July 10, 1909





RECORD   AND   GUTOE





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Vol. LXXXIV.





JULY 10, 1009.





No. 215G





THE  MUNICIPAL  CAMPAIGN  has  not  been  assuming  a
desirable complexion  from the point of view  of those
citizens who are interested,  exclusively,  in  better and  more
economical   government.       The  removal  of   Police   Commis¬
sioner Bingham  will  have the unfortunate effect of making
the administration  of  the  Police  Department  once  more  an
issue,  and   in  this  way  attention  will  be  diverted   from  the
fundamental   matter   of   more   efficient   and   economical   ad-
rcinistration.   Furthermore,   it   looks   as   if   those   property-
owners   who are interested primarily  in municipal economy
will find it difficult to cast a vote that will count decisively
in  favor  of  a  better  business  administration  o£  New  York-
As the Record and Guide has frequently pointed  out, muni-
c-ipal economy under existing conditions in New York is less
a matter of officeholders than of organization.       During the
past few years both Mayor McClellan and Comptroller Metz
have earnestly and intelligently tried to keep down municipal
expenses,   but  neither  the  executive  officials   nor  the  mem¬
bers of the Board of Estimate are empowered or are proper-
Ij'   constituted   for   the   purpose   of   securing   an   economical
and  efficient administration of the city's business affairs.  It
cannot be expected that this essential consideration will be
brought  out by the party speakers during the coming cam¬
paign.       The opponents of Tammany will seek to hasten the
responsibility for every difficulty, error, failure cr excess upon
the  officials elected   four years  ago  by Tammany,  while,  of
course, the Democratic speakers will have to accept the chal¬
lenge and will be able to make a strong argument on behalf
of the  persona!  good  faith  and  the  excellent  record  of the
administration.     But  in  the  meantime  the  fact  will  he  ob¬
served   that  even  the   best  intentioned   and' most  energetic
officials cannot, under the existing system, introduce the nec¬
essary   amount   of  economy  into   the   administration  of  the
city.    It is only a relatively non-partisan association and set
of candidates that can afford to make an issue, not out of the
candidates,   but  out  of  the  Charter,   and  the  only  non-par¬
tisan association that has been formed seems to be lacking in
weight,  coherence of  purpose,  and  defluiteness  of  program.
The committee of One Hundred is already afflicted with  in¬
ternal divisions, and  in its platform of principles has failed
to emphasize sufficiently the necessity of reorganization.     It
looks,  consequently,  as  if the  election  next  November   and
the  campaign  preceding  it  would   do  little  to   promote  the
cause  of good government.    The cause of good  government
is primarily, though, of course, not exclusively, the cause of
the  Ivins  charter;   and  the  Legislature  will  never  pass  the
Ivins charter in anything like its existing form unless public
opinion pronounces emphatically and decisively in its favor.
It is an extraordinary fact that after bitterly and continually
reproaching  the  State  Legislature   for  interference  in  local
affairs the citizens of New York are apparently indifferent to
the   one   serious   and   well-considered    attempt   which   has
been made to give the voters of New York an efficient and
sufficient measure of home rule.





IT IS DIFFICULT to understand why any real estate com¬
pany should want to build a twenty-story office huilding
on the "orner of Thirty-eighth Street and Madison Avenue.
Ofiice buildings of that size are justified only on very expen¬
sive property in very expensive business neighborhoods. They
abound naturally in the financial district, and they will
eventually become almost as numerous in and around Madi¬





