November i6, 1907





RECORD   AND   GUIDE





783







Dhíi-ieO ĩo Rf\L EsTAjE.BuiLDiiJb Aí^rrEeTui^ .Kũuseiíoio Degoeíatioií,
Biísntes aiídTheĩíes ctGejíer^I Ii/te^esi.,

PRICE   PER  YEAR   IN  ADVANCE   EĨGHT   DOLLARS

Communicatĩans shauld be addressed to

C. W. SWEET

Published EVerp iSaíurdag

By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO.

Preaidenf,   CLINTON  W,  SWEET                        Treasurer,  F.  W. DODGS

Vice-Pres. & Genl. Mgr., H. W. DESMOND         Secretary, F. T. MILLER

Nos.  11  to  15 East 24tli  Street,  Noir  Vork  Cĩty

(Telepbone,   Madison   Square,  4JS0  to  4433.)





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LXXX.









NOVE'MBER 16,




1907.














No.




2070.







INDEX   TO   DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising  Section.

Page.                                                    Page.

Cement   .....................xvĩii Lumber   ....................xix

Clay   Pi'Oducts    ................xv Machinery   ...................xvi

Consulting Engineers   ........xvii Metal   Work   ..................xiv

Contractors   and   Builders......iv Quick   Job   Directory...........xi

Blectrical   Interests   .........xvii Real   Estale...................ix

Fĩreproofing    ..................ii  Roofers  &  Roofing Materials..xx

Granite   ......................xxi  Stone   .......................xx

Iron   and   Steel................viĩi Wood   Protiucta    ..............xiĸ





WITHIN A FEW MONTHS of being com-
pletely fiiiished and equipped for nse, the
Steinway (or Belmout) Tunuel is in a
peculiar predicament. Its fraũchise, if
the owners ever realĩy possessed one, is
considered by the city government to have
expired. Before it can be operated as a pufclic carrier there
must he a franchise issued, it is supposed, and the Public
Service Comniission has heen definitely advised by counsel
to take out a v/rit of injunction that will prevent the tunnel
írom being pnt in serviee in ádvahce of a legal authorization.
It is deemed to be a wiser course for the authorities to
enjoin the tunnel company before a service is begun than
to try to stop it afterwards. Not that they do not wish to
have the tunuel used at all, but rather that it shal! not be
worked without having a fair settlement with the city for
the privilege. No one has reason to suppose that the pro-
prietors expected to operate withoiit any fiirther consent or
right than was couferred, or alleged to have been, hy the
Steinway charter which the present company has acquired;
but as yet no application lias been made for a new privilege,
nor has any opportunity heen given for statiug, on the part
of the city, the terms and conditions that would be accept-
able. These are but a few surface facts in a situation realiy
niore complex and peculiar than any which the authoritíes
have yet becn called upon to deal with. We have seen
niany corporations appĩying for franchises to build transit
lines, but never any before this applying for a franchise
after the line has been finished. This is also the first occa-
sion in at least a long period when the City has been so
well armed to coutend with a powerful public carrier. Mr.
Belmont's enterprise is deserviug of a large reward. Per-
sonal qualtiies of a high order, hesides enormous fiuancial
resources, were necessary for an undertaking of su'Ch mag-
nitude. We all admire a man who can swiftly seize a chance
hy the tail as it is escaping aud land it suceessfully. But
the People are partners with Mr, Belmont in this tuunel,
aud have a rĩght to an accountiug. Uutiĩ that is effected
there is no prohability that the cars will run under the river,
but that the time intervening cannot be prolonged indeS-
nitely is apparent when the amount of the stake is con-
siderecl. The tunnel could be made extremely useful in the
development of Queens Borough, and it could almost he
made to hava the opposite cffect, all depending on the terms
to be arranged between the company and the city. An ideal
outcome would be the unifîcation of the tunnel into the
subway system and a future extensiou of that system to
Flushing and Bayside, hut not this latter consummation
until transit requirements in the old city, far more pressing,
have been met, If a purchase by the city is improbable
at the figures which Mr. Belmont is understood to ask,
the next best thing is "a five-cent fare, with liberal trausfers,
Bhorfc of which but littĩe beĩieât could come to Queens frpin
tJie coĩĩĩiectĩos,





