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October 6, 1906
RECORD AND GUTDE
t
555
Dn&jiD TO Rf\L Estate . Buildi^/g AR,a(iTE(nvRE .({ousEifoui DEooiiAiiorf,
Bt/sii/Ess Alto Themes of GeiJeraV IjItehesi.
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Publisfitd eVers Saturday
Communications should ba nddrossed to
C. W. SWEET
Downtown Otfice: 14-16 Vesey Street, New York
Telephono, Cortlaudt 31,57
Uptown Oftlce: 11-13 East 24th Street
Telephone, Madison Stiu/ira 10*6
"Entered al the Tosl Offlce at New York. N. Y., as sec.ond-clati matter."
Vol. Lxxvni.
OCTOBER G, 1906.
No, 2012
INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising Section,
Page Page
Cament.....................xxiii Law........................xi
Consulting Engineers ..........x Lumber.................xxviii
Clay Products ..............xxii Machinery ..................iv
Contractors and Builders......v Metal Work...............xvli
Electrical Interests ........viil Quick Job Directory ........xxvii
Fireproofing ..................ii Real Estate................xiit
Granite..................xxiv Roofers Sc Rooflng Mater'Is. .xxTi
Heating ...................;tx Stone....................xxiv
Iron and Steel ............xviii Wood Products ...........xxviii
STOCKS have been very irregular this week, and traders
complain that they cannot maice any money. The
market keeps everybody guessing by reason of its contrary
movements—stocks of the same class and character often mov¬
ing violently in, opposite directions. The market acts as if
it wanted to go up, but it does not do so, and there are too
many people who fee! that it is going down, which under the
circumstances would perhaps be the best attitude to assume.
Last month the high interest rates for money caused great
dissatisfaction, and now the reiief given to the market by the
Secretary of the Treasury has not on the whole been profitable
to stock brokers. As a shrewd observer remarked, "A man
who is not already in the market should stay out and watch
it for the next few weeks." But there are, nevertheless, some
encouraging features in the financial situation. Real estate
and building interests have been distinctly benefited hy easier
money conditions. When Secretary Shaw announced last month
that the Treasury would make deposits In national banks
to facilitate the importation of gold, accepting bonds pending
arrival of the gold, money loaned on the New York Stock
Exchange earned as high as 40 per cent, per annum, the maxi¬
mum rate for September, Call and time money are now ranging
from 5 to 6 per cent., so for the time being real estate build¬
ing and general business are not suffering in any way. Still
there are other things than money that are disquieting to the
Stock Exchange operator. It had been generally understood
that Atchison common stock was to be placed upon a 6 per
cent, annual basis. There was great disappointment at the
announcement on Wednesday at the declaration of a semi¬
annual dividend of 2y per cent. The result was a break of
over four points in the stock. It was implied that those on
the Inside had profited largely by the advance in Atchison by
selling extensively, while outsiders who bought in expectation
of a dividend at the rate of 6 per cent, per annum lost heavily.
This little episode had the effect of unsettling the whole
market. In view, however, of the great prosperity, such matters
as these should not be a cause for anxiety. It is stated on
good authority that the value of New York's realty has In¬
creased six billions in a period of ten years, the real estate
alone during the last five years in the five boroughs com¬
prising the greater City of New York having increased three
billions four hundred millions.
RICHMOND COUNTY'S water front extends fifty miles, but
is the only water frontage in a borough of New Yorli which
Is of undeveloped commercial value to the city, though offering
vast possibilities of future expansion. In the whole of Richmond
Borough the city owns outside of the municipal ferry a dock in
the Fifth Ward, valued at $7,500 only. At St. George five thou¬
sand feet of water-front is owned by the Staten Island Railway
and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co. Adjoining is property
of the United States Government, the lighthouse establishment
at Tompkinsville; the adjoining eight hundred feet belong to
the American Docks and Trust Co. The shore from Clifton to
the waters of the lower bay is the property of the State of New
York or of the United States, and is occupied by the quarantine
boarding station and the fortifications on the west side of the
Narrows. A comprehensive improvement of the Staten Island
water-front following the proposed construction of the Bay Ridge
tunnel would greatly inure to the benefit of the city, and to¬
wards this improvement the adoption by the Federal Govern¬
ment of, its present elaborate plans for the improvement of
the harbor channel would contribute.
