June 38, 1S84





The  Record and Guide.





693





THE   RECORD  AND   GUIDE.

Published every Saturday.
191   Broadway,   N.   Y.





TERMS:

ONE TEAR* Id advauce, SIX DOLLARS.

Communications ahould be addreased to

C. W.   SHKET,   IJH   Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Buaineas Manager.

JUNE  28, 1884.

From the Real Estate Chronicle June 25th.

After thia week The Chronicle will be i^su d from the offlee of Ths
Record and Guidb, and in ooonectlon with that jonrnal will ijive to tbe
real estate and building interests two new!ipip-rs which tbey oannot possi-
blj^ afford to do without. As we understand it the new proprietira intend
to issue The Chronicle every Wednesday, and Thk Record and Gdidk
every Saturday. It ia their intention to give The Chronicle a wider field
for ita operation", and certainly there ia nobody hetterable to judge of tbe
wanta of the two great interests for which Tht Chronicle caters tban tbe
conductors of Thu; Recoiid and Gdidk, We lopk forward with pleasure to
the results to be Rained by this union, and we trust our subscribers will be
pqually well pleased. We have been particularly gratified at having been
able to show the new pubilah^r a liat of subacribera which be bas admitted
to us since the niirchaae of the paper exceeded largely hi^i estimate ofthe
oirculatloQ of The Chronit-le.                                     JoECK H. O'Donnell,





NOTICE.
Hereafter the office of The Chronicle will be at No. 191 Broadway, frora
whioh place tbe paper wiil bo issued regularly every Wednesday morning.
Allaubacribersof The RecokD AND Goidb who wish ulao to take The
CVti-owicie can receive tbat paper in connection witb Thb Record and
UoiDK for 8:^,03 a year. This will give tboae who wish early information
about real estate mitters an opportunity of getting the news of the early
part of the wee!:, which they usually wait for until S ■ turday. It will be
the aim of the new publialier of The Chronicle to make it in every way a
paper as valuable as The Record. To all who are not subscribers of Thk
Record and Guide the pries of The Chronicle will b) tbe same as hereto¬
fore, $.>.00 per annum.                                                              C. W. Sweet,





The disapproval by Governor Cleveland of the revised building
law on purely tecboical grounds ia a great disappointment to all
tlie better ancJ larger interests in the building trade. The existing law
is full of the gravest defects, all of which were corrected in the
act vetoed by the Governor. Year after year attempts have been
made to pass a good law, but corrupt officials or " snide " buildera
have managed in one v-ay or aoother to kill the many excellent
laws proposed. And now we must wait for another year, and aee
swarms of faulty and unsanitary houses erected, because the Gov¬
ernor objects to the phraseology of the attorney to tbeFire Depart¬
ment and the two otiier lawyers who revised the bill. Tbe Gover¬
nor is clearly wrong in saying that the word " title " should have
been used instead of "act." Tlie bill that passed waa called "an
act" to amend Chapter 410 of the lawa of 1883, entitled "an act
to consolidate into one act and to declare the special and local laws
affecting public interests in the city of New York," It altered
sections 471 to 517, inclusive, of the consolidated act, so as to bring all
the sections under Title V. relating to the construction of buildings.
If the bill had received tne Govoroor's sanction and became a law,
then in would have been under this act of the Legislature that the
Superintendent of Buildings was empowered to remit penalties for
any violation of the proviaiona of this act—not the consolidation
act of 188J, but the Legislative act of 1884—and it seems a strained
construction to BS.y that the wording of this biil would have con¬
ferred upou the Superintendent of Buildings the power to remit
fines and penalties in matters having no relation to the subject
treated of in this bill, in a word control overtheentireconsolidate'd
act. Of course this never was intended. But tbis is one of the mia-
forttmes of our lawyer government; nearly all bills drawn by
lawyers are faulty in phraseology. Instinctively the lawyer uaes
ambiguous terma in order to increase litigation. If there were
doubtful phrases used, the law could bave been amended next jear,
but the Governor was not justified in vetoing it on the flimsy
objections set forth in hia printed disapproval. The veto of the
Fifth avenue paving bill wa3 also on insuflScient grounds. This
improvement is greatly needed, and the bill was not in any way
objectionable.

