MAY 11, 1912'





ECONOMIC CAUSES OF THE GROWTH OF BROOKLYN.

A Marvelous Increase of Population an(J In(Justry, Which Will Be Accelerated by
Improved Transportation—How Dependence on Manhattan Influences Real Estate.

By CECIL C.   EVERS, Vice-President of   the  Lawyers  Morlgage Co.





. ANY analysis of its growth, development
'"*■ and probable future mu.st be preceded
by a right understanding of the relation
Brooklyn bears to the neighboring Bor¬
ough of Manhattan.

Brooklyn is an integral part of the eco-
nc»mic City of New York and in no way
an independent community; the flnanciai
center of the city, the principal centers of
wholesale and retail shopping, of amuse¬
ment, higher instruction and o£ highest-
class residences are to be found in Man¬
hattan, whose real estate values are
strengthened by the population on this
side of the river. This explains the lim¬
ited area devoted in Brooklyn to offices
and to high-class shops, and the com¬
paratively low value of these properties,
which, on Fulton street, and then only
for a few blocks and on the south side,
will not average more than about $5,000
to $6,000 per front foot. The best resi¬
dence property, very limited in extent,
not exceeding in value $500 to $600 per
front foot, would, in an independent city
of equal population, have a value of sev¬
eral times that amount and would cover
a far greater territory. The small num¬
ber of hotels, theatres, music halls, pic¬
ture galleries and other places of amuse¬
ment or instruction, are accounted for in
the  same way.

Brooklyn, we may conclude, will prob¬
ably never have more than a very limited
offlce section and a comparatively small
high-class shopping street, which will not
seriously compete with the more faah-
ionable shops in Manhattan. For many
years to come the centers of wholesale -
and commission buainess will also ibe
found in Manhattan, and Brooklyn will
continue to be what it is at present: a
residential part of the Greater City, with
a   growing   manufacturing   and   shipping

■business.

Factors   o€   D eve loy ment,

Brooklyn, for many years part of the
economic City of New York, was ad¬
mitted within its political limits in the
year 1S9S.

The early growth, made possible by the
ferries across the East River, was main¬
ly confined to the territory within easy
reach of the ferry terminals at the foot
of Catherine. Fuiton and Wall streets, At¬
lantic and Hamilton avenues, and in-
' eluded the section between the Navy Yard
' and Hamilton avenues, and from eight to
twelve blocks back from the river. At
about the same time the ferries runnlna
to the foot of Grand street and Broadway,
then called South Eighth street, in Wll¬
liamsburgli, encouraged the establishment
of factories along the Bast River and
residences on the higher land back of
them.

The opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in
1883 and the construction of the elevated
railroads in 1885 projected new residen¬
tial sections into the territory reached by
these lines of transportation.

The procession of homeseekers from
New York in search of lower rents and
less congested conditions was accom¬
panied by the establishment of numerous
factories along the main lines of com¬
munication, on the water front—Gowanus
Canal, Newtown Creek, and in other lo¬
cations where they were attracted by
cheap land and transportation facilities.

Brooklyn has often been called the City
of Homes. Its early development waa of
this character; patrons of the East River
ferries, and in the early days of the ele¬
vated  railroads,  Avere  for  the  most  part





housed in sniall private residences (the
high atoop house predominating) and in
small brick or Irame tenements in the
cheaper sections.

As the demand for land in t'he more
central locations increased, it Avas found
more profitable to erect apartments, and
these were built in large numbers.

The comparative isolation of Brooklyn,
when ferries were the only means of com¬
munication, has been growing rapidly less
as bridges, eleA'ated railroads and sub¬
ways have connected the two boroughs
and broken dow-n the barriers between
them. One result of this closer connec¬
tion has been that some sections which
owed their prominence to this isolated
condition, have gradually changed char¬
acter and lost in value, if not absolutely,
then relatively to the growth of the city.

Thus properties on Columbia Heights,
formerly the fashionable residential quar¬
ter, have for many yeai-s suffered a grad¬
ual decline in value, until the last two or
three years, when the probable recon-
sti'TJction of tills section with apartment
houses, -of which there already is some
evidence, has caused land values to in¬
crease to some extent, though not enough
to offset the original cost of land and
building-s. Similarly, the FuUon street
dry goods section, not of much greater
extent that its predecessor about twenty-
five years ago, has suffered a relative de¬
crease in value when the great increase
in population is considered.

Chnrncfcr and  Distribution  of I'opnlafion.

Brooklyn as a residential city is still
the home of people of moderate means;
for in a general way those who become
sufflcieiTtly wealthy are apt to be at¬
tracted by the superior social and other
advantages to be found in Manhattan and
migrate  there.

