Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 34, no. 865: October 11, 1884

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October 11. 1884 The Record and Guide. 1019 THE RECORD AND GUIDE. I\iblished every Saturday. 191 Broadway, N. Y. TERMS: OIVG TEAR, in advance, SIX DOLLARS. Communications should be addressed to €. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSBT, Business Manager. OCTOBER 11, 1884. The political pot boils the more furiously as election day draws near. When Grover Cleveland was nominated nothing seemed more certain than his election as President; but the scandal affect¬ ing his private life turned the tide and the unespectedly large RepubUcan majority in Maine put a decided damper on Demo¬ cratic hopes. But recently it looks as if the opponents of Mr. Blaine have taken fresh courage and the result of the election on all sides is admitted to be in the very greatest doubt. Next Tues¬ day may settle the question. If the Republicans lose Ohio, or carry it by only a small majority, the chances will be iu favor of Mr. Cleveland's election. If the Democrats, however, are defeated by 15,000 or 20,000 majority the Republicans will claim that the November election will be a walk over. The probabilities aire that the Ohio election will still leave the matter in doubt, in which case the contest will rage with increasing ferocity up to election day. The canvass so far is not one of which America can be proud, and all decent citizens will be heartily glad when it is over. Before the next issue of this publication tho county tickets of the Republicans and the regular Democrats will be in the field. Should the Ohio election look like the success of Mr. Cleveland the County Democracy will doubtless run a straight ticket, but other¬ wise there wiU be more or less trading. The Tammany ticket now in the field is a very good one, and it is sincerely to be hoped that the anti-Tammany Democrats and Republicans will do as well, Tammany has been mindful of real estate interests in its nominees, but there are plenty of material in the ranks of opposing parties to make equally good tickets. Some of the local congressional nominations are very good. No better representatives could be found than Abraham S. Hewitt, Sam¬ uel S. Cox and O. B, Potter. Mr, Joseph Pulitzer is a very clever gentleman, but why should he want to go to Congress when he has a leading city daily paper to look after 7 General Viele would be a round man in a equare iiole as Congressman, Good engineers such as he are better employed in New York than in Washington. He is of some use to the community in the Central Park Board, but neither his training nor his talents are suitable for a Congressman. Take a friend's advice, General, aud decline the nomination. You will sare money and enhance your reputation thereby. Our readers must not overlook the department entitled "The World of Business," The matter given under this head will be found of increasing interest from week to week. The account of a great transcontinental line of railways, owned by the syndicate of which C. B. Huntington is the head, ought to attract wide¬ spread attention. It aeems that this vast system of railways con¬ necting San Francisco on the Pacific with Newport News on the Atlantic Ocean, with branches to every city of importance south of the Ohio River, is about to be consolidated into one great com¬ pany, thus bringing into existence a corporation of greater possibil. ities tban the systems controlled by Jay Gould or the Vanderbilt interests. Ab yet the securities of this vast corporation have not been put upon the market, yet, undoubtedly, they will be leaders in the speculative field in the not distant future. The various reforms which have bren incorporated into our city charter through the efforts of Mr. Theodore Roosevelt were first mooted in the directory of the Real Estate Exchange and Auction Room (Limited) last December. After thinking the matter over for some time, a majority of the directors decided not to press the reform measures, as it might look too much like dictating to the two political organizations, the final result of which was that Mr. Roosevelt got the credit for the passage of the various measures instead of the Real Estate Exchange. Thia year the directors of the Exchange are disposed to be more of a power in legislative matters. Its officers have been instructed to call the attention of the State press to the great importance of the proposed amendment to the constitution reBtricti.