Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 33, no. 843: May 10, 1884

Text version:

496 The Record and Guide. May 10, 1884 every department of business are all agreed on one point, tbat New York real estate not only offers a safe but an at tractive field for money investments. The rich and all who are luxuriously inclined, from every part of the Union, find tbeir way to New York. Our places of amusement are equal to the best iu London and Paris. Our city has become attractive from every point of view. It is tho great summer watering place as well as the choicest of winter resi¬ dences. No other city can afford sucb an opportunity for a buai¬ ness man, or those who want to be interested or amused. It is the headquarters, too, of all speculative enterprises. Onr Produce, Cotton, Mining, Petroleum, Mercantile, Coffee, Metal and other Exchanges vie witb the stock market itself in the variety and mag¬ nitude of their transactions. A great Real Estate Exchange will soon be in operation, and then, more than ever, will dealings in realty become popular and profitable. Around the Produce Exchange. While the enormous building of the Produce Exchange has been under construction we have from time to time offered such com¬ ments upon its architecture as seemed to be called for. Now that it is completed and opened, there is nothing in these to be modified, and nothing to be added to them, except to remark upon the singularity of treatment by which it has been attempted to convert the obscure and secluded rear of the building into the moat monu¬ mental, indeed tbe only monumental, portion of the design, A tower which is purely monumental haa been built in the rear, and not even at the corner but withdrawn up an alley. On the north Bide of tbia tower is a considerable area of ground which has been reserved apparently for the purpose of securing a good ligbt for the east side of the building. This space is converted into a paved plaza, with the heating apparatus of tbe building underneath, and haa been laid oufc with broad flights of granite steps at the north end, and heavy balusfcraded railings of tbe same material. This might constitute a dignified approach if it were at the principal front of tbe building or even faced a broad street. But ifc can be gained or even seen only through a low vaulted passage at one end or an alley at the other, so that it is amusingly incongruous with the plainness of the entrances of the principal fronts ; as if one ■were to lavish all the decoration of his house upou the kitchen door. The tower seems to be purely monumental, since an edifice of this kind, considered merely as a dwelling for a janitor, must be admitted to be extravagant. It contains a clock, to be sure, but by reason of the sequestered situation of tbe tower the utility of the clock will be conflned to tbe people wbo approach the building from the rear. Considered as a monumental tower its situation is particularly unfortunate, since from no point of view does it dominate the building, or seem even to belong to the building except by the similarity of color and treatment. By itself, how¬ ever, it is an impressive object by its size and massiveness, and in some measm-e by its design also. In general form it suffers, like the building to which it ia adjoined, from having no viaible roof, and this privation is emphasized instead of being relieved by the structure at its centre, which makes the tower look even more like an unfinished edifice thau itwould otherwise appear. From the basement, which is pierced with au arch opening into a tuunel vault through the tower, up to the clock stage, the only relief to the solid square shaft is afforded by the openings which follow the line of the stairway, and by the string courses wJiich run through, forming the springing^course of one opening aud the sill course of the opening next above. On a small scale, in a building treated expressively and picturesquely, as the Produce Exchange eminently is not, this is often a very attractive feature, but it is scarcely a motive for the treatment of a tower of this size attached to a building treated with tbis pseudo-classical formality and symmetry. The clock stage is scarcely lighter or m»re open than the shaft below, tnough it has au apparent balcony-in each face ; but it is very mucb enriched by panelling below the spring¬ ing of tbe tower arches and by decorated spandrils and panels above. This work is perhaps the best detail in the building, abstractly considered, if detail can be abstractly considered. It is alao very well adjusted in scale to ita height, and being a visible inlay it is mucb more appropriate to terra cotta than the preposter¬ ously projecting cornices, which are the most conspicuous details of the main building. During tbe progress of the great building, its effect upon real estate in the neighborhood has been anticipated by the erection of a number of warehouses and office buildings in the neighbor¬ hood. Just below the ;Excbangt> a seven or eight-story building has been erected which, by contrast with tbe excellent warehouse we noticed las; week near tbe Brooklyn Bridge, shows how desira¬ ble it is to bave an artist to design even the most prosaic buildings. Without a single ornament, as we then saw, and simply by the dis¬ position of parts and the emphasis of an ordinaiy construction an excellent effect has been produced. This building has some orna¬ ment, notably a cornice and parapet in terra cotta or tin painted to that effect, and very bad ornament it is. Otherwise it consists