Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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668 Record and Guide. ApriUe IStS. ''' ads." It is hard to believe that there is lasting salvation even in these undoubtedly powerful aids to " journalism." Certainly decent people will deeply regret the hard fate which has driven the Times from its old anchorage. -----------■ IT is not in the least likely that the wishes of property-owners _ will be observed in reference to the so-called " Elm Street Improvement" bill, Tbe city authorities apparently are determined to pass it. They have already railroaded it through the Assem¬ bly. Our autocratic governors are poor respecters of public opinion. We have pointed out before in these columns that there is no real need at present for this radical, far reaching measure. It is possible to open Elm street without it, and surely that improvement can be expedited without passing a law that affects all real estate in tbe city, and without over-riding in a despotic manner the undoubted rights of property-owners ; rights, by the way, which do not clash wTth the paramount rights of the city. It does not seem to us to be either necessary or just to summarily deprive people of their houses and land, and leave the adjustment of awards to be settled at some future indeftuite time. The whole proceeding savors of Russian autocracy. Surely the right of eminent domain does not imply the right to take a man's property away from him before it has been paid for. If thia bill should be passed property-owners should make a vigorous effort to obtain the Governor's veto. ----------•---------- The Oomiog Chief Oity. -w-S New York to remain the leading city of the Continent, or is it X fated to suffer an eclipse ana be relegated to third or fourth place among its ambitious and pushing competitors? To the average New Yorker the question may sound foolish. True, a tremor passed through the metropolis when the late phe¬ nomenal census-taking was done in l>hicago ; and there are many signs that Brooklyn, or rather Kings County, is doubling on us in the ratio of increase in population. But the New Yorker is confi¬ dent. He was bred to believe that the city could have no rival on the Western Hemisphere, and it is hard to overcome the tffects of early training, Lf Chicago threatens, he will annex Brooklyn, and if Brooklyn resists, wby, then, he will put all the resources of the city into rapid transit and push out for the north pole in search for a place to deposit the unnumbered millions who are to form the future population of New York. This is plucky ; but let it be said right here that rapid transit is a very dangerous dependence. Observe the throes in which rapid transit is ever conceived in New York ; and tben remember that people are darting all over Kings County without auy undue crowding on electric, surface and elevated railways, and not even dreaming thatrapid transit is a hard thing to get. Every rapid transit facility tiaat can be offered in New York can be duplicated in Kings County at half cost. Over iu Jersey, too, they can jump a five mile broad salt meadow and reach home while we are clearing away obstacles preliminary to a start. It is easy to have rapid transit where there is plenty of room; but it will be found impossible to have anything approaching the perfec¬ tion of rapid transit without deadly peril to life and limb where crowds are too great and space is lacking. How then is rapid transit tc secure the future of New York? It will never save the city from being first rivaled and then distanced in the race for population by at least two secdons of the metropolitan district— Kings County and the territory in New Jersey adjacent to New York. How, too, about Chicago? The people of that city tell us already that they are going to have a more populous city than New York, and if they do not count themselves ahead when the very next Federal census is taken, it will not be for lack of accomplishments in figures. Besides, Chicago is to a very greafc extent the metropo¬ lis of the future growth of the country. It is Chicago, not New Yerk that will be in immediate touch with what is sure, in time, to be the greater balf of the nation. The Chicagoan also bas already demonstrated more ability at city-making than has yet been seen in the world. The only danger is the remote possibility that Chicago may lose some of her wind and be forced to a considerable reduction in pace. C.bicago was made by the great lakes, and they have made several other cities of great expectations, only to meas¬ urably fail them when their hopes were highest. But there is no visible cloud obscuring the future of Kings Couuty or New Jersey, and New York seems even determined to help" them in taking the wind from her own sails in order that one or botb may win in the race for the leading metropolitan position. Witness the proposal of the NewYork Dock Department to buy tbe Pennsylvania Railroad off the water front, and to furnish the money that will enable its managers to make heaps of terminal improvements in Bayonne without any sacrifice of dividends,. We are aii exceedingly astute people in New York ; but our astuteness seems to have retained many of the charactei-istics commeniorated by Wasbihgtbn Irving in his history of the Knickerbockers. Itiselear enough that we have reached a turning point in our career - and if we expect- to remain the leading city on ^iJe continent. we must hold our position by maintaining the commercial advan¬ tages that originally gave us the lead. Yet we are deliberately throwing them away. We are absolutely banishing our commerce from tbe city by making its operations too expensive to be profit¬ ably conducted, and dreaming all the time that we must remain the leading city in the continent because we have been the leading city in the past. Let us have rapid transit by all means. It will help us a little in filling up the waste places at the north end of thecity, but it will not avert the ruin that has already come to some of the finest sections of the south end. At the prevailing ratio of increase in the three communities both Kings County and Chicago will pass us in about twenty years. But both Kings County and Chicago are rapidly increasing their ratio when compared with New York, Investments.