Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: no. 56, no. 1432: August 24, 1895

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Record and Guide. 243 August 24, 1895 ¥0 Mil. U M^^ IRfift. g:?liywpH2Ul>1868, DeAtEJ) io ftA,t ESTABLISHED^CKlTECTURE .HoUSHfOU) DEQ(I|(inf| B"-Estaji.BuildiKg Af'^f'^^^^^''*^"'*" PRICE, PER ir/ESSA^bTHEM^S^VANCE, SIX DOLLARS. VEAR IN Ariy Saturday. Telbphome. Published evei " ■ Cortlandt 1370 (Jommuuieatlons sliould , - - • i to • addreasefWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street. J. 1. LINDSEY. BusinesB Manager. Brooklyn Office, 276-282 Wasuington Street, Orp. Post Ofpicp. '* Entered at the Post-office at JV^eip York, N. Y., as second-elass nmtter." VOL. LVI. AUGUST 24, 1895. No. 1,43*2 THERE is :i new demand for interest and dividend-payiuji securities wliicli is art'ectiiig those issties wliich are feasou- ubly stue of continuing a return ou the investment aud which are selling at rehitively low prices, such as the guaranteed bonds otthe Missouri, Kansas &. Texas, the new Atcliisoii 4s, Wabash jiiniov issues and many others. The absohitely sure bonds liavc longbeen out ot the niaikct, except in small lots, aud these are snapped ui» the instant they appear. This broadening ol: the bond market is a iiatiiial otttcome of the cheapness of |money ; in I'act; it is rather suipiisiug that some pretty good bouds con¬ tinue to sell on a 5 per cent basis and oyer when only a partial response is made to tbe mouey ott'ered to btni'owers at very low rates. Buyers aie fottified, too, by the fact that there is no falling ott' iu the general busiuess of the country and that every day brings a great coru crop nearer security. A great deal of business is waiting for this crop to be put beyoud auy doubt, whicb, when the right time comes, will make manufacturers and jobbers busy. There are also signs that the inavket for foreign exchange is about to take ou a less menacing asuect, and that the end [is Deariug of gold shipments for the tiiuo being. The way iu which the boud syndicate has maintained the gold reserve iu the Treasury is very creditable to it, and is having a very good effect ou the public here. BUSINESS ou the Loudou Stock Exchauge seems to consist almost Ayliolly ot purchases and .sales of " KafGr" sluu'es. These issues have not only niiuntaiticd their values long after the time when a collapse was predicted, but have siuee made a veiy considerable advance aud show no sign of weakeiiiog. This beiug the case and it being coutrary to the oft-repeated opinion of the tiuancial press, generally unusually well in¬ formed, it follows that there is more in the South African mines than was ever dreamt of. The output of gold is simply euormoiis aud the mines are still young. The influence ot the realization of such great wealth cannot fail to be very great ou the contiguous country in a very wide radius, aud the lime has come wheu it appears clear that South Africa is the uew country which will for a good many years to come occupy the capital and energies of the entei'prisiug among the Euglish people. There are already under discussion schemes for its wide commercial and political development; it is fast becoming the country that attracts the eyes of the adveuturer, and capital will undoubtedly flow thither in the uext ten years aa it will in uo other direction. We have said all along that Europe will uot agaiu favor Americau securities as it was wont to do until our curreocy has been put iuto a position where it caunot be affected by political agitation or busiuess dilHcuIties. The fetir that underlies this may be groundless, but as we have to deal with facts its existence cannot be overlooked. That it does exist is shown by the comments and correspondence of the public press. Recently the London Economist voiced the gen¬ eral opinion iu saying: "A currency position which depends upon continuous manipulation of tbe exchanges is essentially unsound, and as long as it is suttercd to coutinue investors here cannot be e.\,pected to shake ott' the feeling of distrust, nor, notwithstanding the improvement tbat has already taken place, can confidence be felt iu the steatly development of business in the States." PROPERTY-OWNERS and residents on llth avenue are occupied in tho consideratiou of a question of much importance to them, namely, the matter of the running of cars by the New York Ceutral Railroad Company on that thorough¬ fare. The half-century franchise which the company had to operate over certain thoroughfares in this city under certain conditions will expire next year, and as it will assuredly try to retain a privilege that is worth a great deal of money to it, how much it is hard to say, but certainly many huudrcd of thousands of dollars, the city in geueral and the property-owner.s on the occupied thoroughfares are assuredly wise iu begiuniug at once the cousideratiou of the terms ou which this privilege .shall be continued to the railroad conipauy, or whether iu fact the con¬ ditions