son and Greeley Squares, Blit as yet no twenty-story office
building has been prected anywhere on Fifth Avenue, or on
any other avenue uptown. Several eighteen-story loft build¬
ings have been constructed on Fifth Avenue, but the eco¬
nomic function of a work-house is very different from that of
an office huilding. If huge structures, divided into small
offices, constituted a good investment on high-priced Fifth
avenue property, they would already have been run up in
large numbers, and the fact that they are scarce even on that
expensive thoroughfare shows that they are not likely to
pay except at rare intervals. Why, then, should a twenty-
story office building be planned for a corner ot an
avenue, whose development for business purposes is only be¬
ginning, and which in this particular vicinity has retained
an exclusively residential atmosphere? We must leave the
answer of this question to others; but while it is being an-
.swered the prophecy may be ventured either that no twenty-
story office building will he erected at Thirty-eighth street
and Madison avenue, or, if it is, the investment will prove
to be a very expensive one to its perpetrators. There is
every reason to believe that Madison avenue, between Thir¬
ty-fourth and Twenty-sixth streets and between Forty-second
and Fifty-ninth streets, will be rapidly transformed into a
business thoroughfare, but the blocks between Thirty-fourtli
and Forty-second streets are at present more valuable Eor
residential than for business purposes. While they will not
remain so indefinitely, it will he some time before large busi¬
ness improvements can be legitimately erected within the
described district.





'-T^HE  LATEST PROPOSALS of the Interborough Company
■*-      have  been  submitted  to  public criticism  for some ten
days;  and while they have been on the whole favorably re¬
ceived, they have not, we are very much afraid, been favor¬
ably enough received to secure their adoption.    The Record
and Guide has always believed that the city should continue
to do  business exclusively with  the Interborough  Company,
provided   that   the   corporation   offered   sufficiently   favorable
terms;  but the difficulty has been that the company has re¬
fused to come up to the scratch.    In 1907, when it was the
only possible bidder on the routes laid out by the old Rapid
Transit Commission, it would not accept the terms offered by
the city, and its refusal was as much the result of the pre¬
carious   condition  of   the  company's   finances,   due  to   grave
mistakes of management, as it was to the character of the
proposei^ contract.    Last spring the company spent a great
deal of money in the attempt to persuade New Yorkers that
it   was   doing   a   most  generous   thing   in   offering   to   build
Subways  wilh its own  money on  a seventy-five years'  lease,
and   its  failure  at  that  time  to  place  an  accurate  estimate
upon  the  condition  of public opinion  was nothing short of
ridiculous.    Now it offers to build four instead of two-track
Subway  extensions  up  Lexington  and  Third  and down  Sev¬
enth  avenues  at  its  own  expense  and  under  the  provisions
for an indeterminate franchise   prescribed in the new Rapid
Transit Law.    Our own opinion is that this offer is the most
advantageous one which has been submitted to the city, and
that it should be accepted; but we are afraid that the Public
Service Commission will not see it in that light.    The plans
proposed by the Interborough Company are in absolute con¬
flict with the Commission's own scheme for a Broadway-Lex¬
ington avenue-South Brooklyn Subway,    The granting of the
proposed extensions to the existing Subway would kill the
Broadway-Lexington avenue route, and if a franchise for the
Broadway-Lexington  avenue^ route is granted  the  whole In¬
terborough proposal falls through, because the company will
not build south aiong Seventh avenue unless it can also build
north along Lexington avenue.    It is a case, consequently, of
the  Interborough   company's  plan  or  those  of the  Commis¬
sion;   and  the Commission will be inclined  to  favor its own
pet project.    No argument has availed hitherto to shake its
loyalty to a scheme which merely duplicates existing means
of  rapid  transit  from  Forty-second  street to  the City Hall,
and   the   Interborough   Company   in   making   its   proposals
should  have considered  more carefully this fact.     It should
have   considered   whether   it   could   not   have   preserved   its
monopoly and done away with the dangerous competition of
a Broadway Subway by making a generous rather than only a
fair offer.     The possibilities of traffic development in New
York  are   such   that  it could   have  proposed   to   build  not
merely one additional  four-track Subway,  but two  of them,
provided the period to be occupied by construction was ex¬
tended over six or seven years;  and such an offer the Public
Service Commission would have been obliged to accept.    The