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REAL ESTATE
AND
BUILDERS
lUPE
NEW YORK, -MAY 1, 1915
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GIGANTIC OPERATIONS ON WATERFRONTS I
â–
Terminals in the Bronx and Queens to Care for Future
Business — Activity Rivals 1906 and 1912 Periods
A NYONE taking the
**â– trouble or being willing
to spend the time can see
that the "Build Now" move¬
ment is bearing fruit in this
city. In Long Island City,
the way is being cleared for
a great terminal project.
The Hunts Point section is
the scene of another great
improvement of the same
sort. Kingsbridge is taking
material for new building
construction so fast that one
material dealer has been
compelled to install an al¬
most continuous chain of
five-ton trucks to cart away
the sand on a one-minute
loading schedule.
On the upper East Side, along Valen¬
tine avenue, square blocks of building
construction, under way, is not an ex¬
ceptional sight. In this section 12,000,-
000 common brick a week are arriving
and cement barges are unloading in ex¬
cess of a million barrels every six days.
In the New Jersey counties of Hudson,
Essex and Union, in Staten Island and
in Brooklyn construction is proceeding
on a scale in ratio to the popula¬
tion of the Bronx. Manhattan is the
only section in which actual construction
is not now keeping alireast of plan
filings.
Within the last thirty days about l.¬
SOO additional skilled laborers have
found work in this city. Portland ce¬
ment authorities declare that the ship¬
ments from the Lehigh and Hudson
valleys to this market in April will equal
output despite the fact that there are
one hundred more kilns in operation to¬
day than there were at the first of the
year. At the present rate of common
brick consumption in the Bronx of 12,-
000,000 a week, one-half of the over-
supply of 300.000.000 now reported to be
in the Hudson river sheds on call, will
be consumed in the borough of the
Bronx alone by the time the 1915 pro-
GRAXD BOULEVARD AND 1S4TH STREET.
duction is ready for market, about the
first of July. This, too, in spite of the
fact that great projects have not yet
come into the market for materials.
Some of the big work that is now go¬
ing ahead here includes the Johnson and
Degnon terminals, one in the Hunts
Point section of the Bronx and the other
in the Dutch Kills district of Long
Island City. There are already on the
latter site the Loose-Wiles Biscuit
Company's Sunshine factory, with 20
acres of floor space under one roof, and
the American Ever Ready Works of the
National Carbon Company, with 400.000
sq. feet of working space. The company
has contracted to erect within six months
from the signing of the contract a 4-story
square block factory for the Brett Litho¬
graphing Company, and others are un¬
der negotiation, tending to make this one
of the "largest industrial communities in
the world." Connected with the Queens¬
boro Bridge, the Sunnyside yards of the
Pennsylvania railroad and the New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railroad, by
means of the New York Connecting
Railroad over Hell Gate, this improve¬
ment alone will not only require in it¬
self a large amount of building material,
but it will necessitate the erection of
hundreds of apartment
and tenement houses in
Long Island City for hous¬
ing the operatives of fac¬
tories now going up in the
locality in considerable
number. There will be a
big demand for small shops,
too. This terminal's size
may be judged by the state¬
ment that more than 60,-
000 feet of railroad siding
will be required.
Diagonally across the
East river, in the Hunts
Point section, is the great
filling-in work of the
George F. Johnson project,
entailing a mile square ter¬
minal improvement that
will take a vast quantity
of material and change a country¬
side into a teeming industrial and
freight originating center for maritime
transportation and railroads. It is now
a considerable distance from the apart¬
ment and tenement sections of the now
populated section of Hunts Point, but
there is an unmistakable tendency to
reach out toward the new terminal so
that when manufacturers move in there
will be a labor market available near
at hand.
In this operation between 200.000 and
300.000 square yards of ground is being
reclaimed each month, through the
agency of giant suction dredges and
cartage of subway rock and refuse to
the section.
Along Valentine avenue, in the neigh¬
borhood of 184th and 188th streets,
whole blocks are being transformed from
rock piles to handsome brick-faced
apartments. One can stand at the site
of the block-square school being erect¬
ed at the corner of Valentine avenue
and 188th street and. without turning,
see investments involving at least a mil¬
lion dollars. Turning completelv about
half a million dollars' worth of work can
be seen actually tinder way. From
that vantage point it is not nossible to
look in any direction without encoun-
TIEBOUT AVENUE AND ISSTH STREET, LOOKING TOWARD VALENTINE AVENUE.