RECORD  AOT)  GTJIDB







ESTABUSHED-^ ÍWBfĩH Sl^ 1868,
Dr6Ttí» p~ RPA,L EsTíOE-BUlLDIlfe AftKnĩeTUI^ .KoUSEtíOID DEQŨĨÍAIlOlf.

BtrsDtess AiûitHaæs VGeííM^*' IrftESFsi.;

PRICE   PER  YEAR   IN  ADVANCE   EIGHT   DOLLARS

Communicationa  sbould be  addressed to
C. W. SWEET
Pablisfied EVers Satardat?                         ,

By THE KBCORD AND GUIDE CO.

Presldent,  CLINTON  W.   SWEET                     Treasurer,  P. W. DODGE

Viee-Pres, & Genl. Mgr., H, W. DGSMOND        Secretary, F. T, MILLER

ĩíos.  11  to  15 East 24tU  Street, New Tork  City

(TelepĩioDe,   Madison  Square, 4-Í30 to 4-133.)







"Enterett at the Post Offioe at




NeiB YorJt




N.




y,, (is




seoontl-elass




matter."










Copyriglited,




1907




by The




Record  &




Guiiie




Co.















Vol.




LXXX,




SEPTEMBER




1-1,




1907.














No.




200],





INDBX TO DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising  Sectlon.

Pago,                                              Page.

Cement   ......................xvi   Lumber    .....................xx

Glay   Products   ...............xvii   Machiuery   ...................vi

ConsuItiDg   Engineers    ........xv   Metal   Work   ...............xiv

Contractors and  Builders   .....Iv   Quiclt Job Direotory..........xĸ

B'lectrical   Interests   ..........vii   Real   Estate   ..................ix

Fĩreproofing    ..................ii   Wood   Products   ..............xxl

Granite   ...................xviii   Stone   ....................xvlil

Iron   and   Steel   ............vĩii    Wood   Products...........xxi

THE large number ol sutiscriptions obtained for the city
bond sale justifies conclusively one inference: The
4Ĩ^ per cent. stock, -which the suhscribers have secured at
ahout 102, will eventually constitute an extremely profîta-
ble investment for their purchasers. The chance to pur-
ehase city bonds at a price whieh nets the investor almost
i^ per cent. is one whieh is not liliely to occur again for
a period indefinitely long, As Mr. Harriman says, it was a
rare opportunity, and one to take advantage of, which would
justify many eapitalists in retiring from business. It is
probahle that this stock will he selling hefore January Ist
on a 4 per cent. basis and that hefore January 1, 1909, the
yieĩd at current quotatious will not he much over 3 ^ per
cent. It is evident that these bonds were issued just at the
time wheu the tide was beginning to turn. The scarcity of
loanable capital, which has been embarrassing the business
of the eountry íor such a long period, will little by little pass
away, and signs are accumulating on every side of a mod-
erate business reaction, hut one which will be quite suíB-
cient to ease the money market. It will be brought ahout
chiefly by the ahandonment or eurtaîlment of expensive im-
provements. The railroads and the large corporations are
adopting this poliey wherever possible, and the smaller fry
will have to follow suit. It does not take very long for a
reaction of this kind to cause an oversupply of money
in the banlis, In 1903 it required less than a year for the
country to pass from a. condition of scarcity to one of abund-
ance, and the wealth of the United States has increased
enormousĩy during the past four years. Within a year there
will again he a superfĩuity of loanable capital, and such a
superfiuity is hound to cause an appreciation o£ the price of
all good securities. This rise in price will he partieularly
noticeahle in securities such as city bonds, which cannot be
affected in vaíue either by a deeline in business or by polit-
ical agitation, The only questions are now, How far will
the husiness reaction go, and what bad effects will Jt tiave?
These questious cannot be answered as yet. The generai
situation seems on the whole to be sound, but there are
weak spots here and there, which may prove to be infectious,
Business men will have to be prudent ahout børrowing
money for some time to come, but this fact has no hearing
upon New York City stock. Small investors should pur-
chase all the eity bonds they can at present prices, There
are few easier and no more certain ways of making money.





