Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 76, no. 1953: August 19, 1905

Text version:

3i6 RECORD AND GUIDE August ig, 1905. Charles E., Duslon & Co.. of 11 ©roadway, are moving their plant from Orangeburgh, N. J., to Jersey City, as they have se¬ cured the large works formerly occupied by the Spiral Rivet Tube Company, Fisk and Melory avs, Jersey City. A weight of thousands of tons of limestone slid from the side of the quarry of Mill "A," of the Lehigh Portland Cement Co.,_ at Ormrod, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday last, killing twelve men and injuring six others. The Lehigh company will have the sympathy of the trade in this sad affair. At the office of Messrs. Clinton & Russell, architects. 32 Nassau st, it was learned this week that work on the new 20- sty apartment hotel, to be erected at Broadway and West End av, for William Waldrof Astor. will not be commenced for some time yet. Plans have been completed. (See Record and Guide, July S, 1905.) The Promethus Electric Co., of 39 Cortlandt st, make an elec¬ tric iron which is especially adapted to the use of architects and builders for flattening out prints and tracings which have been rolled up for a long time and therefore hard to manage. Messrs. Clinton & Russell and olher well-known architects find these irons very useful. The Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity of the City has opened bids for the construction .and equipment of a i.ew pumping station at Gravesend. Twenty-six 'bidders sub¬ mitted bids for the equipment work and five for the construc¬ tion. The figures on the former item nave not been tabulated as yet. but Ryan & McFarren, of IGO East 23d st, submitted the lowest bid for the construction, which was $22,T30, and was $4,000 lower than that of the next lower bidder. An amount of repair work and alterations exceeding all rec¬ ords is going on throughout the city. There is work on every hand, and many deserving young mechanics have found this a good season to start in business on their own account. Since the first of January permits for nearly ten million dollars' worth of alterations have been issued in Manhattan and the Bronx, and for over three million dollars' worth in Brooklyn. In this borougli a great many alterations have been caused by the enforcement of the sanitary plumbing provisions of the ten¬ ement house law. The New Tork Central Railroad will spend a lot of money in removing grade crossings between New Tork and Croton. and eventually all along its lines. The money will come back in the form of wages of flagmen saved in the course of years. Wagon roads will have to cross either over or under the rail¬ road, requiring the building of many concrete abutments. It is expected that the work within the electric zone, and a little more, wil! be done in two years. Plans were submitted to the State Railroad Commissioners on Thursday, as the State will pay one-fourth of the expense, cities and towns one-fourth, and. the railroad company one half. The New Tork- Central R. R. Company is preparing to enlarge its machine shops at some points, and plans have been filed with the Bronx Building Deparlment for several structures to be erected in the company's grounds at Sedgwick av. High Bridge, including a one-story frame electric locomotive shop 24xlT6 ft., a roundhouse, to cost .$'24,000, a sand house, shops and an office building. These structures are to be erected to be used in connection with the electric service. In addition to that the company will erect a two-story brick power station on its prop¬ erty at 153d st and Sheridan av, New Tork. The station will be 01x242 ft. in size and will cost about $58,000. It was learned this week at the ofiice of Messrs. McKim. Mead & While, architects for the new Pennsylvania Railroad ter¬ minal, to occupy the block bounded by Tth and Oth avs. Slst and 33d sts, that bids on the general contract will not be asked for at least six or eight months to come. The only con¬ tracts so far awarded by them is for granite (Milford Pink) and cut stone work, which was let last April, to Norcross Bros., of 160 Sth av. The structural steel and all iron work is in the hands of Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Co., of 10 Bridge st. Mr. J. H. O'Brien, chief engineer for the firm, has entire charge of this work, and the. awarding of sub-contracts, none of which have yet been given out. Study ol Interior Decoration, The Museum of the Arts of Decoration, in Cooper Union, rep¬ resents an important department of work that is allied to building and real estate—house decoration. The number of vis¬ itors to the museum, while still small, has increased from 2,6S1 in 1903-1904 to 5,4S2 in 1904-1905. while 170 workers and 3,731 students have practically used the museum as a working stu¬ dio. "Since January 1," writes Miss Hewitt in the Forty-sixth An¬ nual Report of Cooper Union, "four outside schools have sent classes regularly, wilh masters, to study from the actual ob¬ jects. "These schools are: The New Tork School of Applied Design for Women, Thursday afternoons. The School of Decorative and Applied Art, Wednesday or Friday afternoons, and work¬ ing on other days. The Newark Technical School, Monday even¬ ing. The Toung Men's