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May 31, 1902. RECORD AND GUIDE. 995 ,y - ESTABUSHED-^ SWCHsm^lSBa. Dr/oTEDitjREA.LEstate.Suii.oit.'g *gKJ
, 7, UNDSEY, Buainess Manager Telephone, Cortlandt SI87 Entered al the Post Off,re at New York, N. Y.. aa second-class matter.'' Vol. LXIX. JUNE 1, 1902. No. 1785 AS the year goes on the commercial demand for money lessens. This makes more ample the funds available for eiiiployment in the speculative markets, which show con¬ siderable strength considering the circumstances. This strength ia particularly noticeable in the coalers, which, according to ordinary reasoning, ought to be very much depressed as a re¬ sult of the strike. Why they are not is because there is a be¬ lief prevalent that arrangements are maturing for closer rela¬ tions among the anthracite roads, and that part of the advance in the price of anthracite coal will be retained when the strike is over, which will improve dividend prospects, especially in the case of Reading. It is also asserted that the Atlantic shipping combination has for one of its objects the pushing of American coal in Europen and other markets and will thereby create the demand which has always been needed to allow Reading to more fully exploit its large holdings of coal lands. A good deal of tbe general buying of the week has been based on the belief that peace in South Africa will be announced in a few days, and with it will come a new demand for all kinds of investment securities both here and abroad. It is easy to see why the an¬ nouncement should be made, but not so easy to see why it should be followed by a boom in the security markets, seeing tbat the significance of the South African negotiations was in the fact that they were begun on Boer initiative, first through Dr. Kuy- per, and later directly from the leaders in the field. This fact gave a guarantee of a favorable result; or if not that, then that hostilities could only be resumed in opposition to the judg¬ ment of the military leaders, and could not, therefore, be for¬ midable or last long. This feature of the negotiations has not been overlooked, and in fact, accounts for whatever improve¬ ment has been seen in the financial outlook across the seas, and reflected in the advance and strength of British Consols, whose upward movement is not ended yet. ON another page of this isue we publish a second letter from Alderman Ware on the subject of window and other build¬ ing extensions, which contains an extract from an opinion of the Corporation Counsel as to the Board of Aldermen's powers in regard to these projections. It appears that according to the opinion of the legal adviser of the city, the Board of Alder¬ men have no power to allow windows, cornices, balconies or other structural projections beyond the street line .except under general ordinance drafted therefor, and in the drafting thereof must fix a deflnite license fee for each. That is a view that may naturally be expected to be expressed by the Corporation Counsel in response to a direct guestion as to whether such and such a projection is an authorized obstruction or structure In the street, just as an affirmative answer might be expected if he were asked by the Mayor whether saloons should be closed on Sunday. It remains with tbe Board of Aldermen ,to say what the language of the ordinance shall be and what the fees required, and then the citizen wiil have the right to ask judi¬ cial interpretation of the law. We need not point out that most of the projections from buildings gratify artistic taste, rather tban supply practical requirements, and that if theyiare taxed severely they will disappear and the architectural appearance of our streets wil! suffer. Moreover, it would, be a preposter¬ ous thing to attempt to force from owners compensation for the comparatively small amount of aerial space that they occupy, which space cannot be of the slightest use to the city, if for no other reason than because it is pre-empted to the owner's light and air easement. We have no desire to question the sound¬ ness of the Corporation Counsel's opinioi, but we do not think it was the legislative intent to give sucb sweeping effect to the provisions of the charter on which the opinion was based. In the event of the regulations being severe and.the fees, more than -. nominal, the property owners and trade organizations--ftrill .have' good ground for going to the Legislature to ask for amendments to the law. A serious objection to such movements as that with which Alderman Ware is now identifying himself is. that they put double charges on property. Custom having allowed the projection of bay and show windows, cornices and balconies, for instance, the value of the privilege, where it has any, comes to be Included in the value of the property and, of course, also in the assessed value for taxation. Later the city puts a charge on top of that without making any allowance for it in the as¬ sessed values. Another is that it is poor wisdom to add to the expenses of development, and what is now proposed is a considerable expense, and would fall heaviest in the outlying sections where development needs most encouragement Study of a City Plan. "p HE City Parks Association of Philadelphia has just per- ■*■ formed an unusual and valuable public service. It haa compiled and published a special report of the city plan, and by copious illustrations from photographs and drawings it has made its argument very concrete and intelligible, so that no Philadelpbian to whom the report goes can fail to see the pertinence of the discussion, or fail to grasp the need of it and the desirability of the changes, both in fact and theory, that are therein advocated. The result, though it should never pass from knowledge to action, will be a forward step in popular education on a subject too little imderstood and that is still of prime importance. In the narrower and commercial sense there is no matter of deeper concern to the owners of real estate than the adoption of the city plan and the character of its suburban extension or modification; in a larger and pub¬ lic spirited sense, nothing is so fundamental to the improve¬ ment of cities as this science—if it may be so called—of urban geography. It is a good, notable thing that in at least one lead¬ ing community an association made up of people of civic spirit has undertaken the study of this subject, the disinterested set¬ ting forth of the principles that ought properly to guide it, and the local application of these principles. As to the pertinence of the discussion, there is a very com¬ mon impression, even among well informed citizens, that the eity plan cannot be changed, or that if it can, only an enor¬ mous amount of energy will serve to do so. On this point the report says that the notion, or doubt, "is a smoke without the smallest spark. Any street on the plan may be changed by precisely the same method as it was first adopted—by an ordin¬ ance of Councils. And not only may the plan be changed, but it is changed constantly. Streets that have been plotted are changed, streets that have been opened are vacated, actually, every day. It is lilte chasing a bug-a-boo to say so, but that bug-a-boo must be chased." The trouble is not, then, that a city plan can no longer be changed, but that the changes made are too seldom an improvement on the original plotting. Philadelphia is like New York in having early had thrust upon it the grid-iron plan. In Philadelphia the blocks, ac¬ cording to Penn's plan, were mainly to be square instead of oblong, as with us; but there is the like monotony of straight streets without curve or diagonal. William Penn, however, was not quite as ill-advised as our own Ciinton and the other members of the old New York street commission, or else the more generous space for growth that nature seemed to offer to Penn's settlement inspired a more generous altruism in the gentle Quaker's mind. At all events the frontispiece of the report—illustrating "William Penn's plan for the city of Phila- delphia"^shows the provision of five open spaces, each half as large again as an ordinary block, for the area between Vine and South streets and the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. The report notes that had the same protection of small parks been secured for the closely built up sections of the city—as the Consolidation Act of 1854 directed should be done^the city of Philadelphia would have had to-day 280 small parks instead of forty-five! The prestige of Penn's name, or the force of a horrible but simple example, is shown by the fact that in the thirty or more outlying towns and villages that were consolidated in the city, the same plan of square blocks and straight streets had been adopted, the main connecting roads being taken as the bases. It is curious, remarks the report, that the advantage of diagonal streets did not more impress itself upon the early settlers. The saving of time was, perhaps, not as important to them as to us, but tbe inconvenience must have been felt. As to the later generations they—and we—have certainly no lack of visible illustrations of the value of diagonal thorough¬ fares. We do not even have to go to Washington to see this. In Philadelphia Ridge avenue, comments the report, "is a line Of shops—and the shop keepers go where the travel is." Our
