crown CU Home > Libraries Home
[x] Close window

Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Use your browser's Print function to print these pages.

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 57, no. 1459: February 29, 1896

Real Estate Record page image for page ldpd_7031148_017_00000377

Text version:

Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view About OCR text.
Fe'brii.ary 20, 1R9(; Record and Guide. 335 _ ESTABUSHED-^iWRPHSMi^iesa. .DtAtH) to Rp^lEstate.BuiloiKg Ap.cKrrE(mjnE>{ousEi«)u> .Bi/sntess AJfo Themes of GE|teR^l Irrttupi^ PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday. TBLBPHONB,......OOBTIAHDT 1370 UcmmnnloatlonB should he addressed to C. W. S'WEET. 14-16 Vesey Street. /, 1. LINDSEY. Business Manager. "Mntered at the Post-office al New York, N, Y., as lecond-elass matter," Vol. LVII. FEBRUARY '2\), 1896 No. l,4,'-i0 The Record and Guide will furnish you with daily detailed reports of all building operations, compiled to suit your business speci.fically, foi 14 cents a day. Yon are thus ke})! informed of the entire market for your goods, Ko guess work. Every fact verified. Abundant capital and the thirty years' experience of The Recoud and Guide guarantee the com¬ pleteness and authent'ic'ity of this service. Sendito 14 and IG Vesey street for information. THOSE who arc not capable of taking a coinprelienBive view of tilings ma.v be either bulls or bp.irs, both in W.all Street and in the coniniercial world. On the stock market the pecun¬ iary difficulties of Baltimore & Ohio, which Iiave lonf? beeu known, liave an adver.se influence because they are acute for the inonient. A similar effect was produced by its becoming known that the ITiiitfd .States Leather Co. had' undertaken to do inure business than the market would allow, and had therefore assumed obli{;ations that are biii'ileiisome for liic time being. But both Baltimore & Ohio and Leather have declined thirty or forty points precisely becinise of these facts, which were known to insiders months and mouths ago, although ouly now made patent to tlie public intelligence. On the other hand, there are properties which aro emerging from their troubles and making very satisfactory eaiiiii'g statements, such, for instance, as the Northern Pacific and Atchi.soii. In the prominence of certain weak issues, the facts that the tone of the general mar¬ ket is strong and that there continues all the while good buying of bonds pass unobserved. From trading circles there come discoffra,ging reports of overstocking, islow collections and grud.ged accommodations, but these reports can be duplicated ill the tiles of tho trade .iournals of this time last year, and yet last summer aud fall were satisfactory in precisely those lines where the greatest comidaint comes from. So reviewing the situation as a whole, it must be admitted that there are more reasons to be satistied than dissatistied with it. The attempt to get up a new war scare on the Cuban resolutions, though appar¬ ently successful for a moment will not, we think, amount to much, and the recovery from auy decline that maybe brought about from this cause will be rapid. SOUTH AFRICAN affairs are not likely to become more set¬ tled by the reception accorded to the melodramatic " Dr. Jim" and his fellow raiders ou their arrival in London. If the shouting and hurrahs could be considered merel.y as an expres¬ sion of admiration for a daring spirit, they would not matter greatly, but they must also be taken as showing the continua¬ tion of the feeling of resentment against Germany, whose ambi¬ tion in South Africa i.s believed to conflict with that of Great Britain, in spite of ofticial declarations to the contrary. Not only do the impulsive dtiily new.spapers still harp upon this idea, bnt the sober weeklies and the solemn reviews give it encourage¬ ment and support. Great Britain feels that it de.alt generously with Geiiuauy over the partitiou of the African continent, aud that therefore it ought now to be left to develop its own share without obstruct ious or jealou.sy from Germany, and in this view coster aud aristocrat are as one. An outsider may think a quar¬ rel between two parties over territories arbitrarily absorbed may be rather an amusing thing and tending to produce poetic jus¬ tice, bnt two peojiles who have tho "colonizing" craze, as the British and Germans h.ive, will uever be brought to see it in that way, and if there is to be a leanangement of the " fireas of influence" it is likely to be a serious busiuess. But that, if to come at all, is in the future, and meantime commerce has to be carried on, and we get our reports from b.anking and trading centers as usual. In Great Britain the statements that are beiug published relating to railioad and banking business in 1895 are indicative of a f.airly satisf.actoiy busiuess; the tinal results would have beeu really good but for the setback that occurred in the last month. The crisis in France seems to be passing without any of the serious consequences predicted by the news¬ papers. An expected bourse reform law is causing activity in the Berlin loan market, so that new issues are very large. Severe jestrictions ou bourse operations seem to be inevitable, and they will hit the smaller bankers, the brokers, and of course