will arise, which cannot
be settled for several years. It will be a long time, conse¬
quently, before the owners of Interborough-Metropolitan
stock, or any of the underlying securities will know
what their paper is really worth; and this will be an
unfortunate result, because of its effect on the credit of the
Interborough Company. That corporation cannot assume
certain necessary responsibilities connected with the rapid
transit improvement of New York so long as its credit re¬
mains bad, and its credit can hardly recover as long as it is
tied up with such a hopelessly bankrupt coi-poration as tbe
New York City Railway Company. As the financial condi¬
tion of that company is gradually becoming fully exposed,
■ the merger becomes on the part of the owners of the Inter¬
borough stock an utterly inexplicable act of financial folly.





TDRIDGE COMMISSIONER STEVENSON has again called
■tJ attention to the fact that although both the Manhat¬
tan and the Blackwell's Island bridges will soon be opened
for traffic, absolutely no plans have been made to render
them useful. The investment of some $40,000,000 which
the city has made in these two structures, and which will
cost the taxpayers not less than $1,500,000 a year in interest
alone, Is bound to lie idle for an indefinite period. Assuredly
this is the kind of management which would throw a private
corporation into bankruptcy; but it must be remembered that
the elected municipal officials can hardly be held responsible.
For twenty years and more the power to lay out transit
routes has been lodged in the hands of a State Commission
whose work could be vetoed by the local authorities, but
could neither be modified nor accelerated. The Board of
Estimate had the power, consequently, to build bridges, but
it has had no power to provide the termini of those bridges
with any adequate means of collecting and distributing
the traffic. The failure to provide sufficient connections is
the inevitable result of such divided jurisdiction and respon¬
sibility, and it is connected, of course, with the existing
inability of New York to arrange for any kind or amount
of additional rapid transit construction. No serviceable
transit connections with the termini of the new bridges will
be possible except as part of a much larger scheme of sub¬
way and elevated construction in Manhattan and on Long
Island. In one respect, however, the Board of Estimate does
possess full jurisdiction, and that is in the equally important
matter of providing for a proper distribution of the surface
traffic. The city bas preferred to build bridges at an enor¬
mous expense compared to tunnels, partly because a bridge
couid carry more traffic, but also because a bridge became a
part of the street system of the greater city. It can be used
for surface traffic of all kinds, and it will be increasingly so
used as business and population increase in both sides of the
river. But the authorities have been as negligent in laying
out our proper surface approaches to these bridges as they
have been in supplying transit connections and with less
excuse. The development of vehicular traffic in and about
New York has made spacious street approaches more than
ever necessary. Now that motor cars, both for business and
for private purposes, are constantly becoming better and
cheaper, a huge increase of vehicular traffic during the next
ten years has become inevitable. Thousands of men who
travel today in the cars will, a decade hence, do their moving
about exclusively in automobiles, and this will be particu¬
larly the case with business and professional men whose
affairs demand frequent journeys between Manhattan and
Long Island. The movement of this traffic and its develop¬
ment would be enormously facilitated by some adequate
scheme of surface approaches, and it will not be long before
the laying out of such a scheme will be absolu'tely necessary.





.'T^HE possibility that Mr. Hughes may remain Governor
.■■ for another two years has its obvious consequences
upon the rapid transit situation in this city. His re-election
would definitely close any possible prospect of the construc¬
tion of new subways by private capital. The Governor ve¬
toed the bill passed at the last session of the Legislatm-e
which offered capitalists great inducements to build the
additional   Manhattan   subways,   so   grievously   needed,   and

Should a similar bill be passed at the next session, it would