^g localities with over a hundred thou¬ sand inhabitants from incurring permanent debts of a larger amount than 10 per cent, pf the aesesB^ valuation of their real estate. Tho directors alao seem to be of the opinion that as the plan for liqui¬ dating arrears due on assessments and taxes in Brooklyn has worked so well, the same law ought to be appliedto New York. A number of matters will come before the Legislature at its next session affecting real estate, and undoubtedly our Real Estate Exchange will make its influence felt in the interest of real prop- The Clark Houses. These houses, at present twenty-seven in number, on the north side of Seventy-third street, between Eighth and Ninth avenues, constitute a singularly interesting experiment in street archi¬ tecture. As their treatment plainly shows, they are by the same architect to whom we owe the Dakota, opposite them. The total frontage on Seventy-third street is about 550 feet, the houses being of about 20 feet each, and the corner on Nintli avenue being occupied by an apartment house a full story higher than the single dwellings which occupy the remaining space, but architecturally united with them. The object of the designer haa evidently been to avoid the monotony of a long row of houses of similar design on the one hand, and on the other the restlessness of such a row of houses if each be designed by itself. Twenty-seven houses in a row, each one treated altogether separately, would almost inevitably be a confusing and miscellaneous assemblage, no matter how well each of its component parts might be done. On tho other hand, as we can see evidence in almost any residential street in NewYork, the repetition of one design is very tiresome, and it would still be very tiresome even if the architectural unit were a much better thing than the brown stone front. The aim here is to secure the effect of a composition while individualizing each of the components. Tbe effect of unity is obtained by a high basement of Dorchester stone running through the whole aeries, and by a moulded stone cornice of the same material continuous except for the interrup¬ tions caused by the occasion&,l building up ot the upper story into a full wall story instead of the roof story, lighted by dormer and gable windowa, which usually completes the front. The ends are emphasized by carrying the stonework through au additional story, and also by a round bay window on the outer side of each. The central feature is a gable between two walls rising above it, and each crowned with a hipped roof. A similar feature, only reversed so that the central hip roofed mass rises between the gabled fronts, occurs about midway between the centre and each end. Each of these features consists of three houses. The individuality of the houses is largely attained by the use of different materials. The walls above the sandstone basement are built sometimes of red pressed brick and sometimes of the salmon colored Perth Amboy brick. Sixteen of the houses are in red brick and the remaining eleven of yellow brick, the latter material being used in two groups of three houses each, and elsewhere in single dwellings interpolated in the red brick. T.'ie yellow brick waits, wherever they occur, are projected a few inches beyond the normal plane of the front, the angles being quomed in stone up to the cornice lines, and each house is divided from the next by a row of quoins marking the line of the party wall. There are many diversities of detail. In fact there are only two adjoining houses in the whole row which are identical in design, although one design has been repeated in the single houses in yel¬ low brick. These diversities are slight, being such differences of roof treatment as the change of a pair of dormers for a single dormer, of this for a gable, or of the basement as tho variation of a round arched with an ogee doorway, or of this with a square opening with a drip stone. In the second story each house haa a large window, sometimes a round or a three-sidtu -bey, Hosrietinaea a large segmental arch opening upon a balcony railed witb iron or perforated stone. The treatment of the third story is virtually uniform throughout, a pair of square-headed openings, the lintels and jambs in sandstone, the only variation being the occasional insertion of a carved panel in the space between. Slight as these differences are they fully answer their purpose of individualizing every houae, and of assuring the spectator that he has not seen all where he has seen one. Of course, variety is not a good in itself. If the features by which variety were secured were ugly and crude and unstudied, they would not become less offensive by being different. A choice of uglinesses is not beauty, though oome architects appear to think so. Here, however, the study which the variety of the detail invites, the excellence of the detail repays. As with the Dakota, the treatment of these housea has more af&nity with French Renaissance than with any other historical style of architecture. It is, however, everywhere free and modern io handling. The features are euch as are actually appropriate to a city house in the nineteenth century and might have been devised for it whether they actually were or not. Considering the number and variety of them the thoroughness with which they are designed ia as unusual as it is creditable. In acale the detail is generally more fortunate than that of the Dakota, which sometimes errs on the side