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December 5, 1908
KECORD AND GUIDE
1057
E5TABUSHED'^i^H21V>I868,
Dented to REA.L Estate . BuiLoiflo i\Rj>fiTEini;iiE .^ousEiioLD De«S(OT»I»>
BlTsii/ess AttoThemes of Ccitoi^l IKtee^est.
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Communications should be addressed to
C. W- SWEET
Publisfied EVery Saturday
By THE RECORD AND GtJIDE CO.
President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, P. W. DODGB
Vice-Pres. & Genl.. Mgr.. H- W. DESMOND Secretary, F. T. MILLER
Nos. 11 to 15 Elast 24tb Street, New York: City
(Telepbone. Madison Square, 4430 to 4433.)
"Entered al Ihc Post Office at New York, N. Y.. as sccoml-class matter."
Copyrighted. 1908, by The Record Sc Guide Co.
Vcl. LXXXII.
DECEMBER 5, 1908.
No. 2125
THE OBJECTIONS to carrying the roadway of Forty-,
second street under the roadway of Fifth avenue,
which were brought out at the recent public hearing in
respect to that project, seem to be insuperable. A change
of this kind would cause a serious damage to property own¬
ers in Forty-second street as far east as Madison avenue
and almost as far west as Sixth avenue, and it would pre¬
vent the construction of anything but a very deep subway
under Fifth avenue. The advantages to be gained by the
improvement are not sufficient to balance the losses, which
both public and private interests would suffer. But the
rejection of this attempt to solve the problem of trafRc con¬
gestion at the intersection of Fifth avenue and Forty-second
street must not be cousidered as eciuivalent to the renuncia¬
tion of any attempt. The widening of Fifth avenue througb¬
out the whole of its business length wiil do something to
relieve the congestion, on condition that it is accompanied
by a similar widening of Forty-second street. Now that tbe
old stoops are disappearing from Forty-second street, as they
are from Fifth avenue, the sidewalks are unnecessarily ex-
fended, and at least flve feet could be transferred to the
roadway. Such an increase in the breadth of the two inter¬
secting streets would not, of course, do very much to relieve
the congestion, but it would do something- The intersecting
streams of trafflc would be spread out at their intersection
instead of being elongated, and they could consequently
pass each other more quickly. In addition, an exhaustive
study should be made of the nature of the traffic with a view
to ascertaining whether any part of it could he ruled off
during the congested hours. Measures of this kind should
be sufRcient to relieve the congestion for some years; but
they will not, of course, permanently remove the difficulty. ,
The congestion has been very acute of late years, largely
because of the increase of motor-vehicles; and the use of
motor-vehicles is even now only in its early stages. Twenty
or even ten years from now the number of such vehicles
will have become so numerous that the traffic congestion of
the New York streets, instead of being merely distressing
as it now is, will become absolutely intolerable. Its ulti¬
mate solution, however, will depend upon a comprehensive
re-arrangement of the street system of Manhattan, and the
specific problem of the existing congestion -at the intersec¬
tion of Forty-second street and Fifth avenue will have to
be treated merely as one illustration of a general problem-
Its solution will depend, that is, not on a local tunnel, which
would interfere with the planning of a comprehensive sub¬
way system, but upon the construction of new thoroughfares,
which will relieve the congestion by diverting the trafflc.
