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JUNE 22, 1912. -
THE WHOLESALE DISTRICT IN MIDDLE BROADWAY
Causes of the Emigration of Business from the Avenue Below Mth Street—
Remedies Suggested—Probable Influence of the Dual Rapid Transit System.
A FEW months ago several parcels of
**â– real estate in the middle Broadway
section, owned by the Lawrence estate,
were sold at auction. The result of this
sale showed that even under such a fair
test of tile demand from investors and
speculators as is afforded hy lhe auction
method of selling, the properties could
not bring in the open market a sum with¬
in about §200,000 of the valuation placed
on Ihem hy the cily for purposes oE tax¬
ation. The holdings were asses.^ed at
$803,000. They sold for SS03,150, or 25 per
cent, below the amourit on which taxes
were being paid.
Some such result was not entirely un¬
expected by_ those familiar with the area
between Canal and Fourteenth streets,
along Broadway and the adjacent paral¬
lel and intersecting streets. But it laid
startling emphasis on certain grave con-
vital ciuestion.s for tenants as well as for
owners.
What radical causes have broug;ht
about this decline in values along middle
Broadway and adjacent streets?
What remedy exists for these condi¬
tions, either through the efforts of prop¬
erty owners or through puhlic measures
that may affect the neighborhood?
To what extent will such favorable
steps as may be taken offset or counter¬
act the present depression in rental and
fee values?
It is not the purpose of tJiis article to
supply categorical answers to these ques¬
tions, but rather to trace briefly the
causes that have brought about existing
conditions, to present a rational analysis
of these conditions and to weigh the
chances for ultimate improvement. A.t
present, the general opinion wilh regard
taking place about this time which had a
more or less important local bearing. One
was the repaving of Broadway. This
apparently unimportant event was a
serious one for middle Broadway, for the
upheaval incidenlal to so large an un¬
dertaking directed attention to the ad¬
jacent parallel streets, including Greene
and Mercer. These experienced a rise
in values representing approximately
what was being lost on Broadway.
Next followed the laying of the cables
for the cable car service. And not so
very long after this came the necessary
Inlerruption due to the change from the
cable system to electric traction. Broad¬
way each time suffered to some extent
from the resultant interference with busi¬
ness. Meantime the amount of new con¬
struction which a betler method of trans¬
portation should have induced was not so
BROADWAY, LOOKING SOUTH FROM BLEECKER STREET.
The Corner Shows Au Extreme Type of Antiquated Building.
BROADWAY. LOOKI
The Souther]
ditions and led to an amount of discus¬
sion not hy any means favorable lo this
neighborhood, and to the obvious conclu¬
sion that the iocal assessments were too
high.
This, however, does not by any means
express the full significance of conditions
in this territory. Over assessment is
commonly claimed by owners, and is as
often claimed, and sometimes actually
exists, in neighborhoods which for one
reason or another, have experienced a
sharp rise in values.
Here, however, was a neighborhood
where assessments, in spite of the fact
that they were somewhat lower than they
had been a year or two previously, still
showed a marked excess over the best
available prices in open competition. In
other words, the high assessments did not
represent, in the ordinary sense, an error
of judgment on the part of the assessors.
Neither did they reflect the prevalent
habit of property ov.'ners to complain of
assessments actually no higher than
prices they would be willing to accept.
Here was an actual and, indeed, radical
decline in property values. The instances
quoted are more or less typical of this
section.
Under these conditions it is only nat¬
ural that three important questions
should now be presented to property own¬
ers in the neighborhood referred to. And
it must be borne in mind that these are
to this area is not particularly optimis¬
tic.
Some twenty years ago the area below
Fourteenth street, with Broadway as its
main arterv. was in an extremely flour¬
ishing condition. The hotel centre was
below Twenty-third street and very many
of the hotels along Broadway, below
Fourteenth street, wer© slill ahle to re¬
tain something of their former prestige.
Except in isolated cases business had not
gone far beyond Twenty-third street.
Fourteenth slreet was, If anything, a
more prosperous retail thoroughfare than
Twenty-third street. Business construc¬
tion, both in office and mercantile atrnc-
lures, had not yet passed through that
evolution that has produced the modern
building as we understand it to-day. That
is, to say, business housing in the area
under consideration was adequate to the
demands made upon it. The textile
trades silk, woolen, cotton, hosiery, un¬
derwear, knitted goods and commission
houses were all centered on the area ap¬
proximately hetwewen Fourteenth and
Chambers streets, mainly west of Broad¬
way. The jobbing houses, retail spec¬
ialty houses and offices were on Broad¬
way. In the next few years some local
shifting of trade took place, but thia
was not more than a normal movement,
reflecting healthy expansion, and without
adverse effect on fee or rental values.
However, several external events were
NG NORTH FRO-M CA.VAL STREET.
y End of the Area of Emigration.
exfenaive as might have been expected.
It was confined to certain parts of
Broadway, and mainly to Mercer and
Greene streeits.
There is probab'y only one case on
record where a neighborhood deliberately
threw away the chance of having rapid
transit through ils entire length, because
of the necessary disturbance and inter¬
ference to business that subway construc¬
tion would involve. Middle Broadway
holds this record. It is because of the
loud protest made by several prominent
local interests when the Rapid Transit
Commission was laying out the original
routes that the subway does not follow
Broadway between City Hall and Forty-
second street. And it is undoubtedly
largely for the same reason that tbe in¬
tervening territory, nearly as far north
as Twenty-third street, where other coun¬
teracting factors come into play, has wit¬
nessed a decline in value and prominence
almost exactly equal to the 'gain made by
the territory traversed hy the present, or
substituted, route. The middle Broadway
and Fourth avenue sections illustrate
these two extremes.
It is, of course, possible to overestimate
the importance of these pointa. But they
are worth noting in tracing the decline
in rental and fee values on so prominent
a thoroughfare as Broadway and in a
ccnliguous territory which a few years
ago housed a number of wholesale con-