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June 8, 1912 RECORD AND GUTDE 123; gestion. A deliberate policy of locating express stations on different subways on different slreets rather than on the same streets would undoubtedly tend to dis¬ tribute business and diminish congestion. In the case of the Broadway-Seventh Avenue Subway, however, there is some¬ thing to be said for locating expi-ess sta¬ tions bolh at 23d, 33d and 42d streets. Thai subway is, of course, essentially a loop. Its main purpose is to enable the travellers on the Brooklyn Rapid Tran¬ sit lines to reach the central parts of Manhattan quickly and for a flve cent fare. These travellers will want par¬ ticularly to have convenient access to the central business and shoppiiig and amuse¬ ment district of Manhattan—the districi stretching from Madison to Long Acre Squares, and it might stimulate traflic ■without any excessive use of time to stop the trains three times in this par¬ ticular and—just as the subway express now runs as locals norlh of 96th street and south of Brooklyn Bridge. Accord¬ ing to this arrangment the only express stations in Manhattan on the Broadway- Seventh avenue route would be one down- tow-n at Vesey street and Broadway, one al Canal street and Broadway, the three just mentioned between Madison and Long Acre Squares, and a flfth at 59th street and Lexington avenue. The Seventh Avenue Association is very much alive to the necessity of im¬ proving the street-car service on that thoroughfare; and to this end it should seek to engineer some arrangement be¬ tween the city government and the New Tork City Railways Company for a new Seventh avenue surface line, following the route of the new Seventh avenue. Such an additioild line would be of the utmost public convenience. There is no through surface car route on the "west side between Broadway and Eighth ave¬ nue and its establishment would not inerely be useful under existing condi¬ tions, but, would considerably improve the business availability of the whole Seventh avenue district. No other chance remains of building in Manhattan a sur- fact line of really considerable value, and it should not be neglected. The Week in Real Estate. The brokerage news of the week is in keeping with the mixed nature of the in¬ fluences operative at present in the rea! estate market. Among these may be mentioned an abundance of capital sink¬ ing investment in mortgage loans and an assured prospect of large-scale rapid transit building, on the one hand; and, on the other, an oversupply of mercantile buildings, coupled with falling rents, and a more or less general state of quiet in the trades that are the principal users of space in mercantile structures. The oversupply of mercantile build¬ ings is, of course, a result of tlie easy conditions that have prevailed in tihe mortgage loan market for several years. Lenders have been eager to encourage building operations in the midtown sec¬ tion, a section that has invited immi¬ gration of business houses and offered unusual opportunities for real estate spec¬ ulation and investment, owing to recent and prospective changes in the city's transportation routes. It was inevitable that some overbuilding should take place there. The only question of conseciuence is whether or not the supply of mercan¬ tile space has reached excessive propor¬ tions. Brokers who take a large view of the renting situation admit that vacancies are more numerous than they should like to see them and that net rents of lofts are declining, but they argue that a mod¬ erate decline of loft rents is in the in¬ terest of the business prosperity of the city. That prosperity depends upon the cost of doing business, in which rent is a large element. The amazing growth of industry in this town, since the intro¬ duction of steel construction, has been due in notable measure to reasonable loft rents, to the general tendency with such construction to build in advance of ac¬ tual current needs. However, during the business boom whieh culminated in 1907, Ioft rents rose to a high mark, and the present reduction is merely in the way of bringing them back to a normal level. No well-informed broker, so far as can be learned, is of the opinion that the re¬ duction will be excessive. As yet it is registered mainly in the form of tem¬ porary concessions. It has not affected freehold values, except in the old whole¬ sale section below 14th street. Further¬ more, it is likely to be soon checked by diversion of building loan capital from the midtown district into other fields of operation opened up by the new sub¬ ways. This supposition is borne out by the week's brokerage news. The deals reported from the midtown section were concerned less with sites for loft build¬ ings than with dwelling houses on the outskirts of the shopping district, pur¬ chased for conversion to business use. With a let-up of construction work in the midtown section, the Ioft vacancies there should be reduced to normal pro¬ portion within a reasonable time. Manu¬ facturing and wholesale trades are un¬ questionably influenced by the political situation, although the influence may not be so pronounced as it has been in some other presidential campaigns; and we may look forward to a considerable ex¬ pansion of business as the uncertainties of the political situation clear up. The policies of Presidential candidates and of political parties with respect to indus¬ trial corporations, transportation and other public service companies, banks and the tariff has more to do with the demand for lofts in New York than is apparent on the surface, and business men at the head of large affairs are dis¬ posed to hold new enterprises in abey¬ ance until the outcome of the campaign is fairly certain. Meanwhile, it is clear that the professional element in the real estate market is turning its attention to localities that will be directly benefltted by the new rapid transit lines. The con- flrmative action taken by the Board of Estimate on the Interborough and Brook¬ lyn Rapid Transit contracts is too re¬ cent to be reflected conspicuously in the real estate news, but brokers interviewed this week for the Record and Guide are unanimous in saying that they are hav¬ ing inquiries for "subway property." This is particularly the case with brokers interested in the sections penetrated by the Lexington avenue and 'Seventh ave¬ nue lines. The Inquiries come mainly from op¬ erators, who naturally have no intention of paying inflated prices; owners, how¬ ever, are generally asking tall figures, and brokers find it difficult to close trans¬ actions. As is always the case when old price standards have been superseded