THE Bureau of Municipal Research made recently a
strong argument in favor of the immediate increase in
the hours of labor in the municipal offices from 4 p. m. to
5 p. m., and the Record and Guide fully agrees that such an
increase should eventually be made effective. We believe
that tbe city ought to be extremely liberal with its em¬
ployees, and that it should iu this respect set an example to
private employers. But liberality should not be permitted
to become laxity. Every able-bodied individual, whether
engaged in clerical or manual work, should be able to work
at least from 9 to 5, omitting, of course, a suitable interval
for lunch. Such a durafion of labor" is not excessively fa¬
tiguing, neither does it deprive an employee of sufficient
leisure for other useful occupations and desirable amuse¬
ments. On the other hand, a working day which terminates
at four o'clock unquestionably encourages an amount of out¬
side occupation, which diverts the mind of the employee
during his working-day. There is no good reason, conse¬
quently, why the existing hour for closing the municipal
offlces should be retained, but there are good reasons why
the addition of an hour to the day should not be made in an
-solated manner. Unless it were brought about as the part
of a general reorganization of the conditions of municipal
employment it might do more harm than good. There would
be no use in compelling employees to remain in their offlce
an hour longer unless some assurance were obtained that the
hour would be well spent, and, in case the change were
made suddenly and apart from a general reorganization, we
doubt whether the extra hour would be worth to the city its
increased expenditure for illumination. An employee nat¬
urally resents any change for the worse in tbe conditions of
his work-—even though such a change is in itself perfectly
reasonable; and the municipal employees, in case tbey were
compelled to remain another hour, would take their revenge
by making that hour, and in all probability certain other
hours, as valueless as possible to their employers. Of course,
in case any effective exercise of authority or any thorough
system of discipline existed in the city offices, no such shirk¬
ing would be permitted, but as a matter of fact, effective
discipline and authority does not now exist—subordinate
offlcials, unless guilty of flagrant misconduct, are protected
from their superiors by the Civil Service Law and frequently
by political influence. The conditions of their employment
encourages them to perform merely a dead level of routine
w'ork—on which there is no incentive to improve and which
could drop to a lower level more easily than it could rise to
a higher. . An increase in tbe hours of labor, desirable as
it is, should, consequently, be postponed until the time eomes
for some efficient reorganization of the system of municipal
employment. The existing system works contrary to the
interest of the city without really benefltting its employees.
It provides no motive for really energetic and competent
work, because such work is not rewarded save in exceptional
cases. On the other hand, it equally fails to provide any
sufflcient penalties for the merely perfunctory fulflllment of
routine duties. As soon as a system is substituted that can
both regard good service and penalize poor service, a
lengthening of the hours of labor to flve o'clock should
assuredly constitute a part of the new system.
IN a recent letter to the "New York Times," Mr. John
Martin has contributed certain facts to the discussion
over municipal expenditures that deserve to be considered.
He points out, for instance, that from 1S99 to 1908 the total
amount included in the municipal Budgetsas collected from
taxation amounted to $793,729,249, while during the same
period the increase in the ground value of New York
amounted to ?1,,582,422,754. Thus the taxpayers contrib¬
uted to the city's expenditure only about half the sum which
accrued to them because of the growth in population and
business, aud the completion of public improvements. The
Record and Guide has no doubt that the foregoing calcula¬
tions, although obviously open to certain objections in detail,
is essentially correct. The period under consideration was
one of almost constant and somewhat exceptional prosperity
in New York real estate, during which the average taxpayer
has found the value of his property increased much more rap¬
idly than the public burdens placed upon it. But in esti¬
mating the bearing of this fact, two supplementary consid¬
erations must be kept in mind. In the first place, at the
time of consolidation the taxpayers of at least Manhattan
submitted to an increase of taxation, which for the time be¬
ing meant a total loss to them, and which was accompanied
by poor renting conditions and worse than stationary values-
The increase in rents and values which began in 1901 was
in part, at least, merely compensation for previous losses.
In the second place, while taxpayers have paid out in taxes
only a fraction of what they have received as increased
rentals, the bill for the public improvements of the past few
years is very far from being paid. Obligations have been
contracted, which will necessarily result in a rapidly increas¬
ing burden of interest on the city debt; and the very increase
of the city in population has created the need for a con¬
stant increase in the amount of expenditure, both for ordin¬
ary services and improvements. It is the future which is
threatening and the reason why the increased tax-bills of
the current year have created so much apprehension is the
menace that they represeat not an isolated fact, but a gath¬
ering tendency,