Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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September 13, 1885 The Record and Guide. i)95 Sir O.—Possibly. Then doubtless our system of docks when completed will greatly alter for the better the appearance of New York. We have many natural advantages over Paris. We have a noble harbor, but we neglect the Battery that looks out upon it. Governor's Island ought to be a pleasure resort, but it is used for a barracks, and the old and useless fort is a deformity. Bartholdi*s statue—the work of a Parisian—is the only artistic adornment of our harbor. Our Central Park is creditable to us, and the proposed parks north of the Harlem will some day surpass the Bois du Bou¬ logne in attractiveness. But, after all. I fear New York will never have the Boulevards, the Louvres, the Luxembourg art galleries, the Goeblin tapestries, the Hotels de Cluny's, or the museums of the capital of France. Our city is not the seat of a government, for being such helps immensely the architectural magnificence of London, Berlin and Vienna as well as Paris; but New York in time ought to have great art galleries; also museums, universities, great tech¬ nical schools and private buildings equal to any in the world. In¬ deed, our great apartment houses and office buildings are more imposing than anything of the kind in Europe. There is no palace in any of the chief cities of the Old World compar¬ able to several of the great flats, so-called, near Central Park. We have no Fontainebleau or Versailles near Nevv York; but we have the great ocean and hundreds of miles of sea beaches within a couple of hours of the City Hall. Highbridge will some day be as attractive a resort as Richmond Hill near London, and then we have numberless suburbs that with a little expense can be made as charming and picturesque as any of the semi-rural settlements near the great cities of the Old World; but after all I fear that our dread of government work and the fact that New York is not the capital of the nation will always give the European chief cities the advan¬ tage over us. Then it is not by any means settled that New York will always remain the mo?t populous city in the nation. Some day the United Stat»^s will extend its sway over the whole of the North American continent, and will contain over 300,000,000 inhabit¬ ants. When that time comes some inland city, perchance Chicago, may surpass us in wealth and numbers. NewYork is now theonly really great city on a sea coast. In every other part of the globe the most populous centres are inland, as witness London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Yeddo and Pekin, but during our time New York will keep its supremacy. But, alas, I fear it will never be Paris in attractiveness nor in the splendor of its improvements. The organization of the American Economic Association, which seems like an offshoot of the American Social Science Association, is an indication of the tendency of the times; and if the new society is maintained with spirit it may prove of much public service. During more than a century problems in political economy have been much discussed, both by individual authors and by asso¬ ciations ; but owing to the fact that until recently the statistical basis upon which all sound economic doctrine must rest has been neglected, the results of investigation have been inconclusive. A priori reasoning has been put forward and made to do duty in the place of facts ; and it has only served us a very indifferently good turn. If the members of the new society, who are mainly coUege professors and presumably men of sufficient leisure for the work, will set themselves at the task of collecting statistics bearing upon this branch of social science, and classifying? the knowledge thus obtained, they may be able to shed a great deal of light over subjects that are now dark and confused. Careful examinations of railway reports show that the decrease in earnings, comparing 1885 with 1884, is most heavily manifest over the trunk line roads east of the Ohio River, the reporting roads of the South and the section lying to the northwest of Chi¬ cago showing even a slight gain. This is a truth which raight have been discovered by intuition, for the East has been the battle¬ field in the destructive rate war that has demoralized all the busi¬ ness of the country. It has been observed that the South was com¬ paratively prosperous, and this circumstance has been attributed to good crops. But the crops are usually found to be pretty good, in totals, when the figures are all in; and the exemption of the South from distress can be traced more directly to the fact that its people have been less active than the people of this section in throwing their provisions and resources overboard. Recent reports about raUway doings down there, however, indicate that the conservatism of the South has been due rather to accident than to superior wisdom. ---------«--------- We should be practicable and know what it is worth while to undertake, and, if possible, be enabled to foresee what will fail. Had this rule been observed there would have been no massacre of Chinese laborers in the mining camps along the LTnion Pacific Railway, for there would have been no attempt made at employing them in competition with laborers of other nationalities. It may be a subject for great regret when we are forced