Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 28, no. 720: December 31, 1881

Text version:

1208 The Real Estate Record December 31,1881 those who can read the future agree in be¬ lieving that two years cannot pass by without great speculative activity showing itself in real property. THE NEW YORK HOUSE OF THE FUTURE. Visitors to London and Paris must have noticed dwellings on the outskirts of these large cities, which are away from the pub¬ lic road or street and accessible only by lanes or little side roads. Sometimes several houses are in the midst of gardens, and all surrounded by high walls ; then, again, the backs of the houses are toward the street, the front being open to gardens on the other side. The object in every case is to secure privacy and get rid of tramps, and to live in a quiet and secluded way. So far, land has been too valuable to do this in New York. All our houses front directly upon the streets or avenues. By doing this we econoniize space, but resi¬ dences in the city lack variety because of this uniformity in the way of building. Mr. Henry Villard, President of the Oregon Navigation Company, is credited with in¬ tending to take a new departure in this respect. He is the owner of an unim¬ proved block on Madison avenue. Upon this block it is reported, he proposes to bmld sev¬ eral houses, but they will not be directly on the street, but are to be placed amidst gar¬ dens and walls, so as not to front directly upon the roadway. In the centre of the block, on Madison avenue, is to be a fine fountain, one of the ornaments of the city. Mr. ViUard's own house wiU be on one cor¬ ner, and another upon the other corner, but neither of them directly upon the avenue. Mr. Villard is of German extraction. He is a highly cultured gentleman, and commenc¬ ed life in America as a newspaper correspon¬ dent. By his abdity and organizing talents he has secured an immense fortune,, and his choice of a residence shows taste as well as originality. There ought to be many such groups of houses built on the northwest side of this island, as well as in the annexed dis¬ trict. In the roads laid out by the Central Park in the Twenty-fourth Ward, there are many blocks of land eighteen and twenty acres in extent, which wpidd be very attrac¬ tive if houses were built on lots from one to three acres,, the whole block to be treated as one parcel, and laid out in accordance with the best canons of landscape gardening. People of means could not do better than attempt an enterprise of this kind, for the, time must come when the passion for living in flats will abate, and persons will sigh for their own quiet, retired homes near the city, but surrounded by rural sights and scenes. --------*-------_ Iron shutters naay protect against burgr lars, and save wooden window frames frorji afire originating outside of the building; but they are nuisance when the fire originates^ within the building. This is shown by the, experience, of the firemen in the South street fire on Chrismas eve. In the bonded warer houses there, was great delay caused by the timg taken up by the firemen breaking open the shutters, --------•-------- It seems the general use of electric lights is regarded with great uneasiness by the fire insurance companies. It multiplies the risks of fire in all large cities. Edison's company is the only one which shows ordinjiry prudence, for in their case the wires are laid underground. We would not like to do without the electric light for street illumination, but convenient as it may be, it would cost too much if it should burn down any portion of the city. The demand for this light is enormous, so much so that the buUders of electrical machinery cannot ffil their orders. All the centres of population are demanding the electric rather than the gas light. The official record of Conveyances and Mortgages shows a large falling off this week as compared with former weeks, but it is the last week in the year and one day short at that. Next week will also show few trans¬ actions. Week N.Y, Am't. No. No. 33d Am't. No. end City in- Nom- & •24th in- nom- ing. Cons, volved inal Wards, volved. inal. Dec S 35 7 215 3,377,768 64 14 3d,977 0 14 169 4,089.163 51 15 70,!i50 1 21 196 2,b42,;;37 60 26 38,118 7 23 135 2,359,918 47 9 12,365 2 Week Mort- Am't, No. Am't. No. to Am't end- gag- in- Five in- T. & in- iug. es. volved. perct. volved. Ins Cos. volvetl. Dec. ' S S S 7' 232 2,351,983 53 609,258 56 922,450 14 178 2.368,864 27 628.500 40 961.300 21 2U 1,991,965 28 240,583 35 704,333 23 153 2,618,885 24 379,500 40 386,421 THE HARDWARE CENTRE. It would seem as if the neighborhood of Cham¬ bers street, east of Broadway, was destined to become, if indeed it is nofc already, the head¬ quarters of the hardware interest in this city. The localization of the various leading commer¬ cial interests of New York is steadily going on. Merchants find it far easier to go directly to the neighborhood where the line of goods they need can be found ratlier than run all over town picking up their stock first in one place and then in another. Among the firms in Chambers street which trans¬ act a large hardware business is that of Sar¬ gent & Co., Russell & Erwin M'fg Co., and the John Russell Cutlery Company, No. ^^5 Chambers street. This latter building, by the way, is about to be improved. It runs through to Reade street, and two new stories are to be added to it. The tendency in this hardware trade, as in others, is to do business by sample instead of keeping heavy stocks on hand. Hence business offices are grow¬ ing in favor with investors in real