Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 69, no. 1780: April 26, 1902

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ipnl 26, 1902. RECORD AND GUIDE. 739 ^ KTAEUSHED^ HfSt^BSl^ 18S8. Df/ottD to F^L EstATI . BUIL0I^'G AfS^ITECTURE j{oUSnl01I) DEBtHfUDlI, Btls■^;ESS Alb Themes ofGetJer^. iKERfST. )?RICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS Pttbllshed eVers Saturday OoojTxiunicatlons sbould be addreaeed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, New YopK (. I, LINDSET, Busineas Manager Telephone, Cortlandt 81B7 " Entered at the Post Office at New York, JV", 3'., as second-class matter.' Vol. LXIX. APRIL 26, 1902. No. 1780 TJie AprilN'limber of the Arcliiiectural Secord, devoted to illus- traiioiisofthc icorhs of Mr Ernest Flagg, is now ready for delivery. It contains a kwndred reproductions of huildings designed by Mr. Flagg, with an explanation ofilieir character, and a critical intro¬ duction. Utis number is the final issue of the Arcliitectural Becord as a quarterly magazine. Hereafter it icill be published every month, audits character broadened, so as to cover noi only archi- tectifre aud ihe interests immediately attached to it, but the remoter departmenis of Fine Art Design, lhe subscription price of the monilily puhlicaiion will be $:t.00 a year—25 cents for each copy. IN the Stock Market business has been active and o£ increasing volume, with the proportion of commission-house buying growing larger all the time. Buying is encouraged by indefinite talk of combinations and of new developments, but the most conservative brokers look upon prices as high, and while they would advise new buying along careful lines, if there should occur a break of four or five points, at present tbey assume a non-committal attitude, simply putting themselves and their forces at the disposal of their customers, but refraining from offering decided views. The buying in the bond division is also very large and of necessity largely in the least credited of secured issues, such as income bonds. This like the buying in low priced stocks is based upon an opinion now become very generally accepted, that under tbe new conditions prevailing, both of business and of control of the railroad systems, there is a great future in store for any kind of railroad security. That view has been held in other periods of prosperity and con¬ sequent optimism. What eventually followed it is not necessary to recite. Our own view of tbe present conditions in the Stock Market is, tbat a reaction is going on from the depression tha( followed the panic of last May; that prices of the leading securities will not reach tbe high records they made last year and tbat when the downward movement is resumed they will be carried lower than they have been since the panic. There are two things that stand as obstacles to an extravagant ad¬ vance: Crop conditions and the Government's movement against combinations. Tbe first are misrepresented according to the effect desired, but it must be admitted by tbe most unprejudiced tbat the agricultural season opens unpropitiously. As to the legal proceedings against the Northern Securities Company, their seriousness can best be estimated by Mr. Hill's remark on tbe action of the Supreme Court granting leave to tbe State of Washington to begin suit against the company. What, says Mr, Hill, in effect, does it matter what the Government do, we bave the property in any event! But tbey had the property hefore they formed the Northern Securities Company. Surely something was gained by the formation of that company, and if whatever was gained is taken away, doesn't it matter? If that it does not, why did the astute gentleman who organized the company go to so much trouble and expense, for it was a mat¬ ter requiring a great deal of thinking and hard work, and tbe paying out of a good deal of money too. THE application of tbe Fuller Construction Company to have tbeir stocks quoted on the regular list of the Stock Ex¬ change, was something to be expected from the developments of the hour. It was natural that the company should take this step to give their stockholders a market; and it will be interest¬ ing to note, flrst, how the Listing Committee regard the securities of. a corporation of this nature, and, second, in the event of the stocks heing accepted for quotation on the Stock Exchange, what attitude the speculating and buying public will take toward them. Whatever the fortunes of this particu¬ lar venture, it shows whither the business of buying and sell¬ ing the securities of construction and realty corporations on commission is drifting, unless realty interests do something to intercept it. So far they have given no sign of sincere intention to keep this business to themselves, which is not in accord with their ordinary energy and enterprise. The developments that have led up to the incorporation