FROM THB NATURE of the action
agaiust the Knickerbpcker Trust .Com-
pany, it is improbabĩe that the owners of
property abutting on Fifth avenue will
accept the decision rendered by the Ap-
pellate Division in favor o£ the City—
under, which the great columns of the marble portico may
temporarily remain, while the steps and areaway must be
removed—as determining the right of the city to take pop-
session of all court spaces on this avenue and remove aU
obstructinns therefrom. A year ago the Corporation Coun-
sel issued what was taken as "a waruiug" that the door-
yard spaces would presently be required for street pur-
poses, and it seemed that after many years of controversy
the city fully intended to begiu proceedings for widen-
iug the carriageway. By some commentators the suit
agaiust the Kniclterboeker Company has beeu so interpreted,
but wheu the case is analyzed it is fouud to be nothing more
thau oue to restraiu the violation of an ordinauce. Certain
ordinances allow areas and steps of certain dimensions, while
this bankiug houpe has buiĩt steps of other dimensions, and
so far as these go heyond the permissible limits they must,
under this latest decision, be reduced. The Knickerbocker
Trust Company has always claimed that in constructing, at
the uorthwest coruer of Fifth avenue and Thirty-fourth
street, marble steps which appropriate, approximately, one-
half the sidewalk o£ each street, the direetors were not pro-
ceeding in violation of the city ordinauces or the laws of the
State, for the reason that the Common Council passed, in
1901, a resolution which gave (Or "attempted to give," as the
plaintiff states) the right, or privilege, to "erect aud main-
tain porticos in frcnt of their buiUling." But the city now
contends, and the courts have uniformly held, that the Com-
mou Council uever pCQSGssed 'fche power the pass this ordi-
nance, The preseut decision affects projections beyond the
old stoop line only, hufc there is uothing contained therein
which restraĩns the city from proceeding, after dtie uotiee,
against all owners—the Knickerbocker Company included—■
who are occupying any part of the street beyond the origiual
building líne. In the year 1844 the proprietors of lots he-
tween Tweuty-third and Forty-secoud streets received per-
raission to enclose a eourt, fifteen feet wide, with an opeu
iron railiug iu front of theír lofcs, on each side of the avenue,
and to plaee the curhstoue thirty feet from the line of the
avenue ou each side, and so leave a earriageway forty feet
wide, with fifteeu feefc for sidewalk and flfteen more for
court space on each side, But this permission was granted
upon the eondition that "if, in the opinion of the Common
Couucil, the said eourts shall hereafter be required for
streets, the same shall be thrown open." While the presenfc
case does uofc affeefc the confcinued occupatiou of the same
spaces as was emhraced by the old courtyards, ĩts effect is
to emphasize auew íhafc the city claims the right to take
the court spaces for sĩdewolks and earriageway whenever it
shall deem that necessity so requires, not alone under the
condition contained in the ordinauce of 1844, but on the
further ground of the illegality of that ordinanee. For the
Knickerhocker Trust Compauy it has heen stated, by counsel,
that the eompany is not opposiug any general seheme of
widening that the eity may have, bufc it ohjeeted to being '
siugled out as a defendant when practically all the
property on the thoroughfare is affeeted, an ohjeetion which
the decision seems to confirm, so far as the occupying of
court space is concerned, for the present—hut not more than
that.





Public

Improvement

Plans





A SUPPOSED DBTBRMINATION of the
Board of Estimate to su'Spend for a time
the acquisition of more land for city parks
has been the subjeet of protests from
property owners in the districts which
would be affected by this policy, though
it must he known to them that a decision of this uature
would not he taken because of any less appreciation for
parks, or of the wi.'îdom of acquiring them for new sections
while the value o£ land contiues low, hut because of the
general monetary difflculties, At the same time, it canuot
be gainsaid that a puhlic announcemeut o£ such a policy
would not be calculated to please those localities whieh have
hoped to derive particular heuefit from the ciíy's former in-
tention. In seetions where projects for new parks have
reached almost the culminating stage, aud where private
investments, plans and actual improvements have heen predi-
cated upon uafcural expectations, there is somethiug of a
îjardship  invplved;   but tbe city would not be tlie prĩmal