October îg, 1907





RECORD   AND   GUID]







_                                 ESTAEaJSHED-^MJWpHSLií^ISSS.

"Dev&îED P RpKLEsTAjE.BuiLDiffc AíĩpiíiTEenniE ,Kouszîlou> Decohatioií.

Bl/snfeSS AIÍdThEHES bfGEJÍEnfiV ĩtÍTCR.E31.

PRICE   PER  YEAR   IN  ADVANCE   EIGHT   DOLLARS
Conimunications  Ehoĩild be addreased to          .

C. W. SWEET
a                           fubtished EVery Satardap

By THE RBCORD AND GUIDE CO.

President,  CLINTON  W.   SWEET                        Treasurer,  F. W.  DODGE

Vice-Pres.  íi: Genl. Mgr., H. "W. DESMOND         Secretary, F. T. MIL.LER

Nos.  11  to  15 East 34tli Street, New  York  City

(Telephone,   Madison   Square,  4430  to  4433.)

"Eiitcrctl at the Post Offiee at Neto York, N.   7.,  as srooiiil-clii.^s  iiitiltci:"
Copyrighted,   1907,  by The Record  & Guide Co.





Vol. LXXX.





OCTOBER 19. 1907.





No. 2066.





INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising  Section.

Page.                                           '         Page.

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

Clay   Products   ...............xvii  Macbinery    ...................xiv

Consultiûg Engiueers   ..........vi Metal   Work   ................xiĩi

Contractors   and   Buiiders    ___iv Quick Job Directory  ..........xx

Electrical   Interests    ___;.....xv  Real   Estate   ..................ix

Fireproofing....................ii Roofers & Roofins ÎVĨateríals   ..xv

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

Iron  and  Steel   ..............viil Wood  Products   ..............xxi





McAdoo

Terminal

BuildÍDg





'IT SEEMS TO BB SBTTLED tliat tlie
spaee aijove the trolley terminal at Sixth
Avemie and Thirty-third Street is to be
improved with a huge hotel, and this
decision will prohably have au import-
ant effiect upon the value of property in
that vicinity, Probably the anuouncement that a depart-
ment store was to be consLructed on the property would
have been more helpful to neishboring property owners;
but a hotel is the next best thing to a department store.
A great terminal such as that of the Pennsylvania Rail-
road Company is sure to demand an abundant supply of
hotel accommodations in its neightiorhood, anrt such is all
the more lilĩely to be the case when the neighborhood is
so central tliat in any event a hotel should be a profltable
business enterprise. The owners of the Imperial and the
iMartinique have botk been so well satisfied with the in-
come of their original buildings that they have either bui!t
or else arranged to build large additions, and projects are
already being broached for a number of similar improve-
menta, The restatirant business of any good hotel in this
neighborhood ought to be ĩarger than that enjoyed by
the hotels near the Grand Central Êtation. and they would
be more convenient both for business men and pleasure
seekers- All this is tolerably obvious, hut th'e doubtful
question concerns the effeet of these terminals and hoteîs
in the side stréets nearby, and on Seventh Avenue. ĩn
the ordinary course of events the side streets between
Twenty-third and Thirty-fourth, west of Sixth Avenue,
would be improved with a cheaper grade of loft buildings.
BuildiHgs of this class are already being erected in the
twenties, and there is every reason to suppose that Seventb
Avenue would eventually be covered with a hetter grade
of the same sort of strueture. The completion of the
terminals and the erection of several large hotels might.
however, check this tendency by making the property more
valuable for other purposes. Five years from now the
number of people who sleep and eat in this neighborhood
will be inereased by íhousands over what it is at present:
and hundreds of thousands will enter or depart from the
termznals every week. The preseuce of many additional
money-spenders should make the neighborhood the best
in New York íor the retail trade, and it may welĩ keep it
alive as an amusement centre. There seems to he no good
reason why Seventh Avenue should not beeome a possible
site for theatres; and the same is true of the side streets.
The only transit deflciency under which the neighborhood
suffers is the lack of Subway eonnectíons; and that is cer-
tain to be remedied în a íew years. When it is remedied
the EO-called Pennsylvania Terminaí district wiĩl be more
accessible to niore people than any other neighborhood in
the eity.





