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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 27, no. 685: April 30, 1881

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EAL Estate Record AND BUILDERS' GUIDE. Vol. XXVII. NEW yoek:, SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 1881 No. 685 Published Weekly by The Real Estate Eecord Association TERMS: ONE TEAR, in advance.....$6.00 Commimications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 13T Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. The sensational statements in our daily newspapers respecting the disease and death rate of the metropolis have had their effect this spring in scaring people out of the city, and preventing others from coming here New York is not an unhealthy city. The* large death rate is due to the tens of thou¬ sands of invalids who come here from all parts of the country for treatment. We have the most famous physicians in the country, the largest hospitals and the best medical schools. Our large seafaring popu¬ lation also helps to swell the mortaUty; but a look at any assemblage of New Yorkers at the exchanges and churches, will show that the number of old peoj)le is very great, or as large as in any other part of the country. Our streets are not as clean as they should be. The city is doubtless mis¬ governed, but it is not in the interest of New York to give the impression to the world, as our newspapers do, that it is unfit to live in. The owners of New York realty should re¬ monstrate with the editors of the news¬ papers for maligning the city and injuring its reputation as a place of residence. ----------------^t^---------------- The Neio Tork Herald, not content with doing all it could to keep people away as well as drive them out of the city, by its extrava¬ gant statements of the death rate and ill- health of New York, on Friday abuses the landlords and says they were served right in having so many tenements left vacant on the 1st of May. This is adding insult to injury. If the vast real estate interest of this city should withdraw its patronage from the Herald, it would leave a gap in its col¬ umns which could be filled with much more sensible matter than this absurd abuse of landlords. Strange that newspapers cannot see that their interests are identical with those of the city they live in. The Elevated Road securities have had a blow between the eyes duiring the past week. The statement of the Manhattan Company, calling for remission of taxation, was so well put, as to make holders very nervous as to the wisdom of retaining their stock at high figures. We do not beheve that the Manhattan system will fail, even if there should be a default on the first of next July. Ninety days redemption is permitted, and in some way Manhattan stock will be kept alive. In view of the future probabilities of the elevated system, it would not be a diflS.- cult thing to sell income bonds or preferred stock, to. keep the Manhattan Compaoy alive until such time as the increased busintss would suffice to pay all the fixed charges. The experience of the hard times we have passed through, shows how rarely common stock has been wiped out, because of non¬ payment of interest on the bonds. No mat¬ ter what may happen, there will be no wip¬ ing out of Manhattan stock. ' Visitors to Philadelphia and Baltimore have been struck by the number of pretty little brick houses, suitable for a small family, the fronts trimmed with white mar¬ ble and the low stoops of thesame material. These white front steps are kept scrupulous¬ ly clean and the effect is pleasing. Some¬ how these kind of houses have not been ini¬ tiated in New York so far. We notice, how¬ ever, something of the kind on Madioon avenue near One Hundred and Sixteenth street. The white marble trimmings are quite an ornament to a brick building, but somehow our climate soon tarnishes white marble. We have some white marble fronts on Lexington avenue and Thirty-eighth street, then there is the Stewart building ; but they soon become discolored and present a dingy appearance. Yet we have but few manufacturers in this cifcy, no flynig coal- dust, and our atmosphere is generally clear and sunny, but the fact I'emains that white marble will discolor under our skies. CHEAP MONEY AND THE TIMES, There is a sect of crazy i"ef ormers who are clamoring for an abolition of all usury. They claim that money should not have any value except in direct purchases, and they appeal to the old Jewish laws for a religious sanction of their doctrine. If matters keep on in the way they have been going, it will not be necessary to cheapen money by law. For the difficulty to-day in all advanced commercial nations is to find profitable employment for money. It goes begging all the large, wealthy capitals of the world. Premier Gladstone, in presenting the anmial budget to Parliament, gave as one reason for lowering the income tax, the general unprofitableness of business in Great Britain. The income paying class had found their standard of comfort lowered, by the lack of safe avenues in which to remuneratively invest their surplus monies. As a conse¬ quence, speculators in England and France are just now engaged in the dangerous busi¬ ness of blowing up all kinds of company bubbles. Hundreds of schemes are widely advertised, promising fortune which really have no merit whatever, but the shares of which people buy eagerly in the hope that perhaps they will turn out well. In previous numbers of this paper, we have pointed out why money was cheap, and the reasons there wer's for believing it would be still cheaper. Labor and machin-. ery has created a great deal of surplus wealth in every modern nation. This extra capi¬ tal of the world, as it may be called, is ren¬ dered immediately available everywhere by the telegraph. There is no difficulty in the way of moving it immediately from one ! money cent'e to the other. As the world continues to grow richer in actual wealth, money will necessarily get cheaper. The ultimate effect will be to increase the value of everything which returns a fair income. As all the wealth of the world is got from the earth by labor, it is safe to predict that land and labor will in the end profit by the cheapening of money. The reduction of interest forces persons, who had hitherto- fore been idlers, to become producers, and as the earth is the basis for all the work done by man, the possession of the soil will be the most certain of all holdings. While cheap money3means eventually in this coun¬ try as in England, low rentals, those ren¬ tals will be expressed by the higher value of buildings ; that is to say, there is no danger of any reduction of rents in this country, but house property must, in a time, sell at figures which wiU not return more than Ay^ or 5 per cent. Everv indication points to lower prices for money in this country. Not only is the volume of our currency increasing, by the addition of gold and silver ; but credits are certain to be expanded by the growing value, taking the country through, of real estate Ali who are in doubt as to what in- investments to make, should understand that nothing is so sure as real property. Whatever else may go down in market price, improved property and real estate in the line of improvement, are certain not only to advance in intrinsic but in market value. Strange that some ambitious, young pub¬ licist does not work for a union of New York and Brooklyn. The completion of the bridge will soon practically make both cities one and a thousand reasons could be given for putting them under one government. The mayors elect of both New York and Brook¬ lyn are generally men of whom the munici¬ palities may well be proud. The aldermen in both corporations quite the reverse. Would not the union of the two cities, with the election of say one-half the aldermen on a general ticket, give us officials of whom we need not be ashamed ? The government of this great city would then be a more important matter than the administi*ation of any state in the Union. The Mayor of New York would be the peer of any governor in the country. We could have better police, a more efficient street cleaning system, and, were some civil service reform effected, more efficient and economical government than we have ever yet had. The local poli¬ ticians of both cities would naturally op¬ pose this annexation, but the property interests of NewYork and Brooklyn could not but approve it. Where is the local statesman who will take this matter up and agitate it until earned out ? A monument will some day be put up to the man who brought about an annexation of the teiTi- tory which really belongs to the metropoUs. If this should be accomplished. New York in the census of 1890 would be found to have a population of over 2,000,000.