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October 3, 1908
KECORD AND GUIDE
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BUsn^ESS AifoThemes or GEifeRAllr/TEE^EST,
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Communications should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET
Pubtished Every Saturday
By THE RECORD ^VND GUIDE CO.
President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F, W. DODGE
Vice-Pres. fi Genl. Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary. F. T. MILLER
Nos. 11 to IS East 24lh Street, New York City
(Telephone, Madison Square, 4430 to 4433.)
•â– Entered al tlic Post Office at New Tork, N. Y., as scoml-class matter."
Copyrighted, 1908, by The Record & Guide Co.
Vol. LXXXII.
OCTOBER 3. lOOS.
No. 211G
UP to date the influence of the political campaign on
husiness has not been to any considerable e.xtent
harmful. Throughout the whole of the summer there has
been taking place a slow hut steady process of improve¬
ment; and it cannot be said that this process has been either
aided or injured by the coming election. The improvement
is precisely what might have heen anticipated in advance,
aud it is precisely what an intelligent friend of the indus¬
trial welfare of the country would have advised. If it
had been any slower it would have meant an underlying
condition of business disease, similar to that whicii made
the recovery from the panic of 1893 such a long and dis¬
couraging process. If it had been any quicker it would have
been artificial, and would have been succeeded by another re¬
action. But as a matter of fact American business has been
recovering from the panic of last fall, just as a strong man
ought to recover from an acute illness—an illness which was,
to be sure, partly caused by a period of very high living, and
the recovery means a restoration of real strength, affected by
a period of painful but necessary economy of expenditure.
The course of events hitherto would, we believe, have been
very much the same even if there had been no Presidential
election impending. Such, however, will not be the case
during the month of October. At the present time a dis¬
position undouhtedly exists to go slow until after the elec¬
tion is over. On every side one liears reports which indi¬
cate a tendency of this kind; and on every side, also, an
expectation seems to exist that after the election the re¬
covery will he much more rapid. It is probable that this
expectation will prove to be well founded, hut if it is well
founded it is equally apparent that a prudent business man
will take advantage of the lull during the coming month,
and make his own contracts before the recovery actually
takes place. "When once the process of business expansion
becomes rapid instead of slow, prices of material and nec¬
essary services will increase ciuickly aud a man who wishes
to purchase supplies of any kind wil! have to face a much
livelier competition than that which exists at present. This
is particularly true of the building trades. Just now any
man whose credit is good can have a building erected on
extraordinarily good terms: but as soon as the business
prospects brightens—contractors will naturally insist upon a
remuneration for their work, which will bring them more
proflt. The business men who will make money during
the coming year are those wbo are not afraid to anticipate
the recovery, not those who wait for it.
INDICATIONS of a renewal of interest in business prop¬
erty on Fifth avenue are putting in an appearance; and
they constitute one of the most encouraging symptoms of a
recovery at once in general business and of real estate ac¬
tivity. A few weeks ago one more prominent retail firm,
now situated on 2 3d street, secured an expensive site in the
best part of Fifth avenue; and it was reported during the
past week that a valuable corner further south was under
negotiation for a similar purpose. It looks, consequently,
as if the interrupted process of the retail development of
Fifth avenue would soon he resumed. There are many
wealthy firms still situated south of 2 3d street who will
be forced to secure locations further north; and if they are
postponing the day, in the hope that they may eventually
obtain good sites cheaper, they are cherishing a very costly
illusion. Prices on Fifth avenue may go higher, but they
will not go any lower. Any business man, to whom a good
situation on the aveuue is a matter of the flrst importance,
would do well to take his medicine without any further
delay. It may be possible that a retailer, appealing to a
well-to-do class of customers, will be able to do a good husi¬
ness south of 23d street for many years to come; but in
the end he will, frora a number of different causes, be placed
at a decided disadvantage. Every year a large proportion
of his customers will be housed further north, and will not
like the idea of such a long journey, even to a favorite shop.
Then the district south of 23d street will become more and
more a neigliborhood devoted to tbe wholesale trade. It
will cease to have the air of attractive animation charac¬
teristic of a retail section, and its streets will be more and
more obstructed by trucks. The whole tendency of busi¬
ness change in New York City is to confine the shopping
and amusement section to an area between 30th-and, per¬
haps, 59th streets. Of course the big retail shops on lower
Sixth avenue are not in this district, and there is no ex¬
isting reason for their removal; but they appeal to a cheaper
class of trade. The only chance for the retailer whose
customers are well-to-do people, and who does not now own
a site on or near Fifth avenue, north of 26th street—his
only chance of obtaining a satisfactory location at a cheaper
price will be in the possible availability of another avenue
for a similar class of trade. The demand for good locations
north of 2 3d street may become so great, and prices on
Fifth avenue may go so high, that Madisou and Fourth
avenues, south of 34th street, will be occupied for similar
purposes. So far, however, a location on Fifth avenue or
on 34th street appears to be indispensable for a business of
a certain class.
A PROMINENT real'estate broker has recently made the
prediction that the business part of Fifth avenue,
would extend as far north of 59th street, but no further;
and this prediction is certainly sustained by the develop¬
ment of the past few years. Business is pushing north from
4 6th street, and has actually reached the most sacred part
of the avenue. A tall fireproof business structure is being
erected opposite the old Vanderbilt mansion. Business is
also pushing south from ;)9th street, and there will soon
remain only a very few blocks between .5 0 th and -5 Tth streets
without some evidence of the business invasion. This fact
is all the more singular, because only a few years ago
expensive private houses were being erected between 57th
and 49th streets, obviously in the expectation that this part
of the aveuue was- safe from the business contamination.
Both the Delancey Kane house at 49th street, and the house
of W. K. Vanderbilt, Jr., a few blocks further north, have
been completed only a couple of years; and yet already it
is |)robable that their owners would, if they still had any
choice, build on different locations. The Imperative needs
of business extension will demand the appropriation for
busiuess purposes of the whole district south of the Park,
But while this process of biisiness appropriation is inevit¬
able, it will probably proceed at a very slow pace ou this
part of the avenue. The rich men whose houses are situ¬
ated thereabouts will not give up their residences without
a long and stubborn resistance. It may well be fifteen or
twenty years before any of them are dislodged. Business
has not as yet crept into the side streets north of 4 6th
street, and it will not make rapid progress iu this surround¬
ing territory, because the neighboring avenues, such as
Madison and Sixth, are not in this vicinity of much business
importance. Eventually the huge sites occupied by the
Vanderbilt mansions will be of great value to big retailers;
â– but at present they are worth more to their owners than
they would be worth to any business man; and they may
continue to be worth more to their present owners for an¬
other twenty-five years.
ONLY a few weeks ago one of the Public Service Com¬
missioners returned from Europe .and declared, as
the result of his investigations, that New York needed a
freight subway quite as much as more passenger subways.
The need was no sooner emphatically proclaimed than some¬
body appears who seeks to satisfy it. Mr. W. J. Wilgus,
formerly vice-president of the New York Central, has pro¬
posed a plan for a four-track suhway. which appears to be
well designed for the purpose. The object of this subway
is to arrange for a more economical and quicker way of
shipping freight out of Manhattan and-rush-it than the one