to admit that, sooner or later, the Chinese question in this country must be settled by brute force if it is not settled in a certain way by law; but this seems to be about the only forecast that we are justified in making from our experience. There seems to be only one field of compe¬ tition where a Chinaman can work without much danger of arous¬ ing hostility. This is in the laundry field, and his immunity here is probably due to the fact that most of his competitors are women who are both more pacific and less capable of physical resistance than men. The charge of underworking the raarket, too, made against the Pacific State Chinamen, cannot be repeated against Chinese laundrymen located in New York, Every head of a family who has tested their efficiency knows that they are capable of charging fully up to schedule rates, and are as stiff as their own starch in maintaining prices. The Herald^ a journal with a lively imagination of the disordered sort, has set itself to showing that the eagle eye of Bismarck is intent on discovering a foothold in the Western hemisphere, the whole Island of Cuba being demanded by the rapacious conqueror as a coaling station for German fleets. For the proof of this con¬ spiracy against our virgin continent the correspondence of an ambitious German naval officer, in relation to Costa Rica, nearly two decades old, is reproduced and hung upon the imperial crown. It would be about as reasonable to charge the United States with designs on Cuba because the late General Grant, when President, wanted to obtain possession of San Domingo. It is natural enough for German naval officers, when sailing around the world, to find here and there a mountain peak or headland on which they think the German flag would look well, and, as it fell out in Yap. try, sometimes, to hoist it on forbidden ground. But it would be hardly just to charge all the vagaries of such knights errant on the German governraent. Bismarck has got the colonial itch. There is not much doubt of this fact; but he will be prudent in the way he paddles in foreign waters. He is a good swimmer on dry land, but his aquatic accomplishments have yet to be tested. He will hardly care, we think, to inaugurate his colonial policy in this hemisphere by an act that would set the United States govern¬ ment to casting cannon and otherwise providing for complications and eventualities. A newspaper must be very badly in want of something to say when, like the World, it declares editorially that if a company be allowed to build a railroad through the Eighty-sixth street depressed road across Central Park it will be only an entering wedge to a railway along the main drive. Among all the recently suggested street railways we know of none that would soon become more useful than a road through the park at the point proposed. The section west of Central Park is now beginning to grow very rapidly ; yet it remains quite inaccessible to the populous district lying to the east of our great pleasure ground. The walk through the park on the surface is alraost at all points considerable on account of the winding direction of the foot-paths, while the depressed ways are often damp, muddy and almost impassable for people without vehicles. Not the Eighty-sixth street crossing alone, but all the park crossings should be provided with railways as soon as those conveniences can be made to pay. The Real Estate Exchange. New York, Sept. 11, 1885. Editor Record and Gitide: Will you please remind your readers that an opportunity will be pre¬ sented on Monday to test the practicability of negotiating private real estate transactions on the floor of the Exchange salesroom. The presence of a large number of brokers and dealers at the first meeting is quite essential to the early success of this undertaking, though its complete success is necessarily a question of time. If all the members who favor the scheme presented will make a point of attending the flrst two or three meetings, each one prepared to offer one or more desirable properties for sale or to rent, there is no question but that buyers or tenants wiU be found there who would not be met in the ordinary channels, and negotiations wiU be started, if not con¬ cluded, at every call. The rules are well adapted to protect the members against any unfair¬ ness, which fact should effectually remove the barrier of distrust that has long stood in the way of any concerted movement looking to the interchange of business among brokers. Ferdinand Fish. Sand. The new building law requires that the sand used for mortar in all build¬ ings shall be clean, sharp sand, free from clay, loam, dirt or earthy matter, and shall not be finer than the standard sample, which must be approved by the Board of Examiners, and kept in the oflBce of the Superint3ndent of Buildings for the inspection of the public. The Board of Examiners at their weekly meeting ou Tuesday last approved of—1. A sample of sand contained in a glass jar marked A, as being of proper coarseness and fairly illustrating the requirements of law as to cleanliness, sharpness, and as free from clay, loam, dirt or earthy mat¬ ter as is practicable to obtain sand for building purposes. 2. A sample of sand contained in a glass jar marked B, as being the minimum of fine¬ ness and quality for use in making mortar. The sample in the jar A is sand from Manhattan Island. That in the jar B is Cowsbay sand.