January 21, 1911.





RECORD   AND   GUIDE





99







___^.^^yaJIil.

^                    -            ESTABUSHED^ MARCH 21^^ 1868.

Dev^teO p REA|rEsTMT.BuiLDif/G ^ro^itecture.Housnlou)DegoratimI,
Bifsit^Ess Ali) Themes of GeHeraI IHteresi.,

PRICE   PER   YEAR   IN   ADVANCE   EIGHT   DOLLARS

Communications  should  be  addressed to

C. W. SWEET

Tublished EVerp Saturday

By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO.

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

Vlce-Pres.  Sc Genl.  Mgr.. H.  W.  DESMOND          Secretary. F. T.  MILLER

Nos.  11 to  15 East 24tli  Street, New lEorJc  City

(TelepUone,   Madi.wn   Square,  4430   to  4433.)





"Entered at tho Post Office at Ncm York, N.  Y.. as second-class matter.'

('opsrighttd,   1011.   by   The   Record   i&   Guide   Co.
Vol.  LXXXVII.-





JANUARY 21,   1911.





No.  223G





THE COMING BUILDING SEASON.

DULNBSS is a normal attribute of tlie building situation
at every midwinter season, and the present one is no ex¬
ception. The number ol visible operations in hand is prob¬
ably less than in a long period of years, taking the city as
a whole rather than any particular part of it. Yet there
are underlying conditions of financial soundness, and a tech¬
nical position occupied, that strongly indicate that the
year 1911, before it ends, will have given to the building
interests fairly satisfactory proofs of activity. Money is
steadily tending toward a lower rate for loans, because of
the steadily growing total of available funds in financial
centers. The railroads, with brighter prospects, are loosen¬
ing up in their orders for materials. In the steel busi¬
ness there is piling up an aggregate of waiting orders that
will strain even the capacity of this great business when the
dam breaks. Liquidation of securities has largely subsided,
and the decline in prices of food stuffs and house supplies,
which has been particularly noticeable within a fortnight,
has begun to stimulate general retail trade. In the build¬
ing trades, considered apart from the real estate market,
it is easy to count up fifty or sixty million dollars' worth
of work for the coming season. Only a part of it can
be executed within the calendar year, it is true, but never¬
theless there is this vast amount of work waiting to be
done, some of it already started and the rest to be started
during the year. The iHunlcipal Building, the Grand Central
Passenger Station, tbe new U. S. Post Office, the Wool-
worth Building, the Greeley Square Hotel, the Bankers'
Trust Building, a three-million dollar hotel on Seventh ave¬
nue, the East Elver Savings Bank, the new Masonic Build¬
ing and half a dozen structures to cost a million dollars
eacli—these constitute a vision of activity that will remind
central and lower Manhattan of the "skyscraper races" of
the years 1905 and 1906. Then there are several large
works for the suburbs, as the Sea View Hospital on Staten
Island and the new State Prison at Wingdale, not to men¬
tion the continuation of the rebuilding of the U. S. Mili¬
tary Academy at West Point. From a long schedule of this
new work that lies before us (see Record and Guide of
December 31) it is perceived that while there may be for
a time a diminution of activity in some departments of
construction, the year 1911, before it closes, will see a
pronounced revival in other departments. There will be
on the whole a greater variety of work than presented it¬
self last year, so far as I\lanhattan is concerned. For the
suburbs, and especially for Queens Borough, Westchester
County and Northern New Jersey, the indications for good
building activity in the latter half of the year are very
strong.





CO-OPERATIVE HOUSES.

