Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 41, no. 1048: April 14, 1888

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April li,' Record and Guide. 455 y^ Dented to f^L Estate . BuiLoiffc Ap,cHiTECTu!\E ,Hoijsei(old DegoratidpI. BUsit/ESS At/D Themes of Ge^JeraI. l/iTtREsj PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Puhlislied every Saturday. TELEPHONE, - . - JOHN 370. Communicatioiis should be addressed to C.W, SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. Vol. XLI. APRIL 14, 1888. No. 1,048 The past has been a gloomy week in Wall street. The activity and higher prices -which characterized the market during the flrst week in April has been succeeded by dullness and a lower range of values. Of course Congresa is to blame for the present condition of things. The House is hopelessly behind its business. It will not attend to the pressing questions which demand immediate settle¬ ment. The Ti'easury surplus keeps on accumulating. Business men will not engage in new enterprises, due to apprehensions of the tarifE, but Congress keeps dawdling and pottering over matters of very little moment. If this kind of thing keeps on tbe administra¬ tion will find it is storing up wrath against a day of wi'ath. The week closes, however, with a better feeling. The Brundage Tax Bill, now before the Legislature, ought to be promptly killed. If passed we will have a panic in real estate and a slaughter of values unprecedented in tliis century. The Real Estate Exchange and all other bodies having the interest of the community at heart should unite to have tiiis bill tlirown out. It is needless to go into particulars, which are explained in a letter from a large property- owner, given elsewhere. The object of the bill is right enougli, for it aims to find other means of taxation than on real estate. But tills end can be obtained by other means. Let us get more out of corporations that use our streets and ferries ; let os tax the liquor sellers, and the owners of carts and can-iages that wear out our pave¬ ments without paying for the damage they do. But any new method of taxation ought to be carefully considered before being enacted. Mr. 0. B. Potter, in Ms speech before tiie Legislative Committee against Mayor Hewitt's plan of rapid transit, made some good points and others not at all good. He was quite right in saying that our elevated road system had not developed ita full capacity for carrying passengers. . Exti'a tracks on the 2d, 3d and Gth aveuue lines would admit of througli ti'ains such as now run tiie whole length of tlie island on the 9tli avenue and above 59th street on the west side. Then the widening and extension of Elm street from tiie Brooklyn Bridge to the Harlem River would admit of another elevated structure that wonid accommodate even more passengers than are now can-ied on the 3d avenue elevated. In other words, large as is the travel now, it would be possible to double the present accom¬ modations, and that before two years were over. An underground or viaduct scheme of any kind might take ten years to consti'uct. Then a cable road replacing the horse cars would greatly advantage om' citizens in convenience and speed. In tbese recommendations Mr. Potter only repeats what has been urged in these columns repeatedly, but he gets on the wrong track entirely in arguing tbat we should continue our past policy of em-icliing corporations at the expense of our citizens. Of the ninety miUion of capital represented by the securities of city horse-car company stocks, sisty million is pure water, and the interest on that large aum, if paid into our city treasury, would help very greatly to reduce Mr. Potter's real estate tax bills. Every time this gentleman pays his water tax, whicii is levied by a municipal department, he knows he gets value received, but the tax bills of the gas companies wliich iie pays are, as lie is aware, an outrageous imposition. But Mr. Potter is so wedded to the antiquated and discredited no government tlieories of a past generation that lie wants us to keep on giving valuable francliises to future Jake Sharps, Jay Goulds and Dan Conovers, to enrich private people at the expense of the community and the taxpayers. He even proposes to hand over our docks to private persons, and he actually seems to believe that it is unconstitutional for the municiiiality to make use of its own streets or to perform any useful function for the community it represents. The courts sustained tbe Third Avenue Horse Car Company in the claim that ita charter permits it to use a cable in place of horses for propelling its cars. It will, of course, be a great advantage to people on the east side if this change is effected, but bow much bet¬ ter it would have been if the original cable scheme went through and the whole island was to get tbe benefit of a system which would replace all the horses by cables, and allow transfer ticket and roads across the city wherever needed. A company that would be granted this privilege could afford to make a handsome contr i bution yearly to the city treasury. Then, as General