estate. Apart¬ ment houses and Paris flats are very profitable, but it is hard to satisfy the average American woman; she is always worrying the landlord to make improvements and repairs. The plumbing needs fixing, the walls patching up and the paint¬ ing is never done. Not so with the down-town business office. The American broker or mer¬ chant is generally too busy and preoccupied to care how his office looks, so long as he can trans¬ act business without positive discomfort. The deimand for offices is no longer confined to the neighborhood of the Stock, Mining, Cotton and Produce Exchanges. All the great industries which are represented in New York are using offices instead of stores, and these last are very profitable. Eugene Kelly paid $350,000 for two lots on the corner of Nassau and Beekman streets. The building be erected thereon is a very costly one, yet ifc is said it will net him a profit of '4O per cent, per annum. We may expect, therefore, that while profits such as these can be secured that high buildings containing offices will con¬ tinue to be erected. The city has been an excel¬ lent customer for down-town offices, indeed; the building No. 31 Chambers street Is now occupied by the Department of Public Works, and there is some talk of the reconstructed building No. 25 Chambers street being rented for municipal pur¬ poses. But in any event this locality is available for the hardware trade. New.York will have a new theatre in the one which Mr. Wallack is to open next Wednesday night in Broadway. II; is an admirably planned buildiiig iii every respect. One important iiuio- vation is in the construction of a higher roof for the stage than for the building, so that, in the event of a fire, the draught wiU be up toward the skylights aud the stage, instead of out in the auditorium. There is to be an iron curtain bet¬ ween the stage and the audience, while the dress¬ ing rooms of the actors are in another building away from the theatre. On the whole, our New York theatres are reasonably secured against fire. MINING INFORMATION. The Standard mine of Bodie has lately been weak, selling down to $17. It was put upon this market in 1S7S at $20 and $22.50. It has been to $33 a share in price, but the present are the low¬ est figures at wliich it has ever been sold. The Standard commenced paying dividends Septem¬ ber, 1877, which it has continued every month, including this December. The mine has pro¬ duced about $7,100,000, and has paid out in divi¬ dends $3,300,000. The insiders say that the mine is good for several years yet, and that, as devel¬ opments are far ahead of the workings, the divi¬ dends may continue for some time yet. But the Standard has been a great mine as the product proves; what it will be, time alone can deter¬ mine. A mine, unlike a factory or a raih-oad, is not reproductive, it does not renew its riches. The wealth taken out can never be put back into it again; some time or other there will be a period of exhaustion, how soon no one can tell. There seems to be something wrong about Bodie. The insiders are probably letting the stock drop in order to purchase. There is un¬ questionably a great deal of splendid ore in the Bodie mine, but the management is crooked and the shareholders are at the mercy of the manipu¬ lators of the stock. The Cook Brothers, who have had the management of the Standard, ought to be kept in office. Certainly, so far as that mine is concerned, the shareholders have no Itnown cause of complaint. Bulwer has declared a sec¬ ond dividend of ten cents, and this dividend will probably be kept up for a year to come. For a long turn Oro and the Noondays, as well as Mono and Bodie, look quite cheap. Robinson has been vigorously kicked about during the past week, the columns of the Tribune being again used to unreasonably depress the stock. The mine cannot all of a sudden have be¬ come worthless. Grood ore has been taken out of it for a long time and there is doubtless some left; besides Robinson includes eight promising claims. There is some encouragement from Big Pitts¬ burg. Highland Chief is looking better, while there is enough ore insight in Iron Silver to keep up the present dividends for a year. The news we hear from the Great Horn Silver mine is mainly favorable. After many serious blunders the management has finally succeeded in getting a smelter who understands his busi¬ ness, and who will do the work economically. It is a mine of wonderful richness, but contains such a variety of ore that careful manipulation is required to insure a profit. There is some deviltry up in Silver Cliff. Dis¬ charged workmen say there was no reason for the mill being shut down. It was part of a. game to get people short of the stock, upon which the mine was to be reopened, good results to be brought out and the short interest twisted. This, has been given out as a poiut in many offices. The manipulators of Silver Chff are a set of first- class rascals. Some of them have been imported f rom^ CaHf ornia, but the rogues in the stock that hail from Colorado and ;New York are about as smart and quite as good at swindling as their Pacific coast associates. People with money they can't aflEord to lose should let the stock severely alone. That suit about the Dunderberg Company tells the story. The persons who got up this deal did not come from the Pacific Coast, nor did they learn their business in Colorado. They were bankers and retired merchants, who were repiited to.bf high-tonedi and above suspicion. But see what they did,; The insiders; purchased certain milling properties for |242,000, They then