of building and realty busi¬ nesses show too how right in their fundamental idea the found¬ ers of the late Real Estate Exchange were, even if the policy tnrough ^bich they expressed it was unfortunate. The ac¬ cumulation of capital in a real estate exchange proper could easily create and hold the market for securities predicated on land and its development. To-day there are neither the means nor the machinery apparently in sight, and the husiness as a matter of course is flowing to Wall Street. The Bowery. -To the old saying "the way of the trangressor is hard," ought to be added the words, "but the way of the regenerate is harder." In its improved form the iproverb would apply to more than in¬ dividuals. There are certain thoroughfares in New York City that have had unenviable notoriety because of the character of their occupants, and of the affairs carried on therein, which has clung to them iong after the causes had disappeared. In some cases this notoriety is almost or quite forgotten by the present generation and there are others that are still striving earnestly to- outlive their past reputation. One of the latter is the Bowery. The efforts made to regenerate that thoroughfare will be successful in the- end and that end is not far off, but success is delayed more through thoughtless sensation mongering than by any vice or immorality that may linger there. At the moment the people who have been working for two years or more to rid the Bowery of its obnoxious features and have -been eminently successful, are wrought up into a condition of natural indignation by the publication of an article in last Sunday's issue of the "Herald" which sets out to prove tbat the conditions that gave the Bowery it^ reputation of thirty years ■ ago are still rampant there. Judged by the facts as they exist ■ to-day, and ordinary standards of morality, the article is as great afraud upon its innocent readers as ever was perpetrated by an old-time denizen of the Bowery on the unsuspecting wayfarer within its purlieus. What reputable men doing business on the Bowery think of it will be seen by a letter given on another page of this issue. The article and its illustrations occupy a page. There is a two-inch headline "The Paradise of the Criminal;" a second headline in inch-long letters, "The Bowery is Morally as Bad as it waa Thirty Tears Ago;" three-quarters of a column of text purporting to describe places and people on the Bowery made up of criminal reminiscences expressed in thieves' slang, and a column and a half of confessions of a criminal who does not dis¬ close his identity, in whicb tbe Bowery is never once men¬ tioned. These with the illustrations make up the indictment against the Bowery, The principal illustration is a view of the section of that thoroughfare that happens to contain the ex¬ pensive bank buildings which have been erected under the im¬ pulse of the new movemefitpand other buildings in which the awfully sinful businesses of the florist, tobacconist, hatter, clothier, jeweler, etc., are carried on. There are other illus¬ trations which people who may be believed say could never have been taken in the Bowery at all, because the subjects do not exist there. All this is very unfair and to be deprecated on moral grounds. The economical effect of this and similar publications is to keep respectable people, who are unacquainted with the real state of affairs in the Bowery at the present time, from attempting to do business there if they are so disposed, and the actual injury to property and commercial values that can be estimated in dollars and cents, is quite considerable. Sometime ago we pointed out ■the opportunities for realty development presented on the Bowery by reason of its changed character, the extent and im¬ portance of the thoroughfare and its relation to other lines of travel and to the new bridge, etc., and this presentation still holds good. The energetic protective association, whose officers make the protest before referred to, have rid the thoroughfare of its objectionable establishments wherever they have found them, and stand ready to proceed against any others that may ap¬ pear. What remnants of old-time objectionableness still linger, do so with the knowledge that overt acts of questionable char¬ acter will arouse this powerful organization to repressive action, "Wuatever obstacles stand in the way and whatever discourage¬ ment foolish newspaper articles like the one complained of cause, one thing is certain-that under the vigilance of the prop¬ erty owners' association and the physical changes that a grow¬ ing travel and commerce are compelling, the Bowery is fast be¬ coming too important for vice to keep any hold upon it. The ■day is coming when the Bowery will be as free of the reputation of bad resorts as lower Broadway is to-day'■ of-the gambling -housestbat TO? tiHie^purlgbe4-there, ........ n