June 4, 1910





RECORD  AND  GUIDE





1191







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C. W. SWEET

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By THE RECORD AND GXUDE CO,

President,  CLINTON W.   SWEET                        Treasurer, F. W. DODGE

Vice-Pres. & Genl. Mgr,, H. W, DESMOND         Secretary, F. T. MILLER

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Copyrighted.   1910,   by   The   Record   &   Guide   Co.





Vol.  LXXXV.





JUNE 4,   1910.





No.  2203





THE table published by the Record and Guide last week
showing the number of new loft buildings projected
during the past five years and a half is so interesting and
important that it is worth reproduction and further com¬
ment.    The table was as follows:

FIVE  AND  A  HALF YEARS  OF LOFT  CONSTRUCTION.

Estimated                           Average

total cost.                             cost.

$12,455,750                         $115,000

12.213,100                             05,000

11 -J',i7,2UO                             85,000

1) -ISO HH)                             66.000

30,08(i.450                           136,000

17,007,000                           180,000







Year.









Number.





19(^









108





1906









128





1907









132





1908









143





1909









220





1010 to




date




99










Total 830





improvements jn Manhattan. New York is merely reaping a
harvest of trouble and e.xpense, which has been allowed to
grow unhampered during the past flfteen years. Throughout
the whole of that time it has been pointed out again and
again that the delay in beginning such improvements was
the worst kiud of economy and the most flagrant extravr
agance; but nobody paid any attention to these warnings.
As long as the situation had not become absolutely intoler¬
able, the city government was content to postpone respon¬
sibility,, and in this evasion it was supported by public opin-
icm. Now, however, the situation is rapidly becoming intoler¬
able. The congestion of trafflc in Manhattan Is increasing
year by year—both hecause of the expansion of business, its
increasing concentration in one district, and the euormous
growth iu the use of motor vehicles. . The city has from
the beginning done nothing to distribute business or traffic.
It has allowed the congestion to accumulate unimpeded, be¬
cause it has allowed property-owners to buiid to any height
they pleased; and now any really drastic remedy is impos¬
sible. In the long run tlie property-owners of Manhattan
will discover that as an inevitable result of their indifference
to the puhlic interest, business will be driven, to the other
boroughs, not because of the want of space in Manhattan,
but because the street system cannot be reformed for the
pui-pose of making the existing space accessible and avail¬
able. Of course, minor improvements may still he made,
but it has become impossible to cut new .avenues or streets
along the central ridge of the island, and new streets cannot
even be run through marginal districts to any advantage
until the city possesses the power of excess condemnation.





$93,439,600          Average $112,000

According to this table the loft buildings projected during
the past seventeen months call for a larger expenditure of
money and consequently will add to the stock of the city a
larger floor space than the buildings projected during the
four previous years; and it should be added that these four
years were themselves a period of exceptionally active con¬
struction. Economic conditions can hardly warrant an ex¬
pansion in the construction of one type of huilding so enorm¬
ous and so unprecedented. The Record and Guide fully under¬
stands and admits that conditions do warrant the construc¬
tion of more loft buildings than used to he reciuired a few
years ago. Manufacturers and wholesalers find they can
pay higher rents for more space in a new huilding north of
14th street, and get it back in increased business and various
economies. There are many sound reasons for the migra¬
tion of mercantile houses into the new district, and it is
bound to continue. But It certainly cannot continue at a
pace sufflcient to absorb the construction of $30,000,000
worth of new floor space in each year; and a continuation of
such a rate of construction will not only be disastrous to the
newer enterprises, but it will be harmful to the older ones,
because it will tempt owners to cut rents and accept inferior
tenants. When a district suffers from a burst of over-build¬
ing, it sometimes takes years to make a good recovery, be¬
cause investors become afraid of it, and builders are loth
to engage in enterprises of which investors are afraid. It
is essential, consequently, that speculative building in the
nfew loft districts should cease until buildings now under
construction are finished, and until it is discovered to what
extent the supply exceeds the demand.





PRACTICALLY every real estate expert who has ex¬
pressed an opinion about Mayor Gaynor's idea for a
new avenue midway between the existing lines of Fifth and
Sixth avenues, has agreed with the Record and Guide that
the Mayor both underestimated the cost of the enterprise
and overestimated the net benefit which would accrue to
adjacent private property. Most of them place the probable
expense at nearer $100,000,000 than our own figure of about
$75,000,(100; and undoubtedly the Record and Guide's esti¬
mate erred on the side of modesty. The intersection of the
proposed avenue with Broadway, which would take place at
about 29th street, would be unusually expensive and would
destroy as well as create considerable property values. We
trust, however, that Mayor Gaynor will not be discouraged,
but will have his plau tested by an expert board, because
only hy a scientific and impartial examination of actual
schemes can public opinion gradually be brought to a real¬
ization of the powerlessness of the city to carry out street





THERE are two  types of street improvements which may
still be possible in Manhattan, and both of them would
become much more possible in case the city were to obtain
the power of excess condemnation.    It is still practicable to
run an avenue through a cheap and unimproved section like
Greenwich Village, and while a new thoroughfare, such as
the extended  Seventh avenue, will not do much to relieve
congestion  at central  points,  it will  do  something to  divert
the stream of business and trafflc to a less crowded route—
quite enough to pay for its cost many times over.     Seventh
aveuue will  be particularly useful in this respect,  because
it is one hundred feet wide.    Avenues like Madison, Sixth
and Lexington, which are narrower and have trolley cars on
them, are far less useful for vehicular traffic.   After Seventh
avenue   has   been   extended   to   Varick   street,   and   after   a
thoroughfare   has   been   opened   around   the   Grand   Central
Station, Mauhattan will have two additional avenues along
which trafflc can move with   (for some years at least)  com¬
paratively   little   interruption-     ADj)ther  type   of   street   im¬
provement which might be possible would be diagonal streets
connecting two important centers of congested traffic.    New
diagonal streets would be expensive because they would cut
across  existing  lines  of ownership and  would  incur heavy
damages, but they would have the advantage—not enjoyed
by such a plan as that of Mayor Gaynor—of developing new
traffic and of actually economizing the use of the streets by
affording   vehicles  a  shorter  route between   two   important
districts.    An idea of this kind li6s behind a plan which Mr.
Wiiber C. Goodale has recently suggested in a letter to the
"Times," and which is well worth serious consideration.   He
says:  "Four out of five persons desire to travel in a diagonal
direction rather than up or downtown.    This is particularly
true between 34th and 59th streets on account of the location
of   Central  Park,   and   occupying  the   centre   of   Manhattan
Island, Fifth avenue at present accommodates a doable traf¬
fic—the traffic of an uptown and downtown street, and further
the traffic which should be accommodated by a northeasterly
street analogous to  Broadway.    A new diagonal street run¬
ning frora 37th street and Seventh avenue, cutting through
the  corner  of   Bryant  Park,   and   extending  to  Queensboro
Bridge Plaza, Vould have the effect of carrying much trafflc
not only to the latter point, but .would also divert traffic to
all  other  avenues,  including Park  avenue."





rT-^ HE RECORD AND GUIDE believes tbat the "Committee
X on Congestion" will find a really valuable suggestion
in this idea of Mr. Goodale's. If Manhattan needs any one
new thoroughfare more than another, it would be an avenue
performing the same service for the upper East Side and
the lower West Side as Broadway does for the upper West
Side and tbe lower East Side. But if it is impracticable to
lay out a new Broadway, it may not be impossible to obtain
a similar result from a shorter diagonal avenue. Tbe route
proposed  by  Mr.   Goodale  would  have  the  advantage of a