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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 81, no. 2092: April 18, 1908

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April iS, 1908 RECORD AND GUIDE 699 ESTABUSHED"^ iAWPHSl*:!^ 1868. Dd^teD jo Rf\L EsTWE.BuiLDIlfe AffK'"'^'^'^^ .HotiSElJOlIl DEflOFlftnoif. BtlsnfeSS AlfoTHEMES Of GEliERfl llftEllESl.; PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET Vtiblished Every Saturdag By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO. President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer. F. W. DODGE Vlce-Pres. & Genl, Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary, F. T. MILLER Noa. II to 15 East 24tli Street, New Vork Cily (Telephone, Madison Square, 4430 to 4433.) "Entered at tlie Pt}st Office ut New York, , N. Y.. as Siconil -class matter." Copyrighted. 1908, by The Record & Guide Co, Vol. LXXXl. APRIL IS, 190S. No. 2092. THERE are fewer indications than there were a few ■weeks ago of a general industrial revival, but there are also more indications that the business community is beginning to profit by tbe bitter but salutary dose of busi¬ ness depression. A prolonged period of prosperity encour¬ ages not only extravagance of personal expenditures, but a somewhat easy extravagance of business methods. A manu¬ facturer who finds it difficult to l^eep abreast of his orders is not prompted to look closely into the economy of his busi¬ ness organization. It is cheaper for tbe time being to de¬ vote all his energy to increasing his product, even if tbe cost of production becomes unpleasantly high. He can afford to postpone any strenuous attempt to make his methods of pro¬ duction and sale as economical as possible until tbe coming of a period of lower prices and fewer orders. It is tbis process o^ business reorganization which is now taking place; and it must be allowed to run its course. Tbe railroads are be¬ ginning to succeed in diminishing their operating expenses in something like the same proportion as the decrease in gross earnings, and all large industries are adopting similar measures to accomplish similar results. Even though there is no general reduction in wages, tbe labor cost of the most important services and commodities is being reduced. The less competent employees are being discharged, and tbe fear of a similar fate stimulates their more fortunate or able brethren to renewed exertions. All persons, machines and methods are being put to a much severer test than there can be in a period of prosperity; and tbey must prove their com¬ petence or else be thrown into the scrapheap. A process of this kind cannot be completed in a day, and it is not de¬ sirable that it should be. Occasional periods of business depression are as necessary to the health of tbe business or¬ ganism as tonics and purges are to tbe health of the human body. No doubt neither men nor business communities would need such drastic medicine in ease they did not abuse themselves during tbeir periods of health and abundance. Tbe medicine is only necessary in order to cleanse the system from the effects of excess and to renew its vitality. But if any industrial community ever needed such medicine it was tbe American business community of 1906 and 1907. Its health bad not been permanently undermined by its long period of prosperity, but it was certainly suffering from too much blood and too much flesh; and it needed some whole¬ some bleeding and some rigorous training. Everything in¬ dicates that it is getting a large allowance of just what it needs, and that it is already showing symptoms of better health. .-------------«------------- ONE of the most hopeful developments in the rapid tran¬ sit situation has been the recent rise in the price of tbe local traction shares. This rise in price bas not been sufficient, of course, to restore tbe credit of the Interborough- Metropolitan Company, but so far as it has gone it bas been encouraging and is indicative of a real improvement in the financial position and prospects of the local traction corpora¬ tions. The situation of tbe Interborough Company itself would, of course, be exceptionally strong in case the merger had never taken place, and tbe best possible result of the New York City Railway receivership would be a dissolutlor of tbe merger. For in that event the Interborough Company would be in a position to build additional Manbattan subways with its own credit. Even, however, if the merger cannot be dissolved, the Tnterborougb-Metropolitan Company may be strong enough at the expiration of another year again U become an actual factor in the gradual construction of an enlarged subway system. Under the management of the re¬ ceivers the earnings of the street railway cars are being aug¬ mented, and in the course of time can be still further augmented. Probably they will never be sufflcient to meet tbe obligations of tbe New York City Railway Company, bul they should be sufflcient to give a considerable value to the street railway shares owned by the Interborough-Metro- politan Company. It is to be hoped that the improvement will proceed rapidly enough to justify tbe early announcement of some scheme of reorganization. As the Record and Guide has frequently pointed out, tbis is a matter which concerns not merely the owners of the securities of the several local traction corporations, but tbe traveling public of the whole city. Whether or not the merger of the street railway com¬ pany witb the Subway Company was desirable in the public interest, there can be no doubt that the subway system of New York should, if possible, be leased and operated by one corporation. Several independent subway companies oper¬ ating lines wbich were not connected one witb another would give the city a service much less convenient and much more expensive than could a single company operating one con¬ necting subway system. It wouid consequently be peculiarly unfortunate in case tbe Interborough Company were unable, because of its defective credit, to become an actual bidder for any new Manhattan subways. It looks now as if such additions to the underground system would be built by private capital, and provided it can raise the necessary money, the Interborough Company can alford to offer the city a better operating contract than can a new and independent company. Any further improvement in the value of the Interborough- Metropolitan securities will consequently remove one of the gravest existing drawbacks to tbe construction under most satisfactory conditions of new underground railroads. NO question of discretion was involved in the case which the Appellate Division of the First Department decided this week in favor of tbe Tenement House Commissioner and the construction be had placed on a certain provision of law. The relators insisted, according to the opinion handed down, tbat upon the facts recited in the Interlocutory writ they were entitled as a matter of strict legal right to tbe approval of tbeir plans and specifications for the alteration of a row of houses which bad been erected and completed according to other plans which had been approved by the department. This is not, therefore, a case of being permitted to build in violation of the law and disciplined for it afterwards, because the pur¬ pose of tbe legal proceeding was to compel the commissioner to approve plans and specifications for tbe alteration of exist¬ ing cellar rooms so that tbey could be occupied by janitors and their families. The first objection which the commis¬ sioner made to tbe plans was tbat the ceiling of the rooms are only two feet above the curb of tbe street, whereas they should be four feet and six inches above tbat level, because the houses were erected since the passage of the Tenement House act, and hence the application of the owner was gov¬ erned by Section 91, subdiv. 3, which relates to rooms in basements and when tbey may be altered so as to be occu¬ pied for living purposes. This section provides that "tbe ceiling of such rooms shall be at least four feet and six inches above the surface of the street OR ground outside of and ad¬ joining the same." The owners' contention was that the re¬ quirements of the statute would be met in tbe case of the rooms which tbey desire to convert into dwelling-rooms, be¬ cause their ceilings arq more than this distance above tbe surface of a sunken court; but the judges of the Appellate Division unanimously held that the real intention of the statute was tbat in all houses thereafter erected at least one- half of the height of the basement rooms should be above the curb level, and tbat tbe words "and" and "or" when used in a statute are convertible as the sense may require. Tbe evident desire of tbe owners was to convert into living apart¬ ments wbat is virtually a cellar, notwithstanding the sunken court; and, taking this view the judges found themselves unable to accede to tlie construction contended for by the relators, whose ceilings are but two feet above the level of all the adjacent streets, when they should be four and a half. Hence the present decision contains nothing extraordinary or radically different from previous interpretations of the statute and rulings of the department. It was hardly to be expected that the courts would finally permit an owner to excavate a space- many feel below the level of tbe adjacent street and, by creating an artificial surface, so evade a law whose object was to ensure ventilation and punshioe for basement apart¬ ments.