Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 79, no. 2030: February 9, 1907

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314 RECORD AND GUIDE -February 9, 1907 This little cemetery is also the final resting place of veterans of the various colonial wars and continental sol-diers, members of the Hunt, Leggett and Wiliett families. The inscriptions on their primitive grave stones have become illegible by the- lapse of time. A few feet south of the grave of Thomas Hunt, the patriot, is the modest monument erected by sorrowing friends to marlv the grave of Joseph Rodman Drake, the son of Col. Jonathan Drake, of the Continental Army. He was interred in the Old Hunt Burying Ground, as he wished to be, among his friends and near his grandmother, the wife of Thomas Hunt, the patriot, who had sheltered and cared for him when bereaved of his parents. turning his attention to the monetarj' phase of the building situation, "there will be enough money to meet the calls for all legitimate work. Within twleve months. I venture to pre¬ dict, there will be much money obtainable at 4',^ per cent., when the mortgage tax law will have had a chance to work out its course." Glass as a Building Material. Michael Cohen & Co., 1133 Broadway, have a very remarkable structural material in what is called the "Novus Sanitary Struc¬ tural Glass." "It is a creation, not an imitation," says Mr. Cohen, but nevertheless it looks lilie white building marble of the kind that has no striation or veining. and which the public is just now regarding with special favor. It looks like marble and is used as if it were marble for wains¬ coting, fioors, partitions, walls, counter-work in public institu¬ tions, hotels, hospitals, baths, kitchen, toilet rooms and in fact in any place where sanitary conditions are desired, and it is furnished to architects' and engineers' specifications. It is made by the Penn-American Plate Glass Company at Pittsburg. Though it looks like marble, it is glass, not the kind that breaks easily, or that is transparent, but still it is only glass. While it is called "sanitary" glass, it will be used, we fancy, for its beauty as a structural material in places where it is good taste to use marble when one can afford it. This Novus glass does not cost what cut marble does, nor can it be used in all respects as marble is. It can not be used in the form of moldings, or carved like marble, but for flat surfaces it is bound to come into great vogue because of its moderate cost. Many home-builders who would not think of specifying marble work for the Interior of their houses will be asking soon about this Novus glass. Some of us liave seen it at Mount Sinai Hos¬ pital, in the male surgical ward, in the operating amphitheatre and in the examining room. The laboratory of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn has its table tops and shelves made of white slabs of Novus glass. The table tops and counters in the kitchen of the St. Regis were described as "white mai'ble" when the hotel was opened a year ago, though the material is not marble, but Novus glass. Glass is a comer in building materials. It should not stain, fade and get grimy. In times past we have all read that houses would eventually be built of glass, and now we can almost believe it. Brooklyn Euildei's' Dinner. Three hundred attended the fifth annual banquet of the Brook¬ lyn Builders' Association at the Union League Club on Wed¬ nesday. Frederick W. Bowe. president of the association, acted as toastmaster. Seated with him at the guests table were tiie speakers of the occasion. Building Commissioner David F. Moore, ex-Congressman Edward M. Bassett, Frank Bailey. Thomas P. Peters, Gilbert Evans, Congressman William M. Calder. Frank Bailey, vice-president of the Title Guarantee and Trust Company, spoke in a humorous way of some of the interesting manipulations of the real estate market, "We have had an emotional impetus of the real estate market, when men bought any old thing and never looked.at the property because it might spoil the deal. But now those conditions are done with. Tliey have passed beyond recall. "The real development of this town has been caused by the infiux of population into it and great wonders have been ac¬ complished- by it. Within five years the great operators of New York will be at work here in Brooklyn." Mr. Bailey spoke of the iiarmony between the builders and the material men thai was fast being effected and stated liis belief that no more would the scenes of discord of the troublous old times when material supply men and builders were forever at loggerheads be enacted. "And pretty soon," said Mr. Bailey, Convention of Granite Jlaimfuctui'ers and Quarry O^vuers. A large body of granite men assembled at Young's Hotel, Boston, Tuesday, Feb. 5, to attend the annual convention of the National Association of Granite Manufacturers and Quarry . Owners which was held that day. Tlie gathering was the largest in the history of tbe association in spite of tiie severe storm which prevailed at that time. The proceedings began in the banquet hall of the hotel at 10 A. M. Many points of interest to