New

Subway

Possibilities





THE     CHAIRMAN     OF     THE     PUBLIC
SERVICE COMMISSION, Mr. Willcox, has
issued   a   statement   during   the   week   in
whieh   he   asserts   that   the   work   of   the
Commission  has  in  eertain  respects  been
misunderstood.    It has not been engaged
merely iû an investigation o£ the affairs of the Interborough-
Metropolitan  Company.     It has  also  been  devoting  a  suit-
abie proportion of its time to the questions of new Subway
routes;   and   the   resulta   of   its   deliberations   on   this   very
importaut   matter   would   in   the   course   of  time   be   given
to  the publie.     All this  is reassuring,  but it is  one of the
misfortunes of the constitution  of the Commission that its
powers   iu   this   respect  are   very  limited,   and  that   it   can
accomplish nothing without the co-operation o£ the Mayor
and   the   Board   of  Bstimate.     The   most   serious   problems
eonnected  with  the  laying  out of  new  Subways  are   finan-
cial,  and  these problems  eannot be solved  without  the  es-
tablishment of a working agreement between the Board of
Estimate and the Commission.   It is the business of the Com-
mission, i£ possible, to ĩay out Subways which ean be built,
and   the   kind   of   Subways   which   can   be   built   depends
upon the  corporation,  public  or  prîvate,  which  ia  to  build
them.    The new Subways must be arranged, that is, either
to connect with the existing Subway  or  to  be independent
of it.    I£ they are to be connecting, the existing law  must
be  changed,  and  the  lease  lengthened,   so  that  the   Inter-
borough  Company can  obtain a  security which  would be a
baais   for   a  sufficient  loan.     On  the  other  hand,   an   indé-
pendent Subway would have to be buĩlt and perhaps oper-
ated  by  the  eity;   and  how is the  city  to  flnance  sueh  an
undertaking?      These    are    questions    whîch,    as    we    have
pointed   out,   are  more  within   the  proper   provinee   of   the
Board of Estimate than they are within that o£ the Pubíic
Service Commîssion; and what the Record and Guide would
like to see is some evidence that these two bodies are ready
and able to reach an agreement, and that they will present
a joint demand to the Legislature for any legislation which
they may need.    It may be that the importance of sueh an
agreement is fuUy appreeĩated, and that informal steps have
already been taken to that end, but if so, no traces thereof
have been  allowed to transpire.     But as soon as any such
Eteps are taken, news to that effect should be given to the
press.    Public opinion is profoundly interested in the ques-
tion, and should be consulted early in respeet to any poliey
whieh   may   be   adopted.     The   sooner   a   deflnite   policy   is
formulated and adopted, the better.







IT IS STATBD THAT THB group o£
flnanciers who controlled the Metro-
politan Street Railway for so many years
are to retire, and that the management
of the Interborough-Metropolitan Com-
pany will remain in tbe hands of Mr.
Belmont and his assoeiates. Everybody interested either in
the securities of the eompany or in the futTire improvement
of its service must hope that such wiU be the ease. Con-
fldence in the good faith of.the management of the cor-
poration will never be restored so long as the men whose
poliey has wrecked this fine property remain identified with
its control. Mr. Belmont may not be all that the respon-
sible head of a great public aervice eorporation should be;
but at any rate he stands for sound financial methods, and
ĩiis branch of the system is the solvent braneh, from the
earnings of which the whole property may in the end be
rehabiiitated. The earnings of the Interborough Compauy
over and above the interest on its bonds already amount
to several per eent. on the preferred stock o£ the Inter-
borough-Metropolitan Company, and after the Brooklyn
tunneĩ has been in operatîon for six months it is possible
that the Tnterborough Company alone could pay the whole
diviãend to which the preferred stoek is entitled. Such
being the condition, the Interborough interest obvioualy
ought to eontroĩ the property. The only coneeivable alter-
native would be the dissolution of the merger. The situ-
ation of the Interborough Company is so much stronger
than that of the City Railway that again we cannot help
expressing our wonder tiiat the merger was ever consum-
mated, If Mr, Belmont bad persiated in íightĩng, he could
have had absolutely his own way. The Metropolitan Com-
pany eould not have affiorded to build Subways and its
whole programme of Subway construction was merely a
big bluff—undertaken apparently £or the purpose of nn-
loading on the Interborough Company.