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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 69, no. 1776: March 29, 1902

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March 29, 1902.^ RECORD AJSFD GUIDE. 547'. DiVoitD ro Real E>Twt. BuiLDifio AjipKrrECTUREjjoiJaEiiouiDEntiifnDd, BUSltJESS AJioTHESflES OF GEtlER^..IlftEH^T. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS Pablished eVery Saturday Comrounlcatloas should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, New York J. T. LilNBSEY, BusIueBS Manager Telephone, Cortlandt SI87 'Enta-ed at ttie Post Office ai New York, 2V". T., as second-class matter." Vol. LXIX. MARCH 29, 1902. No. 1776 JBING a holiday week, the movements of stocks have been ■without much significaiice, further than that the market has got hack again into routine ways and that prospects are so uncertain that professional operators do not care to carry stocks over an interval of three days during which there is no exchange open, eitiier here or in Europe, to resort to in an emergency. The market closed last week in liveliness under the impression that with the return to town of certain deities of speculation an advance in prices would he engineered. The deities came, but not the advance, so tliat on the whole the week was a very dull one so far as business in stocks was concerned. Current news was interesting, but not encouraging, except in probably the one item which permits indulgence again in the hope that peace is about to be declared in South Africa; this hope has, however, been so often raised only to be sunk that no one will venture to shape business on it until it is made a certainty. In our own view when this is done it will be fol¬ lowed by realizing sales on both sides of the Atlantic. Money has shown a tendency to harden and exchange rates prefigure a probable resumption of gold exports in the near future. There is apparently no falling off in genera! activity. iVIore individual railroads are reporting decreases in earnings than was the case a year ago, bnt in bulk the earnings are keeping up surprisingly ■well. -----------------«---------------^ THE low price of British Consols due to fears of a new issue affords an opportunity to those who would like to invest in this security to buy the goods cheaply. The time has come when governments can borrow without drawing on the supplies of money needed for business, and there are a good many negotiations on the carpet. When these are concluded there will be a rapid advance in Government bonds, Tbe sign of its coming will be that money can be procured for long terms at rates at about or something less than the interest paid on the bonds. This, with the small margin on which banks are glad to carry "Governments" in times of plentiful money, will make speculation in them attractive, first, and least, for the difference between cost of carrying and interest earned; second, and most, for the premium on cost which the increased demand will insure. European preference in dull times for something with a lien is shown in the favor with which the U. S. Steel funding scheme is received across the Atlantic, where the plan outlined has been promptly endorsed by holders of preferred stock. In the news from London, besides that relating to the "tobacco" war between the home and the American trusts, we come across another instance, presumably one of many yet undiscovered of the reaching-out tendency of our countrymen. In this instance it was not successful, or has not been yet, but it shows ■what is going on and raises conjectures as to what will be the political and fiscal effects of the mingling of the business affairs of the two counti-ies should the process continue as it seems destined to do. The instance in question is found in a report of the an¬ nual meeting of the Machinery Trust, a concern having a prac¬ tical monopoly of the printing machinery business in Great Britain, at which the Chairman said, in urging an increase of the capitalization: "There are important branches of trade now offered to us from America which we cannot take up, and which are hung up until we can finally say to them whether we will provide the capital or whether we will let it go past us. A pro¬ posal was even made to us to take up a certain business, and, failing that, we were asked if we would sell our entire under¬ taking over here, Well, we do not look with favor upon a pro¬ posal to be bought up by an American company. We think there is sufficient money in this country and sufficient enterprise and courage to meet the wants, not only of our own country and the Continent of Europe, with our colonies, provided only that we can establish a good case. * * * • Personally, I do not fa¬ vor at this stage or for years to come the idea of an amalgama¬ tion with any American trust, but I am cordially in favor of a harmonious and effective co-operation with them. We believe and they believe that we can command not only the trade of England and America, but the Continent of Europe aud the col¬ onies, and nothing woiild be more pleasing to me than that the two great English-speaking nations should dominate this greaJ industry.". The Amended Tenement House Law. 'ROM the fact that it was passed in the State Senate in com¬ pliance with a party order from him we may take it that Governor Odell will promptly sign the Kelsey bill embodying tbe amendments to the Tenement House law, and that the building trade will now have a law under which they can profitably re¬ sume the construction of tenements, a business that has been practically held up for a year. Under the terms of the amendments as passed, owners of old tenements are no longer compelled to give inner rooms direct connec¬ tion with an open shaft, or with a room directly open¬ ing into a street or a yard, but are rec[uired simply to make a ■window opening into an adjoining room, which in a great many cases exists already or can be easily inserted, or an alcove opening equivalent in dimensions to the sash window. The condition that school sinks shall be removed remains, but un¬ accompanied by the requirement contained in the Tenement House Commission's first amendments that the water closets substituted should be enclosed in a fireproof structure. Section" 34 of the present law regulating rebuilding of tenements injured by flre is repealed and that section in the new law will relate merely to heights and capacity of wooden tenements. The most important amendments of the law controlling pros¬ pective construction wil! permit an additional story on both non-fireproof and fireproof tenements; allow corner lots under certain conditions to be wholly covered with the building up to the first story, and in ordinary cases, also under conditions which it is not necessary to specify, where stores are in buildings, allow the courts to begin above the first story. There are many other changes which could hardly be given without reciting the whoie law but which will remove some of the difficulties archi¬ tects experienced in attempting to lay out buildings capable of appealing to owners from the financial side. For instance, where under the law of last year it was impossible to lay out a building on a lot formed by the intersection of two streets at an acute angle, owing to the yard requirement, a modification of that requirement, that the yard need not extend across the whole width of the lot, may give lots of this description a chance for improvement. Altogether the amendments relating to new. buildings are in the spirit of liberality, which, it may be added, is the only spirit that can effectively control legislation for building, as tae experience of the past year has shown, and it is to be hoped that the constructive and supply trades will benefit from them. As to existing tenements, the Tenement House Commission v^oiuntarily offered amendments removing most of the small re¬ quirements of the act of 1901, and the representatives of the property owners have secured the removal of the most onerous, that which would have required the insertion of an air shaft to ventilate inner rooms, so that the only serious, one that remains is that requiring the substitution of water closets for school sinks. The Legislature has accorded justice in removing the^ first, even if only to the extent of cancelling an unsuitable solu¬ tion for what is a serious problem and leaving the way open for the discovery of another that will not press so unfairly upon the owners of the property affected as the law of last year did. Altogether it may be said that in the matter of the amendment of the Tenement House law Assemblyman Kelsey's Committee have met the case iu a judicial spirit and dispensed justice with an impartial hand. EVERAL of the speakers at the dinner of the Real Estate Board of Brokers reported last week referred hopefully to the time, when the population of the Greater New York would amount to more than half that of the entire state; and they seemed to anticipate when this good time came that New York could have her own way at Albany. But such an anticipa¬ tion is most assuredly a mistake. The reason New York is not more infiuential at Albany, is not so much because the rural counties have a larger representation, but because the city of New York is never united upon what it wants. For one thing the division between Tammany and the Fusionists is irrecon¬ cilable, and they almost always support at Albany totally dif¬ ferent, not to say antagonistic policies. For another thing the