Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Vol. XXV.





NEW YORK, SATUEDAY, JANUARY 31, 1880.





No. 620





Published WeeJcly by

%^t%ml €statE Efcorb ^ssocmtton.

TERMS.
ONE YEAR, in advance.. ..$10.00.
Coraraunications should be addressed to

C.   W.   SWEET,

Nos. 135 AND 137 Broadway





NEW lOEK A MINING CENTRE.
It is now very certain that New York City will
hereafter be the mining centre of the country, in¬
stead of San Francisco. The dividends paid on
mining shares in New York already largely exceed
those disbursed at San Francisco. Some of the
most conservative people in tbe city are becoming
interested;in miidng ventures. Leadville, the Black
Hills, as well as many of the mineral districts on
the Pacific coast itself, such aa Bodie, are now
directly tributary to New York City. So far, there
has not been many scandals connected with the
marketing of mining shares, but if the fever con¬
tinues as it h£s begun we may reas nably expect
that greedy and incautious capitalists will be
"caught out" by the trained manipulators of
bogus mining properties. But making allowances
for mistakes aud deception there is no question
but that the handling of this business in New
York will add largely to the wealth and prosperity
of the metropolis. We want New York to be the
financial centre of the world, and mines can be
just as well handled here as they are in London.
A glance at the English stock reports will show tbe
capital of Great Britain is invested in mines all
over the world. Indeed, some of the beat managed
properties in the United States are owned by
English companies. The immense activity in the
extreme West, the building of the railroads be¬
yond the Missouri ia in great part due to the ac¬
tivity in the mining regions. It is the mineral
wealth of Colorado, Dakota, Arizona, and New
ilcxico which is inducing the railway companiea
to undertake new transcontinental lines, and all
this adds to the importance, wealth, and popula¬
tion of our city.

At the recent dinner of the Bullion Club much
feeling was expressed at the state of our laws
affecting these mining corporations. It seems that
it is at the peril of one's property if a person ac¬
cepts position as officer of a mining company, or
buys a share of stock. This is not the place to give
tho details, but as a real estate paper we are in¬
terested in adding to the importance and business
of the metropolis, and this we cannot do if the
laws are onerous, or such as make the conducting
of any business unprofitable or impossible. There
IS, properly speaking, no mining law in this State.
Our corporations are formed under the provisions
of the manufacturing law, and, as we have said,
are not only inadequate, but burdensome. It is
to be hoped that the legislature at Albany may be
induced to take action so as to frame a proper law
that will guard alike the officers, the stockholders,
and the general public. The New Jersey law is
nmch more liberal, and if no change is made this
year by our law givers we will find the mining
business stepping across the river.





UNION PROPOSED.
Why do not some of our ambitious local legis¬
lators take in hand the project of uniting Brook¬
lyn and New York? It will certainly be brought
about some day. There is a chance for some one
to make his name memorable in connection with
this very much needed local consolidation.
Brooklyn belongs of right to this city. The pros¬
perity of New York has made Brooklyn what it
is. The latter city depends for its life and vital¬
ity upon the people who do business on this
island. To take its true place among the great
cities of the world, New York must have added
to it the population of Kings County. "When
this great work is accomplished we will have
better government. The greater responsibilities
will make our people more careful who they
select to represent the united city. Of course
there will be an active opposition to this consoli¬
dation on the part of the local officials of Brook¬
lyn. The ring over there will find its occupation
gone when the politics of the City of Churches is
at one with the politics of the metropolis. With
this union New York could soon aspire to repre¬
sent three million of people, for it could honestly
include not only all who live on the two banks of
the East River, but those who swarm on the op¬
posite bank of the Hudson River. Why does not
some of our active young politicians- take this
matter in hand and urge upon the Legislature at
Albany the appointment of a commission to take
this whole matter into consideration, and arrange
the details for the consolidation of the twin cities ?





CONSOLIDATING.





