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530 RECORD AND GUIDE October 14, 1916 W^xREAL ESTATE ^f^) BUILDERS Devoted to Real Estate Building Construction and BuildingManagement in the Metropolitan District Founded March 21. 186S, by CLINTON W. SVVr.EET Published Every Saturday By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO. F. T. MILLER, President W. C. STUART, Vice-Pres't Jt General Manacer J. W. FRANK, Secretary 4 Treasurer 119 West 40th Street, New York (Teleplione. 4800 Bryant.) "Entered at the ro.it Office at Ifew Tork, A'. 1'., as second-class mailer." CopyrJcht. 1916. by The Record and Guide Co. TABLE OF CONTENTS • (Section One.) Problem of Ash and Trade Waste Removal..52.3 Legal Notes Affecting Realty..............524 Ninety-Nine Year Leases; H. C. Robinson. .525 Effect ot Zoning Plan on Other Cities......527 Uses and Advantages of Incinerators.......i):^S Editorials .................................530 Query Department ........................531 Real Estate Situation; John'Finck.........532 Annual Election ot Real Estate Board......5.32 New Home tor Destitute Blind............543 Building Material Market.................542 Classiflcd Buyers' Guide ..................550 Current Building Operations ..............542 Leases ....................................537 New and Useful Appliances................529 Personal and Trade Notes.................544 Private Sales of the Week...............534 Real Estate Notes ........................541 Statistical Table ot the Week..............o-ix Trade and Technical Society Events........549 Wholesale Material Market................543 Assessed valuations have risen rapidly in Manhattan since consolidation, and the reductions m.ade this year should strengthen the realty market consider¬ ably. Lower taxes are a strong argument with investors. Eighteen thousand tons of structural steel will go into the new Pennsylvania Hotel, and 15,000 into the New York Cen¬ tral Hotel. At the current market price for plain material, which is 3 cents a pound or more at tidewater, as the mini¬ mum for ordinary delivery, the cost of the steel in either case runs into huge figures, without counting the charge for fabricating and erecting. The Grand Central Station, in the opinion of the Tax Department, is the most valuable building in the city. For •ta.xation purposes building and site are estimated to be worth $21,500,000. Next is the Equitable office building, assessed at $20,500,000, and then the Pennsylvania Railroad Station, which is considered to be worth $15,980,000. The most valu¬ able dry goods store is Altman's, assess¬ ed at $14,100,000; the second most valu¬ able office building, the Metropolitan,, $12,500,000; the most valuable hotel building, the Waldorf-.A.storia, $11,650,000. The total estimated cost of new buildings for which plans were filed during the first nine months of the year was so swelled by tentative filings in July as to render the Manhattan statis¬ tics almost useless for purposes of com¬ parison with corresDonding periods in former years. The Bron.x. Brooklyn and Queens figures are fairly indica¬ tive of real conditions, and prove that Bronx tenement builders continue their waiting attitude, but that in Brooklyn the erection of frame dwellings has not been lessened, though brick dwellings and tenements have been erected in fewer number, in consequence of higher building costs. The stagnation in tenement house construction is mainly responsible for the low Bronx record. The Bronx is, however, building an un- WsUal num.ber of garages. Madison Avenue Values. It is interesting to note in the Land Value Maps for 1917, which were issued as Section Three of the Record and Guide last week, the extent to which the appraisers of the Tax Department con¬ firm unofficial opinion regarding the rise and fall of values on Madison avenue, a thoroughfare in which there is much professional interest at the present time. Both north and south of the Murray Hill residential section Madison avenue has been the scene of numerous trans¬ actions and operations in real estate for business purposes in the last five years. The popular prediction of years ago that it would change from a residential into a business thoroughfare, for the most part, is being fulfilled. Comparing the unit foot values given in the 1917 maps with those reported five years ago, in the 1913 maps, it will be seen that in the district south of 33rd street Madison avenue land has not shared in the increase in values that has taken place between 40th and SOth streets. Instead, from 24th street north to 33rd there has been a recession of from $100 to $300 a front foot. At 24th street the front foot valuation has fallen from $4,200 to $4,000, at 30th street from $3,200 to $3,100 and at 33d street (east side) from $3,500 to $3,200. The stated declension on the opposite, or west side, at 33rd street, is from $3,600 to $3,400 a front foot. The accretion in land value north of 40th street, on the other hand, has been large, amounting to a rise of from $6,000 a front foot to $8,000 for the southeast corner of 42nd street, where the Heck¬ scher Building is being completed; and from $5,000 to $7,000 for the northwest corner. At 47th street the increment has been $1,000 a front foot, or from $3,800 to $4,800. Above 50th street for a mile or more there has been no change in the Tax Department's valuations. As was explained by the Record and Guide last week, when property is rising in value the assessed valuation must be somewhat less than the actual value, be¬ cause the assessment is based on the evidence of the past; and when property is falling in value the assessment must, for the same reason, be a little