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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 17, no. 420: April 1, 1876

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Real Estate Record AND BUILDERS' GUIDE. Vol. XVII. NEW TOEK, SATUEDAY, APEIL 1, 1876. No. 420. Published Weekly by THE REAL ESTATE RECORD ASSOCIATION. C. W, SWEET...........,'..,Pkesident and Tbeasubeb PRESTON I. SWEET...........Secketabv. L. ISRAELS................,,........Business Manages TERMS. ONE YEAR, ill ad vance.... $10 00. Communications should be addressed to C SV. ©T\^.1EET, Nos. 345 AND Z4S Bboadway A. T. STEWART AS A EEAL ESTATE OPEEATOE. Mr. A. T. Stewart natm-ally escapes criticism from the New York press. He is a liberal ad¬ vertiser, and this serves to exempt him from much of the Commemt which his course would provoke were his patronage less remunerative. His great success in life seems to have been based upon three special faculties-his sound judgment of goods, his astuteness in choosing assistants, and his remarkable organizing faculty. The two novelties which he introduced into the retail trade of New York, and which should make him be regarded as a public benefactor, were the one-price system and the stoppage of all retail credit. In every other large capital of the civilized world the traveler is at the mercy of the storekeeper. In Paris or London, in Berlin orYienna, the American or Enghshman,'com¬ pared with the native customer, labors under a disadvantage; and though goods can be pur¬ chased cheaper there than here, yet in New York alone is it possible for tbe stranger to fare just as well as the native. For this reform New York is mainly indebted to Mr. A. T. Stewart. It has given an immense business to this city, because all the minor stores have been com¬ pelled to adopt this admirable and honest sys¬ tem, first begun by Mr. A. T. Stewart. "We believe the firm of Lord & Taylor claim to have preceded him in the adoption of the cash and one-price system; but it was in a little store in Catharine street, and it did probably for the poorer classes of custoniers what Mr. Stewart effected for the middle and upper classeis. It is not, however, of Mr. Stewart, the dry- goods merchant, that we wish to speak, but of the same gentleman as a real estate investor, and in this business he certainly does not dis¬ play qualiti.es which make him rank high in the estimation of dealers in realty. Let anyone run over the list of his knovm properties, and it will be seen how unwise he has been, and how he has lacked sagacity in a most remarkable de¬ gree. It is clear that his first store, on the cor¬ ner of Chambers stfeet and Broadway, was too far down town for any such costly building as he erected. Neither did he foresee, when he oonstructed the great building on Tenth street, that within a very few years the centre of trade would btf farther up town. His determined op¬ position to a railroad on Broadway (for to him belongs the credit or discredit of defeating the myriad of attempts to lay one upon that avenue) shows the singular unwisdom which seems to possess aU real-estate owners touching the value of street-car companies. Nothing is better set¬ tled now than that the driving away of horse- cars from a street drives business away wiih them. Thtis the efforts made by Mr. Stewart to protect Broadway from Union square down has resulted in depriving that thoroughfare of one-haK of its legitimate retail trade. The property-owners on Third avenue are faithfully copying this mistake of Mr. Stewart's, and with the fact before their eyes of a hitherto neglected district, the Ninth avenue and Green¬ wich street, becoming better business streets than they were before on account of the rail¬ roads forced upon these localities, the Third avenue people are doing what they can to make Second avenue a rival. Then look at Mr. Stew¬ art's j)reposterous building on Thirty-second street and Fourth avenue. Originally intended for a woman's lodging-house, when completed it seemed so absurd for such a purpose that even he had to abandon it after having invested im¬ mense sums of money in a structure that is ab¬ solutely good for nothing. Unfit for a hotel from its location, useless as a lodging-house, out of the way of trade, there it will long stand, a monument of the consummate unwisdom of a man who, in his own department of business, has proved himself exceptionally able. His ownership of the Metropolitan Hotel is another instance of his lack of foresight in picking out a locality where hotel business had just become unprofitable. The Lelands ran the Metropoli¬ tan as long as there was any money in that loca¬ tion. But it is now clear that the hotels of the future are to be nearer the Central Park, or else located further down-town, to accommodate the business traveler and commercial man generaUy. When Niblo's Garden was burnt down, Mr. Stewart failed to see that the location had be¬ come undesirable for a theatre, and rebuilt that edifice, to have it lie as a burden on his hands ever since. Again, the Catholic Church in Ninth street, and the church on Broadway, since con¬ verted into a theatre, are both signal instances of unwise investments. His purchase of Hemp- stead.Plain, simply because it was the cheapest large property near New York, is certainly against the judgment of real-estate operators. He is there attempting a daring experiment— nothing less than the creation of a community which shall have churches, schools, water, gas, aU the appliances of municipal life, without a single person having any interest in a foot of ground on the whole domain. He proposes to be landlord, mayor and alderman—in fact, the whole municipality—allowing the inhabitants only to pay him rent and purchase goods from his stores. This may succeed, but it would be a marvel should it do so. We speak thus freely of a private individual because it is a public misforttme when money earned from a community is unwisely invested. All wealth is the creation of human labor, and, if not used productively, is so much lost to the world. If Mr. Stewart lavished his wealth like Jim risk, who ran theatres, kept a stud, patron¬ ized the races, and was guilty of costly follies, he could not have been more of a nuisance to the community. * Mr. Stewart undoubtedly has public spirit. He means to do well by the com¬ munity in which he lives; but his opposition to rapid transit, his unwise investments in real estate, his preposterous building on Thirty- second street, make of him, in a modified sense cf the word, a real public enemy. Even the house he lives in is conspicuous for its bad taste. It is unfortunate that he should have employed and brought into notice an architect whose splendid opportunities have given us the very poorest specimens of large buildings in New York. Mr. Kellum, now dead, had some magnificent chances, but what a poor affair is the store on the corner of Tenth street and Broadway. To the same architect the city is indebted for the Herald building, a most unfor¬ tunate edifice in every respect. To see what a real architect could do with far less means and opportunity, look at the Park Bank and compare it with the Herald building. No one believes that Mr. Stewart could get one quarter of the money he paid for the real estate now held in his name. Since writing Ihe above the World newspaper of this city announces that, after all, the Fourth avenue edifice is to be used as a lodging-house for poor women. A preposterous use for a most absurd building! APARTMENT HOUSES. In speculating about the future of New York real estate, it would be well to bear in mind the probable effect of the "tenement houses of the rich," better known as apartment houses or Paris flats. The multiplication of these im mense establishments for housing well-to-do people has been a marked feature of our bidld- ihg business dining the past five years. It has been found that by economizing the amount of ground required, and building palaces contain¬ ing suites of rooms after the Parisian plan, that large profits can be realized at present prices of tenements in New York. In the case of the first important house of this kind built in New York (the Haight House, corner of Fifth avenue and Fifteenth street), it is understood that as much as 30 per cent, profit was made during the first three or four years of the existence of that estab¬ lishment. The Albany, |the Saratoga, theKnick]