the pub¬ lic, which eventually p.ays for all this kind of legislation, very hard. The big banks are thought to be impervious to damage, as they only take the pick of the busiuess at any time. The German foreigu trade in textiles issaid to be very large. The Vieuna bourse has recovered from the series of crashes it ex¬ perienced a short time ago, where the re-entry of Russian in¬ fluence in Bulgaria, although supplanting that of Austria, is felt to make for peace. ---------■--------- rpHE temporary exclusion of Flu,shiug, Jamaica and Heuip- -*- stead from the Greater New York bill by the political gang who are riiuuing affairs at Albany is a forcible confession of the territoriarextravagance of the consolidation scheme, and the subsequent suddeu reincorporation of those three towns iuto the plan is equally plain e'vidence of how little real careful con¬ sideration the provisions of this most important measure are receiviug from the individuals who are .juggling with it. Clearly, it is all a game of politics and the prospects at present are that the game will be played out to the finish and this community will be committed to a crude, botched revolutionary plan which wUl produce chaos in our municipal affairs for ]iossibly a generation at least. It is a criminal piece of work, and we know not which to despise the most; the utter recklessness of the iioliticians or the blank inditterence of our people. The former, of course, is the natural correlative of the former ; and by and by when the bills for the blunder have to be paid no tears should bo wasted ou the sutt'erers. Real estate owners of this city have been and stillaio 80 conspicuousl.y inditl'ereut to their own interests iu the matter, that a special clause ought to be inserted iu the Con¬ solidation bill making it a criminal oft'ence (being an iiuneces- saiy disturbance of the Tpeace) for them to "kick " against or object in any manner to tho consequences of the law. Having received due notice, one should not object when the case goes against him by default. It is time that popular consideration of legislation (i.f1er laws are ou the statute books shonld cease. ---------■--------- "\/f A YOR QUINCY of Boston is the author of a plan which, if -^'J- it were adopted by Mayor Strong, might do something'to bring the business men of this city into closer relations with its municipal government. Mayor Quincy sent a request to each of the vai'ious busiuess aud labor org.anizations of Boston to select one of its members to represent it on au advisory board which the Mayor wished to constitute as a help to him in disposin " of the knotty problems of Boston's municipal household! The organizations couseuted to the fdrinatiou of this unofficial couu¬ cil and the new machine seems to be working smoothly. If it proves to be useful, why .should uot a simil.ir plan be tried in New York i Of course in an English or a Geiman city such au advisory board would uot be in the least necessary, because the Common Councils of these cities are thoroughly representaiive bodies, and are sufflcieutly iu touch -with public opinion aud with the business interests of the community to constitute a valuable check upon the ofiicialism of the local departments. But in New York the Mayor has no advisory body upon the opinion of which he cau rely. The Board of Aldermen ex¬ ists chiefly as a relic of the past, and not as a respected relic. The vai'ious boards which transact a large part of tho city's busiuess are in no sense representative—partly because they are all heads of departments, and partly because whether heads of departments or not, they are not in close touch with the busi¬ ness community. Indeed, there seems to be no way within the limits of our present municip,il machinery of keeping the city officials, through their head, the Mayor, in closer counection with the city's important interests. An informal advisory body, consisting of representatives of the more important businessand labor organizations, might just serve this purpose. The whole tendency of the changes iu our adniinistrative machinery is too much iu the direction of au all-powerful Mayor aud a highly centralized organization. It may be that this tendency is right enough, .although its successes so far have not been striking; but whether right or not, tho Mayor is in the end powerless for good unless backed by the busine.ss interests of the city, and in order to obtain such a backing some way must be devised of get¬ ting business men interested in what is actually being done in the municipal buildings. Mayor Quiucy's innovation has the advantage for this purpose, if not making very considerable de¬ mands upon the busiuess meu selected, of being easily carried out, and of being as easily discarded iu case it proves to be a burdensome or useless expedient. SENATOR CANTOR'S bill for amending the Mechanics' Lien Law, to which brief reference was made in our Albany cor¬ respondence last week, coutains a number of extraordinary pro¬ visions to which we wish to draw attention. The ostensible purpose of the bill is to give laborers employed f o dig founda¬ tions or otherwise clear lots for improvement a lien upon the lot upon which such work is done. This is sought to be obtained by a number of objectionable provisions. For instance, in tho