The average monthly rental of the bet¬
ter class apartments (excluding a few of
the highest class) was ten years ago from
$50 to $60; this is now more nearly from
$75 to $100, and is accompanied by a
steady improvement in the standard of
accommodation offered, both having been
forced upwards by the greatly increased
rent of equal accommodation in Man¬
hattan.

Brooklyn is inhabited mainly by three
classes of people; those who in one way
or another are employed in Manhattan,
either in the financial sections or in the
coinmercial quarters further north (the
average daily travel'by subway, over the
bridges and by ferries in 1910 was about
923,000, showing that, allowance being
made for return journeys, about half a
million people, or one-third of the popu¬
lation, pass daily from Brooklyn to Man¬
hattan and back); others are workers in
the factories and warehouses lining ths
water front and scattered through the city
(the number of operatives and employes
in Brooklyn factories in the year 1910 was
139,737); others again find cmployi-nent in
the numerous Brooklyn stores and in oc¬
cupations created by the various local
needs  of  the  borough.

Although there ia in the more closely
built up sections a tendency to the erec¬
tion of apartment houses mainly, Brook¬
lyn still appeals strongly to the class of
people who are anxious to secure for them¬
selves an independent home, where they
can find better conditions for bringing up
their families than those which exist in
more densely populated sections. This
accounts for the great number of small
suburban residences erected between 1908





and  1911,  and  which havs found a ready
market  at  good   prices.

Although Brooklyn has a very cosmo¬
politan population, including in 1900 about
20,000 negroes, the percentage of native
born of native parentage, according to
the census of 1900, was 37 per cent., as
against  17  per cent,  in  Manhattan.

As in all cities, the population dis¬
tributes itself according to its effective
demand on the locations considered pref¬
erable, forming sections in which the
standard of accommodation and rentals
will not vary greatly, and established with
reference to means of transportation, ex¬
isting and expected, topography, sur¬
roundings,   etc.

The effect of expected transportation
was shown when the Bay Ridge section
witnessed the erection of several hundred
houses when the building of the Fourth
Avenue subway was announced in the
year 1904; the delay in starting construc¬
tion resulted in depreciated values, and
the foreclosure of the mortgages on a
number of these buildings.

Tlie   Influence   ot   Trau.siiorfniton.

The influence of transportation on dis¬
tribulion of population is evidenced by the
relation different sections bear to the
transportation offered and to Its outlets
in Manhattan. Thus the traffic lines over
the Williamsburgh Bridge, connecting
Brooklyn to the East Side in Manhattan,
has caused the erection of tenements
mainiy; vi'bii^t tran.^portation over tho
Brookly,1 Br-dge, entering Manhattan at
or near the office and flnanciai section,
serves numerous residential dhitricts of
better character.

The best class residential districts for
attached dwellings are, leaving aside the
so-called "Heights" section, which is un¬
dergoing a change of character; the Park
Slope, the Bedford, the "Hill" (east of
Fort Greene Park), and the St. Marks
section.?.

[he h'^st class detached residences are
fi.und in Prospect Park South, Fiske Ter¬
race and Manhattan Terrace, with cheap¬
er neighborhoods at Eorough Park, Bath
Beach, Bensonhurst; these being reached
by the rapid transit lines—the most dL-
■^irable by the Brighton Beach Railroad,
vs'hich offers the best service beyond the
clostly built up portions of the city and
which has been of such service to the
sec'ionfi it traverses, that at the present
time a considerable number of apartmant
houses are being erected in parts of Flat¬
bush ^-/ithin easy reach of the principal
stati'-.ns.

Excrpting the above-mentioned sections,
3rooklyn consists principally, in its set-
iled roitions, of the cheaper apartments
and  tenements.

Tlie foreign element, especially of the
poorest classes, are mostly to be found
i.i distinct sections, such as the Jewish
settlements in the neighborhood of Gra¬
ham avenue to the north of Broadway, in
HrDv.'nsvilie and in the territory within
easy icpch of the Williamsburgh Eridgkj
Plaaa. Italians congregate in large num¬
bers al-^ng Columbia street and Hamilton
avenue. Swedes are numerous at about
Fourth and Fifth avenues, between For¬
tieth iird Forty-fifth streets. There is a
.strung German settlement northeast o'
Broadway and Bushwick avenue and
south of Myrtle avenue; also in the new¬
ly built up section in East New York,
north of Pulton street, 'beginning where
Ridgewood avenue runs into Jamaica ave¬
nne. The principal negro quarter Is to
be found on both sides of Myrtle avenue,
on Navy and Raymond streets and on
Hudson avenue.

Movement  ot Lnnil A'alucH,

In growing cities, especially where they
cover large areas and there Is no bar to
their   extension   into   undeveloped   terrl-