Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 73, no. 1868 [i.e. 1869]: [January 9, 1904]

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Jainiar,- y, lo; RECORD AND GUIDE 45 Buso^s mIdTheues Of GeiJd^ iKi^Jf^^ P3UCE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS Vablished eVerp Jatardag Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET. 14-16 Veaer Streot, New YorK S, T. LINDSKT. Bualneea Manager Tolophone, Cortlandt SIB7 "JWared at the Post Office at New York. N. T.. as aecond-claas ma««r.'* Vol. LXXIII. JANUARY 2. 1904. No. 18GS Review of the Year 1903. THE) SITUATION IN GENERAL. THE year 1903 has been a year of readjustment in the real estate and building market of New York, as it has been a year of readjustment in many lines of business all over the country. The trading of the two previous years had possessed several novel and strongly marked char¬ acteristics. It was a period of tremendous business expan¬ sion, which encouraged and justified a great deal of the most expensive kind of building in the central districts of Manhattan, and a large increase in real estate values throughout the same neighborhood. The whole movement was financed and led to a considerable extent by speculative realty corporations with abundant resources and under expert trade giiidance. It had the limitation, however, of being confined chiefiy to one locality and to one class of improvement. A great deal of money was spent on expensive residences and on apartment hotels; but excepting such structures intended chiefly for rich people, there was no building of new residential accommodations corresponding to the extraordinary growth of the city in population. As it hap¬ pened, too many apartment-houses and tenements had been erected in the preceding years,, so that for a while the scarcity was not felt, but last spring it became apparent that after a long period of depressing conditions, the owners of residential property were to have it their own way for a while. Rents were increased in many parts of the city, while the builders were preparing to undertake extensive operations in flats and tenements. These plans, however, were blasted hy the labor disturbances which broke out in the spring of the year. For a long time past the demands of the labor unions had become more and more arbitrary, exacting and vexatious, until a contractor was unable to bid on a job with any assurance as to how much the worli would cost him, or when he could complete it. The situation had become intolerable, and cried for a remedy as drastic as the disease was dangerous. This remedy was found in the organi¬ zation of the Employers' Association, with its oentralized con¬ trol and its arbitration policy—a remedy which was admirably calculated to be eltective. and so far as possible, palatable. The immediate result of the new organization was, however, to prolong the shut-down, so that little construction work was accomplished during the summer, and the planning of new im¬ provements was entirely suspended. While it is very probable that the formation of the Employ¬ ers' Association will prove to be the most important and salu¬ tary event of the year in the real estate and building market cf New York, yet, of course, the immediate result was to make the lack of new living accommodations still more noticeable, and to enable the owners of fiats and tenements still more effectively to control the renting situation. Moreover, when early in the fall, the Employers' Association was beginning clearly to win out in the fight, building could not be resumed as freely as the renting situation justified, because of the tight¬ ness of the money market, so that still another cause contri¬ buted to the scarcity of immediate and prospective living ac¬ commodations. The consequence was not merely that the fall renting took place at an advancing level, but that a certain re¬ distribution of population became necessary—a movement of population from the more congested to the less congested dis¬ tricts. The most congested area in Manhattan was the lower East Side, the least congested area available for a tenement house population was the eastern section of Harlem. A strong tendency appeared toward the establishment of a new Ghetto east and north of Central Park, aad this tendency imparted new life to real estate operations in that neighborhood. An active speculation began in the old buildings thereabouts, which dominated the real estate operations throughout the fall and supplied fifty per cent, of the total sales. At the same time a lively demand set in for the vacant lana remaining in the same vicinity, and preparations were made to build six-story flats and tenements wherever possible. This new movement remains the most notable feature of the market at the present time and will continue to be an effective cause of speculative and building transactions during the coming year. It is, however, only one phase of a general transformation scene, which is altering the appearance of the real estate and building market in New York City. Just as theyearsl901andl902 were remarkable chiefly as the growth of New York as a metro¬ politan business and social center, so the year 1904 will be re¬ markable chiefly for what may be called its domestic expansion. The city has temporarily outgrown its stock of living accommo¬ dation, and its builders will be occupied mostly during the next few years in adding to this stock. Under the existing conditions of transit communication, such additions would have to be made in areas like Harlem, which are fairly accessible by the local railways now in operation^ with the result of packing the upper East Side as full of people as the lower East Side; but it so happens that the existing means of communication are shortly to be improved, in respect both to Brooklyn and the Bronx. This fact makes the situation wear an entirely different face. The intense concentration in population which has character¬ ized the domestic life of New York, not merely for the past five. but for the past fifteen years, will be succeeded by a process of greater distribution, the full extent and effect of which can¬ not at present be precisely predicted. Large areas of vacant land will be brought into competition with the crowded fiat and tenement house districts of Manhattan. Moderate priced pri¬ vate residences will again become a paying speculation for builders. The average rent charge will be very much reduced. Hundreds of thousands of people will live under more whole¬ some conditions. The social and domestic economy of New Yorkers will be profoundly modified thereby; and the small capitalist will be able to have to a greater extent his small in¬ terest in New York real estate. This movement will affect not merely the poorer residents of the East Side, but also the better-to-do residents of the West Side. Washington Heights will receive the class of people, who, during the past fifteen years, have gone to the West Side and the better part of Harlem. The eastern part of the Bronx will re¬ ceive the class of people, who have been settling on the middle and lower East Side. Small private dwellings will be erected in targe numbers in both quarters, but how far they will dis¬ place flats and tenements cannot be determined. The great fact is that the profound alteration of conditions, which has been threatened for the last few years, will begin to have its effect during 1904, and that the course of this alteration will be accelerated by the temporary scarcity of living accommodations. New York has done enough for the present for its business expansion, for its growth as the financial and social center of the country. It is time that the city should provide better for the health and comfort of its inhabitants; and such will be the task of the immediate future. By this description of the growth of the city in 1904 and after, we do not mean to imply that there will be anything like an en¬ tire suspension of the sort of growth which has characterized the past few years. The process of reconstructing the central part of the city, of establishing new business locations, of build¬ ing better accommodations for its big business enterprises, and in general, of bringing the architectural equipment of the city up to the most modern economic and aesthetic standard—this great process will go steadily forward. Such improvements, lor instance, as those which the Pennsylvania and New Yorlc Cen¬ tral railroads are starting will necessitate a constant stream of new and handsome buildings, which will enable the parts of the city affected thereby to accommodate the increased and altered business created by the new terminals. But this process of re¬ construction will go forward at a reduced rate, aud it will not dominate the real estate and building of the city as it has done -during the past few years. The growth of the city will be bet¬ ter proportioned and more evenly distributed than before. It will throw off the shackles, which have been hampering its prosperity for half a generation, and will both expand freely on its outer margin, while it continues to concentrate and or¬ ganize the more vital activities that take place at its inner core, WHAT THE FIGURES SHOW. Whatever deductions there are to be made on the score of the quality of the transactions, there can be no doubt that more titles to real property have passed during 1903 than during any previous year in the history of the city. The total number of conveyances recorded at the Register's office of New York County, were 18.772 an increase of 1,507, or S per cent, over the previous year. Since 1900 the increase in the number of trans¬ fers recorded has been 4,185. or about 25 per cent. The figures