Christian Association, Class in House- Furnishing and Interior Decoration, one Thursday and two Friday evenings, with a professor giving an ambulant lecture on style, illustrating it by the objects. The same schools have applied for regular days and hours for the school year or 1905- 1906, the School of Decorative andd Applied Art. bringing a second class from Brooklyn. Gradually but surely the sympathies of the wealthy for art are being broadened from a fancy for oil paintings and statuary merely into other forms of art having to do with the decora¬ tion of the home. Architecture, murai painting, furniture, tap¬ estries, ornamental plaster, and color designs, are all destined to receive more attention as the study of beautiful tilings be¬ comes more and more popularized in a way, and the ability to gratify cultivated tastes increases. W^ork on Long Island Ferry House. The Long Island Railroad Company, 128 Broadway, has torn down the sheds that covered its ferry slips at the foot of East 34th st. New York, and the Edward E. Jenks Co., dock builders, 143 Liberty st, have the general contract to build the four ferry slips and bridges, which will occupy two blocks be¬ tween East SSd and SSth sts. Upon the completion of this, a fine ferry building will be built to cover the entire frontage. The new building will face westwardly toward S4th st, and measure 400xlT0 ft. There will be three spaces for cabs 45 ft. in width. The bridges will be the finest and most substantial of any in use in tbe world. They will be raised and lowered by electricity, and will not be operated by the tide by means of floats as at present. The company will run seven ferry boats on five-minute headway. The elevated railroad platform and stairways will remain as at present. The work is estimated to exceed $300,000. The Largest Steam Turbines. The Brooklyn Heights Railroad Company has recently closed contracts with the Westinghouse companies, Pittsburg, Pa., fot two 7,500-kilowatt turbine-type generating units for extending its present powerhouse equipment in Brooklyn. These units, it is said, will be the largest generating units of the turbine type in the w'orld. With the guaranteed overload capacity of 50 per cent, above rating, the turbines will thus be capable of developing 10,000 brake horsepower and about 10,500 brake horsepower on normal load. The turbines will operate on dry steam at 175 pounds pressure and a vacuum of about 28 inches. Three-phase, 25-cycle current will be generated directly at 11,000 volta for distribution to the line. It is of interest in this connection that the second and third largest turbine generating units m the world are also of the Parson type, the former built abroad and the latter by the Westinghouse companies at Pittsburg. The Brooklyn Heights contract is especially significant from the fact that the company had already contracted about a year ago for a Westinghouse- Parsons turbine unit of the largest capacity then built—5,500 kilowatts. The building of the new machine will mark an im¬ portant step in the development of power-station apparatus. Description of New Bridge TerminaL Commissioner Best has furnished the following succinct par¬ ticulars of the new and larger terminal, in Manhattan, for the Brooklyn Bridge, condemnation proceedings for which have been resumed: (1) A basement below the street level Into which the loops for trolley lines in the present station may be transferred for the safer and more convenient disposition of passengers to and from cars. (2) A first floor on the ground level which will provide within street lines for waiting and assembly spaces for the use of passengers going to and from the cars over the bridge, and will be arranged so that Chambers st and certain other crossings may permit free passage of street travel through and under the building. (3) A second or gallery floor about the level of the mezzanine floor of the pres¬ ent station which will provide for the distribution of passengers coming from the street, or from the elevated railroads in Park Row as well as those which cross the bridge. (4) A third or track fioor providing for the distribution of tracks and plat¬ forms for the trains crossing the bridge on what are known as the bridge or elevated railroad tracks. This floor will be the main station floor and have a great height, in order to provide adequate light, air and ventilation. The new station will pro¬ vide the same number of loops as are now used in the present terminal, eight new landing points for bridge railway trains, and will permit the handling of about twice as many trains at this station as is now possible. The Corporation Counsel wil! again apply to the Supreme Court on August 25 for the appointment of Commissioners of Estimate and Appraisal. The most important properties to be taken are the block in which the Staats Zeitung stands, and most of which is owned by Sire Brothers. Their associates are said to be William F. Sheehan and T. D. Sullivan. The Second City in the World. The incomplete census flgures Indicate that the population of New Tork Is now just under 4,000,000, or, to be somewhat more exact, 3,987,1S4. The probabilities are that Manhattan and the Bronx alone will be found to have a population of 2,3T8,696.