more. Fifth avenue land values at 40th street have risen in five years from. $12,000 to $14,000 for a unit foot; at 42d street, from $14,000 to $20,000; at 47th street, from $12,200 to $14,000, and from $11,200 to $14,000 at SOth street. It is evident from the foregoing that the limit of Fifth avenue values has not yet been reached, and that Madison ave¬ nue, if it is ever to rival its neighbor, has a long distance to go in the ascend¬ ing scale of realty values. This, to be sure, instead of being a note of despair, only measures the opportunity for the investor. For between Madison Square and SSth street Madison avenue repre¬ sents three miles of varied opportunities for real estate investment—varied in the nature of the possible improvements, and varied in the amount of capital required •—and it ought to see decidedly more ac¬ tivity in the next five-year period. Coming Commercial Crisis. Much significance for New York City's shipping interests may lie in the fact that the new United States Shipping Board will have a control over steam¬ ship lines and forwarding agents in the foreign trade sim.ilar to the control which the Interstate Commerce Comniission ex¬ ercises over railroads in the interstate trade. In view of the commercial struggle for foreign markets which all the author¬ ities predict will follow the cessation of hostilities in Europe, a struggle in which the United States will find itself on the defensive, the Shipping Board is not like¬ ly to let New York, as the first and most available seaport of the country, rest satisfied with its present facilities for oversea commerce. The possibility of Europe dumping manufactured goods here after the war is much less a difficult problem for us as an industrial country to deal with than the problem of developing and holding markets for the sale of American com¬ modities, the surplus output of the coun¬ try's enlarging industries. The dumping menace can be held back by a tariff wall, but in order to retain permanently the foreign trade, in competition with the great powers now at war, more ships and docks, with better terminal equip¬ ment, will have to be provided at Amer¬ ican seaports. The new Shipping Board is authorized to expend fifty million dollars as a first installment for the construction and pur¬ chase of suitable ships, to sell or lease them to private corporations, and to es¬ tablish and operate steamship lines to South American and other ports when they will not interfere with private en¬ terprise. If the necessary dockage and loading machinery for the new shipping cannot be found or constructed in this harbor, the Shipping Board will not hesitate to look for or create them, at rival ports. The board will not be content with any¬ thing less than expeditious freight hand¬ ling. With these probabilities and stand¬ ards to meet before very long, it be¬ hooves the city government and the or¬ ganized business interests not to delay preparation. With such forehanded na¬ tions as Germany, Japan and Great Brit¬ ain to compete against, no time should be lost. What a great foreign trade can do to revive real estate, and especially to ten¬ ant vacant business buildings, has been observed in Manhattan this present year. The complete reversal of the local real estate situation can be attributed to the direct and indirect effects of the enor¬ mously increased foreign commerce. As a beginning, real estate interests should demand the immediate consummation of the negotiations between the city and the New York Central Railroad Company for the West Side terminal improve¬ ments. Business After the War. Charles M. Schwab does not expect any sudden change in manufacturing conditions in this country immediately upon the conclusion of peace in Europe, but if within six months or a year after the close of the war new markets have not been prepared to absorb the pro¬ duction that the war orders have en¬ gendered, he fears an industrial collapse will ensue. If the war is to continue several years longer, as seems probable, speculation at this time upon what will be prevail¬ ing industrial conditions afterward has a very uncertain basis of fact to start from. But there is a reasonable curi¬ osity as to the prospect of business on the continent of Europe at that time for American building materials, including, of course, steel and other metal prod¬ ucts, besides lumber and cement. In France, at least, it is obvious that there must be a large amount of re¬ construction. Eight hundred communes have so far been seriously damaged, 2,500 are still occupied by the invaders, together with nine-tenths of the iron mines, and a large proportion of the iron foundries of the country. Until these works are re-established. France will not be prepared to furnish much ma¬ terial of a metallic nature for her own use. Only within the last three or four months has building work been resumed in Paris, and advices from there are to the effect that steel is almost out of the question for private work, and timber is almost double its former price; cement, bricks and all those materials requiring labor, coal and machinery for their pro¬ duction are very costly. In consequence, there will be from France immediately after the close of the war, and also from Belgium, a great deinand for materials of reconstruction. In Germany and Austria-Hungary there will be extreme need of miscellaneous commodities which America can furnish, even if the war should not devastate their cities as it has the cities of France and Belgium. But ocean freights will continue high after the war, and if the existing customs duties stand, it is doubt¬ ful if very many kinds of common build¬ ing supplies can be delivered to Europe