Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 62, no. 1584: July 23, 1898

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July 23, 1898. Record and Guide 117 .Sd&ieD p RipfEsTAjr.BinLDiifc Afis::ifiTE(rnn^.HcwsE3ftiiDW(i(fii»t BiisDteas wto Themes cf GEjto^^l'j'T^'IF*!* PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS. Published eveiT/ Saturday TlLEFHOKI, CORTXiJfDT ISTO" Communications should be addressed to C, W. SWEET, 14-16 Ves«y Street. J. I. LINDSEY, Business Manager. "BnUred •( the Poet OffU* at New York, JV, Y.. aa aesnnd-alaaa matter." Vol. LXII, JULY 23, 1898. 1,53.4 NOW BEADT. lhe Index to Volume LXT.of the liecord and Guide, cover¬ ing the period between, January 1st and June 'AOth, 1898, Price $1.00. This Index in its enlarged form is now reeog- nii^ed as indispensable to every one engaged or interested in real estate and building operations. It covers all transac¬ tions— deeds, mortgages, leases, auction sales, building plans filed, etc. Orders for the Index, accompanied by $1.00 for each, should be sent at once to the office of publication, 14 and 16 Vesey Street. WE are going through a periofl of dullness which is, on the whole, adverse to quotations. In the reviews of the sev¬ eral markets, whether found in the general, trade or technical press, the words "dull" and "slow"' appear with tiresome fre¬ quency, but they exactly represent the situation. On the stock market operations for advances are assisted by the faith of holders of securities in the future. Undoubtedly this faith is well- placed; but it may not, as it rarely does endure the strain of waiting, and the throwing over of stocks and bonds by tired holders may bring about considerably lower prices and prepare the way for another advance. As quotations stand they do not encourage speculative buying, and even those who want to pur¬ chase for investment will hold off for more favorable terms, if they know anything about market movements. ■^p HERE are no changes in the commercial or financial condi- ■^ tion of EJurope calling for any extended special mention. The South Wales coal strike is now seriously affecting British iron and steel interests, which had only about got in shape again after the engineers' strike of last winter. Australian bank reports are showing the effects of a series of bad agricultural seasons aggra¬ vated by the consequences of the unfriendly labor attitude on the industrial situation. The public accounts of New Zealand for the last fiscal year, which closed March Slst, are satisfactory, inas¬ much as, after making substantial allowances for public works, the net cash balance islarger than that of thepreceding year. The Railway receipts were greater than for the preceding year. The Paris municipality has soon to face the abolition of the octroi taxes. Among other substitutes are proposed: a tax of sis per cent, on the annual value of house property, to be paid by the landlord in addition to the present foncier tax; one of four per cent, added to the present house tax of ten or twelve per cent, of the rental paid by the tenant; and a tax of ^^ per cent, on the capital value of all land, whether built on or not. Berlin reports that money rates are slowly going up. Lenders, to check specula¬ tion, including the joint-stock banks, are making a stricter sur¬ vey and inspection concerning their customers than they have thought it politic to do before. It is distressing to learn that,, owing to damage by severe storms and floods, the harvest esti¬ mates of Austria and Hungary have to be reduced very con¬ siderably. So severe is the calamity reported to be that the Hungarian Government has sent out Commissioners to make an inquiry with the view to extending state help where it is needed to avoid ruin. OWNERS o£ realty pure and simple will be gratified to see that the tax assessors are endeavoring to reach the colossal holdings of personal property in this city in order to put upon them some of the burdens belonging to them under the law. Hitherto the idea has seemed to prevail that municipal revenue should only be raised from what is in sight in order that the authorities should have as little trouble as possible in collecting it. It was not always so. We find from the last report of the Commissioners of Taxes and Assessments that in 1871 seven- eenths of the assessed valuations only were upon real estate, while last year nine-tenths were. This year something under eight-tenths apply to realty and something over two-tenths to personalty. This statement does not fully disclose the dispro- l^ortkn that has prevailed. It is best seen in the actual figures and in noting the growth of the tax valuations during the period covered. In 1871 the total assessed valuations amounted 10 $1,076,253,G23, of which $306,947,223 were personal and $709,306,41i) real estate; last year the total valuations were $2,168,635,856, of which $381,449,065 were personal and $1,787,186,791 real estate. Consequently In the period of 27 years, in which the personal wealth of the country grew enormously and while realty values in this city increased by over a billion of dollars, personal values were increased a matter of $75,000,000 oniy. It is easy to see, had the proportions of assessed valuations between the two classes of property of 1871 been maintained, bow large a burden would have been spared to real estate and what an incentive that would have been to development and building. For instance, last year the respective contributions of personal and real estate to the valuations would have been roundly $700,000,000 and $1,400,000,000, and realty would have gained by the saving of 2,10 per cent, on nearly $400,000,000. In this year's valuations, prepared, it should be remarked, under the last administration, there is a laudable attempt to better adjust the tax burdens on the two classes of property; with total valuations of $2,;165,490,372, personal property carries $509,022,449 and real estate $1,856,467,- 923, the percentages of the total being, respectively, about 2.2 and 7.8, THE SINGER BUILDING. THE Singer Building, at the northwest corner of Broadway and Libertystreet.has certainly,in its actual surroundings, the air of "something new" or atleast of something strange. Itreaches what ten years ago was the extreme altitude of ten stories. In comparison with the buildings of the pre-elevator period it may be called a skyscraper. But in design it has no reference at all to the type of skyscraper which has been establishing itself within the decade, and of which the model is the column, with an em¬ phasized and enriched base, a still more emphasized and en¬ riched capital and a shaft as plain as may be, the plainness and monotony of which are not disturbed by the rows of simila- openings With which its screen of wall is pierced. The composi¬ tion of the Singer Building is triple likewise, but the model in this case, instead of being a column, is a three-story house, spe¬ cifically a three-story French "hStel," into which the residuary seven stories are so fitted as not to disturb, nay, rather to en¬ hance, t^e division into basement, superstructure and roof. Some of them are combined into the three principal architectural stories, and the rest are treated as appendages to these. It seems, too, that the construction is not that of the sky¬ scraper. At what point it is that the construction of masonry comes to be economical, in comparison with the construction of a steel-frame and a masonry veneer it would be bard to say in general, it depends upon so many particular considerations. But it can hardly be economical to construct a commercial building with real walls that can carry themselves, and of the height of ten stories, upon so enormously costly a piece of ground as that which has been secured for the Singer Building. Apart from the comparative costlinessof the two constructions,or in connection with this, so much more of the available rentable area is taken up in the case of a genuine construction of masonry than in the case of a steel cage hung with a veneer of masonry that the former construction has not approved itself either to owners or to architects, as "practical" for a ten-story building on lower Broadway, The ample piers, the comparatively deep reveals, tho great emphatic projections of the Singer Building are natural consequences of the mode of construction employed, and it Is these things which put it in such emphatic contrast with the work of the projectors of skyscrapers, of which a very typical and a very successful example confronts it across Liberty street in the new building of the Washington Life Company, Evidently the two belong to entirely different orders of ideas. The taller is a frank expression of modern and American commercial utili¬ tarianism. Like all the rest it is a sham construction, but even so it is, so to say, an honest sham which is not intended to deceive anybody, and which in point of fact does not deceive anybody into believing that it is a real piece of masonry, with the depth and area of wall necessary to carry eighteen stories, though masonry is all that meets the eye. The lower is not a structural sham, since ita construction in what it purports to bs, but it is not unfair to call it a sham in design. Being in fact] a succession, of stories, all devoted to similar purposes and having similar requirements, and none being in the matter of use or dignity, superior to any other, it is an elaborate Imitation of a structure in which the uses of the several apartments are strongly distinguished and furnish a rational basis for a differentiation in their architectural treat¬ ment. Th9 Washington Life is a modern commercial building with as much architectural expression as is compatible with the •