An Albany correspondent informs ns that persons, purporting
to represent the New York Real Estale Exchange, are trying to
bulldoze Governor Cleveland into appointing certain heretofore
naknown lawyers to be members of the commisaion which is to
report a bill or a series of bills to the next Legislature, reforming





our land laws so aa to make transfers of property easy and inexpen¬
sive. There must be some mistake about this as there haa heen no
meeting of the Executive Committee of the Committee on Legislf-
tion, to which this matter was referred. Tbe Legislative Comrait¬
tee authorized its executive •fficera to suggest a liat of naraes of
eminent lawyers, whose studies had familiarized them with the
subject of transfer reform, so that the Governer might select a
proper commission ; but no one connected with the exchange had
any notion of using the machinery of that organization to induce
Governor Clevjland to help advertise unknown lawyers by foist¬
ing them upon this impottant commisaion. Any list sent to th©
Governor will be au injustice to the reform itself if it doea not
contain the names of some of the lawyers connected with the Land
Transfer Reform Association, aa theae gentlemen have given money
and time to the consideration of this important subject. They are
thoroughly conversant with the whole case and should not at the
eleventh hour be set aside so that the credit justly their due should
be gi^en to others,

-------------9------------

In West Twenty-third Street.

At the corner of Twenty-third atreet and Fifth avenue is a build¬
ing of a considerable degree of architectural interest, juat com¬
pleted for the Western Union Company. It is evidently the work
of the same designer as the new Weatern Union building in Broad
street, upon which we commented some time since. The up-town
building, however, being on a comer, offered a much better oppor¬
tunity, of which the designer, Mr, Hardenbergh, has taken full
advantage. Tbe chief defects in composition of the front in Broad
street are that the stone baaement, being of one story only, is inad¬
equate as a base for a seven-story building, and tbat the arched
openings which run through three of the upper stories are not
distinguished aa one of the principal diviaions of the front. Neither
of these shortcomings reappears in the 'Iwenty-third street build¬
ing, which is at least equally good in detail of the same sober and
scholarly character.

The lower division of the building is of two stories, closed by
three-centred arches above the firat floor, the ground floor being
level with the street, and an iron transom interposed to mark the
line of tbe first floor. The projecting piers between the openings
extend to the springing of the arches and are capped with offsets.
In the aecond story is a pair of arched openings over each of the
large archea, and in the third and fourth pairs of lintelled openings,
Astrongatring course traverses tbe building above the fourth atory,
and in the fifth ia an undivided arched window over each pair, cor¬
responding to tbe arrangement of the basement. The roof is steep
enough to be visible from across the street and ia relieved at its baae
by gabled dormers in brickwork. There are six bays, such as havo
been described, on the Twenty-lhird street aide, and beyond them a
recessed piece of wall, containing a large arched doorway, with
a triple window above, while at the western end is an ample pier,
teruiinated by an emphatic chimney stack.

The Broadway front is a twenty-five foot front, A single large
opening in the centre occupies the baaement and is slightly nar¬
rowed by corbelling at the line of the first floor where it is coveied
by a large arch, A tie rod crosses the opening where it is narrowed
and is produced through the pier, its heavy iron cap showing on
the Tweuty-third street side. Above, tbe arrangement is similar to
that of the aides, the openings for three stories being two couples
and in the fourth (the sixth, counting the basement), two undivided
arches, A moderately steep gable with two square openings
crowns this front.

The materials are red brick for the walls, with arches, lintels,
string coursea and cornices of stone, and the frieze under the main
cornice and decorative panels of terra cotta. All of tbem ara
thoroughly well used constructionally. In decoration the terra
cotta frieae is a trifle stiff aod a trifle excessive in scale. On the
other hand tbere is no more artistic piece of modelling in terra
cotta than tbe decorative panel at the south end, which could be
told at a glance, even in a photograph, for the modelling of a highly
plastic material, and could not be mistaken for hewn stone. The
structural detail throughout is appropriate to its material and effec¬
tive in scale. The dormers are particularly good for their characteris¬
tic treatment of brickwork. The moat striking feature of tbe build¬
ing is the large opening at the bottom of the east front, wbich ia
also the moat effective, the detail being especially good, and
the frank exhibition of the tie rod very successful. The
composition is equally good. One might wish a somewhat ampler
pier at the eastern end of the long front, but the western end is
ca[)itally composed, witb the large unbroken pier separated by a
recess frora the main wall. The arrangement and the modelling
of the openings emphasiae the weight of the wall. Thegeneral
aspfct of the building ia sober and quiet, with tbat senae of straight¬
forwardness and naturalness which oan only come by foUowinif
out and giving expression to the actual facts of a building.

At the other end of the same block, on tha site of Buoth'ji The¬
atre, is a building of the same materials but of very different char¬
acter.   Th9 fact that it occupies tho aite of tha theatre ia racailul