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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 26, no. 646: July 31, 1880

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Real Estate Record AND BUILDERS^ GUIDE. Vol. XXYI. NEW YOEK, SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1880. No. 646 Published Weekly by Cbe Eeal Estate ^erartr ^ssodation. TERMS. ONE YEAR, in advance....SIO.OO. Cnraraunications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, No. 137 Broadway . ROOM FOR THE MANUFACTURING INTEREST. The official figures showing the foreign trade of the country during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, are at last published, and cannot fail to produce that confidence in the permanence of prosperity which is the main source of prosperity itself. That a country constantly growing in population aud full of thrift, contains a vast army of consumers of home products, needs no illus¬ tration, but that in the face of this steadily increasing home consumption we have been able to export merchandise, the value of which was $125,000,000 greater than the amount exported during the previous fiscal year mxist be, indeed, encouraging to those who can at all comprehend how sharp is the competition in the neutral markets. AU this is aside of the exports of gold and silver coin and buUion. It is the result of energy and thrift on the part of Western farmers and Eastern manufacturers, who can produce and make more than we require, and sell that surplus to foreign lands at a profit. That profit in some manufactured articles may not liave been great, but it is a healthy sign of I the times when capitalists and producers [ generally begin to understand that it is bet- I ter to keep on manufacturing, and sell say i one-fourth of their products at a low rate in I a foreign country, if by so doing they keep I up the employment of labor, and can sell the I remaining three-fourths of their products I more readily and to greater advantage to I home consumers. AU these intricacies that I underlie the progress of manufacturing in I this country have become better understood I during the past five years, and whUe the East I is losing more and more its hold upon agri- I culture, the manufacturing interest is slowly I and steadily coiUng, anaconda Uke, in and I around the great Eastern cities. We know I of retired merchants, stiU in their prime of I life, who once more have gone into business I during the past six months, and, when the I nature of their business was enquired into, it was in every instance manufacturing. More than this, most of these new establishments make articles of fashion and luxury, thus showing that wealth in our midst is con¬ stantly on the increase, and sufficiently wide¬ spread to place the home manufacturer on a par, if not ahead, of the foreign importer. It nray, perhaps, interest our readers to know that one of our large jewehy establishments is now exporting gold bracelets to Europe and selling them at a profit in Paris. Of course, where, in the presence of so much competition, it becomes a virtual science to reduce working expenses to their very mini¬ mum, it cannot be expected that these estab¬ lishments can aU find room on the high-priced soil of Manhattan Island ; but our suburbs, where real estate is yet obtainable at low figures, will be taken in hand for the erec¬ tion of numerous new manufacturing es¬ tablishments. It was only a few years ago that cotton merchants continually growled at the high price of real estate in New York, as they could not afford to build on Manhat¬ tan Island cotton warehouses sufficiently large to store the thousands of bales they had constantly on hand. They growled long enough till somebody fixed their attention upon the suburbs, and now we can boast of possessing the largest cotton warehouses in the world. Not in the midst of our city, it is true, but on Staten Island, in Brooklyn and Jersey City, where the thousands of bales are stored just as close to the shipping point as if they were packed in mammoth warehouses on Manhattan Island, and with a considerable reduction of price for the ground occupied. The example of the cot¬ ton men will, ere long, be foUowed by the large manufacturers, who are increasing aU around us and caUing for more room. They will in vain look for permanent extensive quarters on the island at rates aUowable by the cost price at which their manufactured articles must be produced if they at aU desire to be successful. It is beyond the Harlem and beyond the Hudson that they can be ac¬ commodated, and as there is plenty of land there yet to be had by the acre at reasonable rates, it is important tfiat those having charge of manufacturing interests should not overlook the advantages which the suburbs of New York offers in this respect, for it is an interest, indeed, which year after year becomes a more and more important link in the great chain containing the sources of our national prosperity. A WORD WITH SOME UP-TOWN LOT OWNERS. The Real Estate Record has time and again blamed the public departments, not¬ ably the Department of PubUc Works, for neglecting those necessary West Side im¬ provements that must precede the construc¬ tion of houses by individual lot owners. We have pointed out how, in some sections, capitalists and owners stood ready to buUd if their respective streets were only regulated, curbed and guttered, so that those desirous of improving could have no excuse for re¬ tarding their operations. There are West Side sections, however, where this excuse does not hold good, and we therefore address ourselves to-day to West Side owners who have no reason to find fault with the work done for them by the public departments, and who can, if they wUl, begin at once the construction of much needed houses. The section we particularly allude to is bounded by One Hundredth and One Hundred and Sixth streets, Eighth and Tenth avenues. The streets in that locality are all in a con¬ dition for immediate improvement, and it only needs a little energy on the part of one or two lot owners to make them all foUow their example and do likewise. To show that there is capital enough, and more than enough, to do all the buUding that is required to make this section remunerative to the owners of the soil, and at the same increase the value of adjoining property, we give a few names of owners who own lots in the district above described. There is the estate of Wm. D. Murphy, owning about fifty lots; Orlando B. Potter, about thirty; Alexander Roux, twelve or fifteen; ex-Governor Edwin D. Morgan, about forty ; Robert MarshaU, some fifty lots; David Knapp, about forty ; Ed¬ ward Kearney and wife, or heirs of the Glen- denning family, about twelve lots, and Miss Susan King also owns quite a number of lots there. If a few of the parties named above, and nearly all of them are public spirited citizens, would set to work and build some forty or fifty houses there at once and with out delay, it would be indeed a pioneer move¬ ment for that locality, which would result in profit to the owners and general benefit to the city at large. It only needs a start. Who will open the baU ? Let two or three or four of the most energetic men of those men¬ tioned confer together. If each individual should only improve a part of his vacant property, it would at once tend to increase the value of his adjoining lots, and a begin¬ ning wiU have been made toward providing domiciles for families that prefer to Uve on the high, salubrious ground there, rather than on the low ground of the East Side. Whatever has been done in that line south of the section named above has been f oUowed by good results, and the time is ripe now to go to work at once with the practical im¬ provement of the blocks lying north of One Hundredth street. The owners named, if they f oUow our advice, wiU thank us in less than a year for the suggestion we now make,