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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 20, no. 501: October 20, 1877

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Real Estate Record AND BUILDERS' GUIDE. Yol. XX. NEW YOEK, SATUEDAY, OCTOBEE 20, 1877. No. 501. Published Weekly by C^^ %mi Estate %itoxti %^^atmimix. TERMS. ONE YEAR, in advance....$10.00. Communicafcions should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, Nos. 345 AND 347 Broadway. TRADE AS AN ELEMENT OP VALUE. The destiny of this city is being steadily and unmistakably developed, under a process more plain and palpable than any sought to be estab¬ lished by scientific deductions. That destiny no longer hinges upon questions of rivalry and com¬ parative superiority with puny and aspiring- neighbors, or upon questions of internal govern¬ mental administration or upon fine-spun theories of the ways and means of collecting municipal revenues. AU these present fruitful topics of discussion and afford lessons of wisdom for futm'e guidance. The obstacles which their considera¬ tion is apt to procreate must be deemed subordin¬ ate and unimportant, to the extent, at least, to which New York has been able to assert her chief supremacy, in spite and defiance of them. With more than sixty per cent, of the entire foreign and domestic commerce of the country transacted at her gates, and the records showing an increas¬ ing ratio, New York may look complacently on the gloomy forebodings of distracted social phi¬ losophers and captious political economists. The successive frameworks of government, sought to be applied to tliis city, have been notable experi¬ ments and acknowledged failures, while our citi¬ zens are to-day living,«as they have ever hved, in the yearly anticipation of being blessed with a wise, efficient, comprehensive scheme of govern¬ ment. The past career of New York has been spent under the unjust exactions of a system of taxation that the best authority declares to be impracticable and discreditable. Still, though her citizens, in common with the rest of mankind, have been plunged in the depths of a momentous commercial revulsion, during the past four years, the signs abound that the Empire city is begin¬ ning to emerge therefrom, with unabated vigor of growth and with undimmed and unimpaired splendor of prestige. The force of her destiny derives its momentum from the ability, energy and indomitable pluck of her citizens, picked and representative men, culled from the four quarters of the land and from every civilized country in the world, attracted and blended together in a common mass or mosaic by the ii*resistible, nat¬ ural magnetism of the great metropolis. It is the glory of this city, not its reproach, that it is a community of traders. Foreigners a,re apt to complain of the intense absorption of our promi¬ nent citizens in trade pm-suits; of the shallowness and pretentiousness of our best society; of the meagreness, next to destitution, of the aesthetic spirit and of art products; of the total absence of a refined, cultivated and leisurely—that is, idle- male element in the community. We may render ourselves amenable to some such criticism, but the explanation is found in the fact that the spirit of industrious occupation is the prevailing Amer¬ ican trait, the idle man, of high or low degree, being despised and practically an outcast, and this spirit finds its natural and congenial expres¬ sion in trade enterprises. The combined giant energies of our citizens are being consecrated and devoted to laying- broad and deep the foundation lines of a vast emporium of trade, a fulcrum from whicn may be swayed the commerce of the globe. The skill and readiness of our citizens to cope with every physical or mechanical obstacle that may arise cannot be brought into question. The methods and the seasons for dealing with them alone are subjects of criticism and controversy. The main problems that affect our destiny and progress are practically reduced to these two— the proper distribution of a rapidly increasing population and the reasonable control of real estate values. WhUe these two converge at and are embraced in the one plain proposition that there is an actual paucity or a bare sufiiciency ot acceptable business and residence space and ac¬ commodation. There was a time when it could be said that the lack of rapid transit contributed to this result, but, at the present day, it is deter¬ minable that if rapid transit had been earlier realized it would have brought about before now the entii-e absorption of existing vacant property, and we should now be wrestling with the pro¬ blem of the distribution of additional population, under greatex* difficulties and disadvantages than now beset us. Doubtless, within five or ten years after the complete establishment of rapid transifc, the condition wiU be upon us, of a practically complete improvement