Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 41, no. 1036: January 21, 1888

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Jfanuary SI, 1688 The Record and Guide* 13 ^^i^_ _^ >, ESTABUSHn)'^MARS;H2lu'^ie68. ■ Di/oid) fo R,E^L Es WE. SmLDif/G ift^cKiTEcrat^E .HouseHou) DEGOi^norJ. ' ■ ■ Bi/si(^E5S AtioThemes of GeHeraI- I^ter^esj PRICE, PER YEA^l IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS, Published every Saturday, TELEPHONE, - - - JOHN 370. Cotumunicatloiis should be addreEsed to C.W. SWEET, 191 Broadway J. T. LTNDSEV, Business Manager. Vol. XLI. JANUARY 21, 18S8, No. 1,038 With this number of The Record and Guide we furnish to our subscribers the viost complete and exhaustive Index to the trans¬ actions of real estate during the last six months which we have ever published. Few of the readers of The Record appreciate the immense labor connected with ihe work, a labor which increases with every year and at last has arrived at a point where it costs so much money and time to perfect that ice are compelled to charge an additional price for it, just enough to cover the cost. AU subscribers ivho wish the Index hereafter will please send their names by postal card at once. The price will be tO cents. This issue is free, Preaident Chauncey M. Depew, of the New York Central Road, denies that that company thinks of building an underground road from 43d street to the Battery. Ha admits that Commodore Van¬ derbilt had such an intention back in 1876 or thereabouts. He had secured the charter, but the project waa greeted by such an infernal clamor that the Commodore wilted. A. T. Stewart opposed it, as he did every city improvement likely to improve tlie real estate of New York. All the ministers of tlie 4th avenue churches clamored against the scheme, prayed and preached against it, and then every cur in tlie press raised a howl against handing over so valuable a franchise to the Vanderbilt monopo¬ lists. The opposition was so universal that the Commodore gave the project up. Yet what a splendid thing it would have been for New York if the plan had been carried out, and a solid surface track road had been opened between 43d street and the Battery. It would have given down-town people swift and rapid communi- oation, not only up town, but to any part of the 23d or Sith Wards. We would have had real rapid transit, as the Harlem River could have been reached from the Battery in less than half an hour. The route, being along the central zone of the island, would have better accommodated our citizens than the present elevated roada on the east and west sides. All parts of the city would soon have been accommodated, for branch roads to the ferries would soon have been built from the parent stem. But it waa not to be. Our press has opposed all city improve¬ ments, simply pandering to the foolish prejudices against corpora¬ tions without any regard to the best interests of the city. The newspapers have opposed the cable scheme, which would have vastly Improved our street surface transit. It would have been swifter, cheaper and in every way more convenient than the horse oar lines. But then it looks virtuous to oppose any enterprise by a corporation which expects to profit by a charter from the city. Hence the press was always opposed to a railroad on Broadway. Then what a venomous fight it made against the surface cars on 42d street, which has been found to be so indispensable a convenience to_the traveling public. However, these queer performances of the press apparently please the public, who never seem to properly value a proposed improvement or convenience until it is secured for them againat their own protests. -------------p------------ While the New York Central Company doea not, it seems, propose to build itself a rapid transit to the Battery, it is quite certain that a company of mainly New York Central men haa been organized to construct an undergrou'id road as soon aa Elm street is widened. On its own account the Central is adopting a new policy. Commodore Vanderbilt cared only for one thing—large dividends to the stockholders. But President Depew's electio» marked the beginning of a new departure. The ambition of the present management is to have the best cars, the anest road-bed, and the most efficient service of any railroad corporation in the country; hence the new bridges, the handsome depots, the finer c»,rs, the vestibule trains, and all the luxuries recently introduced upon the Vanderbilt system of roads, The New York Central is determined not to be behind the Pennsylvania Central. Thia will be satisfactory to the traveling public, but the shareholders will have to suffer. There is no likelihood of any early increase of dividends on any of the Vanderbilt roads. For no matter what it earns the Central would want its surplus for betterments, and ic will never do to pay larger dividends on Lake Shore and Michigan Central than on the