Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 51, no. 1309: April 15, 1893

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April 15, 1888 Record and Guide. C67 ESTABLlSHED^MARpHgl" I^Si^ TO RfA)- EsTAn:, BuiLDIf/o A^cKlTECTJR^ .KcWSEVtolJ) DEOQS^IHi Biteiifts J Alto Themes Of CErteR^ S^tc^s; PRICE, PER ¥GAR IN ADTAIVOR, SIX DOLLARS. published every Saturday, TBLBPHONUI ... - COBTLAHDT 1S70. Oommimicatloiie should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14 & 16 Vesey St. J. 1. LINDSEY, Bitainesa Manager, "Entered at thv Post-office at liew Vork, N. T., aa second-class maf ter," Vol. li. APRIL i5, 1893, No. l,20l» OUT ON MONDAY. Ihe '^Architectural Record'''' for the current quarter will be out on Monday and can be obtained on all '■'L" stands, of all newsdealers and at the office of publication, Nos. 14 and 16 Vesey street. Tliis number is an especially interesting and handsome one. It contains one hundred high class 'illustrations of furniture, stained glass architectural details, office buildings city and suburban residences. Professor W-m B Good- 'Siear i/^rites an article showing the derivation and evolution of conven¬ tional patterns The influence of the Eariy Renaissance on Sculpture in the work of to-day is traced by Banister Fletcher, A. R I. B. A. Caryl Coleman writes of modern stained glass, 2he Fagin Buildi-ng, in St. Louis, is treated as an Architectural Aberration, George Hill contributes a valuable article of the utinost interest to Architects, Bitilders and owners, which sets forth some of the practical limiting con¬ ditions in the design of the modern offlce buildtng. tables of great value accompany this article. There are other papers in this nu-mber on Byzantine Architecture, etc. Price S5 cents. ■ THE events of the week have shown that however adroitly and with whatever strength pricesare forced up by manipulation, in such a condition of affairs as we now have, they must fall of their own weight, whenever the outlook appears in the slightest degree unpropitious.. The public, which bas steadfaatly held aloof, is not likely to come into the market, now that they see what an ever-recurring trouble our currency is likely to be until it is radi¬ cally reformed. With this fact eo prominent and the public thereby made still shy of the market, it is highly probable that more liquidation and consequently lower figures will be necessary before it will be possible lo make another advance of important dimensions, and even of the professional character of the one seen in the past few weeks. The cool proposal of Dresel, Morgan & Co., to tbe holders of Richmond Terminal securities, is not going to help matters. This demand that securities shall be deposited under such onerous conditions wiihout an authorita¬ tive limit of what the plan of reorganization ig to be looks very much as if the plan tliFt is to be i)ropo£ed hereafter is not oue that the Richmond Terminal secuiity-holders would approve if they had an opportunity to examine it, and they must, therefore, be coralled inlo a corner where they cannot object when it is opened out to their indignant gaze. If the plan is an equiiahle one why uot state itV If it is not the Richmond Terminal security-holders do not want it. This demand is so estraordinary that it even raises the suspicion that its makers are not sincere, but are anticipating refusal in order to escape a venture for which they cannot espect success. Some holders of Richmond Terminal common are evi¬ dently taking the view that thereis more money in selling their stock now than in waiting for threatened assessments, whose amount they have no way of knowing,'and they arejright. tion of our diflBcultlea would have been arrived at. Mayor Gilroy's determined opposition to municipal action of any kind left the city n,t the mercy of tbe Manhattan Co., and it is a matter for con¬ gratulation that under such conditions every public interest haa not been sacrificed. IT would be churliEh not to thank the Rapid Transit Commis- sioners for the result such as it is. They have undoubtedly tempered the wind to the shorn lamb. The patchwork esteuHions of the preaent elevated system which they have permitted infringe upon few of the public decencies or proprieties that remain in New Yotk city. The giving up of a part of the Boulevard, and a part too that promised to become one of the chiefest ornaments of the metropolis, is the only piece of vandalism involved in the new plan. West street and South street have long beeu past spoiline; even by auch a hideous structure as the elevated road. The Barrow street spur and the Greenwich avenue spur will do little harm aesthetically in the localities they pass through. Commercially they will probably benefit the district and hasten its conversion to business uses, IO81I1 street and the Boulevard north of that street to the point where the new line branches off eastward to Arasterdam avenue, of course, are doomed to stores and