IT is improbabĩe that anything will come of the effort to
estahlish a legal distinction between tenements and
apartment houses. The tenement-house reformers have al-
ways beeu suspicious of any attenipt to define an apartment
in terms distinct from a tenement house, and to relax cer-
tain provisions of the tenement-house law in favor of the
former. Neither can they be blamed for such a suspicion.
The distinction between tlie two classes of huildings is per-
fectly obvious, when one is situated in Rivington street and





the other on lower Fifth avenue, or when one costs $40,000
and the other $400,000; hut this distinction, obvious as it
is at the two ends of the scale, beeomes almost impercepti-
ble at a eertain point in the mĩddle of the scale. There are
thousands of buildings iu New York which were huilt as flat
or apartment houses, but which have become tenements;
and almost any building in wiiich many families live, and
which costs less than $1,200 for each foot of frontage on the
street, may easily become a tenement. Certainly the defini-
tion of an apartment house in the Underwriters' model code is
by no means beneath suspicion. Many huildings in Harĩem
have been planned so that every apartment contained a liv-
ing-roora, a díning-room, a kitehen, two hed-rooms and a
bathroom, which have sinee become tenements. There can
be no possible guarantee that a room called a "parlor" or
a "dining-room" will continue to be so used. Probably the
most practicable definition of an apartment house would he
oue which cost a certain sum per cubic foot of contents, hut
a buildiug commissioner could hardly apply such a defini-
tion to the merely estimated cost of a set of plans. The
one coneession wliich might he made would be to allow fire-
proofed tenement houses to be called "apartment houses,"
and to secure certain advantages from the classification.
That might encourage the fireproofing of apartment houses,
wliich would be a useful thing to do.





THE only news whieh emanates from the offlce of the
Public Service Commission in respeet to the construc-
tion of new transit routes is entirely negative. The commis-
sion will not even advertise for bids on the proposed Fourth
avenue subway in Brooklyn, beeause it believes that there is
no chance of seeuring a bidder. This decision is undoubtedly
well taken. There is no chanee of seeuring a bidder uuder ex-
isting conditions, and the Record and Guide is not sorry that
such is the ease. The construction of auother tunuel to
Brooklyn and its extension along Fourth avenue is undoubt-
edly a desirable addition to the city's meaus of communica-
tion; but it is not the addition which at the present time ís
most desirable. Mauhattau aud the Bronx are in far greater
need oE more suhways thau is Brooklyn, The city is just
finishing one tunnel under the East River, and it is spend-
ing tens of millions of dollars on two additional bridges.
Then in addition, the Long Island Railroad Company and
the Interborough Company are constructing six other tubes
for the same purpose. Within flve years the means of com-
munieation wĩth Long Island will be enormously improved,
whereas uothing at all is being done for the inhabitants of
Manhattan and the Broux. Sueh being the general condi-
tion, it would be gross favoritism for the eity to appropriate
$23,000,000 for another Brooklyn tunnel. If this money
were appropriated it would dimiuish the city's debt-limit by
so large a sum that more Manhattau and Bronx subways
would be impossihle under the existíng law. No, now that
the construction of uew subways for Mauhattan and the
Bronx has been temporarily ahandoned, it is only faír that
the construction of a new Brooklyn subway should be ahan-
doned also. Then, when conditions are more favorable, ttie
whole matter ean be taken up on a new basis, and the money
available for this purpose can be fairly distributed accord-
ing to the îmminence of the needs of the respective hor-
oughs.





THE plain faet ís, of course, that under existing cîrcum-
stances auy new subway construction is impossihle,
and this impossibility depends partly upon the law, partly
upon the city's financial condition and partly upon the geu-
eral fiuancial eonditions. At the present time it would be
diíĩieult to raise the money for new subways, even if the
debt-Iimit of New York was as abundant as it was in 1903,
or îf the credit of the Interborough Company stood as high
as it did before its uufortunate merger with the Metropoli-
tau. In addition, however, to this general stringeucy, the
city cannot afford to appropriate money for subways out
of its narrow margin, and in any event the large interest
whích it is obliged to pay makes it desirable that as few
bonds as possible should be issued during the coming year.
The Interhorough Company is, of course, iu a far worse
position than the city. Even if it were offered a lease for
seventy-five years, it probably couĩd not raise the money
for new suhways on its own credit, and of course a lease
for twenty years would he as valuable to it in its existing
condition as uo lease at all. Obviously radical rearrange-
meuts of some kind will he necessary before any further
subway construction becomes possible, and the most serious
question of municîpal  policy  in  New  York  City turns  upoQ