Newton points out, we made the mistake in granting perpetual char-s ters in these horse car organizations, and the only liold we have upon them is when they want to take advantage of inventions or improvements, then we can make new and better bargains for the city. The Third Avenue road should be forced to pay a certain pro¬ portion of its gross receipts into the city treasury for the privilege of using cables run by steam on the sti-eets. The clamor against trusts seems to he dying out. The investiga¬ tion ordered by Congress has come to a stand-still, and it is clear tliat public interest in tlie matter is waning. It is found that there is no more reason to proceed against trusts than against labor unions or any voluntai-y co-operation of persons having iu view legitimate business interests. The New Consolidated Stock Exchange. One of the most noteworthy of recent commercial buildings is that whicii is to be opened for business next week as the Colsolidated Stock and Petroleum Exchange. The arcliitect, Mr. E. D. Lindsey, lias enjoyed some unusual advantages in designing it. There are not many sites ou Broadway on which a building less than 150 feet deep is fairly visible on three sides. The frontage on Broadway, though to be sm-e not excessive for the pui'pose of the structure, is sufficient, aud the arcliitect has been fortunate in not being required to provide more than seven stories. "With two stories more, or even with one, it would have been difficult to keep tlie buUding from spindling even with a breadtti of 90 feet, and the height from over¬ powering the other dimensions. Moreover, the difficulty of dividing the building into parts that bore a harmonious relation to each other and went to make up an architectural whole, would have been very greatly increased by such a vertical extension. As it is, by making the lower division to comprise the Exchange, distin- guisliing it from the superstructure on the principal front in material as well as tu treatment, and dividing this superstructure, which is added for rental into two unequal parts, tlie designer has an-ived at an arrangement in which the variety is not arbitrary or forced, but natural and expressive, and by which unity can be attained without monotony. The Broadway front is 90 feet, as lias been said, in width and somewhat less in height to the cornice line. Nearly half of this height is taken up by the substructure tliat contains the Exchange and its dependencies. This is built of Scotch sandstone, rough faced, and is divided vertically into a principal story and an enti-esol, and laterally into four bays. At each end is a round arcli, vigorously and rather deeply moulded, forming an entrance—one for the public, the other for members of the Exchange. These entrances occupy the height of tlie principal story only, while above each, iu the mezzanine floor, is a group of three small, round arclies, turned from two columns of polislied gi'anite. In the two centi'al bays the openings of the round arches are repeated in the mezza¬ nine, whUe the openings below are closed by heavy transoms, so to say, composed each of a flat arch, with rougli voussoirs sustaining tlie frieze in smooth stone that traverses the front. The central pier is decorated at the angles with solid and powerful nook shafts. The whole arrangement exactly expresses the fact of a large room with a gallery upon which tlie upper central windows open, wliile the sides are subordinate rooms walled out of the main apartment altogether. This straiglitforwardness of expression, tf not in itself a strictly artistic quahty, is at any rate conducive to artistic success, and wliile this disposition would seem forced and fantastic if the front masked two distinct stories, the fact that it elucidates the interior arrangement adds to its effectiveness as an architectural basis to the building. Tins effectiveness is further enhanced by the vigorous simplicity of the treatment. Tlie voussoirs of the arches are continued to tlie joints of the wall, and are exaggerated in size at the Iiaunches, where they are considerably larger than either at the crown or tlie springing, without visible reason. Nevertheless the basement gives a grateful impression of mass and vigor, wliich is in great part caused by tlie unusual depth of opening, and is aided by the texture of the masonry, without any affectation of boulders, and by tlie emphatic simplicity of the mouldings and other detaila. Above the moulded string com-se that terminates the basement and sets off the Exchange proper from the offices, the front is of pressed brick with incidental use of Scotch sandstone, here di'essed smooth, cast iron and terra cotta. Like the substi-ucture it ie of four bays, here bounded by brick piers that are perfectly plain and un¬ broken throughout the tliree stories that form the second division of the building. Each bay contains in each story three plain square-headed openings, and the minor piers flankmg the openings are withdrawn aome inches from the plane of the principal jiiers forming tlie main structure, so as to give more importance to the