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February 25, 1911.
RECORD AND GUIDE
345
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Copjrishtod. 1911. hj Tha Record ut Guide Co.
Vol. LXXXVII.
FEBRUARY â– 2r>. 1011.
No. 2241
RELATION BETWEEN LOFTS AND TENEMENTS.
A CERTAIN firm of real estate operators, who have in
their list of properties no less than six hundred stores,
lofts and tenements, which are situated in sections repre¬
senting nearly every part of Mauhattan Island, report as
an indication of renting conditions that the proportion of
vacancies in their list is hut two per cent. While elevator
apartments and the larger Ioft huildings are not included in
the list, a very satisfactory state of affairs for other classes
of buildings is plainly disclosed. Renting conditions could
scarcely be better, as conservative operators and investors cal¬
culate on a larger loss than this. The probability of an
early resumption of building operations in tenement houses
of the cheaper sort is a natural deduction under the cir¬
cumstances, though the state pf the real estate sales market
is a factor to be considered by intending builders. One of
the strong influences that have been at work to bring about
this result has not heen so apparent as others. During the
years that have intervened since the depression of 1907
there has been a cessation in building tenements of the non-
elevator description, and also of the smaller lofts; but there
has also been in the same period a very large increase In
the business of erecting loft huildings of the largest size and
most expensive quality. An estimate of the average capacity
of modern twelve-story loft buildings, such as have been
erected in the new manufacturing district west of Broadway,
in the Twenties, is that when fully occupied they accommo¬
date nearly a thousand workers each. The process of ten¬
anting these huge workshops and salesrooms does not mean
merely a shifting of manufacturers from one section of the
city to another, as some may suppose. It means, what is
of more importance to real estate interests, first, an ex¬
pansion of business on the part of firms who have long heen
engaged here; second, the setting-up of new concerns, and
third, the removal of other textile concerns from various parts
of the country to New York City, together with a large immi¬
gration of working people from other cities and countries
to this center. Thus, every Ioft building erected means more
workers to be employed and supplied with habitations, and
eventually, if not immediately, more tenement houses to be
erected. It does not mean, necessarily, more congestion in
the old tenements on far East Side, because the financial and
social condition of factoiy people has so improved that a five-
cent fare is not the formidable obstacle to travel that it once
was. Trade unionism. State laws and the uplifting power
of the American spirit are doing wonders for the factory
workers of New York.
THE CITY'S GROWTH.
VARIOUS predictions have recently been made that New
York City will not hereafter maintain the rate of
growth in business and population which has been charac¬
teristic of it hitherto. It is pointed out that the city is
not keeping its proportional share of the expansion in for¬
eign trade, that immigrants will be diverted to foreign ports,
and that even of the local growth a larger fraction will
hereafter go across the Hudson River to New Jersey. The
Record and Guide cannot see any reason for taking these
despondent predictions very seriously. In all probability,
the increase in the population and business of New York will
not be as considerable in the future as it has been in the
past; but if so, the decrease in the percentage of growth
will merely be the local reflection of a slower rate of busi¬
ness expansion throughout the whole country. There is
every reason to believe that New York's rate of increase in
population will continue to be about double that of all th&
United States. The city may lose certain of its advantages
over othei' manufacturing and commercial centers, but what it
loses in seme respects it is just as likely to gain in others.
There is no American city whose situation in the economic
system of the whole country is so well established. No im¬
portant tendency of business can be pointed out which will
deprive it of its distinction as the commercial and financial
metropolis of the country. It is true, no doubt, that certain
other seaports are taking away from New York a fraction
of the foreign trade which it has hitherto enjoyed; but
there are good reasons for believing that this tendency may
be cheeked. The possibilities of New York as a seaport
have never been fully developed. At present the handling
of export business on the waterfront is unnecessarily ex¬
pensive, but when improvements now being planned are
completed the position of New York as a competitor for the
export trade should be decidedly improved. The further de¬
velopment of the South Brooklyn-system of docks and ware¬
houses, and the eventual undertaking of the great improve¬
ments planned for Jamaica harbor, will both tend to keefi
down the cost of handling export freight at this port; and
the same result will, of course, be accomplished by the
carrying out of Commissioner Tomkins' plan for the efficient
development of the Hudson River waterfront in Manhattan,
It should be remembered, also, that an increasing proportion
of our foreign trade will consist of manufactured goods,
which will be produced in factories easily accessible to New
York, This port, consequently, will never in the future b^
so badly situated as a competitor for export business as it 1^
at present, and the improvements destined to be rhade iii'
the machinery for the local handling of freight will be a
great help to the future of the port. Undoubtedly the com¬
petition of other ports will be more, rather than less,
severe; but New York will be in a better, rather than a
worse, condition to hold its own. ;
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(â–
THE TREND OF THE TIMES.
IN these times, when investors and builders are expected
to be more discriminating than during boom years, in the
selection of plans and locations, it is important to note the
good results attending the construction and renting of small
apartments. This is said to apply very generally in apartment
house construction, but more particularly to the noni*
elevator houses. Under former conditions the disposition;
both on the part of builders and renters, was to recognize
the five-room apartment as the one of minimum size; but
the discovery has been made that the four-room apartment,
under the State laws governing the size of the rooms, and
under the natural demands of the age for improvement, is
acceptable to a far larger number of families than is geuy
erally supposed. The higher rents have presumably had an'
effect in giving rise to the marked popularity of smaller
apartments than would have been considered years ago; but
it will be evident to anyone who will observe conditions irl
houses of first-rate quality, as well as in those whicli are
tenanted by people of very moderate means, that the amount
of the rent is not the all-important consideration. There
are many couples, for example, occupying four-room apart¬
ments in fashionable neighborhoods, who could, for the
same price, have much larger suites in localities but little
less desirable. The same standard of taste applies to houses.
There are various reasons besides the pecuniary one, and it
has therefore become the business of builders and operators
who would be successful in New York to ascertain the new
public needs and tastes and respond to them when it pays
to do so. The general tendency of life in New York is to
minimize household cares; to live not less luxuriously, -but
within a smaller compass. Tbe keeping up of large estab¬
lishments is being more and more reserved for suburban
situations, so that the distinction between city ways of
living and the ways of living in the country is becoming
more and more pronounced. At the same time, there is a
steady improvement in the manner of living among the
tenement classes, and the demand for smaller apartments
is said to be an effect of higher aspirations in some quarters
rather than the consequence of the opposite. Renting agents
are in a better position to perceive the trend of the times
than anybody else, and their advice when a building campaign
is being planned is of the highest value to those who must
keep abreast of the times.