Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 60, no. 1550: November 27, 1897

Text version:

November 27, 1897. Kecard and Ouide \ 811 ^i Qllil. itpiir^iREfl. the Britisii Board of Trade, some might be led to thinlt; that the United States had never done business away from home before to-day. agm^iBGS. Dnárjûi To Rej^lEstajĩ.Buildí^'o A^RfifrrEcmJHE.Ko'JSEtíoiiiDEWSîjTiat Busiiícss AfÍD Themes of Gf|lER4l IKtehesi . PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS FubUsheil every Satu7'ãay'i TKLBPHONE, , - , . CORTLANDT 1370. Cûnimuiiications ahould be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street. J I. LTNDSEY, Business Manar/cr. •Entered at tlic Posl Ojfiae «í Xew Yorlí, j\'. Y.. as second-elass maUer." Vol. LX. NOVEMBER 27, 1897. No. 1,550 THBRE is no change in the attitiide of the stock marlĩet; waitĩng conditions continue to prevail, with weakness the tendeney rather than strength.thoughthe declines effected do not amount to much. As the next movement depends npon the attltude of Congress towards the Cuban and curreney questions, everything bearing upon the latter, even in the remotest way, is naturaĩĩy discussed. It is always the case that a number of prominent members of hoth houses pass through Wall Street on rheii' way to Washington, just before the assembling of Con- gress, and they are always closely questioned on the nature of coming legíslation. So far as it has shown itself this season, the procession of lawmakers en route through Wall stveet has made a good impression and created the idea that Congress, as a whole, and the administration are as one in desiring that noth- ing should be done to check the improvement in business that has so obviously been made. Judged by the statements reported to have been made by both Senators and Representatives, the com- ing Congress is to iDe a busĩness one, or as a prominent Senator is saîd to have inelegantly put it, a buli Congress—which wilĩ de- vote itself to measures for advancing business and avoid the temptation that a daring minority is sure to present to them of indulging in jingo antics. These are fĩne promises, and we hope they may be kept, though it must be borne in mînd that they are made by a few men for a very large body, whose real intentions are very difficult to gauge, and who may be swerved from good intentions, if they have any, by the occurrences of the hour. However, there is a hopeful tendency in the Street, based on beliefs of what Congress will or will not do that speaks eneouv- agingly for the immediate future, at any rate. EUROPE is snffering from an attack of, what may be called, industrial fîdgets. A few extra foreign orders placed in this country have hrought forth warnings against American competi- tion from heads of governmental departments out of all propor- tion to the eause and wíth suggestions to meet it still more dis- proportionate. That the United States, with its ĩarge population, immense resources and untiring energy and enterprise should be in the eontest for foreign trade ougnt not to surprise any one. Nor need it be taken for otherwise than granted that it will continue in the flght until it has achieved a high position for itself. If the commerce of the world had no power of growth, this new competition might be the serious thing it is made out to be. But the demands are growing year by year, so that new alds are absoĩutely required to maintain the supply. Mueh of the talk of Britaín's commercial loss, for instanee, is the erudest lĩĩnd uf stuff aud unwarranted by au examination of the statistics. Ger- many is supposed tb have taken away a part of her trade, and the United States is now, the alarmists say, to take away more, yet It will be found that Britain has all the time had an increase of foreign trade more than proportioned to the increase of the foreign trade of the world, and has consequently been an actual gainer rather than a loser. If Germany has entered British mar- kets as a seller, she has also gone into them as a buyer. Before being seared by what they conceive to be the probable results of American competition and conveying their fears to their countrymen, European statesmen should get a few smart sehool boys to work out some sums for them in the line indicated above; and competent inquirers to ascertain how far the capture of recent orders by American flrms is due to their ability to sup- ply a particular article "which could not be obtained at home, or to pressure of orders upon home machĩnery, or idleness of the latter because of strikes. Unfortunately for seientific and math- ematicaĩ truth, statesmen do not obtain their positions because of their ability to handle these questions themselves, conse- quently they often utter sheer nonsense when dĩseussing them, of wMch assertiou CountGoIuehowski has reeentlyshown the truth. By the tone of his and the address of Mr. Ritchie, President of THE NEW HOTEL RENAISSANCE THIS edifice, at the southwest