Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 78, no. 2019: November 24, 1906

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November 24, 1906 RECORD AJND GUIDE 853 ESTABUSHED ^ W^WpH El^V DEviriED XO f^L ESTMI.BuiLDIjJo AF;Cif[TEeTin^E,H0Usal01LDEGCiEiAT:ctJ. Bi/sif/Ess aiJd Themes of GEHE^^,^l 1Kter,esi . PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Published eVery Saturday Commnulcatlons should Ijn luiarcsscU to C. W. SWEET Downtown Office: 14-16 Vesey Street, New York Telelihone. Cortlaudt 3157 Uptown Olfice: 11-13 East 24th Street, New York Telepbone, 4430 Madiaon Squnro ''Entered al the To.it Offi-e at New Yor';. 7". 1'., rs si-i-ond-ctass inallcr." . Vol, LXXVIIl, NOVEMBER 24, 190G. No. 2019 INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS. Advertising Section. Page Page Cement ..................xxiii Law .........................xi Consulting Engineers .........x Lumber..................xxvii Clay Products ..............xxii Machinery ..................iv Contractors and Builders ......v Metal Work ...............xviii Electrical Interests ..........viii Quick Job Directory ........xxvil Fireproofing ..................ii Real Estate ................xiii Granite ...................xxiv Roofers & Roofing Mater'Is.. .xxvi Heating ...................xvii Stone .....................xxiv Iron aud Steel ................xx Wood Products ...........xxviii FOR SOME weeks it has been pointed out in this column that the stock market iias acted as if it wanterl to go up. Its action in the last ten days has more than justified that view_ It must be very clear to everyone that were it not for the fear ot stringent money rates a bull market, transcending all it.'i predecessors, would now be witnessed on the New York Stock Exchange. Intrinsic values of al! the standard stocks are greatly in excess of the market prices for the same. It may fairly he said that neither values nor the futUTe are being discounted when it is recalled that St, Paul stock, when the railroad only earned $30,000,000 a year, sold at approximately 150, whereas this year the earn¬ ings will not be far from $70,000,000 and the stock is hut 186. This comparison could be repeated indefinitely, and a like showing made with reference to nearly all the old line railroads. New York Central, for instance, flve years ago sold at 175. Why, then, should it be 135, as it was a few days contemporary with the increase of value of real estate all about it. Almost the principal asset of a railway nowa¬ days is its real estate, as witness the amount the Pennsyl¬ vania will have and has had to pay merely to enlarge its terminals. Yet here is the stock of a company, the New . York Central, which has been steadily declining in price for five years, while its property has been steadily advancing in value and its business increasing up to its capacity to handle. That this price action of its shares will right itself is as certain as the day follows the night. The one fear in the situation is money. As was predicted in the Record and Guide a month ago, the shoe is beginning to pinch real estate badly, and we shall be fortunate indeed if we get through the year without a repetition of the fifty-seven varieties of rates witnessed iu Wall Street last December. Barring that the way is clear for an advance all along the line in good stocks and bonds, one cannot go far wrong in purchasing now by anyone able to pay for or carry same without undue charges. The annual statement of the Bank of Montreal shows that this hank is lending in New York $10,000,000 less than a year ago. This is due. of course, to the great business activity in Canada, which enables the money to he more profitably loaned at home. It is conceivable that the com¬ bined Canada banks may be soon loaning $50,000,000 less in New York than a year ago, and if soil would account in some part for the present stringency, as it is in effect a con¬ traction of our available credit. This view of the money niarket has never before appeared in print, and has not been taken by any financial writers. IT IS very much to he hoped that the authorization of new rapid transit routes in Manhattan will not be delayed very much longer. There can be no doubt thai the uncer¬ tainty as to how much and what kind of rapid transit Man¬ hattan is going to get is the greatest single drag on the cur¬ rent development of the city. Two new bridges and three new tunnels to Long Island are actually under construction, and the same is true in respect to the various new tunnels to New Jersey. But in the meantime, while various new transit routes extending through Manhattan to the Bronx have been laid out, it is still uncertain how many and which of them will be authorized. Nobody can tell as yet