Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 1, no. 1: March 21, 1868

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AND BUILDERS' GUIDE. Vol. I. No. 1.] _ . ;. ... P U B LIG A TI b N^V',0 FR-i C E : r.ooM 81 ■Would BniLDiijGjjNo.-35. Pakk'Eow, . term's.^'; :.'K-/-'.'■' Binjle copies...............;-.....;'.'.'...'.'........$ 0 10 Six months,delivered........;.;.... ,.,.'..'........ v.3 00 PRICE OF ADVERTISmG. 1 square, ten li nes, three months.........'........$20 00 1 square, single insertion.......................... 1 00 Special Notices, per line.......................... 20 Business cards, per month......................... 2 00 SATURDAY, MARCH 21^ 1868. [Pj?ice 10 Cents. SAIUTATOBY. It is quite time that New York City should have a newspaper devotpd to real estate and building matters. The history of newspapers in the metropolis for the last fifteen years sliQ-vvs that journals established to represent great industrial enterprises have never failed, if properly conducted. The daily press has quite as much as it can do in giving current neAvs; its commercial and trade reports are necessarily brief and imperfect; and hence have been called into existence such journals as the Chronicle, to do justice to financial interests; '(he Economist, to furnish information to the dry-goods trade; the Shoe and Leather Reporter, Tobacco Leaf, Telegrapher, and other organs, devoted to specialties, which cannot be adequately represented by the daily press. The Real Estate and Building interests of the metropolis are enormous and widely rami¬ fied, and demand vastly more attention than they have heretofore had from the press. It is only recently the prices paid in the transfers of real estate have been published, but the daily papers do not give the names of the buy¬ ers and sellers, in which most of the interest centres. In the Record we propose to supply this omission; not only so, but, in addition, we shall also give all the official facts in connec¬ tion with the great mortgaging interest. This information is, of course, of supreme interest to all who deal in Real Estate. We also propose to give very great atten¬ tion to Building Material. So far, the lumber, stone, brick, marble, cement, ai/d other inter¬ ests connected -with the building trade, have been almost wholly overlooked. No city paper gives lumber statistics, or the facts con¬ nected with the stone, iron, and brick trades, beyond a carelessly-compiled Price Current. This is good, so far as it goes, but it does not go half far enough. We intend to make this department as near perfection as it is possible to get it. Hence, not only real estate dealers and o-wners must take this Record ; it will be indispensable to the architect, builder, mason, carpenter, lumber merchant, brick and marble dealer, cement and lime trader, seller of paint and putty; in short, every one who deals in any thing which enters into the com¬ position of a house. The Record will also be a medium between the buyers and sellers of real property. Now this class of advertisements is divided between the difterent daily papers, and a purchaser must look through all of them to get what he wants. Hereafter, when a man desires a house, or wishes to sell one, he will naturally do his business through the Record, By so doing he will save money, and reach just the class he wishes to deal with. Heretofore, architects, lumbermen,, paint- dealers, brick-sellers, iron-manufacturers, etc., have had no means of reaching the public through any paper of their own; now, how¬ ever, they have an organ, and they must see to it that it is properly supported. THE BUILDING SEASON. Everything indicates that the gloomy and severe reign of Winter is broken at last, and that a bright and early Spring is already upon us. Simultaneously with this, the black and portentous political clouds which have for months past been hovering over us, paralyzing trade and checking enterprise, if not entirely passed away, have to a great extent lost the terrors which pervaded them. Whatever other interests may be affected and kept in abeyance during the important changes wliich the country is undergoing, it is pretty certain— from the real nature of things—that building at least must go on, without any material re¬ duction over the eflbrts of past years, if not with a positive increase. Nothing is more clearly written in the book of Eate than that, to meet the constant increase in our popu¬ lation and resources, we must go on building, and rapidl}"- too, until we have not only cov¬ ered every square foot of Manhattan Island, but laid tribute the opposite shores of the East and Hudson Rivers for our overflowing numbers. In this view there is no safer or surer investment than in improved real estate, and well our capitalists know it. One thing should, however, be borne in mind, in order to avoid the errors of many during past years, and that is, that there is a season not only for building but for prepar¬ ing to build, which it behooves the building proprietor to look after as narrowly as does the agriculturist the proper time for plowing and sowing. Those who have not already wisely prepared their plans, so as to be ready for the commencement of settled and favor¬ able weather, should lose not a day in doing so. ^i^f tf te^typf n^^ji|fg^^^d- ing in the spring to allow the long and dreary winter months—during which their plans''" should be drawn and matured—to glide away//, in useless inactivity, and only just a day or two before they wish to actually set their masons and bricklayers at work they come rushing in upon their architects, already over¬ burdened by the engagements of just such loiterers as themselves. Some people seem to imagine'tliat architects have some sort of magic machinery by which they can stamp a set of plans and specifications at a moment's notice; or that they can get all the drawings they need for the grandest building just as readily as having their hkeness taken by sun- Hght at the nearest photographer's. They seem to forget that the plans of even the cheapest building (and the cheaper the building the more thought and trouble it fre¬ quently gives the di-isigner, to make ends meet) are a matter of time, deliberate study and calculation, involving a^ infinity of ex¬ periments and changes in form before they come perfected from the architect's hands. This practice is as short-sighted as it is in¬ convenient, not only to architects and build¬ ers, but to those employing them. By get¬ ting plans prepared at so late an hour, the architect, instead of devoting—as he could easily have done during the long unoccupied Avinter months—all his own time and per¬ sonal skill in maturing the work of his client, is compelled to hurry it through as best ho can by aid of assistants. But there is an¬ other and most important feature, and that is, that delay may prove a pecuniary loss to the employer. It cannot be doubted that a con¬ tract made during the dull winter months, or at the early commencement of the season, before work has been largely distributed among contractors, would be taken at far mi advantageous terms to the proprietor than later period, when contractors have their ha: full with other engagements. We have in eye, at this moment, parties Avho Ave kij are going to build this season, but who not yet even got their plans prepared; d( ing fi:om month to month in the vain that labor and material will fall in pric that they can thereby effect a better baj Such parties, we fear, will find thei disappointed. Neither labor nor materi likely to fall in price under an increasj mand for them; and the contractor, week or two, will be over head work, is certainly not going to .' work at any less rate than he yrould manded a month or two ago, when was dull and his energies unemploy( 16^ IjLoV^ J