corner of 43rd street and Fifth avenue has succeeded in attracting the attention which it seems to have been designed largely in order to attract. Some of this it owes to the contemptuous contrast its design exhibita to that of the old Hotel Renaissance, of whieh the new is practi- eally an extension, and architecturaily a censure. The old is a simple-minded sort of edifice wîth a two-story basement in white marble, having a little portieo of two orders at the en- trance, a four-story superstructure in yellow briek and cream colored terra cotta, and a crowning attie with a rich modillioned cornice and a parapet, ali in terra eotta, and every pier occupied with an elaborate cartouche. This story is the feature of the front, which has no other except the row of canopied and bal- conied windows which oeeupies one of the intermediate stories without apparent reason why it might not as well occupy any other. Vertically there is no composition except what is in- volved ĩn giving two stories to the basement of a seven-story building, and one to the attie, whieh does not here estahlish a harmonious relation; and laterally there is no eoraposition at all, the openings, exeept the portico, beíng equally spaced from end to end. The eolor of the front is rather taking and the de- tail not at all bad. Until its new neighbor arrived it seemed of an amiable though weak aspect. The new building undoubt- edly has the effect of exposing it, emphasizing its lack of compo- sition, its thinness and its vacuity, so as to show us how feeble and ridiculous it is in its simple-minded artlessness. Whether this was done through design or through want of design does not cIearlyappear,anddoesnotmuchmatter. Itis certain that the new designer has not made any reference in the way of deference to his predecessor, his material being a monOchrome of light lime- stone in place of the white marble and yellow baked cl'ay, and not a line of the older building being produced in the newer, except that, apparently by chanee, the main cornice of the newer coincides with the sill course of the attic. The effect, like the effect of all tne juxtapositions of pretentious and architectur- esque buildings in Forty-third street, is what they call in New England "unneíghborly," and enhances the general impression of the vicinage of being an architectura! miiseum rather than an architectural quarter. "They manage these things hetter in France." And this makes it the more odd that architects who have learned their art in France should show so little con- sideration to the unities the observance of which goes so far towards making Paris a city, and the neglect of which goes so far towards keeping New York a mere agglomeration. Aa a matter of fact, some of the most staring and lamentable incon- gruities of our recent building have been inflicted by architects who had just come from studying the immense advantages of congruity and conformity. Whatever may he the cause of the injurious effiect of the new building upon its neighbor, nobody would dream of imputing want of design to it, considered by itself. It would he hard to point to a recent building that is desígned so much, or composed so elaborateĩy. The plot which it occupies is only 25 feet on the avenue by 125 on the street. But even the narrow front is triply dívided laterally as well as vertically, and the triple division of the wider is subdivided into a fivefold partition. None of the seven stories anywhere re- peats another, even to the repetition of one of the principal openings. Moreover, it should be said at onee that the eompositĩon is effective and successful as well as elaborate. The primary mo- tive is the design of the avenue front, which ís repeated at the corner of the street front, so as to eonvert this end of the build- ing into a paviĩlion of twenty-five feet square, a pavillion dístin- guished from the curtain not by projection but by very emphatic quoining. A part of this pavilion is agaJn repeated at the other end, and a symmetrícal composítion of thís front aĩso secured, the center occupying three-flfths and each wing a fifth of Its whole expanse. The basement of the avenue front is oecupíed by a round areh occupying the whole of it, except what is required for the ample piers. The joints of the masonry are emphatĩeally defined. The arch itseif is simply treated, having only a coneave cut at the arris by way of moulding, but thé keystone, or rather the top of the arch, for severaĩ voussoirs are comprised in it, is signal- ized by an enormous cartoucbe, flanked by heavy consoles car- rying a light balcony, of which the panels are rather encrusted than perforated, so close and so nearly solid in effect it is. Cartouche, consoles and baĩcony ali contribute to mark the divls- ion of the basement frora the superstrueture and to make a feat- ure of the demarcation. The remaining stories are treated wlth a close similarity, which is not yet identity. The feature of