and occupation of the island. The long delay of rapid transit has been a blessing and a benefit in this respect; it has led to the forcible opening of outlets of popu¬ lation for biisiness, manufacturing and residence purposes, and, to that extent, has simplified the problems of the future. We need not trouble ourselves about any plans for recalling what is preposterously termed our lost population, really the natural overflow of our crowded masses, who have found congenial *and economical homes in Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey, and who, in making their selections, have con¬ sulted their natural affinities and tastes. No fa- cililaes of rapid transit wUl serve to bring back the larger proportion of this multitude until, at least, their means or family exigencies favor and compel a change. These outlying branches of the great metropolitan family are simply lengthen- uag the cords and strengthening the stakes of our municipal boundaries, or rather defimng them, as they are to be in the future. The gi'owth of New York has been like that of a man with a heavy weight imposed on his head. Though always a commercial city, the warehouse has been constantly shunned, dreaded, and barely tolerated in residence neighborhoods. Naturally, early residences were built upon the mosfc sightly portion of the island around the Battery, and the history of our progress from that point might be delineated by a cartoon representing commerce as an excited and energetic bull, making a path for itself by tossing residences further a,nd further up-town. This compulsory and forcible self as¬ sertion of commerce in seeking to establish itself in suitable localities must sometime come to au end ; but doubtless, not until it has cleared suffi¬ cient eligible space for its pm*poses. The ultimate fixed localities of wholesale and retail trade and of subdivisions of each of these branches, are not precisely determinable, but must before long begin to outline themselves. Residences must yield before the march of trade. Apart from natm-al antagonisms the munificent prices which trade can afford to pay for chosen localities are generally irresistible to the most stubborn house- . holder. • As business requirements force resi¬ dences further np-town, it is more than fortunate that vacant land can there be found at this late date on which to erect new homes for our citizens. If these vacancies had been previously filled up with plain dwellings, the creation of elegant neighborhoods in new districts would be impossi¬ ble, and the acquisition of isolated lots would be unsuitable and insufficient. The modem city residence, models of which are every year being produced by the hundreds, would have been un¬ known, and the well-to-do New Yorker would be compelled to content himself with the suburban chateau or villa as a place of residence. The dangers and perplexities that threaten us arise within, not without our borders—from the very excess of those elements that determine true and lasting priority and supremacy. A volume of commerce and industrial effort that chokes and gorges existing capacities a&d channels, and an ever swelling tide of population clamorous for business and residence accommodation. The nar¬ row and limited view of the situation is that which seeks to confine this gigantic activity to Man¬ hattan Island, and decrifes and discourages its ex¬ pansion beyond our corporate limits, seeking to hold this immense aggregate of human concerns as appropriate victims for the tax-gatherer and the land speculator. High or low taxation cannot make or mar the destiny of this metropolis. It has been demonstrated that high taxation, like high land values, may modify and disturb its form, but the pillars of the edifice rest on totally different and more stable foundations. The diversion of manufacturing and industrial inter¬ ests to adjacent and contiguous points such as the towns and villages of Long Island, Staten Island, New Jersey, and Coimecticut, have strengthened not weakened the commercial prestige and superi¬ ority of New York, and the establishing of com¬ fortable and convenient homes in the near and re¬ mote suburbs of New York has relieved the island itself from a class of improvements which it could not accommodate, and reserved a large portion of its surface for an ultimate and endur¬ ing building improvement that wiU be more in keeping with the final grandeur of the heart of a great metropolitan district. The relative scarcity of available vacant property on New York Island, made actual by the lack of rapid transit, has developed a new —or, rather, intensified an old danger that seriously threatens the progress and destiny of our city. The New York lot speculator is the natural outgrowth of this condition of things—a type of the speculative genus altogether excep¬ tional and peculiar. He stands alone by himself, unparalleled and incomparable in any other