Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view About OCR text.

tbe absence of a statement of tbis agreement, or of tbe general usage in the trade in respect to such cases, we cau do no more than make a few sug¬ gestions covering the questions presented. We thinic the transaction between the landlord and the tenant for the purpose of estimating the broker's present couipensatiou is a hiriug absolute for one year, upon which he is entitled to bis compensation now; also an option to the tenant to buy, which, if exercised bv kiui, will, wben so exercised, entitle the broker to his couipensatiou on the sale, aud at tbe usual rate for sale; but if not esei-clsad, then the broker, at the expiration of the year, will be entitled to the commission on the other nine years' rental, at the rate of commission and payable at-the time aud iu the manner agreed on, or according to the established usage in the trade. The making of tbe improvements by the tenant is not, we think, an election by bim to purchase. The broker can safely take the commission in the first year's rental now offered by the landlord, but he should, to avoid question, incorporate in his receipt which will evidence the transaction a statement that the amount of his commission on the sale, or ou the other nine years' i-enting, in reserved until the election by the tenant t-j purchase; or until the expiration of the year allowed for such election; and for the same precaution this paper should be signed by tbe landlord. Diapossession for Non-Paymeiit of Eeut. Editor Record and Guide: Dear Sir—Will you kindly favor us, through your joui-ual, with the present law relative to dispossessing for nou-pa3Tnent of rent and for hold¬ ing over, with the mode of procedure? and greatly obhge, very truly yours, Marquand Bros. Answer,—The laiv on this subject will be found in Sections 2331 to 3205, both inclusive, of the Code of Civil Procedure, aud the decisions of the courts. It would be impracticable to publish all these sections and tbe construction of them by the court. If there be any particular question under this subject we will, if it be presented, answer it witb pleasure. Men and Things. West side real estate men have settled, iu tbeir own minds, that the only place to hold the Exposition of 1893 is somewhere in the 12th Ward. ^** The tax rate for nest year will be £1,95, so Deputy-Comptroller Storrs informed a reporter of The Record and Guide. This is good news for the taxpayers. *** Tbe reduction in the tax rate is 0.27 per cent., as compared with this session. This will reduce our tax payments next year nearly nine cents on the dollar. *** Tbe reduction is due to the measui-e passed tbi'ougb the Legislatui-e last session, enablingithe city to use certain sums out of the Sinking Fund toward payment of interest and the redemption of debt. This will amount to about 53,000,000, so Comptroller Myers informed a I'eporter of THE Record and Guide, and taxpayers will therefore have $3,000,000 less taxes to pay in ISOO, * * * John D, CriimninB, Angelo L. Myers and others filed an agreement last week, restricting all tbe lots on 110th, 111th, 112th and 113th streets, extanding from a point 100 feet west of 7th avenue to a point 100 feet east of 8th avenue, *** The Manhattan Elevated Road should do something to theu* stinicture between 135th aud 135th street stations. Tbe rattle of the whole structure when a train passes over it is so great that it is impossible to hear a person speak two feet away. Real estate meu complain tbat this noise, made unendurable by opeu windows iu summer, has decreased the demand for Sth avenue houses, *** Fifth and Madison avenues, above .ISOtb street, are likely to become business and tenemeut house avenues in the not distant future. As busi¬ ness along the Harlem River increases tbe demand for laborers assumes larger proportions, and tbe laborers, in- their turn, create a district for cheap tenement houses. This destroys the privacy and quietness that are essential to successful residence streets, The Daft Electric Company, who have beeu experimenting with tht electric motor on the Ninth Aveuue Elevated Road, ai-e building a cai- which will weigh more than twice what the present one does. With the macbine now in use, which weighs nine and a-quarter tons, tbey have attained a speed of thirty miles an hour with a train of four cars attached, and it is claimed that this engine will do the work of a steam locomotive weighingabout twenty-two tons, Tbe electrical engine now being built is to weigh nineteen tons, and to draw a train of eight cai-s at or above a speed of thirty miles an hour. Tbe officials of the electric company say that there is a saving of over one-half in tbe actual expense of running trains by means of their system as against steam, tbat the wear aud tear on tbe elevated structm-e is much less because of the lighter weight of the engine, that the motion is easiei- and tbe means of generating power cleaner than tbat now in vogue, and, finaUy, that it is only a question of a very short time when tbe Manhattan Company will sign a contract for enough machines to supply al! their hues. Col, Hain, of the Manhattan Company, says he knows nothing about any approach toward a contract for electrical machines, because the experiments made thus far have been fai- from Eatisfactoiy. Tbe experiments have all been made at the expense of the motor company, who will bs at a total loss unless future ventures prove more successful, ** + Pubhc ofScials of this city and vicinity often develop a trait that is jiupposed to b§ ?ntire]y forei^ t^ t^he Anjenoan ctiaraet^r-stupidity, Not only do they avail themselves of all the red-tape afforded them by rules aud regulations to tie citizens up iu a knot, but when there is no fixed way for doing a thing they, nnie times out of ten, do it in the most inconvenient fashion. Large Ci-otou water pipes, 4 feet iu diameter, have for the past week lain, end close to end, in tbe gutter on the nortb side of 125th street, betweeu 5th aud Leuox avenues. There is not a single break in the long liue, and it is impossible for a man to squeeze between any tn^o pipes, much less for a wagon to back up for delivery of any goods. The occupants of this block, mostly storekeepers, have been put to great iucouvenienee by tbis short-sighted carelessness, and execrations have been *' both loud and deep." «** A new hydraulic brick is now manufactured in eight different shades of red aud brown wbich, on cheap bouses, is designed to supply the place of browustoue or sandstone for trimmings. The shades of color run from a rather dark brown to a reddish hue and at a superficial glance might well be taken for the stones the place of which they supply. *** The iron beams for the first fioor of the Manhattan Athletic Club House have been placed iu position. *** Tbe Health Department have at last ordered an inspection of the cendi- tion of the " L " road retii-ing rooms. Manyof them were unfit for use for a great part of last winter and spring, and there should be better accommodation foi' the public. *** Mayor Grant should insist upon the Hudson River Raih-oad dispensing with soft coal or in some way doing away with the smoke from their engines. This has for a long time been a nuisance and has stopped many of our wealthy citizens from building costly homes on Riverside Drive. Modern science has enabled us to have smokeless engines, and the Hudson River Raib-oad is rich enough to afford the cost of making the change. The purchase by Cornehus Vanderbilt of the two houses at Kos. 750 and 756 5th*avenu6 has two reasons; tbe one being tbat he wishes to enlarge his residence, the other being that he wants to save the houses from being turned into business or club buildings, like tbree or four of those on the Jones estate block opposite. In a recent article on the purchase of the Bonner lots, we pointed out that Messrs. Huntington, Astor, Whitney, VanderbUt, and probably others m tbe immediate neighborhood, would eventually find it necosai'y to purchase the two blocks to the north and south of them if they wished to maintain them private cbaracter and not be surrounded by business buildings which these houses would otherwise certainly be altered into in course of time. *** The disappearance of Wm. S. Mercer, who has been building seventeen houses on 88th and 93d streets, has caused quite a stir on the west side. A number of mechanics' hens have been filed on the property, as will be noticed in our weekly list of hens in another column, *** The Jerome Avenue Railway Company has just been incorporated, with a capital of §800,000. Itis to run from Jerome avenue, at or near the terminus of tbe bridge across the Harlem River, and known as MeComb'a or Central Bridge. A double track will run from that point to Woodlawn Cemetery, a distance of five miles. The directors are J. Romaine Brown Frank Yorau, WOliam B. Whitney, Hemy CampbeU, Moses Mehrbach^ Adolph C. Horbacher, James H. Sullivan, WiUiam Chapman, John Whalen, Thomas E, Crunmius, Hugh N. Camp, Riehai-d A. Cunningham and D. Lowber Smith, nearly all of them gentlemen known in real estate circles. ** + Plans were filed at tbe Building Department during tbe week for a three- story brick Reformatory for Women, to be erected on a plot at Inwood bounded by 313th and 214th streets and 14th aveuue. The buUding, which is 201.6x160 feet iu size, is to cost $950,000, and wiU be in charge of the Sisters of St. Mary, * * * Under the new order of things m the Health Department, aspiring plumbers have the opportunity they have been so long looking for viz,: that of serving tbe public as inspectors of plumbing in the Department of Sew Buildings, Already they are beginning to contest their assertive right with the graduates of the School of Mines—and suecessfuUy. too it appears—the board havmg recently fiUed up some vacancies on the staff by the selection of plumbers from the list of eUgible candidates sent in by the Civil Service Examining Board. 4 Building ABsooiation Notes, There has not been very much doing in the associations throughout tho past week. Tbe week before was so unusually active that the loaning facilities of the associations are for tbe time exhausted, and in conse¬ quence a period of duUness has succeeded. Nofchmg further has happened as to the suit about the habihty of the associations to taxation, and until that is settled all other possible events ia the association world are com¬ paratively unimportant. New Jei-sey it seems, like New York, is waking up to the value of the associations. According to the Home Seeker some 00,000 citizens of that State are interested in tbe movement, and the shareholders ore obtaining great benefits from it. Numerous small investors from Hew York possess such impbcit confidence in these Jersey organizations that they have in¬ vested largely in the nearby institutions of Hudson County, where thirty associations enjoy a prosperous existence. It is m and about Newark that the associations cluster more than in any other part of the State. The first was started twenty years ago, while PQW there are forty-fgiir of them and (01 prosperous, Doubtless tbe healtliy