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April I, 1911.
RECORD AND GUIDE
577
^ ESTABUSHa)^fflJ^CH£l*;^1868,
DeVoTeD 10 F^ESTAJZ.BinLD!f/G Ap-ClfrrECmm.E ,f[ciUSEU01B DESOFlfTltMl,
Biisit/Ess A^fD Themes of GEifeR&L IjfTERfST,
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Communications should he addressed to
C. W. SWEET
Fubiished EVery Saturday
By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO.
President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W. DODGE
Vice-Pres. Sc Genl. Mgr,. H. W. DESMOND Secretary, F. T. MILLER
Nos. 11 to 15 East 24th Street, New Xorb City
(Telephone, Madison Square, 4430 to 4433.)
"Entered
at the Post Offi
'ce at New
York, N. Y.,
as
second-class tn
atlcr."
Copyrighted,
1911, by
Tho
Record
&
Guide
Co.
Bol.
LXXXVI.
APRIL
i-i
1911.
No.
2246
A WHOLESOME MARKET.
THE real estate market has suddenly become very active,
and it is certainly very wliolesome. Its dominant charac¬
teristic is a steady demand for centrally situated property on
the part of business men. who propose to use it in their busi¬
ness. A steady stream of purchases and leases in and near
Fifth avenue continues to be announced; and many of them
result in the construction of more or less costly buildiugs.
The vacant loft buildings cn Fourth avenue are filling up rap-
Idly and with the very best quality of tenants, and plans are
teing announced for new improvements in this district. The
streets running out of Long Acre Square are, also, the loca¬
tion of an active real estate and building investment, chiefly
tor business purposes. On the other hand, apartment and
tenement house construction is duller than it has been for
many years. A nnmber of new apartment houses will be
started this spring on the West Side; but Washington Heights
is in a state of suspended activity and very little is being
done on the East Side. The outer boroughs are doing rather
better than Manhattan, but not so very much better. Specu¬
lative operations are not very numerous, and will not become
so until after the contracts are signed for the construction
of new Subways. In all probability no marked change for
builders will take place during the remainder of the real
estate season, but a condition will be created by the end of the
summer which will favor an increase of activity next fall
and winter. By that time there should be a resumption of
apartment-house building on Washington Heights and else¬
where. The obstacles to a revival of loft construction should
be relieved, and the Subway business will be settled in one
way or another. The reaction of general business upon the
real estate market promises to be beneficial. No great busi¬
ness activity is to be anticipated, but neither is any period
of real depression. Capital will accumulate rapidly and will
have to be invested, and no doubt a larger share of it will
seek investment in real estate. A period of moderate busi¬
ness activity, coupled with abundant money, is always
peculiarly favorable for real estate operations, and that is
the ge-neral condition which will probably prevail late in
1911 and early in 1912.
DEFECTS OF CITY DWELLINGS.
THE announcement of the construction of a large and
very expensive .co-operative apartment house at 72nd
St. and 5th Ave. is highly siguificaiut. It means that even
very rich people are coming more and more to the conclusion
that private houses in Mauhattan cost more than they are
â– worth. Of course there will always be some few people who
will prefer to have a private house, just as there has always
been a small minority of well-to-do people in Paris who re¬
fused to live in an apartment house. But their number will
constantly diminish. Private houses are being abandoned,
not only because they are so very costly, but because in tbe
great majority of cases their occupants get a pretty poor
value for their money. The back rooms of these bouses on
the lower floors are almost always dark and gloomy, and
they usually are so high that an elevator is necessary. More¬
over, the habits and the economic situation of very rich
people tend to make them turn to apartments, American
business men are not making money as fast as they did from
1900 to 1906; and according to all appearances, the extra¬
ordinary opportunities of those years are not likely to return.
Of course there are still large and increasing numbers of such
families, but more than formerly this class of people will be
obliged to husband their resources. They will have to count
the cost of their city establishments, partly because they
are not making money so rapidly and partly because they
are spending more and more of their time and money in the
country. It may be confidently predicted that much of the
vacant land now remaining om Fifth avenue will be improved
with apartment houses, and tbat the same statement will
hold true of Park avenue. Consequently prices on the East
Side are not likely to go any higher. Even the very rich
are obliged to seek relief from the consequences of purchas¬
ing private residences at the prevailing level of values. When
these houses happen to be vacant they cannot be rented to
advantage because tenants willing to pay the necessary rents
are scarce, and that is another reason for their lessening
popularity,
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE
HOLOCAUST.
ACCORDING to tbe evidence already submitted, tbe blame
for the awful loss of life in the Washington Place flre
should be charged more to the factory laws than to the build¬
ing laws. The buildi'ng proved to be really fireproof, as it
was supposed to be. Ouly the contents of certain floors were
burned, and not a life need have been lost in case the lessees
of these floors had adopted any precaution against a fire and
its consequences. It is true that the fire-escape was in a bad
condition, and that the Building Code should be changed in
order to provide more accessible and capacious means of
escape in case of an emergency. But bad as was the condition
of the fire-escape and narrow as were the stairs, four-fifths of
the employees escaped without harm; and if the other fifth
did not escape, tbey were evidently prevented from doing so
rather by panic, ignorance, and wholly unnecessary obstacles
(such as looJ^ed doors) than by any lack of available means.
Necessary as it may be, consequently, to provide improved
fire-escapes, it is far more necessary to improve the facTory
regulations. Inflammable debris should be cleaned up every
day, and flnally flre drills should be required at least once a
week and State inspectors should have the power to start a
fire alarm at any time without warning; and in case the man¬
agement of the factory had failed to drill his employes, be
should be responsible under heavy penalties for his failure.
The final and really effective precautions against such calam¬
ities must be taken by the operator of the factory, and it is
useless to burden the builder and the property owner with
expensive requirements, which might be deprived of all util¬
ity by an unscrupulous or careless manufacturer. The ulti¬
mate individual responsibility belongs to the occupant of the
building; and no attempt should be made to substitute a
merely mechanical for what is really and necessarily a per¬
sonal responsibility.
THE SUBWAY CONFERENCES.
DURING the coming week announcement will probably be
made as to the result of the prolonged conferences
which have been taking place between the committee of the
Board of Estimate and tbe directors of the Interborough
Company; and, according to newspaper rumors, the result
will be a disagreement rather than an agreement. If such
proves to be the case, public opinion wil! most assuredly be
very much nettled, A properly conducted conference should
certainly have discovered that mo agreement was possible
without wasting two months or more. The only certain
thing about Subway construction in New York City is the
interminable delays which precede every new enterprise. The
points upon which the conference are said to have split are
only two in number. The committee of the Board has in¬
sisted that the Interborough Company should yield to the
city an indeterminate franchise upon a continuous East Side
or West Side line, so that in case the city ever decides to
set up an independent system, it will have a definite terri¬
tory of its own. It does not seem to the Record and Guide
that this particular requirement of the Board of Estimate is
a fair one. The Interborough Company contracted to back
aud operate a certain definite route; and no attempt should
be made to force it to surrender any essential rights which
it enjoys under its first contract. If the City should ever
want to break up the Interborotigh system, it could do so
by taking over aud operating an upper East Side and lower
West Side system; and there is no reason why such a system
could not be operated as advantageously as the present Sub-