Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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136 RECORD AND GUIDE July 24, 1915 Devoted to Real Estate Building Construction and BuildingManagement in the Metropolitan District Founded March 21, 1868. by CLINTON W. SWEET Published Every Saturday By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO. F, W, DODGE. President F. T. MILLER. Secretary-Treasurer 119 West 40tli Street, New Yoris (Telephene, 4800 Bryant.) "Mntered at the Post Ofice at New York, N. T.. as second-class matter.'- ' Copyright. 1915. by The Record and Guide Co. TABLE OF CONTENTS (Seetion One,) Page, .\ Conference on West Side Improvements.. 131 Opposition to the New Electrical Code...... 132 New Amusement Center in Broolilyn........ 133 Powers of a City Planning Committee : Rob¬ ert H. Whitten ......................... 134 Evolution of the Apartment House; Francis S. Bancroft ............................. 154 Terminal Project at Long Island City...... 1,57 Advertised Legal Sales..................... 148 Auction Sales of the Week................. 147 Attachnjents .............................. 1.51 Building Loan Contracts................... 151 Building Management..................... 154 Building Material Market.................. 170 Chattel Mortgages ........................ 151 Classified List of Advertisers........Third Cover Current Building Operations................ 157 Departmental Rulings ..................... 151 Directory of Real Estate Brokers........... 14.^) Foreclosure Suits..........■................ 14f) .Judgments in Foreclosure Suits............ 140 Leases .................................... 143 Lis Pendens .............................. 14!) Mechanics' Liens........................... 150 Personal and Trade Notes................. 160 Private Realty Sales of the Week.......... 140 Real Estate .Notes ......................... 14.5 Real Estate Appraisals..................... 146 Useful Appliances......................... 156 Satisfied Mechanics' Liens.................. 151 Statistical Table ot the Week.............. 146 Trade and Technical Society events......... 160 R. D. West, of Rockville Center, is certain that he oicked up a bar.gain when he paid only $42,500 for the sixty acres in the Milburn reservoir property which the city owned at Baldwin and valued at $125,000, But his friends are not so sure and are wondering what he will do with the reservoir. The regents of the University of the State of New York have not yet named the members of the Board of Examiners of Architects, and there is nothing to be done by the architectural profession in respect to registering until the board which is to be appointed can prepare regulations. This will answer many in¬ quiries. Notice that Queens will get another transit tunnel route. It already has two other tunnel systems at its command, besides the Queensboro bridge and the ferries. Not much perspecuity is re¬ quired to see that by no means all the money to be made in Queens has al¬ ready been pocketed. Buy, build and sell in the right place in the right way and you will make money. While the large price movements in non-dividend paying industrial stocks may fascinate the inexperienced observer, it is the young man who quietly invests his savings in a real estate equity, pay¬ ing it may be eight or ten per cent., or in a real estate mortgage bond at five per cent., who will be best satisfied with his business judgment in the years to come. The annual convention of the Real Estate Association of the State of New York will be held at Saratoga in the middle of September, from a Friday to a Monday. The association performed a duty at Albany during the Legislative session in behalf of real estate interests at large which had never before been attempted and which was of great ef¬ fect and value. The forthcoming conven¬ tion should be very successful. A Billion-Dollar Country. Leaders in finance feel sure of pros¬ perous times. Exports cannot continue to overrun imports at the rate of $2,000,000.- 000 a year without vitalizing business. Another great harvest of crops is as¬ sured for this year, a harvest that will break all records. The value of the corn crop alone in 1913 was $1,692,000,000, and the total value of all grains was nearly $2,900,000,000, The marketed products of the barnyard, which include the poul¬ try and dairy nroducts, are worth ap¬ proximately $1,500,000,000 annually. Al¬ together the farms of the country add to the wealth of the people over $10,000,- 000,000 of dollars every vear. This is indeed "a billion-dollar country," as the late Thomas B. Reed used to say. But that is only a part of the story. .\griculture is not the sole American re¬ source. In times when so much has been said hypocritically against the country, about its backwardness in business and its unreadiness to defend itself, it is re¬ freshing to recall to mind things that make America truly great—the wealthi¬ est, the most formidable nation in the world, .\fter you have made a mental note of the billions of dollars that the 1915 farm crops and products are adding to the country's accumulated wealth, j'ou can set down further billions that will be added by other resources. Thus, the value of the mineral products of the United States now exceeds $2,000,000,000 annually. The per capita mineral pro¬ duction in 1913 was three and a half limes what it was in 1880. Every year the miners take out of the ground in this country $150,000,000 in gold and silver. The value of the anthracite and bitumin¬ ous coal footed up close to $760,000,000 in 1913. Then there was over .a billion dollars' worth of forest products and a vast sum from the fisheries, L'ncle Sam's balance sheet shows that he has laid aside a thousand million gold dollars ready for use and five hundred tons more in bullion ready for coining, and about $700,000,000 in coin is circu¬ lating among the people. Altogether the gold in the nation is worth about $2,000,- 000,000. You will observe that nearly all the totals are in billions. Our finan¬ ciers are getting accustomed to saying "billions," It would require every one of the fifty thousand bluejackets and ma¬ rines in our navy to shoulder at one time all of L^ncle Sam's horde of .gold. France has only half as much. The stores of Great Britain, Germany, Austria and Italy combined are less than the sum the United States can spend. America is the Croesus among nations. There is more gold in the mint at Denver than at any other one place in the world. As all the nations are on a gold standard, they are pledged to buy all of that metal that is offered. About a billion dollars will thus be added to the hoarded gold of this country during the present de¬ cade. In every country of the world to¬ day, except the United States, gold is at a premium. .