merely of a basement ivitb arches in granite and brick, and a superstructure in red brick alone, with segmental arches and jambs slightly projected from the plane of the wall, apparently witb the intention of producing an effect of depth w^hich is not produced, but might easily have been produced by aettiig the windows back a few inches and permitting the thickness of the wall to be felt. The openings are not grouped at all, nor modelled at all, and the result is a very thin and stupid looking box. In Beaver street, just below the Exchange, there is a 25-foot front in blue stone and red brick, which'is a typical example of what a commercial building ehould not be. It ia a house front designed in the Dutch domestic Renaissance with the bloated grotesqueness of that style, which has a charm in a dwelling when it is done with spirit, or even in a shop front wbich is also a house front, auch as is often found in Germany and the Low countries. But uothing could be less appropriate to a moderu place of business in Beaver street. The "Ticker" might as well be set to grinding out old- fashioned madrigals. The quaint omaniention is worse than thrown away. Besides it is not good of its kind, and though it is worse on tbe front of an office building than it would be on a house front, it would be a bad house frout in the most appropriate situation that could be chosen for it. On the other hand, the German Society haa just finished a build¬ ing on lower Broadway, which is distinctly a place of business. Three brick piers enclose two tiers, four stories high, of square- headed openinga all alike, wifch brown stone lintels and mullions. There is no ornament and indeed there is no art about the build¬ ing. It is not a particularly agreeable object to contemplate, but it is so simple and straightfor ward that it cannot be offensive or ridiculous, and it is absolutely without pretension. Was Real Estate Speculation to Blame? The Commercial Bulletin is usually wise and discriminating in discussing trade and financial questions, but in the follo\cing para¬ graph it does not show the same intelligence in real estate matters: The suspension yesterday of the Marine National Dank, owiue to the apeculationa of its president in real eatale, ia a sigoiflcant symptom. Fol¬ lowiug the failure Iwo .weeks ago of a prominent private operalor in the eame Hoe of biiaineBS, it indiuHtes tbe strained condition of real estate spocnlatioQ which has long been patent to disinterested obser7era. It is a rule iu all great commercial reacliona tbat real estate ia the last to feel the effects of tho general decline in values ; and hence experienced observ¬ ers who remember the series of events started by the panic of 1873 have looked for BUch a fall id the values of real estate as has already occurred in respect to commodities and manufactures at large. Keal estate is the last interest that conld be expected to escape the general fall in valoes ; for in nothing has there been such an excess as in the structure of dwell¬ ings, flTitis, oflice stractures and pnblic buildings, aud in those of the more coatly and luxurious kind. Nothing haa .been learned from the manifest over-production on every hand nor from the prevailing depreaeion. and Ihe conatruction of new buildings is, up to to-day, cairied on with an energy which haa kept wages and materials from sympathizing wilh the general decline. But, at last, the inevitable crisis appears to have oome when lendere refuse to advance on auch undertakitiga;; and that ia likely to be the beginning of the end. There is a curious mixture of truth and error in the above. The Marine Bank failed not because of the real estate ventures of its president but on account of the reckless and dishonest conduct of one of the members of the firm of Grant & Ward, a concern which had nothing to do with real estate. Mr. Fish's investments in real estate were very large and generally wise although the heavy mort¬ gages he has recently assumed caused much comment in real estate circles. His bank would undoubtedly bave pulled through all right were it not for the reckless overcertification of the checks of the junior member of the firm of Grant & Ward. If the Bulletin would consult the tables given in last week's Record and Guide, it would see that the dealinga in realty has been 30 far perfectly legitimate. The proportion of the mortgage indebted¬ ness now being created is far leaa thau in former years and altbough the monies invested are the largest known iu (he history of the city, it is notorious tbat prices are not high and that there is no speculative fever. In another article we have pointed oufc the fact that our businesa community ia investing in real estate instead of in stocka and Wall atreet securities. It may be that too much money is being put into large city apartment housea and business offices but errors of judgment of thia kind are conflned to a few wealthy persons and institutions. Investors are showing good judgment and are purchasing productive store and residence property. There is no danger of real estate being overdone until the price of unimproved lots 'is swollen to an unnatural figure. So far vacant property is slow of sale^and does not command high prices.______________ A surface railway oa Forty-aecond street is now in order. An organization has been effected, and property-holders are being requested to sanction the laying of tbe rails. There ought to be no impediment to the early construction of thia desirable improve¬ ment. A Forty-second street road would crosa all the princi-