of business life iu this city do not now require that it should cease altogether. The latter view is the oue accepted by tlie West Side Citizen's Association which has already by petition requested the Board of Aldenuen not to renew the privilege. It is quite unnecessary to say that the New York City of to-day is a very ditt'erent city to what it was fifty years ago, and there are a great mauy obvious rea¬ sons wliy the practice of running trains of freight cars through auy of the streets should be discontinued. At the same tiuie the shipping interests of New York have had aud will continue to have a great inilueuee upon the development of the city aud the question of continuing or ending the running of cars aloug llth avenue and iuto Hudson street ought uot to be decided uutil all the considerations involved have been carefully weighed. On one point, however, there ought not to be any doubt and that is, if it should be decided to permit the coutinu- auce of this practice, it ought uot to be the exclusive rightof auy one carrying company, but should be made a partof amorecom- preheusive plan for a very much needed enlargement of tbe shipping facilities of this great commercial centre. WHERE do the newspapers get tlieir pictures of emaciated infancy with which they endeavor to frighten good citi¬ zens into contributing to their open-air funds? The visitor to the tenement house districts does not find tbem iu such alarm¬ ing numbers, and the policemen on the beats iu those districts have anythiug but a poor opiuiou of the health aud vigor of the .iuvenile poptilatiou whose pranks aud mischievous antics they tiud it difticult to repress. The conveutionalizing tendency, that is the acceptance of a few phases of a given subject or condition as a i)icttii-e of tbe whole, is so strong that people have come to see iu the tenement only the sickness, vice aud squalor just as they are apt to think of more fortunate regions as the abodes of health, luxury and comfort. Sickness tinds its way into the jjalace as well as the hovel and health iuto the hovel as well as into the palace; probably, by reason of the greater simplicity of life, more iu the former thau iu tho latter. Tliey are each assuredly mitigated or aggravated by the surrounding conditions, but more often by the measure of sensibility or the ability to bear suttering. The laborer whose brawny arms wield a shovel or a pick iu a way that would be impossible to the delicately iiatuied man, is uot merely often a resident of a tenement district but its product; he was born aud raised there. The streets of what are known as the congested districts, swarm with infantile ' health, strength aud beauty, as auy one can see who will take a walk through them. The furnishings of mauy of the tenementsthemselves are anythiugbutpoor, and neither is the condition or location distasteful to their occupants. The hap¬ piest day of the hired girl is when she lettvesher well-appointed place of service to visit her kindred in the tenements, and she will surrender every advantage that she enjoys in her em¬ ployer's house to take up her life iu oue so soou as she can get married—much to her mistress'aniazenieut aud disgust. This cannot be due wholly to insensibility or to ignoraucc. The oppor¬ tunities of comparisou are given her. There must be in the tenement something that makes life sweeter aud more attractive to her than she cau command elsewhere. Why, therefore, cau¬ uot the public representation of the tenement be more complete, with the better and wholesomer phases brought out instead of always the disagreeible aud those which are as a matter of fact the least frequent? Admitting that tenement life is a very long way, indeed, from the best for auy kind of people, and keeping in view the need of something better, it is still unnecessary to make the picttiie blacker than it is, especially as the tenement caunot be displaced by any perfect mode of living because of individual as well as the social conditions, except by a loug aud slow course of gi-adual iminovement. IN the midst of a universal belief tbat wc are a rushing, enter¬ prising people, the individual does uot like to find himself pushed too hard by new comers and customs. The older men laud the times past as their fathers did and as their sous' sons will do. The old time real estate agent is no exception to these rules. Innovations on the manner of doing business to which he bas beeu accustomed are by no means to his taste, though it is hard to see how the creation and development of real property could have been possible in a rapidly growing city like New York without an endless variety of ways for its acquisition. Still there are, it must be admitted, some things iu this con¬ nection which must be trying to some of the old timers, such for instance .is the practice of working out the mortgage, often representing nearly the whole of the purchase money. This practice was described not long ago as follows : A man having a small amount of cash buys a tenement