granite men were discussed, among which were mat¬ ters pertaining to the labor question and the unions. Among the New York City delegates were W. R. Arnold, president of the New York Association of Granite Manufacturei-s; Mr. Orr, John Hynes, Messrs. Engeman and Smith, of the Benvenue Granite Co. Mr. Smith, quarry superintendent of Ryan & Parker's quarry at Stonington, Me., was present, and accom¬ panied tbe New York delegation on its return to this city. City Work. The new- year finds a large amount of building for the mu-- nicipality under contract, and considerable more for which con¬ tracts have not yet actually been issued. Last year the city ordered over thirty million dollars' worth of worl; calling for building plans. Ten fire houses were begun or planned in the year 1900. at an average cost of about $75,000 apiece. Six park shelters were put up in the year, chiefly in Brooklyn, and some small bridges were built. A new building for the Health Department in Brooklyn is now building. Its cost will be about 1^200,000. Work has begun on the Staten Island Tuberculosis Hospital. There will be fourteen buildings, intended for patients from all parts of the city, who will here receive fresh-air outdoor treat¬ ment. The structures, which are to be of reinforced concrete, will cost about $2,000,000. Raymond S. Almirall, 51 Chambers st, is architect. Plans have been drawn and approved for tlie Whitehall ferry terminal, for the Staten Island, the Thirty-ninth Street, and South Brooklyn lines. This will cost about .fl,500,000. Messrs. Walker & Morris, 24 East 23d st, are the architects. (See issue Dec. 15, 1900.) Work is in progress upon a new wing for the American Mu¬ seum of Natural History, at 77th st and Columbus av, being the south wing of the west facade, to duplicate the west wing of the soutii facade. It is to contain five stories, with exterior walls of red granite. This wing is being erected by the city under the jurisdiction of the Park Department, at a total cost of .1^320,000. Guldone & Garlardi, 1 Madison av, are the general contractors, and Chas. "\'olz, 160 5th av, architect. The Municipal Art Commission disapproved the plans sub¬ mitted for the Hudson Memorial Bridge, and the Bridge Depart¬ ment is drawing new plans. An appropriation of $3,000,000 for this work was made by the Board of Estimate and Apportion¬ ment last year. Steady progress is being made by the Department of Docks with the water-front improvements; for example, the Chelsea section, which has reached a stage where it remains to build the pier and bulkhead structures, which are to be of steel and iron. Work will be begun on them this year, but it has not yet been contracted for. Tliese piers will probably be used by the big Atlantic steamship companies. The entire cost of the Chelsea improvement is placed at about $8,000,000, exclusive of the cost of the land acquired bj' the city. Plans were approved for the Home for the Aged and Infirm, and other charitable buildings on Blackwell's Island, about a dozen in all, to cost from .'?10,000 to $150,000 apiece. Work upon them will be begun this year. T^'ork is soon to begin on the Coney Island Hospital, near the Ocean Parkway, a group of six buildings, under the Charities Department, intended as a free hospital for the lower part of Brooklyn. The cost is estimated at $200,000. Work on the public bath at the foot of East 23d st is well under way. A new public bath near the foot of East 54th st is to cost obout $100,000. Of the new structures for Bellevue Hospital, one section, to cost about $1,500,000, is now being built. The detailed plans and w-orking drawings for another section, to cost about if900,- 000, have just been approved. Messrs. McKim, Mead & White, 100 5th av, are the architects. Work is now in progress on the Bellevue Hospital Training School, close by the hospital build¬ ings. The John H. Parker Co., 225 4th av, is general con¬ tractor. Plans, involving a ccist of about $1,500,000, have been drawn for the Queens County approach to the Elacliwell's Island Bridge, but work has not yet been begun. The plans for the approach to the Manhattan end of the bridge are now in course of preparation. —During the past week the various branch managers and ■de¬ partment managers of the H. "W. Johns-Manville Co. held their annual convention at the headquarters of the company, 100 William st. New York. This company has a world-wide repu¬ tation as being tlie largest manufacturers of asbestos, magnesia and electrical products in tbe United States, if not in the world, having factories at Brooklyn, Milwaukee, West Milwauivee and Hartford, Conn., and branch offices and warerooms in the fol¬ lowing cities: Milwaukee, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia. St. Louis, Pittsburgh. Cleveland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle. Kansas City, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Dallas and Buffalo. Representatives from the various branches and fac¬ tories were present, and the meeting was not only profitable but interesting to everyone present. As a fitting finale, the convention wound up with a banquet at the Waldorf-Astoria.