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September 3, 1910-
RECORD AND GUIDE
369
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PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Communications should be addrossett 6*»
•^ a W. SWEET
Published Everg Satardag
By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO.
President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W. DODGE
Vice-pres. fc Genl. Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary, F. T. MILLBB
Nos. 11 to 15 East 24th Street, New York City
(Telephone, Madison Square, 4430 to 4433.)
'•Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as sccond-elass matter."
Copyrighted. 1910, by The Record fc Guide Co,
Vol. LXXXVl.
SEPTEMBER 3, 1910.
Xo. 2216
THE least palatable aspect of the general business situa¬
tion continues to be the excess of imports over exports
and the consequent creation of debt instead of a credit in
the European financial centers. So long as this adverse
balance continues it is evident that the really fundamental
trouble, from which American business is suffering has not
been cured. In general prices in this country are higher
than tbey should be compared to the rest of the world, and
hence the sales of this country in foreign markets diminish
and its purchases increase. It looked for a while as if the
necessary remedy was being applied, but the more recent
figures for American foi'eign trade indicate that there must
be a further fall of prices and more drastic economies in
this country, before it will be in a position to pay its debts
to Europe without Hciuidation, The inference inevitably
is that during the coming Winter there will have to be more
economies practiced, and no general revival or expansion of
business is to be expected. On the other hand, there is no
reason to anticipate any period of business depression; and
so far as can be seen at iiresenl, general conditions will not
prove to be any impediment to reasonable activity in real
estate. Real estate values always tend to benefit peculiarly
from abundant supplies of loanable capital, and it is pre¬
cisely a condition in whicli money will be easy, towards
which tlie general situation is tending. In case tiiere is an
abundance of loanable capital, and in case the cost of
building is not excessive, there may be expected a normal
amount of real estate trading and of new construction in and
around New York. Local conditions will not warrant any
exceptional activity, but the general situation will offer uo
impediment to the transaction of just as much business as
the local situation warrants.
SI^ILLED LABOR in most of the building trades contin¬
ues to be well employed, taking the Metropolitan dis¬
trict as a whole. In a number of the trades there have been
times this Summer when more men couid have been employed
had they been available. This is an authoritative report to
the Record and Guide. It may not square with some other
facts of current industry, as Wall Street professes to get
them, but the fact remains that there is a large and increas¬
ing amount of building construction in hand, not only here
but all over the country, as a general proposition. Exceptions
must be made for individuals and particular sections. Re¬
ports from New England are to the effect that more build¬
ing contracts have been awarded there so far this year than
in the corresponding period of 1907, when the previous high
mark was touched. The principal detraction mentioned by
men in a position to survey the whole field of industry here
Is that the purchasing power of the middle classes has not
fully recuperated from the hard times following the panic
of 1907. It is also noted that in some lines of manufactured
materials for the building trades production increases faster
than the absorbing powers of the market, which is said
to account for a certain amount of gloominess. During
August, the dullest month for the real estate market in
the whole year, and at a time when there were some fears
of a money sliortage, there continued to be a flow of funds
into building channels, and some of the principal lending
corporations, from whom the smaller lenders take their cue,
were represented in the transactions. At the present time
money is again in good supply for approved operations.
NEXT week a regular service will be begun in and out of
the new Pennsylvania Terminal; and the people of
Xew York will begin to reap the benefit o£ probably the
largest and most important single improvement ever under¬
taken by a private corporation in this country. The policy
which jiictated the building by the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company into Manhattan was an example ol veritable finan¬
cial statesmanship which is able and can afford to plan for
a generation in advance. The difficulties in the way of
the enterprise certainly looked sufficiently insurmountable.
Besides the inevitable legal, political and engineering obstacles
there was the ultimate problem of making the improvement
directly as well as indirectly profitable. There could, be no
doubt in the mind of any far-sighted business man that a
railroad like the Pennsylvania really needed an entrance
into New York, and that it could never compete efficiently
with the New York Central for certain kinds of passenger
traffic until it opened a terminal in Manhattan. It was, also
obvious that if such a Terminal was to be built the work
must be begun soon because the increase in Manhattan land
values would soon render any plan of that kind impracticable.
But how could even so rich a corporation as the Pennsyl¬
vania Company spend over $100,000,000 on such an im¬
provement without more assurance of immediate return? At
the end of thirty years it would be worth all that it cost
and more, but thirty or even half of thirty years is a long
time; and in the meantime how was a mere passenger ter¬
minal to be made sufficiently remunerative to pay even half
of the enormous fixed charges, which would have to be in¬
curred? Tbe question was answered by the purchase of the
Long Island Railroad. A terminal serving the old Pennsyl¬
vania system alone and costing so many million dollars
might well be a white elephant; but it could also serve
the increasing population of Long Island, and so build up
a railroad property of very little value, the Pennsylvania
Company would be re-imbursed in a much shorter time
for its huge expenditures. For every reason it is very much
to be hoped that the new Terminal will be a great success,
because a corporation which can pursue a policy of which
mixes so much public benefit with its own advantage de¬
serves all the success that is coming to it. Its work has
been performed generously and efficiently, and it has not
received even such reasonable tunnel assistance from
the local authorities as it was entitled to. No subway has
been built or even planned to take care of the passengers
it will carry to Manhattan; and not a dollar has been spent
by the city to facilitate the movement of vehicular traffic
to and from the station.
THE possibility of retaining a residence in "old New
York" under normal conditions and living in a -style
befitting a well-bred family is becoming an acute problem
for a young married man. It is not merely the average head
of family that is referred to, but even those higher up in
the social scale than the average—salaried men, for the
most part, in professional, mercantile and mechanical pur¬
suits, earning $1,500 to $1,S00 a year or less, as most of
them do. Let us deal with plain actualities. This young
man cannot, of course, have a private dwelling here; he is
obviously restricted to a leased apartment or flat in that
section of the borough which appeals to his natural in¬
stincts, which is more than likely to be the upper West Side.
Yet for young men of family like him, no apartment houses
within his renting ability are now being erected. He cannot
carry on his single pair of shoulders, when there is no one
to help him, an apartment renting at even the minimum
flgure for the class of houses now being erected on the
West Side. In other words, no apartment houses without
elevators are built nowadays either on the West Side or
on Morningside Heights, and rarely any more even on dis¬
tant Washington Heights; and a house of that quality is
beyond his means, unless he rents out one or more of his
rooms. He is, therefore, restricted by his means and man¬
ner of living to an old-style fiat house without elevator or
service of any kind except that of the janitor; and men like
him who cannot find economical housing of this sort in
neighborhoods corresponding to their social ideas have to
look to the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and the Jerseys. Who,
then, is to blame for emigration out of Manhattan if any
business interest objects to it? Clearly, it is force of cir¬
cumstances over which no human power has any control.
Rather than try to pay a rental beyond his means, or take
the contrary course of depriving his family of a proper
home life, the young married man of moderate means, but
high aspirations, takes his account from the savings bank