Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 34, no. 860: September 6, 1884

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September 6, 1884 The Record and Guide. 905 THE RECORD AND GUIDE. Publiahed every Saturday. 191 Broadwray, N. Y. TERMS: one: tear, ia advance, SIX DOLLARS. CommunicatlODS should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY. Business Manager. SEPTEMBER 6, 1884. The stock market atill hesitaleB. It ia awaiting news from the corn fields. If tbere should be no early frost there will be little or no falling off in vaiues, but the recovery to any higher prices will he alow, even if all the crops turn out better tban ia expected. The liquidation we have passed through has been bo serious tbat a prompt recovery of confidence is not to be expected. But an assurance of plenty of food and the materials for clothing will be a good thing in itself and eventually help the general trade of tbe country. The acientista who are in convention at Philadelphia are to be commiserated. That city in summer time is one of the hottest localities thia aide of Hades. Visitors to the Centennial Exhibition in the summer of 1876 will recall how suffocatingly hot and un¬ wholesome was the chief city of Pennsylvania. It ie a pleasant enough place in the fall and spring seasons, and all who visit its noble Fairmont Park are sure to come away witb pleaaaut remin¬ iscences, but the city's situation iaao enclosed that in warm weather it is a very uncomfortable place. Yet at this hot season an elec¬ trical exhibition is under way and quite a number of distinguished British scientists are at another convention and will go back with a most erroneous idea of our climate. New York is tbe place to hold conventions in summer time. No one need be bot here for more than a few hours, aa Long Branch and Coney Island and other cool places are only a few mileii away. The laat Legislature authorized the appointment of a conimission to thoroughly inspect our city tenement houses. The work ha? been commenced, and the flve inspectors who have been employed have thoroughly examined over two hundred houses. One inspector will give a detailed report of the plumbing, and Dr. Anna E. Daniels is making a special study of the effect of tenement life on the health of women and children, also in how far cigar making and other employments are detrimental to health. This commission ought to collect aome very valuable statistica, but there is danger that sentimentalists and people with precon¬ ceived theories may use the reports for unwise purposes. Our State and local government should see to it that all residences, for both rich and poori are properly constructed. Fever nests and unwholesome habitations should not be tolerated in any civilized community. But we protest in advance against any ofiicial recog¬ nition of views such as those of Prof. Adler, who wishes to reduce rents for the poor hy artificial machinery. Reducing the profits of landlords would simply put a stop to house building and the improvements of the tenements themselves. If capitalists cannot be sure of the eame return for money invested in tenement build¬ ing as in other business, they will abandon that field to the event¬ ual disadvantage of the poor themselves. ^ The true solution of the tenement house question, as of the labor problem itselft is to thoroughly educate the children of the poorer members of the community, and then to pay laborers a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. If the working people are intelligent, tbey will know enough not to live in unwholesome quarters, and if they are in receipt of good wages, they can afford to pay reason¬ able rents for comfortable apartments. Germany is forging to the front aa a gieat colonizing and mari¬ time power. Chancellor Bit-marck and Premier Ferry have appar¬ ently entered into an alliance to compete with Great Britain in annexing distant regions and opening up countries to a commerce other tban that controllea by BriliBh capital. It is now very clear that the Madagascar, Tonquin and Chinese wars were entered into by the French government at the instigation of the great German statesman. Kossuth, the Hungarian, is reported as saying that France " haa no future as a colonizing power," History endorses hie judgment on that point. It would seem as if the French cou- questa abroad must finally fall into the hands of Germany. The latter, tbough as yet confined to an inland territory, undoubtedly pOBiesBeis the people and the genius for an extended commerce, and for planting colonies in distant regions. Already there is an angry feeling between Germany and Great Britain, due to the newly developed maritime enterprise of the former, and the time may come when there will he a collision between these two powers. A city paper suggests that the United States may