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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 7, no. 152: February 11, 1871

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EAL Estate Record AND BUILDERS' GUIDE. Vol. VIL NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1871, No. 152. Publi-thed Weekly by THE REAL ESTATE RECOUD ASSOCIATION. TERMS. One year, in advance......................§6 00 All communications should be addressed to C ^V. S^W3ETGT. . lOo Bro.a,i>way, COK. OP Pink Street. No receipt for rooney due the Ee.AL Estate Eecord wiU be acknowledged unless signed by one of our regular coUectors, Henry D. Smith or Thomas i: Cumjiixgs. AU biUs for collection will be sent from the office on a regu¬ larly printed form. THE WEST SIDE ASSOCIATION. The regular monthly public meeting of the West Side Association was held on Wednesday evening last, at the Harvard Kooms, Sixth Ave¬ nue and Forty-second, Street, Mr. W. R. Mar¬ tin, presidfent, occupying the chair. The subject of rapid transit again received its full share of the attention of the Association, and able ad¬ dresses on its importance were delivered by the president and Mr. W. B. Ogden, who is officially connected -with the New York City Gentral Un¬ derground Railway Company. From the draft of a memorial about to be presented to the Legislature by the railway company represen¬ ted by Mr. Ogden, we copy the f oUo-vving im¬ portant statement as to the cost of construction and the engineering difficulties in the way of an underground road: The entire cost of a double-track'underground railroad, complete, and with heavj' steel rails of eighty pounds to the yard, and fully equipped with cars and engines sufficient to carry 230,000 passengers daUy, equal to 72,000^000 per annum, which is about 23,000,000 less than the number carried by the horse railroads of the city in the year 1868 (and probably about half what is now carried upon the city horse railroads) will not exceed $3,000,000 per mile. It involves no en¬ gineering doubt or difficulty whatever. Sewers, water, and gas pipes can all be readily adjusted to it, and without excessive expense. It can be built as quickly and as certainly as an elevated or other railroad, and its entire cost of construc¬ tion to completion, with full equipment and out¬ fit, ready to run^ will, it is apprehended, be found to cost less than an adequate right of way (or a lesser right of way and consequential damages) alone will cost for an elevated railroad through blocks and over streets, the question of cost between these two plans being the main differ¬ ence, perhaps, although the underground plan is believed to possess other advantages of a de¬ cided character, as hereinbefore enumerated. Mr. W. R Martin, spoke at some length on the same subject, taking the ground that, 1st. Broadway is the best route; 2d. That the un- dergroimd is the best plan; 3d. That the city should aid voi the ciinstriictibn of it. There can be no two opinions in regard to the first of Mr. Martin's propositions, that Broadway is the best route, toeaning, of course, the line of Broadway as-far as Union Square, above which there is no opposition to an underground road; and there is no doubt but that there is plenty of capital, both foreign and native, ready at any minute to take hold of such, a road as soon as a charter can be procured. In regard to the prin¬ cipal opponent of this route, Mr. Martin spoke as follows: The gentleman who is the leader of ^this opposition has taken a position, over and over again, of direct antagonism to an underground road on Broadway. He opposes it on the ground that it shall not pass by his property nor interrupt his use of it; but, "with a mag¬ nanimity only equalled by Artemus Ward, whose patriotic impulses made him -willing to sacrifice all his wife's relations by sending them into the army, he lends his favor to the road provided it does the injury, as he calls it, to some other street and some other men. We concede to him the right to take a position against his own true interests, and to assume, falsely, that the prop¬ erty-owners on Broadvyay have any rights against the people; and we thus take hiin on his own ground. We make this concession be¬ cause men trained by long business experience to regard- exclusively their own personal inter¬ ests, and not to base their public action on gen¬ eral principles and public interests, by the time they become miUionaires become also in many cases incapable of taking a complete and weU-. rounded view of their own interests, incapable of seeing that the measure that serves best the public interests also serves best their own. We are not going beyond our proper province of examining his arguments when we look at his property interests. He has made a pur¬ chase of land