EVER since last Spring there has been a noticeable fall¬
ing off in the number of new buildings planned as
cooperative apartment houses. This falling off has been
due chiefly to two causes. In the first place, there has
been a certain over-production of this as of other classes
of residential building; and, in the second place, several
of the later enterprises of this class have not been bril¬
liant successes. The knowledge that the stockholders in
some of these buildings have been heavily assessed has
spread,   and   has   discouraged   promoters   from   attempting





to put through other enterprises of the same kind. In
the case of one enterprise there was a complete failure
and a heavy loss, because certain inexperienced promoters
had gone ahead without making sure that they could fin¬
ance the new building. There is no reason to suppose,
however, that the check to these enterprises is anything
but temporary. The cooperative apartment bouse is based
upon a sountl business principle, and it has come to stay.
It enables a well-to-do family to obtain a home, designed
to suit its own tastes, for a smaller sum than a similar
floor space could be obtained in the same neighborhood
either in a private house or in an ordinary apartment
house. It has the advantages both of a private residence
and of an apartment; and it appeals particularly to the
ever-increasing number of well-to-do people who do not
pass more than half of the year in New York City. Co¬
operative apartment houses will, consequently, continue to
be built, but a man buying ,an apartment should be very
careful of the standing of his proposed associates in the
enterprise, and of the soundness of the financial scheme on
which it is based. These enterprises ought to be managed
by experienced people, who make themselves responsible
for the financing of the building and Its erection. Of course,
the stockholders have to pay for such services, but they
are worth the price.





RIVERSIDE PARK FOR NEW YORK PEOPLE.

NOT for the puiposes of Commerce, for steamship docks
and railroad tracks, were the lands comprising the orig¬
inal Riverside Park purchased by the City with the money of
her taxpayers. The world's commerce can have all the rest
of the Hudson River shore, but this much is a heritage to
be kept inviolate for the enjoyment and benefit of our citi¬
zens through all posterity. Tbe lands under water fronting
the Park are as much a natural part of it as if they were vis¬
ible. Between 9GtIi street or thereabouts and the public pier
at 12 9th street especially, where the Park Commissioner has
proposed to reclaim the land under water, the river edge—■
the littoral zone—is so essential to a riverside park, and so
susceptible and ready for a natural and obvious improvement,
that we doubt if even Commerce, unemotional and dollar-
benumbed as it is, will ever think of turning the people away
from it and making it a lauding place for foreign vessels—
and a covered freight yard for railroads. We doubt if this
wruld ever be permitted. The fear of such a thing is mo¬
mentarily allayed by the remarks of the Commissioner of
Docks and Ferries, Hon, Calvin Tomkins, as reported in an¬
other part or this paper. There is no immediate intention to
enter upon the development of the "commercial opportuni¬
ties" of the Riverside Park district, but ultimately, he assures
us, it will be necessary in his judgment to avail of the wa¬
terfront of "Riverside Drive" as well as the districts above
and below for these uses.

In any event a distinction should be made between the
Park proper lying south of 129th street, and the "Drive," as
extended north of the "Loop" at Claremont. But leaving the
largei' question lo the future, it is interesting to know that
the beautiful stretch of shorefrout opposite Claremont, Morn¬
ingside Heights aud Old Bloomingdale is to be reclaimed and
made accessible from the Park by arcading over the railroad
tracks. Treated as park landscape solely, and indented with
little harbors and landing places for motor boats and yachts,
the new land would not only add a new feature to the enjoy¬
ment to be derived from the park, but the improvement taken
together with other movements for the beautification of the
West Side, such as the Hudson-Fulton Water Gate, would so
enhance tbe desirability of residence in the district as to
threaten in after years the social primacy of the other side
of town.





I





EXPRESS STATIONS.

F, and when a lower West Side subway is ever built, it
ought to be planned so that the express trains would
not stop between 33d street and Cortlandt street. In the
building up of a business center on the middle West Side
the quickest possible connection with the financial district
is necessary, so that a man can conduct business both up
and down town with very little delay, A connection of
this kind cannot be furnished by any other subway so well
as by one which runs on almost a straight line from the
Pennsylvania Terminal to Canal street, because it so hap¬
pens th;i.t Seventh avenue is a comparatively central ave¬
nue and runs into the heart of the district which is destined
to be the best location  for  general  business   in  mid-Man-