July   17,   TO09.





RECORD   AND   GUIDE





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Copyrighted,   1909,   by  The   Record  &   Guide  Co.





Vol.   LXXXIV.





JQLY   17,   1909.





No.   2157.





THE XEW BUiLDING CODE which passed the Board of
Aldermen during the past week is in certain respects
an improvement on any code of building regulations as yet
enacted in New York; hut at the same time it arouses the
opposition of the great majority of people interested in New'
York real estate and building. This opposition is justified;
and can be justified, quite apart from the injustice wbjch
it works upon certain types and methods of concrete con¬
struction. The fundamental complaint is that it will in¬
crease the cost of huilding in this city without, at the same
time, doing anything effective to diminish the fire risks. In
view of the validity of this complaint, the improvements
which have been made in certain sections of the code avail
nothing. The fact remains that building will be more ex¬
pensive, while the city will be to a very small extent better
[irotected from a disastrous conflagration. New Yorkers will
have to pay more, but they will get nothing really worth
having for their money. Alt the actual aud fundamental
problems in respect to the height of buildings and the danger
of flre-co!itagion have been avoided, and the net result will
he a code which will demand another drastic revision within
a few years. We doubt, hcwever, whether New York will
ever got a salisfacLory building code out of a board that i^
so subject to underground influences as the Board of Alder¬
men; and it is certain that no satisfactory code will be passed
by any local legislative body ^until expert opinion under¬
stands better what the real object of building regulations
should be. The real object of a building code should be
to make good construction as cheap as possible, whereas the
object of code makers in the past has been to penalize a
builder just as much as they can in ease he has Lo make his
building fireproof. The consequence is that practical build¬
ers and the makers of building codes are always at cross pur¬
poses and that no loyal co-operation can be obtained in tiie
interest of good construction. The further consequence is,
as we all know, graft, graft, graft! It is all as usual; but
the usual unfortunality is based upon a fundamental division
of interest and point of view between the experts and the
practical builders, and  therein tho grafters find their profit.





THE OPENING OF THE M'ADOO TUNNELS, terminating
at Greenwich and Cortlandt streets, will unquestion¬
ably have a most important effect upon the real estate situ¬
ation in Manhattan and the whole metropoiitan district.
Hitherto the business men who lived in New Jersey and came
to business every day in New York have been obliged to
sacrifice a certain amount ofitime in return for the pleasures
and advantages ot" suburban residences, and the consequence
has been that many families continue:! to live iu Manhattan
who would under ordinary conditions have preferred a house
in a convenient suburb. The new tunnels will diminish by
a good many minutes the advantage which New York build¬
ing sites have enjoyed over those of New Jersey; and the
'consequence will undoubtedly be a certain shifting of popu¬
lation. Not only will a larger proportion of the annual in¬
crease of inhabitants seek homes on the other side of the
Hudson, but for m^ny years there will be a certain migration
of families now living in Manhattan and, the Bronx to Hud¬
son and Essex counties. This migration will have a certain
effect upon, residence property in Manhattan. It will not
affect tenement house sections, or the more expensive laiid
on which private dwellings and high-grade apartment houses
can be built, but it will diminish the demand for the medium-





priced flat, .lust bow far the migration will go cannot be
pre.iicted in advance; but the certainty that it will take place
should make builders cautious about erecting very many new
tenements of that class. On the other hanS, the new tunnels
will, of course, benefit business property in the financial dis-
Iriet and in the newer mercantile district. It will mean that
a larger proportion of New Yorkers will waste less time and
energy than they do at present in daily traveling, and that
Ihey wili live under pleasanter and more wholesome sur-
I'oundings, Their business efficiency should, consequently,
he increased. Of course, Manhattan will lose a good deal of
business because the money these people spend upon living
will not go into the pockets of New York tradesmen; but
even this less will be mitigated by the very condition which
brings it about. The mere fact of improved communication
under the Hudson will encourage the residents of New Jer¬
sey to spend more money in the larger shops and places of
amusement uptown. In this way the opening of the down¬
town tunnels will indirectly contribute to the pi'osperity of
the retail and theatre districts. The only business neighbor¬
hood in Manhattan which may suffer from the trolley tun¬
nels is the older mercantile section. Business men working
in that vicinity will not derive any advantage from the im¬
proved means of communication; and this fact may swell the
migration of wholesale firms to new locations farther up¬
town.





T TICE-PRESIDENT REA, of the Pennsylvania Railroad
V Company, believes that the corporation he represents
has a grievance against the city, because nothing has been
done to provide the new Pennsylvania Terminal with sub¬
way connections. Although the Pennsylvania company has
been at work seven years and has spent more than $100,000,-
000 in establishing its terminals in Manhattan, not a defi¬
nite step has been taken to give its 300,000 daily pati-ons
any opportunity of spreading over the city. Neither was
Chairman Willcox, of the Public Service Commission, able
'D make a wholly convincing reply to this criticism. It is
true, of course, that a Seventh avenue subway route was laid
out, and was submitted to public competition, and it is true
that the city officials cannot be blamed for the fact that the
Interborough Company refused to bid. But the attitude of
the Public Service Commission since this fiasco has been
\v holly inimical to a Seventh avenue subway. It has per¬
sisted in laying out a Broadway-Lexington avenue route,
which merely duplicated the existing subway south of Forty-
second street, and which increased very much the difficulty
of obtaining a bidder for a Seventh avenue subway. The
Interborough Company is willing to construct an extension
south from F'orty-second street under Seventh avenue, but
only on condition that it can also construct a subway north
from Forty-second street under Lexington avenue. If conse¬
quently the Public Service Commission insisted on its Broad¬
way-Lexington avenue route, the Seventh avenue subway was
apparently indefinitely postponed. The Interborough Com¬
pany would Hot build it without a Lexington avenue exten¬
sion as well, and no other bidder would be likgly to ^.ppeaj'
until the Lime came lov a now West Side route running the
whole length of the island. It did look, consequently, as if
the Public Service Commission had made its plans, as Mr.
Rea charged, without any consideration of the needs of the
patrons of the new Pennsylvania Terminal.





WITHIN the last few days, however, the situation in re¬
spect to a SevenLh avenue subway has altered for the
better. It is now stated in the daily journals that the con¬
tracting syndicate that wants to bid on the Broadway-
Lexington avenue-South Brooklyn route is pi'epared also to
bid uiion a Seventh avenue subway. Tbe route they pi'oposed
would run from Canal street and Broadway, where it would
connect with the Manhattan Bridge and th,e financial district,
up Hudson street and Seventh avenue to Thirty-fourth street,
where it would turn east and connect with the Lexington
avenue. There can be no doubt that this proposal, in case it
actually becomes substantial, very much increases the
strength of the position of the Brad ley-Gaff ney syndicate.
The system which they propose to build would then be toler¬
ably complete, aud would meet all the more pressing needs
for subway construction in Manhattan. Moreover, their route
would have certain peculiar advantages over any route
which has as yet become a matter of serious discussion. It
would, for instance, give the dense po])ulation of the upper
East Side a much better connection with the Pennsylvania
Terminal and the retail section than it could get under any
other  plan,  and  it  would  have  the  additional  advantage  of