\ Northwestern mortgage agency reports that interest on high-grade farm mortgages has fallen to five per cent and that good mortgages are hard for investors to find. The pockets of the farmers are bulging with money. They are paying off their loans with their grain profits and are not asking for new advances. The West is no longer the fruitful field that it once was in which to plant Eastern loans. The flow of money is now rather from the West toward the East. For several years past while commerce and inanufactur- in.g have been depressed, the natural re¬ sources of the country—the farms, the mines and the forests—have been its main support. The recent advances in the price of Eastern railroad and indus¬ trial securities have been owing mainly to the strong buyinii of Western in¬ vestors. There is abundant wealth in the coun¬ try and its resources are inexhaustible. What is lacking is public confidence— confidence in the government, confi¬ dence in our strength as a nation, con¬ fidence in ourselves as a square-dealing people. .Americans have every reason to have absolute faith both in their govern¬ ment and in the country itself. Get at the truth and you will find that no nation in the world has less real cause to worry. There is, however, too much money that can be classified as "timid money"; there are too many investors who are timid, too many lending institutions that are afraid to lend at reasonable rates and too many people afraid to trust each other in business. The obvious duty of every man responsibly placed is to take new courage and resolve to do his own part to restore public confidence in the country and its institutions. The Slow Growth of Manhattan. The disclosures to be made by the census now being taken will prove more clearly than personal observation can that the central borough of the city has passed its maximum rate of growth. A tentative return from the official enum¬ erators gives the total of the increase in population of Manhattan since the cen¬ sus of 1910 as only twenty-odd thou¬ sand. This is exceedingly small for a city which in the previous decade. 1900 to 1910, grew at the rate of 48.000 an¬ nually aufl had a population of 2,331,000 in 1910: but the slow rate is not difficult to account for. Manhattan Island is no longer all there is to New York City. It is but one of five boroughs—it has been mostly built over and its population is overflowing to the other boroughs. It is still the choice section of the great civic theatre, but the seats are limited in number and have had to be reserved and rated at a higher price than those in the other boroughs. The five-year period last past has seen fewer residential buildings planned in Manhattan than in a similar period with¬ in a generation at least. The average yearly production of apartment houses during the period from 1905 to 1909 in¬ clusive was 670. For the five years last past the yearly average was only 175. More private and multiple dwellings liave been demolished of late years than have been erected. In 1914 no less than 304 private dwellings and 255 tenement or apartment houses were • razed and only 133 apartment houses and 21 dwellings were erected. During the last five years only 875 apartment houses in all were planned in Manhat¬ tan, a number which appears insignifi¬ cant when comnared with the record of the single year of 1905, when no less than 1,413 were projected; or the record of 1906—the year before the panic—when tlie Superintendent of Buildings granted permits to erect 965. Sixty-seven of the total of 133 houses for which building permits were granted last year were to be erected north of 155th street, on Washington Heights. The other 66 were distributed among the seven other building districts into which the Bureau of Buildings divides the bor¬ ough. The district for which the second highest number (17) were planned is on the upper West .Side between 96th and 155th streets. Only 14 were built on the East Side between 40th and 96th streets, and only 13 on the opposite West Side. Not for twenty-five years had new build¬ ing operations fallen to a level so low as in the year 1914, according to the annual report of the Superintendent of Buildings, who attributes the decline directly to the general business depres¬ sion accentuated in large part by the Eu¬ ropean war. There was another con- t ibuting cause which Supt. Ludwig's re¬ port says must not be lost sight of, and that was the "numerous laws relating to building construction," which have af¬ fected adversely and have had a tendency to retard building operations. Population follows construction and never precedes it. The builders of resi¬ dential and business buildings take the chance of finding tenants for their build¬ ings when completed. They are the real city builders. When discouraged by ad¬ verse circumstances thev pause in their work or .eo to more inviting fields. A large part of the population that has been displaced by the demolition of old dwellings and apartments have very evi¬ dently gone to the other boroughs to re¬ side, and the accommodations that have been provided in Manhattan during the last five years by the erection of various kinds of residential buildings have been