—G-ood and Bad. The New York, Susquehanaa Sc Western ^stockholders are soon to be informed by circular wbat the management intends by its proposal to con¬ solidate witb the Hudsou River Terminal and Railway Company, Mean¬ time it may be said tbat of the $5,000,000 additional preferred stock that the issues cf the consolidated company will embrace $l,ti 0,000 will be used to extinguish the cumulative-dividend right of the present preferred stock, $1,000,000 to take in the Hudson River Terminal and Railway Company, and t2,4t)0,[KHl reserved for taking in the Wilkesbarre and East¬ ern uow building. What the circular will not answer is the more import¬ ant question of what all the terminal work tbat is being done is for.' It seems hardly credible that so mucb capital is beiug spent to provide terminals for a property whose business now amounts to less than ^3,000,010 a year, and which wben the Wilkesbarre extension is completed will be less than 300 miles long. Tbe circumstances of the' property are these: It now runs from a poiut two and a-half miles outside of Jersey City to Gravel Place, Pa. I's passengers and freight, except c;al. are carried into Jersey City over the Pennsylvania and its coal to Hoboken by the Lackawanna. It has a short spur to the MacDpin Lake iron region and a longer one to Middletown, K. Y., connecticg with tbe Hew York, Ontario & Western and tbe Erie. The company bas lands in the Scranton coal fields and to reach these it uses tbe Lackawanna from Gravel Place to Scranton, Tbe improvements and extensions now being made will give the Susquehanna a clear run from tbe bank of the Hudson River, where extensive terminals bave been secured, to Wilkesbarre in tbe coal field. Now.the question keeps cropping up, for whom are tbe Hudson River terminals intended ? No one will admit that tbey can be for Ihe Susque¬ hanna itself, because tbe sinking of sucb a large amount of capital, esti¬ mated from ¥1,000,000 to 12,OOO,000, for terminals for a road of Susque¬ hanna's dimensions does not seem reasonable even if it is taken into account that the inerease of net income from the through haul in the place of the division of rates witb the Lackawanna may be comparatively large. Besides, too, it is known that the Lacka¬ wanna has a contract which presumably cannot be terminated for some time to come. The growth of business eveu witb tbe extensions completed and operating can only be moderate and largely only in pro- tortion to tbe growth of the demand for the Scranton coal, in which business SuEquehaana has for competitors the Pennsylvania, Lackawanna, Delaware & Hudson, Jersey Central, Lehigh Valley and the Erie; too formidable and active a string to allow of the thought that Susquehanna can get any than a moderate proportion of any new business that may be created. Tbe question for whom art these terminals'. always recurs there¬ fore. Of course it is generally said that a big road is behind the Susque¬ hanna in tbis work and tbe Canadian Paciflc has been most frequently mentioned, though that seems out of the question. It is very easy to be wrong in such matters, but an examination of the map gives color to the general rumor tbat tbe terminals are to supply the needs of a bigger road than the one that is building them. It will be seen tbat at Wilkesbarre a connection could be made with the terminus there of the Delaware & Hudson which now does not run into NewYork and tbe Delaware & Hudson leads up to the connection with the Grand Trunk at tbe New York boundary line, Tbe proposal of the Three C. management to envelop the property iu a blanket mortgage for §50,000,000 does not meet witb a very great deal of favor if quotations tell anything, yet there are some things the stockholders would do well to consider before deciding upon|it. It was pointed out some time ago tbat something had to be done to increase net earnings, or div. idends oa the common stock at least must be suspended, Tbe financing of a dividend-paying company made up of a number of companies tbemo&t of wbicb had not paid dividends for many years before was naturally an object of suspicion and its securities have Buffered) as a consequence* Bnt it is now explained that Houch tbat was charged to operating expenses properly belonged to construction or permanent equipment with tbe inference that these amounts could properly have been capitalized. For instance, in tbe last annual report it is statel tbat during the year ended June SOth last $483,931 were charged to renewal of cross-ties, au amount largely in excess of ordinary renewals; $14,711 for interlocking at various railway .iunctions; $3i9,t55 had been expended iu rebuilding of bridges; S51,6>U were expended for ten coaches^ $7'S,10U for freight ears, S173,-i 1 for twenty locomotives, and all charged to repairs; $^7,:::19 had been charged to repairs for work begun ou shops and yards at Limdaie. Some of these amouuts would no doubt properly be chargeable to operating expenses uuder the head of repairs and renewals, and tbe report is careful uot to distinguish them, but it is also no doubt true that some oE tbem-would have been very properly provided for out of new.capital bad it been available. The management seems now deter- - mined to provide-for tbe gradual ^owtb of tbe capital in tbe future by . sales o£ bonds from yearto year tomcat the cost of improvements previ- lously.pjudior out of .earnings. Undgr prcperrtstricUons.tbisisagoodpian. Atfiraisightit appears like an ijstention to pay dividends by a roundabout