eventually profit by the war between France and China—but how ? We have no ships of our own, and what is quite as needful for a foreign trade, no coaling stations in the Pacific Ocean. Were any American statesman to propose the annexation of the Sandwich Islands or the purchase of a port or ports on the coast of Asia, to lay the foundation for future maritime enterprize, the cry of "job" would be raised by all the newspapers and he would be driven from public life. Until there is a change in the public temper our government will never dream of emulating that of Great Britain, Germany and France in endeavoring to extend our commerce and secure positions in distant seas where our vessels could find a refuge and aecure needed supplies. The leading tax payers were conspicuous by their absence from the mass meeting to protest against the action of the Aldermen in giving away the franchise for a horse-car line in Broadway, but of course all good citizens sympathized with the object of the meet¬ ing. The Aldermen were, in all human probability, bribed for the votes they gave for that measure, and if New York was a frontier town they would have stood a good chance of being lynched for their misconduct. At the same time it will not be an unmixed misfortune if " Jake " Sharpe and the Seventh avenue company get the franchise. It will rid Broadway of the omnibus nuisance, and down-town passengers can reach the upper part of the city by the Broadway and Seventh avenue connection on the west side. This could not be done by an independent company. The offer of the cable company of $1,000,000 was probably a bluff, but the cable system has uot as yet been tried in New York. If once established upon Broadway it might interfere with other and greater improve¬ ments, such for instance as the proposed Arcade road. But the whole matter is a muddle and a disgrace to the local government of the city. It will result, howcver, in still further curtailing the power of the Aldermen, which we have always regarded as desir¬ able. The Paulist Fathers' Church. Tbe unfinished church of St. Paul, at Ninth avenue and Sixtieth street, is one of the most noteworthy of the new buildings on the west side, or indeed in the city. The architect is Mr. O'Rourke, of Newark. It is not, however, the architecture of the church that is the most noticeable fact about it, but the extraordinary solidity, massiveness and costliness of the construction. It is of great size, the total length being 385 feet, the breadth outside being i35 feet, and inside 113, of which 60 feet are given to the nave aud 26 to each aisle. The thickness of the side walls ia thus ej^ feet for each. In thu western towers the walls are stiil thicker. These enormous walls are of aoUd stone, a fact without any precedent we believe in New York buildinga. Brickwork is only used in turning the arches tunnelled through the towers to the central porch and in the clerestory walls, which are lined with brick, though faced on the outside with stone. It is evident that such a construction must be enormously costly, and one is not surprised to learn that the bare walls which alone are visible, wiih scarcely any carved decoration and without the towers, have cost half a million, Tbe costliness ia increased by the peculiar intractableness of the material, a very dark granite, quar¬ ried at Tarrytown. In depth and variety of color, no other granite we know of is equal to it, and, when polished, none would be more effective. Its use here is confined to the facing of the walls, where it is laid up rough faced, the water tablea and strings, which are tooled, being of a lighter granite and the wrought work about the openings of limestone. This latter material is the only stone which appears in the interior, where it is used for the nave piers, alternately polygonal and round, the wall surface being every¬ where enveloped in plaster. The apparent ceiling of the nave is a plastered barrel vault, the conatruction of the roof being framed in timber, which in such a span ought to be an impressive piece of architecture if expoaed and well designed. Each bay of the aisles is ceiled with a domical vault in wood with an opening at the apex, receiving light from a skylight in the flat aiale roof. These bulla-eyes are the only means of lighting tbe chapels, one of which occupies each bay, the aisle walla being absolutely blind, and the nave ia lighted from the windows of the clerestory alone, which are continued around the pentagonal apse. That part of the aisle which is not absorbed by the chasels is a passageway merely, the seating being apparently designed to be confined to the ample nave. The church is thus as simple as possible in plan, being Without transepts, a nave and aisles of eight bays, with the oave prolonged into a pentagonal apsei It is neverthelees tery impiesBlTe hj