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BUILDERS
AND
NEW YORK, JANUARY 30, 1915
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"BUILD NOW" MOVEMENT FAIRLY LAUNCHED
Inside Trend of the Times Demonstrated to Prominent
Eastern Builders by Trip, This Week, to Siegfried, Pa.
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BIG men are not the ones who are
talking pessimistically to-day. It
is the small fry who are holding back,
afraid, and, like many small things, they
make the most noise. Men who think
out vast commercial campaigns, captains
of industry, masters of finance, men of
analytical minds upon whose judgment
of conditions depends the welfare of
great industries, tlie stability of business
and the country's general weal to-day
are weaving a web that is destined in
the course of a short time to reveal to
the timid that they have been caught
napping.
Here and there bubble forth evidences
of this undercurrent of big business.
Projections like that $2,500,000 building
for printers and publishers that is going
to replace the old Hager warehouse on
Eighth avenue, are wisps that show what
leaders are doing. Men like Archibald
D. Russell know what is going on. Big
corporations like the New York Central
Railroad and the Central Railroad of
New Jersey do not announce their plans
before maturity, and about all the public
knows of the optimism men in high
places have is when announcement is
made that another million-dollar market
terminal building is to be erected in a
part of the city remote from the spot
where the small fry believe things are
most likely to develop. The faith that
the Central Railroad of New Jersey has
in the betterment of conditions is not
heralded broadcast, and about all that
mediocre business interests know of the
impending influx of freight from a rap¬
idly recovering nation is that the Cen¬
tral Railroad of New Jersey is prepared
to take care of the business that the or¬
dinary chap never imagined was on the
way.
Getting the Business.
Men like Andrew T. Robinson, Paul
Starrett, Charles T. W'ills, Louis J. Horo¬
witz, Thomas J. Steen, Walter Stabler,
Frederick W. Snow, Ernest R. Acker¬
man, John B. Rose, T. Eckford Rhoades
and John P. Kane do not herald that they
see prosperity and better building con¬
ditions approaching. It is better busi¬
ness to let the other fellow find it out.
When the big deals are consummated,
one here, one there, and another over in
East Jersey, the inconsequential investor
or builder begins to realize, when too
late, that he was not optimistic early
enough to get the business.
_ This week some 250 men of the type
cited spent the day out of the city. They
were the guests of Ernest R. Ackerman,
banker, railroad director and a captain
of industry. Six Pullman cars conveyed
the party to Siegfried, Pa., where the
Lawrence Portland Cement Works are
located, and where the annual meeting of
the board of directors of this company
is held. Instead of finding a plant closed
down_ for repairs, they found it working
full time. This company makes its re¬
pairs in Summer, when wolf packs are
not so ravenous. Besides, it would not
be good business to shut down now.
But this is what the big builders of
New York and eastern New Jersey did
WHY BUILD NOW?
Because—Money is easier.
Prices of Materials are low.
Manufacturers have low re¬
serves.
There is a demand for construc¬
tion.
Labor is plentiful and eager to
work.
Big Men are Planning Con¬
struction work.
There is a growing need for
Modern Buildings.
Plan filings show increasing
activity in building.
Present construction helps to
solve the unemployed problem.
Building Costs may be expected
to increase as demand im¬
proves.
New York Real Estate will not
be as cheap again in many
years.
find: Storage bins which had been teem¬
ing earlier in the season, especially im¬
mediately after the opening of the war
in Europe and the resultant stoppage of
financial and building activity every¬
where, were noticeably depleted of fin¬
ished cement. In the clinker bins, how¬
ever, tremendous quantities of this half-
made cement were held in storage.
Cement in this state cannot depreciate.
Every one of the giant kilns in the plant
was working full time turning out more
and more of this product.
The answer was that Senator Acker¬
man, close in touch as he is with real
estate, industrial and financial conditions
of three States—New York, New Jersey
and Pennsylvania—was informed as to
what was coming. He was making his
plans accordingly. The pile of clinker
in reserve is the answer. The other big
men in the party saw it and smiled.
They knew the Senator was right. Other
men in the party have been doing the
same. Only instead of stacking clinker
they have been laying big plans quietly
for the things that were on the way.
They sounded the host of the day in the
speeding Pullmans, on the way home.
This is what he told them:
Investors Turning to Real Estate.
'As the financial situation grows more
favorable, investors turn to real estate
and naturally the most sought for is
real estate improved with fireproof
structures. Anticipating a heavy demand
for cement when spring arrives, we have
been running for the last month at our
full capacity in the clinker making de¬
partments in order to have a large
supply of seasoned clinker on hand when
the activity of summer building calls for
quantity and quick delivery.
"In New York City there is a distinct
change in financial sentiment, and optim¬
ism is replacing pessimism in all in¬
dustrial lines.
"In my opinion the prevailing low
prices for building materials of all kinds
such as tile, brick, lumber, etc., will soon
have to give way to considerably higher
quotations, since the time is near at
hand when the investor, with cash to
build, will undoubtedly make his pres¬
ence felt.
"We have learned by recent experi¬
ence that all interests are inter-depend¬
ent and I, personally, feel very optim¬
istic regarding the uear future. There
is a strong incentive among business
men to pull together and with all of us
pulling there can be but one result, and
that result will be commercial success.
"My experience in the cement in¬
dustry for over a third of a century and
the fact that I am able to make first
hand comparisons of the use of Port¬
land cement in over one hundred
countries, convinces me that in the near
future the people m the United States
are going to awake to the great possi¬
bilities of 'Concrete for Permanence.'
The result will be a strong demand for
the higher grades of cement that have
been on the market for more than ten
years and an era of great activity will
soon be under way."
The big building construction and
material men who went to Pennsylvania
on Thursday might not have been able
to quote statistics as reason for their
optimism, but they could have pointed to
new orders and instructions to go ahead
with plans. But figures show that their
belief in the future of the New York
and New Jersey building situation is
well founded.
Material Reserves Low.
If the finished cement bins at the
plants are low, what of other lines?
Manufacturers keep in touch with each
other pretty closely. They know,
through a hundred different channels,
what their competitors are doing or are
planning to do. Therefore it is not sur¬
prising that plaster and liine plants are
not carrying large surplus supplies; that
the brick sheds up the Hudson are about
a third of a billion less full than they
were last year; that the steel store¬
houses at Waverly, N. J., and elsewhere
are not overstocked; that sand and
gravel is being mined only on current
demand; that slate, marble and other
commodities are conservatively carried.
These manufacturers are all advised
most intimately of the current trend in
New York construction, and they
chuckle with glee when, even with prices
down to bed rock, they know their com¬
petitors have nothing on them in the
way of over-supply, as plan filings show
a gain in volume and value over last
year's figures, and real winter weather
still holding aloof.
January closes with a total of $11,155,-
395 in building operations now actually
moving. Last January the net for New
York was $9,428,792, and in the year be¬
fore that January showed a total plan
filings of $7,662,173. Add to this Janu¬
ary's 10.7 per cent, of the^ $50,000,000
worth of construction held in abeyance
at the first of the year that is now going
ahead, and January, 1915, opens with an
actual estimated gross value of live con¬
struction work of $16,546,695.
The big fellows are building now.