through some notable development affect¬ ing property values, early negotiations of -sales are slow and difficult. However, after a few transactions have been put through, the data thus supplied will fa¬ cilitate later deals. "Subw^ay property," as a matter of fact, was fairly well rep¬ resented in the week's brokerage news Despite the fact that all, previous records for building plans filed in Greater New Tork -have been broken since Jan¬ uary first, the volume of building ma¬ terials now moving is much lower t'han during similar periods in 1911, 1910 or 1909. Building Bureau statistics show that while the filings are exceptionally heavy, the total volume of actual construction is below sixty per cent. In New York this is accounted for by the probability of the Introduction of a new building code, which, should it pass in its present form, would increase fhe cost of certain kinds of construction from fifteen to twentv per cent. But there is little likelihood of the ordinance immediately passing, be¬ cause a revision commission is to be ap¬ pointed by the Aldermanic committee, so that probably another year will elapse before the code is reported back to the board. Either the money market is sufficiently easy to warrant the preparation of plans for prospective construction or builders have for the moment, become panic stricken over the code situation. Another possible explanation of the remarkable increase in filings is found in the fact that practically every building now being erected in Manhattan is of the fireproof type and there is also a larger increase in the number of stories to a building. In the Bronx, where all records have been shattered, the increase is attribut¬ able to a larger number of apartment house operations going ahead. In Brook¬ lyn the detached and semi-detached house is being superseded by the apart- iment house and the iapartment hotel. Factory construction also has been going on apace in that borough. In Richmond flat and store construction predominates: while Queens is holding its own by reason of the erection of quantities of detached ■houses by development companies. In Newark and the suburbs there is a slight falling off in general building and tene- n-ient house work. Herein then is found the real cause of the firmness in prices and. at 'the same time, timidity among buyers. The demand for common brick, for in¬ stance, iast week netted only thirty-five cargo sales, whereas the normal for the last week in May should be about seven¬ ty-six cargoes Prices, however, were held stiffly at $15.75 to $7.00. In hard wood the demand is light in all sections of the metropolitan district, but prices have sharply advanced from $2.00 to $3.00 per thousand feet. In Portland cement there are 1,000,000 barrels less than last year's mill flgures available for this market in the Lehigh Valley district, and while the demand is light the $1.33 quotation is stiffly maintained here, except in the case of a few companies which are aggressive¬ ly after new business. In ordinary grades of lumber prices are also stiff at $2S to ?30 for yellow pine, although market re¬ quirements just now are somewhat be¬ low normal. The most striking illustration of the very unusual conditions of the building market just now is found in the behavior of varnish and paint making materials. Linseed oil is quoted at $0.79 with only a hand to mouth market, and china wood oil used in the manufacture of varnish is bringing about $0.11 a pound. Paints, therefore, are in a close buying market, and the volume of varnish that is moving is somewhat restricted. Painting con¬ tractors report a large amount of work held in abeyance. Financial interests are able to show that m^ney is beginning to tighten on practically all kinds of construction work, but Ihey are also able to show that there is still a verj' heavy demand for loans. Measuring Value by Tests. Careful management of improved property is ?hown now^here to better ad¬ vantage and profit than in th.e buying of equipment and supplies. The pur¬ chasing departments of the big real es¬ tate companieis that majie a specialty of managing are as highly^organized as the purchasing departments of railroads or industrial concerns, and in no business is there greater variety of supplies bought or a more versatile knowledge necessary on the part of the purchasing agent. There are few sitaples ithat can be bought to advantage on a strictly com¬ petitive price basis, but it is becoming recognised that mere weight or other measure d-^es not accurately represent value; and the need of determining the exact efflciency of a given article has de¬ veloped the technical engineer and his laboratory and demonstrated the great possibilities of saving through making use of his service. Some of the tests for W'hich the services of the laboratories are imoslt frequently sought are to deter¬ mine the heat units in coal, the voltage, candle power and life of electric lamps, the efflciency of generators and motors, freedom from leakage in insulations, and accuracy of meters and other recording instruments. In the purchase of ne-w equipment a defect is frequently detected by the ex¬ pert which, if passed, would during the life of the equipment cost many times ils value in loss of power. Similarly low elRciency of lamps or defective insula¬ tion causes continual loss which would pay the small expense of tests many times over. Good authorities claim that the comparative low returns which some improved property gives the owners.is not due so much to poor rental conditions as to extravagant methods of operation. In many cases a losing property may be made lo return a good income by locating financial leaks through the aid of the real estate manager and power leaks through -the aid of the testing laboratory. The 96th Street Section. Ninety-sixth s'tneet, ait the intersec¬ tion of Broadway, which has been a civic center since colonial days, will have its position emphasized by the erection of another large playhouse. Ninety-sixth street has the only river landing between 79th street and Manhattan Valley, and most of the building material for the up¬ per West Side, during the period of its development, came that way. In early (times this was the particular landing place for Bloomingdale village, the nucleus from which has grown the large and beautiful West End section of our day. Already there is a theatre at the north¬ west corner of 96th street and Broadway, erected last year, and the one now pro¬ jected will be on the 97th street cor¬ ner of the same block. The site was this week leased for a long term to the same syndicate which built the other play¬ house and found it a successful invest-