Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Yol. XX.





NEW YOEK, SATUEDAY, JDECEMBEE 15, 1877.





No.  509.





Published Weekly by

TERMS.

ONE YEAR, in advance....$10.00.

Communications should be addressed to

C.  MV.  SWEET,

Nos. 345 AND 347 Broadway.





FOURTH AVENUE.
Fourth avenue enjoys the distinction, among
our leading avenues, of being the one that be¬
gins nowhere and ends nowhere. It gains its first
iniportance as a spur of the Bowery, whenee it
derives no small share of the business element.
But this favorable inception is quickly undone
■when the avenue becomes lost pr swallowed up in
the great retail mart of Union square. Here its
mergence with the square is complete, and Fourth
avenue is quite obliterated amid the confiuence
of different streets and avenues, until it re-appears
again at the upper end of the square as Union
place—a title bestowed upon it many years ago
with a view of inducing fashionable residence
occupation. In its new departure ifc is distin¬
guished as the locality of the only Ifcalian villas
ever projected in continuous ro-tys in this city,
one of which has already fallen victim to the dis¬
use and disfavor of this class of residence. At the
• corner of Eighfceenfch sfcreefc one of fchese ancient
landmarks has been recently thrown down pre-
parafcory to fche erecfcion of a fine specimen of the
aparfcmenfc system, fche fcvs^o fcypes beingtepresent-
ati-ve of the eai'lier and lafcer thought of New-
York. This section of the avenue also calls to
miud fche favor with which it was once regarded
as the site of elegant and wealthy churches, no
less fchan four principal church buildings being
discernible wifchin the range of a few blocks, to
wit—the Unifcarian Church of the Messiah, the
Methodist Church of Saint Paul, the Episcopal
Calvary Church, and Dr. Crosby's Presbyterian
Church; and, to complete its religious tone and
character, we have the imposing building of fche
Young Men's Christian Association, afc the corner
of Twenty-third streefc, and, on fche opposite cor¬
ner, in lonely is dafcion of construction. Art, the
accepted handmaid of relig-ion, has reared her pe¬
culiar temple. Above Twenfcy-third street the
avenue loses its artistic and religious character
nuder the malign influence of what was once the
greatest railroad depot oj the city. The strange
infafcuation which leads men to expect great re¬
sults, in a business way, from proximity to a
large depofc should have received its quietus from
the developments surrounding Twenfcy-sixth
sfcreet. The smallest class of shops, inferior
hotels, cheap restaurants and low drinking saloons
are the principal characteristics of this location,
and have stamped an iudolible stigma upon the
neighborhood, although liere is cropping out; a
generous and public-spn-ited movement to im¬
prove fche avenue in this quarfcer. The old build¬
ing at fche corner of Twenty-fifth street, caiceused
as Turnure's livery stable, has been remodeled
with excellent taste; the lower stqries^being used
as an auction room, the upper stories as artists*
stydios/   At tiie .corner of Twenty-,sixtb''str6et





Mr. Ottendorfer is aboufc completing a fcrue model
of the apartment system and one likely to become
an architectural adornment fco the neighborhood.
The ultimate destiny of the Hippodrome block
will go far to define and sefctle the character of fchis
porfcion of Fourth avenue. Afc Thirty-second street
in fche face of the munificent liberality of Mr. Stew¬
art displayed in the erection of a massive and
sumpfcuous hofcel, the true and lasting character of
this avenue as the greafc railroad thoroughfare
begins to define itself. At Thirty-third street the
career of Fourth avenue is rudely and ab¬
ruptly broken up- by the high bluff over
whose crown runs Thirty-fourth street, and
under whose brow begins the famous piercing of
the great Harlem tunnel, the wonder of
New York in the childhood of men who are
now of middle age. At Thirty-fourth street the ave¬
nue takes on an entirely new ahd distinct charac¬
ter. The ideal of a choice residence location is
for the first time realized, and from that point
until its continuity is hopelessly lost and broken
by the Grand Central Depot there is presenfced
as striking and unique a development of the fash¬
ionable residence quarter as the city of New York
can boast of, in continuous rows of costly naan-
sions, umnarred by any eyesore, nuisance or inva¬
sion. Until quifce a late period this portion of the
avenue was destitute of atfcraofcions. The uncer¬
tainty as to whether the horse railroad would be
run upon fche surface or buried in fche tunnel deter¬
red builders from erecting privafce houses in any
great number. When this problem finally was solv¬
ed and the upper surface of the avenue was guar¬
anteed against such intrusion, the happy thought
of constructing a series of uiclosed parks above
the tunnel seemed to furnish the necessary mag¬
net for drawing fche wealfch and fashion of New
York to this quarter, and, eventually, conferred
upon this avenue of vicissitudes its new, distinct¬
ive, and exceedingly popular name of Park ave¬
nue.