New York road. Of course the time will come when these betterments will add to the intrinsic value of the Vanderbilt systems. The Central may never again pay 8 per cent., but it will be a road that will deserve well from the traveling public. Surely the average American citizen ought to be taught a leasou by the figures given in connection with the Pacific railroads. It has always been taken for granted by our people that government work was costly and inefficient, and that what waa done by indi¬ viduals and corporations was in every way preferable, We have the rational postal service, which is cheap, and against which there is no conjplaint. Our letters are carried to every part of the country for two cents an ounce and our newspapers for two cents a pound. How rare are complaints against the service in the Post- office. Yet it is administered by politicians appointed under a very bad civil service system. Our Croton water service in New York city is cheap and honest. There has never been any great scandal, except in the case of contracts with individuals or syndicates. Compare it to our gas service by corporations. What a swindle that has been from beginning to end. The corporations have stolen a hundred dollars in our gas service where the politicians have not profited one dime from our Croton Wuiter system. * And now look at the record of the Pacific roads, managed by individuals, syndicates and corporations. The cost of construction of the Union and Central Pacific roada was $95,000,000. Tiie stocks and bonds of the two companies have a total value of $268,- 000,000. In other words, there ia $173,000,000 of water in them. But this does not tell the whole story, for counting the bonds, land grants and annual advances of the government with interest, the sum totalis increased to the tremendous figurea of $447,000,000, of lines that only cost to construct $95,000,000. Now, if the government had built this road with its own engineers it might have coat $100,000,000, but it would have been owned by the nation, and it could have baen managed in the interests of the trading and traveling public, for a government doea not care for profit. The Central Pacific from January, 1874, to January, 1884, paid divi¬ dends amounting to $34,308,055, the entire amount of which went into the pockets of Messrs.|Huntington, Stanford, Hopkins and Crocker. In other words, after supplying the means four times over for building these roads they were handed over to these rail¬ road swindlers, including Jay Gould of the Union Pacific, to plunder the trading and traveling public by extortionary tolls. But when the proposition is made for the government to do any¬ thing, what a roar comes up from the press. " This ia'centraliza-' tion;'' it means waste and robbery; no government can do any¬ thing so well as individuals. A government telegraph was pro¬ posed. The point is |immediately made that it is outside the functions of government, although the telegraph is a part of the postal systems of every civilized nation on, earth, the United States alone excepted. Our telegraph construction has been exceedingly wasteful. Company after company has been formed and competi' tion tried for a time, but the telegraph is a natural monopoly. It was inevitable that some one organization would finally absorb all the lines. It was the government that built the first telegraph in the country—from Washington to Baltimore—and had it gone right on and extended the lines, using the profits for new construc¬ tion, the capitalized cost would probably have been less than $10,000,000 ; yet, here we are forced to pay dividends on $85,000,- 000 of watered Western Union stock. There is no dividend, of course, for a government from its business ventures, such as the Post-office and the like. —" — m—■ —"- Id view of the efficiency of the Post-office, a Postal Improvement Association, has beeu formed, with the following objects in View; 1. A reduction in the postage on seeds, bulbs and plants, 2. A re-issue of fractional currency, for use Iq the mails, 3. Abolition of tbe present unsafe and iDconreulent postal note?, 4. Provision for the issuance of postal money ordere In MUms of (5 or lesS for a fee of 3 cents. 5. Any other proper measures designed to ebhatice the usefulness of the postal service without too much expenss to tho government. All these are desirable objecta, but they ought to include al improved parcels post, domestic and international, based upon the' experience of Europe. In the Old World the governments replace our American Express companies. Packages which are so costly here are sent for & mere trifle from one end of Europe to the other. The British system includes all the colonies. Americana abroad are surprised at the incredibly low charges for barrels of potatoes and fiour, carcasses of beef and other dressed animals, cheeses, and all the packages such as are carried by express in thia country^