Last October, in endeavoring to forecast the
course of speculation, we pointed out the obvious
tendency among railwity companies toward consoli¬
dation. In several articles we explainedtliat the spec¬
ulators were wise in not advancing the price of stand-
ard.divideud-paying railway ihares; that little mon¬
ey was to be made in investing in high-priced stocks.
The reason lor this, as we pointed out, was in the
unifying of our railway system, the smaller roads,
being bought up, leased or in some way incorpor¬
ated into the system of which the Trunk lines
were the main stems. Certainly the course of the
market has justified our vaticinations. New York
Central, Pennsylvania Central, Rock Island and the
other standard companies, while they have advan¬
cing in price, have by no means kept pace with Iron
Mountain, Kansas and Texas, Kansas Pacific or the
Louisville & Nashville railroad stock. During the
past week it haa come to light that there is a virtual
consolidation between the Kansas Pacific and the
Union Pacific, while it has also been made public
that the whole railway system of the South has
been incorporated into one gigantic corporation.
We alluded to this tendency as being inevitable
and, on the whole, of a benefit to the public. It is
better for the business and travelling public to deal
with one rather than a dozen different corporations.
The only persons who will really suffer in the end
are those who bought the main Trunk lines at very
high figures. While the whole railway system will
be vivified by being made part of one great body,
the special advantages of certain lines of travel as
an investment tor prudent capitalists will have
been lost. In the next great panic we must expect
to see New York Central and Rock  Island  go





through some of the samo experiences that the coal
stocks and the Pennsylvania Central did during
the last few years. Of course, we do not advise any
one to buy the cheaper railway shares. We believe
to-day that real estate, well located, is the wisest in¬
vestment and we soon expect to see vast sums of
money directed into the real estate market. The
people who are now enlarging their bank account
by dealing in the once cheap railway shares will be
putting their surplus into houses and lots and
buainess property upon New York Island. The tide
is only beginning to rise aud investors would do
well to take advantage of the many circumstances
which even now tend to keep real pi-operty below
the value it will reach before two years are over.





THE ANNEXED DISTRICT.

THE CONDITIONS PRECEDENT TO A SUBSTANTIAL IN-
CEEASE OF VALUES—THE LAY OF THE LAND—MAG¬
NIFICENT FUTURE OF THE TWO WARDS, PROVIDED
CERTAIN WORK IS DONE.

It was during Mr. Wm. R. Martin's adminis¬
tration of the Park Department that official
attention was first fixed upon the Twenty-third
and fourth Wards, shortly after they had been
annexed to the city. The then President of the
Department went carefully over the ground of ,
the entire district, studied its requirements and
ever since has taken a deep interest in the devel¬
opment of that section. In a conversation recently
had with Mr. Martin on this subject he said:
" The entire region comprised in the annexed dis¬
trict (Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Wards)
is as large as Manhattan Island and presents also
a larger variety of features.* The section along
the Hudson, from Spuyten Duyvil to Yonkers,
has very fine elevations, and the slopes of the
hills there will afford places for terrace upon
terrace of elegant villa residences. East of this,
north of Fordham, the land is of the same
character, the elevation here is also very fine,
but it lacks the river view so attractive for
villas. South of this, from the Harlem to the
Bronx River, with the exception of two ridges,
one on each side of the Harlem Railroad, the land
is level and well adapted for city occupation,
and will soon till up with a population that will
build houses on single lots. In the lower section
again, on Fordham Heights, along the Harlem
River, there are very fine elevations, and the
ground there is adapted for suburban villas."

" In 1875 I found that plans were far advanced
for parallel, rectangular streets, by bringing the
hills down'to a level and by filling up the
valleys. While this plan was practicable in
the land around Morrisania, it was impracticable
in the morf^ elevated regions. The estimates
which I procured were the first that had been
made, and I found that the cost of the construc¬
tion of that system would have been about double
the value of the land. That is to say, a man
with $100,0G0 in land would have had to spend
$200,000 in assessments before he could bring it
into use. This argument convinced, property
owners generally, and I succeeded in setting
aside the old plan and adopted a new one for all
the region north of Morrisania, which had been
laid out previously. The characteristics of this
new plan were that this country of high eleva¬
tions and steep declivities should not be subjected