at Hempstead, on Long Island, which is equal in area to aH the unoccupied space on Manhattan Island; and he is prepar¬ ing it for the site of a city. His effort to make population settle there is in direct competition with our effort to settle this island. He is a single owner. - We are numbered by tens of thousands of all conditions. He has a site which has, for two centuries, been regarded as the least desirable in the whole circuit of the suburbs, so that it was well sold at $50 the acre. We have a site that has, in every respect, the greatest iiuinber of natural advantages, and has been so from the beginning. The settle¬ ment of our region benefits every other region, and every trade in the city ;, the settlement of his depletes the city of population, fat taxpay¬ ers, and industry. Our region is in f he best line of naturalimprovement, along the borders of two rivers, along main trunk railway lines leading to the east, north, and west, and -wiU grow, if we can only get to it,,unaided -with its own spontane¬ ous vital force. His is a region so far out of the way that no one ever goes through it, or to it, except for that express purpose; and it can be settled only by force—that is, by the forced application of capital. A real estate man read¬ ily sees the distinction between a site which is in the natural course of improvement and one which is far away from it, where settlement was to be attracted, induced, forced. Twenty years ago the effort to build up the lower end of the Second avenue into a first-class residence section was an illustration of the forced appli¬ cation of capital, as contrasted with the natu¬ ral flow of aU the elements to the Fifth avenue/; and the result is. one that repeats itself every¬ where under like conditions. "He needs a rail- roaxi to reach his place, and we need one to reach our land. Would he not regard it as a monstrous injustice if we opposed his railroad, and, mosib of aU, if we did it on the ground that one of us had a farm or a house through which his road would cut ? And yet he wiU have his road, and also do his best to hinder ours; be¬ cause it is-evident to every one that if we have our road, and bring this island within reach of settlement, the population, which for five years past has been flying away in every direction, will return to the island; and that all the money spent in building a city on Hempstead Plains -will establish one fact, and that fact alone, that capital planted without foresight ■will yield no harve.st of profit. There is to-day an immense amount of city capital and enterprise employed in this suburban building. Its eft'ect -will not be damaging to the down-town business, for, as the suburban population will approach the city down town, they wiU keep the business there, and retard the natural tendency of the best retail business to follow the population up Broadway, so that we may as well recognize clearly the fact of this great rivalry against the settlement of the upper wards on this island, and the great root and hold it has in the personal interests of so many men of wealth. We have nothing to say impugning any man's motives; but a view of any man's personal interests furnishes a rule to judge of his actions; and it gives us the reason for closing up the argument against him, and pressing before the people that the public inter¬ ests should not be overborne by the personal interests of any man or class of men. MECHANICS' LIENS AGAINST BUILDINGS IN NEW YOEK CITY. Feb. 3 A Av., E. s. (Nos. 28 (fe,30). Adam Brandt agt. Robt. C. Bolton...... $372 15 8 Sajie fropertt. Ukfricht and Schach agt. R. C. Bolton......... 750 00 6 Baxter st., s. or w. s., (No. 20). Robt. Boyd agt. Lena Finelite___ 4,903 95 8 Broome.ST., n. s. (No. 123), bet. Pitt & Willett sts. Herman Ger- land agt. Mrs. Elsbach............ 15 80 9 Broome st., n. s. (No. 122). Fred'k Reincke agt. Julia Esbach........ 78 00 6 Delancey st., n. s. (No. 211). Peter E. Fitzpatrick agt. Peter Seebald.......................... 280 00 4 Eightieth st., s. s., 22 houses Ex¬ tending from Lexington to 4th av. Nathaniel Wise agt. Wil- feliams, Britfc &,BuMey............ 4,000 00 4 Same pROPEKTy. J. W. Stevens & Bros. agt. same................... . 9,151 12 4 Same pROPERTr. Candee, Arnold & Martin agt. same................ 3,578 55 4 Same property. Patrick Sclli- VAN et aL agt. same............... 33,633 00 6 Same property. Thos. & Michael Maher agt. same.................. 4,167 07 7 Same property. Winters, Hunt & De Camp agt. same.........___ 4,CC0. 00 4 Fourth av. & 80th st., 6 liens. (Refer to 8Cth St.) . 4 FrFTY-NINTH ST., N. S., COMMENCING 200 ft. w. llth av. J. W. Stevens & Bros. agt. P. A. Stafford....... 595 92 6 POKTY-SIXTH ST., a S.; commencing about 175 w. Broadway. Abm. Ackerson agt Cl H- Beman....... 240,00