whether the city will be able to reach an agreement witii the Inter- borough-MetropoHtan Company in respect to the early con¬ struction of one or more new routes, or whether no fair agree¬ ment will be possible, and the delay of planning and building a municipal subway system will have to be incurred. There is no way of getting rid of this uncertainty, for the city can¬ not afford to do merely what the rapid transit combination may want to do; but the condition is extremely regrettable, because there can be no douht that the existing situation in respect to rapid transit lias again become critical. The subway is as crowded during rush hours as the elevated roads used to be. It supplies a more efficient service to the part of the city which it taps, hut there is much of the city to which it is of no advantage, and it is approaching the limit of its serviceability. Its value to the residents of the Bronx is very much diminished hy the fact that its route is so circuitous, and by the fact that the express service for that borough does not run north of Ninety-sixth street station, while the building up of Washington Heights and the Dyck¬ man tract, will be very much hampered by the fact that it is not a four-track road in that vicinity. Neither the Bronx nor Washington Heights can develop freely under ex¬ isting transit conditions, and during the next flve years they will lose thousands of inhabitants for this reason. The truth is that the subway merely filled a vacancy which was already created and really did not provide for future development, Manhattan and the Bronx will have to pass through another period of at least five years in whicii its traveling accommo¬ dations will be wholly inadequate, and the worst of it is that there does not seem to be any practicable remedy for this condition. Our Distressing Streets. WE print this week anotber installment of "exhibits" showing the disgraceful condition into which our streets have fallen. No doubt there are "reasons," good, had and indifferent, why the main thoroughfares of the metropolis o) the Western Continent should present an appearance that we associate strictly with Constantinople or the dacayed and decaying cities of the East. It seems to ns quite incredible that the authorities can be at all cognizant of the extent of the dilapidation permitted in our streets. No part of the city has heen spared. The poorer sections have always been abominably kept; now the ruin from pickaxe and spade is spread like blotches all over the face of the town. The evil has extended so insidiously that the citizen who curses the inconvenience and filth of his own daily route does not stop to think that the conditions that annoy and incommode him are equally prevalent elsewhere and have equally inflicted most other citizens. The truth is. New York City to-day might well be dubbed "The City of Uncomfortable Locomotion." One need not even allude to the Subway. The nightly scenes thereon are not only disgraceful, but filthy. They are a positive challenge to our claim upon civilization. One could not ship hogs from Chicago in anything like the- same way that one can ship human beings to Harlem. The elevated roads are only better than the Subway inasmuch as they are ahove ground and are able thereby to make a larger draft upon fresh air. The street car service, from the point of view of sanitation and decency, is a trifle better at times and in spots than the ele- vjited road, but where and when the street cars are bad, by Jove! they are very bad. The citizen, male or female, who did not wisli to breathe the hundred times concentrated breath of other human be¬ ings, or be submitted to the indecent packing of body against body (men and women intermingled and interlaced), which must be tolerated by all who ride, could some time ago at least turn to the natural mode of locomotion for escape. But of all such comfort tbe aforesaid citizen is now deprived. Let any pedestrian take a walk from any of our ferries, say, to the City Hall. Let him note the conditions of the streets he has to traverse. Particularly, let him remark these thor¬ oughfares in rainy weather, when the greasy mud is thick and the inequalities of surface are pools of slimy mud. Let him in dry weather note the little simoons of dust and manure that whirl into nose and eye. Let him count how many times in a distance much less than a mile he will he halted by obstructions, and how often he will be compelled to pass out into the driveway—that is, if he can get there— by climbing over obstructions, trenches, piping, conduits, cables, heaps of dirt, piles of paving blocks, to say nothing of the crates and other business impedimenta whicii merchants are permitted to dump and leave upon the sidewalk. The ,£*«■