Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

The Record and guide: v. 39, no. 1005: June 18, 1887

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June 18, 1887 The Record and Guide. 829 THE RECORD AND GUIDE, Published every Saturday. 191 Broad^vay, IST. "Y. Our Teleplione Call is JOHN 370. TERMS: ONE YEIR, in advance, SIX DOLLARS. Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Busmess Manager. have been of immense benefit to this city, and the corporation has certainly been managed in a liberal manner. The reduction of the fares to flve cents for all hours was a wholly voluntary act, and it is difficult to see what more the company could do to obtain public favor. But the city ought to get some benefit from the additional travel due to the large increase of its inhabitants. That "unearned'' increment should not all go into the pockets of Jay Gould, Cyrus W. Field and their associates. Vol. XXXIX. JUNE 18, 1887. No. 1,005 We hear so much about the speculation in Western cities that we overlook the activity in real estate nearer home. Just now we are building in New York almost as rapidly as in any centre of Western population. While there is nothing approaching a boom in vacant property, there is a marked increase of real estate sales in all the suburbs of the city. There is an active movement in the region between South Brooklyn and Coney Island. The projected elevated road will open up a large country suitable for cheap residences. East New York has been built up by the existing elevated road. Our weekly list of transfers shows the remarkable growth of the 23d and the 24th Wards. At its present rate of progress New Rocheile, for instance, will double its population in a few years. Matters in the real estate line around New York look veary healthy just at this time. The amended Buildiug law has been signed by Governor HiU during the past week, and will go into effect within thirty days, about the 15th of July. TJie new enactment is too voluminous for publication in our columns, but will be issued with explanatory notes and careful editing within a brief period. The Governor has also signed the bill making appropriations for Central, Morning¬ side and other up-town parks. What the enactment is expected to effect will be found in the circular issued by the Morningside Park Association, which will be found in another column. During the past week Dwight H. Olmsted and others have in open conference urged the Governor to sign the bill providing for block indexing, but up to the time of going to press he has taken no action. Employers who have objected to trades unions have found that the way to effectively fight these organizations is to form unions themselves. They have even gone further and are organizing the outside workmen who have so far refused to join the regular trades unions. Combinations and co-operate action seem to be the prevailing method for transacting business in our own modern world. What distinguishes this industrial era above all that have preceded it is the readiness with which people enter into combinations in order to effect certain ends., While protesting against socialism the leaders in the politi¬ cal and business worlds make use of socialistic methods to benefit themselves or their associates. Socialism may be defined as the subordination of the individual to some corporate body for its own benefit and that of its fellows. The written opinion of the Interstate Commerce Commission on the long and short haul clause of the law it is their duty to enforce is very satisfactory to railroad people as well as to the general public, and justifies the vagueness of the provision itself, which was so framed as to be liable to a liberal interpretation. Precision in laws is usually a good thing, especially where a moral question is involved, but business considerations are often of a character to forbid definiteness of,legal statement. If the corporations obey this law honestly it will be a good thing for themselves as well as their business patrons, and this fact is now being universally recognized by the press. But what a mess our New York journals made of it in discussing this matter. They bitterly denounced the law, and predicted all manner of evil consequences if it was enacted. They were as wrong in this as they were in their prophecies of the evil results of the silver coinage act. Their judgment of public meas¬ ures is very often at fault. Organizations known as Trusts is a new form of corporation which seems destined to wield a great influence in the future of business. We allude to such institutions as the Standard Oil Trusts, the Cotton Trusts, the Cattle Trusts and the proposed India Rubber Trusts. It is the aim of these various trusts to monopolize the business in which they are severally intrusted. These are not legal bodies, for noState can confer the powers upon them as corporations with a charter, as they really wield without any legal authorization. The Standard Oil Trust does things which would not be punishable in a chartered company, yet it is not an illegal institution; it is simply extra-legal. These trusts will make enemies, for they crush out rivals and monopolize certain industries. Some time or other they will come under the supervision of the law, and it rauy be that the whole matter may be dealt in by Congress, for petroleum, cotton seed oil, cattle and India rubber affects the Interstate commerce of the country, which it is the duty of Congress rather than the States to legislate for. Governor Hill has been blamed for signing the bill permitting the gas company to charge $2 outside of the city limits for the same servibe that they are restricted from charging over f 1.60 in the city proper. But in this the Governor is clearly right, for a gas service in a spare settlement naturally costs more than where the houses are close together. There is, however, such a prejudice against corporations that it is difficult to pass any enactment doing them justice. There are some back taxes on the Western Union Telegraph Company which should never have been levied, as they have no warrant in law or natural equity; but it is impossible to get a bill through the Legislature to perform an act of simple justice to a corporation. For this deep-seated prejudice the corporations are themselves to blame; but leading city journals ought to be above the cheap demagoguery of condemning Governor Hill for signing a very proper enactment, even though an obnoxious gas company should get the benefit of it. The Rapid Transit Commissioners are fully justified in asking the Manhattan Elevated Company to pay a bonus for the privilege of extending its lines to the various city ferries. Gould, Field & Co. have an immensely valuable franchise in their control of the stock of the elevated roads, and they ought to be willing to pay a fair proportion of the additional incomes they will receive by the new extensions. The Record and Guide, however, must not be understood as in any way condemning the elevated roads. They Many of the old settlers of Mount Desert look back with regret at lost opportunities. A few hundred dollars wisely expended ten years ago would make the happy possessor a millionaire to-day. A land broker here recently told your correspondent that he was offered 150 acres of land a few years ago, located on Main street, for $000 " I thought," said he, " that an enormous price then for a few acres of rocks and stumps. Now that same tract would sell at least for $.500,000." He also said that he could have purchased twenty years ago the centre tract of land which extends from Cromwell's Harbor to Great Head, embracing hundreds of acres, for twenty-five cents per acre. " And," he said, " ir, was offered me at that figure and the owners fairly urged me to take it, but 1 refused. See what it will bring to-day. This land is worth at the least calculation $6,000 per acre.—Exchange. The above and similar facts direct attention to the heavy invest¬ ments which are constantly taking place along our seacoasts. There is practically a corner not only on the Atlantic Ocoan front, but on the bays and sounds whicli have outlets to the ocean and are available for human habitations. As the country grows people who acquire wealth in the interior will want a summer "cottage by the sea." There has been remarkable advances in the price of property not only on the coast proper, but on inclosed waters like Long Island Sound. No matter how remote the points on the seashore may be from centres of population or railway facilities, if they are habitable or have a bathing beach or a marine view, they are sure in time to be in demand. Man is almost an amphibious animal. The longer he remains on the land the more he craves the water. When this country has 300,000,000 of inhabitants water frohts will be as costly as lots on 5th avenue, but of course that will not be in our day. The architects are still discussing with interest the kind of struc¬ ture the proposed Protestant Cathedral ought to be. That it should be some form of Gothic is the general verdict. There is no other kind of building, they say, suitable for Christian worship. But it should be borne in mind that the proposed edifice is to be some¬ thing more than a building in which to conduct a ritualistic cere¬ monial. It is designed to be a place where audiences can be ad¬ dressed, and which will serve as a sepulchre for the distinguished dead of the nation. These two latter uses involve a wide depart¬ ure from the Middle Age cathedral, which was intended almost entirely for ceremonial uses. It is of course quite natural for our architects to think that no temple of worship can take any other shape than that of a Gothic cathedral. It is without exception the ideal edifice for the ortho¬ dox Christian worshipper. But it does not follow that religion