Park avenue rnight have remained through
time the rnodeat peer of Lexington and perhaps
the inferior of Madison avenue bufc forthe for¬
tunate circumstance thafc a few prominent mil¬
lionaires, like Jaines Brown and Jonathan Sturges,
were so dilatory in vacating their down town
residences that all the choice spots on Murray-
Hill were taken up before they beiican to prospect
aboufc for new residence sifces. As recently as
seven years ago these greafc magnates of fashion
aijd commprcei, beiujg di-iven from their former
hoinfes onUiiiyersity place and Fourfceenth sfcreefc,
by the' invasion of trade, kicated the sifces on
Park avenue which are now adorned wifch their
massive and elegant mansions. Such eminenfc
examples could not fail to have a beneficial effect
upon fche further improvement of fche avenue, and
a fine field was here afforded for the indulgence of
modern taste in dwellings on the parfc of belated
and wealthy families. To-day, Park avenue,
solidly built up, with the exception of the comer
of Thirty-ninth sti-eefc, presenfcs a succession of
imposing private dwellings and numbers among
its residents exponents of tho greatest wealth and
, the most'eliie respectability.' The representafcite
' mansions are those pt Jonathan Sturges and Conf-
' modoi'eGaJ-rlscoi at .Thirty-sixth street; of JaiaeS





Brown and William Libby at Thirty-seventh; of
A. H. Barney and C. P. Huntington at Thirty-
eighth street; and Willis James at Thirty-ninth
street. The residences of these gentlemen are of
the most luxurious, elaborate and costly descrip¬
tion. Mr. Hunfcingfcon, fche President of the
Pacific road, has recenfcly purchased two
houses of full width and connected them
together by openings in the partywaU some¬
whafc after fche fashion of Wm. Butler Duncan's
house on Washington square. Mr. Libby en¬
larged and remodeled the Bininger Clark house,
giving to it a massive^ and striking exterior. The
fiill influences of the' Gfknd Central Depot on
surrounding property have yet to be developed.
The practical limit of Park avenue for residence
purposes is found at Fortieth street, on which
corner there is a model apartment building be¬
longing to Boston parties. At Forfcy-second street
all trace of Fourth avenue is completely lost in the
gridiron or network of railroad tracks which
converge afc the Central Depot. The sidewalks
of the avenue loom in sight again at Forty-ninth
sfcreet, but no pracfcical use of the avenue is
gained imtil we reach Fifty-third or Fifty-fom-th
streets, and there the slightly depressed condition
of the railroad track subjects the adjoining prop¬
erty to aUthe injury of an exposed steam raflroad
track quite as much so as if, the tracks were laid
upon the svu-face. Afc Fiffcy-sixfch sfcreefc fche avenue
takes on the character of a grand boulevard, and,
though occasional openings occur in the tunnel,
the road-bed is buried so far below the surface
fchat the cars are almost lost fco sighfc and hearing.
From Fifty-sixth to Ninety-sixth street, a dis¬
tance of two miles, the avenue presents a pecu¬
liarly grand appearance from its extraordinary
width of one hundred and forfcy feet and from the
really artistic manner in which its surface ha
been graded and regulated, fche sfcone pavement of
the roadway being already l-aid as far as Siixfcy-
sevenfcli sfcreefc. The problem of the flnal disposi¬
tion of this parfc of the avenue must be near its
solution. Any hope of a continued projection
of private residences with a perpetuation of the
fanciful name of Park avenue might as well be
abandoned, for the reason fchat the breaks in the
tunnel are sufficiently numerous tc» discourage this
cla-s of occupation. Wherever these breaks occur
ifc is almosfc certain thafc the avenue lots will be
—in fact,'have already been—turned into street
lots; or, if the avenue lots ai-e improved as such,
it willbe with .the steieotyped store and tene¬
ments of other ]ea<iing avenues. The pr^gtc-
fcion of several blocks of this' class of build¬
ing at points above Fifty-sixth sfcreet serves
to clearly foreshadow fche future of this avenue.
No more attractive location could be desired for
the development; of medium class apartment
houses. At the corner of Fifty-seventh streefc.
Captain Tynker has erected a series of buildings
named the Kensington, which thus far have out¬
ranked in public favor and s-accessful renting
more pretentious models thafc have been pro¬
jected on the west side of the city. In buildmg
projections the struggle will undoubtedly be
betweeh this superior apartment building and the
(common^stpre and tenement, and which will gain
the final mksterywiU be a problem which time