IT does not seem to be a very happy idea of Mr. John
Wanamaker's to turn the site of "Old London" into an
arcade. Broadway in that vicinity is so far removed from the
shopping district that it will not make a good location for an
arcade. An arcade, iu order to be really successful, should run
between two important streets in the center of a large city and
provide a necessary thoroughfare for pedestrians not provided
by a pubiic street. We do not believe that any such thorough¬
fare is necessary between Broadway and Lafayette Place, and
we do not believe that Mr, Wanamaker's property, improved
in this way, will pay as well as if a tall loft building were
erected thereon. It is a singular fact, by the way, that New
York City, in spite of its concentrated population and its
enormous number of shops, does not contain a single arcade
such as those which are so successful in certain foreign cities,
and even in certain other American cities. The Windsor Ar¬
cade does not properly deserve the name, and neither does the
new one at Fifty-ninth street and Madison avenue. These so-
called arcades lead nowhere and are merely devices in the
planning of a building for the purpose of securing more stores
on the ground floor. Probably one reason why the device has
not been used in New York is that the blocks between two
important avenues are usually very long. It is the avenues
which are the important business thoroughfares, and they are
connected by numerous crosstown streets. If the plan of New
York had called, as it should have, for longitudinal thoroughfares
every 200 feet and crosstown streets every GOO feet, then a con¬
dition would have been created which might in the shopping
districts have resulted in the construction of many arcades. It
is possible, however, that In the future changes which are
taking place will afford an opportunity for more arcades. It
is proposed, for instance, to run one from Thirty-
fourth street to Tliirty-tbird street, opposite the new Pennsyl¬
vania Station, and the plan looks like a very good one, because
there would really he need of a thoroughfare at that point
between Seventh and Eighth avenues from Thirty-third to
Thirty-fourth street. Wherever two parallel and adjoining
crosstown streets become of considerable business importance,
as in the foregoing case, an arcade wears a promising appear¬
ance, and this condition will be created more frequently in the
New York of the future than it has in New York of the past.
The irregular blocks formed by Broadway's erratic course
across the city ought also to offer opportunities for arcades.
It is much to be hoped that some successful ones will he con¬
structed, because they constitute an amusing and characteristic
variation from the monotony of the streets in a city's shopping
district.
THREE MILLION dollars are expended every year hy Ameri¬
can cities for art galleries, art museums and additions to
their contents, this sum being only a fraction of the total ex¬
penditures for such purposes, private generosity and civic spirit
adding many millions each year. In the year covered by the
last Government report, the expenditures of Boston for fine
arts (galleries, museums and the purchase of paintings and
statuary) amounted to $10,000 only, Baltimore expending $10,000
and Detroit $12,600. Cincinnati expended $170,000, Chicago
$100,000 and Philadelphia $175,000. These figures are small
when compared with the expenditures of New York for fine arts,
which amount to $400,000 a year ordinarily. This year the
city's appropriation for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and
the American Museum of Natural History is $320,000, of which
the larger part is for the former. Brooklyn is allotted $SO,000
in addition for its museums. The importance of works of art
iu the development of the high capabilities of a large city is
not to be lightly underrated. European capitals owe much to
the constant development their artistic resources hy govern¬
ment aid or private bounty, and whatever makes for the
establishment of a gi-eat city outside of its purely commercial
character is an element of attraction. To New York Jn great
numbers men of wealth frora other cities have come to make
their homes, and New York enjoys each summer in constantly
Increasing measure the benefit of the temporary residence here,
of large numbers of tourists from other cities whose patronage
and appreciation have done much to put New Yorli far In
advance of al! other places as the one place in the United States
having aU the important attributes of a great city.