thecheaper class of flats. Washington Heights, on the other hand, will be benefited enormously. Its development from this day on will be rapid. This splendid section of the city has needed nothing but adequate communication with the lower part of the island to attract the investor, the builder and the home- seeker, -----------■----------- A TELEGRAM received yesterday from Albany announces that the Cantor Re-indesing bill has been passed in the Assembly, but as it was amended in the lower house it will have to go back to the Senate. There is scarcely any doubt that it will be passed by that body. Real estate men must take astonishingly little in¬ terest in legislation which vitally affects their interests when they can allow a bill like this one to proceed through both houses, with¬ out a single word of protest. Indifference to this degree surely invites offensive lawmaking. The Cantor bill as originally drawn and passed by the Senate was a nonsensical hodge-podge of enact¬ ments, which competent jud.tes declare would have adversely affected every transfer of real estate in New York City. The ridicu¬ lous character of the measure apparently was pointed out to the Assembly aud it was quickly rewritten by the direction of Comp¬ troller Myers and waa passed yesterday in this amended form, sub¬ stantially a new measure. Re-indexing, as it ought to be, will not be accomplished under the provisions of the Cantor bill. THE settlement of the rapid transit muddle announced thia week is probably the best the city was warranted in expecting under the circumstances. It hasbeen perfectly clear for many months past that the Manhattan Company is the onlyjsouice to which the metropolis could turn for the greater transportation facili¬ ties it needs so badly. From the first that company has com¬ manded the situation from every effective point. It certainly had strong friends on the Commission; equally certainly it dominated legislative action at Albanj,and what is perhaps the same thing, "only more so," it controlled ofiicial action in this ciiy. Through thb latter it secured itself at the very point where attack would have ■^ "been most effective. Had it been i>ossibte to induce the cily officials to even consider seriously the advisabiUt> of the municipality's constructing or lending its aid to the construction of a new transit system the outcome of tbe long search for better transportation facilities, would certainly be very different from wliaj; it is. The Miunicipality waa tha only podaible competitor of tbe Manhattan Sqj With ii in the fis]4 denietbing mueb nearer Wi tbe ideai whr' THE steady moral and intellectual deterioration of the New York press is the most deplorable of all the sad social phe- nomen which have marked the past decade. Unfortunately, it must be taken as indicative of a lowering of the general tone of society, for newspaper-making is a sort of cookery which depends upon the taste of those it serves. It was the World—that is, the World as vulgarized hy "Judas"—that first brought tlie '■ flesh and the Devil" prominently into metropolitan journalism. We are forced to admit that the clear'perception of ils new proprietor, as to tbe intellectual tastes of New Yorkers, was akin to the divination of genius. Commercially, his policy was a master stroke, for thereis probably no more difficult task in mercantile mechanics than the building of a newspaper, "Judas'" discovered what, properly worked, is always more profitable than the pro¬ verbial gold mine, a real "long felt want." Hefore he arrived, though New York newspapers might tread occasionally in the gutter, they did not walk in it exclusively. But there is money in dirt; and who will deny that, commercially, it is to "Judas'" credit that he recognized the fact. FROM the first the World has purveyed dirt with enormous suc- cefas. In any other city of the world a sheet of similar character would be read only in the kiichen (regarding the paper intellectually) and in disreputable places. We are assured by affidavits that 300,000 people at least are able to read thething daily. How one has to pity the many affiants as to the circula¬ tion of such a paper, for we cannot believe that anv individuals can swear without regret concerning their knowledge of so much human degradation. But the World has done more evil indirectly by example than directly by practice. The notorious success of its policy became a tainb which has affected more or less every daily paper in the city, with the exception of ihe Evening Post. The last to succumb to it is the Times. For the past few years tbat journal has been dull but respectable, wooden to the core. With Mr. Jones'death it passed into a moribund condition from which reorganization has awakened it recently. The new life, however, has heen obtained by engrafting something of the World's policy onto the old trunk. In thia the J'imes has but foi-' liiwed the exatuplea of Its contenlporarifea Wbd, when they hava J