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February 4, 1911.
RECORD AND GmDE
199
ESTABUSHED^ M,ftRCH 21'J> 1668.
"de/oteD p Re\L Estate . Bui LDI^fc AR.afiiEcruRE ,h[oiisnioLD DECORATiotJ.
B^fsl^iESS AtJoThemes of Gej^eraI Interest.
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Gommunications should be addreaaed to
C. W. SWEET
Published Every Saturday
By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO.
Presiaent. CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W, DODGE
Vice-Pres. & Geo!. Mgr,, H. W. DESMOND Secretary, P, T, MILLER
Nos. 11 to 15 East 24tb Street, Kew York City
(TelepLone. Madison Square, 4430 to 4133.)
"Entered at the Post Oifice at Ncic York, N. Y., as second-class ir^r.rr."
{â– opyrightGd. 1911. by Tlia Eeeord & Gaida Co.
Vol. LXXXVIL
FEBRUARY 4. 1911.
No. 223S
GREENWICH VILLAGE REALTY.
FOR the last year there has heen a gradually inci-easiiig
amount of activity in business property in Greenwich
village, and no minor movement which hag recently taken
place in Manhattan real estate has run a more natural
course or is better justified. It has. not been accompanied
by any blowing ot" horns or by any considerable increase in
speculative prices. Indeed, if any such increase had taken
place the movement would probably have come to a sudden
end. It has been based on the fact that property available
for business occupation can be purchased cheaper in the
Greenwich district than can similiarly desirable property else¬
where in Manhattan. There is no room, consequently, for
any great speculative profit. Business firms who are per¬
suaded to buy or lease in that neighborhood must be offered
the inducement of comparatively low land values, because
under prevailing conditions they would scarcely settle in a
relatively inaccessible district on any other terms. It is they,
consequently, who are reaping the advantage of the current
activity. They are getting a good location for their ware¬
houses and factories without paying as large a profit to specu¬
lative operators as is usually the case with similar trans¬
actions in Manhattan real estate. Moreover, the business
men who are moving into this district will have a good deal
to gain hereafter from their forehandedness. Greenwich vil¬
lage will never be a worse location for a factory or a ware¬
house than it is at present; and within a few years it will
probably in every way be a much more accessible and de¬
sirable location. The extension of Seventh Avenue will open
it up for vehicular traflic; and the Seventh Avenue Subway
will tie it close to the other business and the residential parts
of the city. A certain increase in real estate values is sure
to result. Any business firm which could occupy profitably a
location in that part of the city should do so within the next
year or two, and in this way obtain the advantage of the
raoi'e favorable conditions under which business will be
transacted thereabouts after the proposed street and transit
improvements are completed.
BORROWING CAPACITY.
AFTER witnessing the effect upon the minds of certain
people of an increased assessed value of real estate
amounting to almost $900,000,000, one begins to believe
more than ever before in the virtue of establishing a fixed
limit to the borrowing capacity of the city. It seems to be
assumed by the advocates of a competitive Subway system
at any cost that the power of tbe city to borrow an addi¬
tional $90,000,000 for transit purposes constitutes a valid
argument for taking advantage of that power. None of these
gentlemen appear to realize that the issue of such a cart¬
load of additional securities would severely strain the credit
of the city; and this strain would only be the greater in case
the expense of an independent Subway system could be bor¬
rowed within five years instead of being spread over ten.
The increase in the borrowing capacity of the city help's the
argument in favor of competition at any cost, in the sense
that it enables the advocates of this policy to promise the
immediate construction of the Bronx and Brooklyn connec¬
tions of the Broadway-Lexington Avenue route; but, of
course, it only increases the force of the objection to any
such extravagant waste of the city's credit. The city is now
borrowing at the rate of $50,000,000 or $60,000,000 a year,
and it is obliged to pay 4^4: per cent, for its money. Its
ordinary demands during the next five years will be equal
to the larger of the two sums mentioned above. If, in addi¬
tion, it is obliged to borrow $40,000,000 a year for Subway
construction, there is no telling how high a rate of interest
would be charged by tbe money market—particularly in view
of the fact that tbe whole conservative banking community
w'ould regard with grave misgivings the risk which would be
Incurred by such an adventure. This consideration has not
bulked very large in the current discussions ot" the Subway
problem, but it seems of paramount importance to the
Record and Guide. It would increase the cost ot an inde¬
pendent system over that of a co-operative system by many
millions; it would increase the cost of all other city improve¬
ments, and in any estimate of the comparative economy of
the two policies it should be duly weighed. A competitive
system would be costly, not merely because it is expensively
planned, not merely because it would duplicate existing
means of communication, not merely because it would exact
double fares from millions of passengers, but because the
money needed for its construction would be loaded with at
least one-quarter of one per cent, additional interest charge.
THE GENERAL TREND.
RBPORTS from building contractors are now to the gen¬
eral effect that they have many more building plans
to figure than a month ago. The plans filed in Manhattan
Borough since the first of the year represent an appropria¬
tion exceeding hy 60 per cent, tbe sum involved in the plans
filed in the corresponding weeks last year. In The Bronx,
projects enough were announced last fall to keep the build¬
ers busy for a long time, and the Borough of Queens,
which now claims the activites of many operators once prom¬
inent in Brooklyn, will break all records for construction
this year. All the indications are that the spring building
season will open vigorously with small work in the suburbs,
and that later on there will be a formidable array of large
work in Manhattan to engage the trades very generally. Not
only is there a better state of building facts than a year ago,
but a highly improved state of public mind. In the real
estate market, star transactions are becoming numerous
enough to warrant a prediction of general revival not long
hence. Experts in fundamental building materials, such as
structural steel, expect a large business to develop in April,
and the rising prices of steel securities reflect this opinion.
Building costs are again low, compared with the level of
five years ago. The receding cost of living is helping to tone
up the public spirit, and all the signs of the times are that the
corner has been turned, tbe nadir of business depression
rounded by the star of hope. In a more particular way, it
can be said that never before in this city were there so many
contracts for vast operations coming on at once. Think of
an era in which there will be under construction buildings
of the immensity and quality of the Municipal Building, the
main portion of the Grand Central Depot, a new General
Post Offlce, an office building that will overtop any building
in the world, another almost as tall, a great hotel, a Masonic
Temple, two church edifices of the finest quality, a great high-
school, half a dozen office buildiugs of the first magnitude,
besides a score of apartment houses of the first rank. And
this is referring only to those erections which dent the sky¬
line or bulk large against the horizon. Business,views are
shaped not by star projects merely, but by an unaccountable
number of events tending in the same direction. From all, it
is a fair deduction that when this winter is past the building
trades will be entering a new era of good times.
A HUDSON RIVER BRIDGE LESS CERTAIN.
THE proposition before the States of New York and New
Jersey of either bridging or tunneling tbe Hudson
River has been narrowed down by the investigations of the
past year to one possibility, and this hy reason of having its
cost increased by one hundred per cent, is that much less
a probability. A single-span bridge at 59th street is the
conclusion that the Interstate Commission has reached, and
the one span will cost double the sum that was esti¬
mated for a bridge having two spans. The latter has been
found impossible because of there being no foundation for a
pier in the middle of the stream. A tunnel to match the
bridge in capacity would cost as much and yet not serve the
purpose of a bridge. So large would the members of this
structure have to be and so unprecedented the work in all
respects, its cost cannot be estimated from present data. At
one time the cost of a bridge having but a single span be¬
tween the two shores was considered prohibitive, but as the