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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 73, no. 1888: May 21, 1904

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May 21, 1904. RECORD AND GUIDE iiSt gV ' ESTASUSHED^tfv-v------ DE/oTiS 10 m. Esrrm .SuiLoiKo Architecture .Housoloii. DEMStimK. Busitos Alto Themes Of Gtltav.1 IHTEiifST. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS Published eVers Saturdas Communications sbould be addressed, to C. W. 3WEET, 14=16 Vesey Street. New YorK .T. T. LINDSEY, Bvi.iness Manager Tolophone. Cortlandt 3157 make traffic possible. Tf tliere ever were a group of property- owners who have been shamefully and persistently abused by various public authorities, it is the property-owners on Elm street; and it is an example of this kind whicli makes the own¬ ers of real estate dread more than anything else any proposal on the part of the city to widen or improve the street on which their property is situated. In this case the wrong should go no further; and whatever authority the city administration has should be directed to the end of restoring to the Elm street property-owners the use of their property. ^:^t;;^at the PJst 03^e aJN^ Yorlc. N. Y.. as second-class matter." vol. LXXin. MAY 21, 1904. ' No. 1888. THE stock market has behaved during the past week much as if it had again reached bedrock. The sagging tendency which has charactt^rized its behavior of late has become daily less conspicuous, and it would not be surprising in case durmg the next week or two prices would take a better turn. It is prob¬ able tbat the gold exports are nearing their end, and this de¬ pressing influence will be removed. Every week affords proof of the statement that the slackening of business and the in¬ creased frugality of people with money is causing the accu¬ mulation of capital—an accumulation which will before the end of the year precisely reverse the recently prevailing conditions in the money market. One bond issue after another is being floated, and always with complete success. Even the weakest division of the market—viz.. the securities of the steel manufac¬ turing compank'S^cannot be much further depressed, for steel preferred should be worth about its present price even were the dividend reduced. Of course, the withdrawal of money from active business and the reduction of dividend rates cannot be considered unequivocal bullish arguments; but the point is sim¬ ply that the market is recovering its tone by a perfectly normal process. No upward movement can travel very far under existing conditions; but it may well be that the pendulum will now take a short swing in that direction. THE speculation m old tenement houses, wbich has been the distinguishing feature of the real estate market of the present year, is now rapidly subsiding. The total number of transactions is still large, and is still well above the totals for the corresponding week last year, but it is tw.enty-five per cent, less than it was only a few weeks ago. There is every Indica¬ tion that it has run its course and that both the lower East Side and Harlem will now enter upon another phase of activity. There is likely to be more building and less mere trading dur¬ ing the remainder of the present year; and this building will keep on increasing in volume. There are thousands of small residences in Eastern Harlem, which will have to be gradually displaced by six-story tenements, just as there is still a good deal of room for such improvements on the lower East Side. It is a singular fact, however, that the pressure of population on space Vi-^hich has produced the increase of rents on the lower East Side, and in Harlem, remains for the most part local. It is intense wherever the East Side Jews are spreading; but it is by no means intense elsewhere. Some raises in rents have been successfully made this spring in the middle West Side, although these increases have not amounted to very much; but the at¬ tempt to raise rents on the upper West Side, has, on the whole, been disastrous. The increases have frequently been obtained; but they have just as frequently been followed by vacancies. The West Side brokers are not at all satisfied with the situation in that part of the city. The demand for houses and apartments has not been good this spring. There seems to be an increasing rather than a decreasing disposition on tbe part of middle-class Manhattan residents to shift to Brooklyn, and the languid de¬ mand for small houses in this borough is contrasted to a very lively demand across the river. All this provides food for thought. If such is the result merely on the promise of better communicaliions with Brooklyn, what will be the effect on resi¬ dential real estate in Manhattan of improvemeut in interborough communication when it actually comes? This question cannot be answered as yet, but property-owners may anticipate some startling changes during tho next five years. , F Mayor McClellan wishes to strike a good blow in the public 1 interest, and do a little something to rigbt the wrongs of a very much injured set of men, he should use what influence and power he has to restore Elm street to a condition which will THE Rapid Transit Commission is reported to be very favor¬ ably impressed with the idea of supplementing the longi¬ tudinal subway service with a series of moving platforms run¬ ning across the city; and it may well be. The bid of the Inter¬ borough company, which amounts in substance to a Lexington avenue, 4th avenue and Elm street tunnel on the East Side and a West' Broadway, Seventh avenue and Broadway tunnel on the West Side, with a Battery loop, crosstown moving platforms, and flnally with free transfers throughout this system and the elevated roads—this bid seems to the Record and Guide to be much the ,most attractive proposal as yet submitted for official and public approval. The use of moving platforms may, how¬ ever, be carried with advantage a step further. This method of transit is very much the best method for all those lines of traffic, along which the travel is heavy, and continuous, but does not run for long distances, and consequently does not require a high rate of speed. It is precisely adapted, that is, to the traffic conditions on Broadway, between the City Hall and 42d street. The short distance travel along this line is probably the heavi¬ est in the world and the surface cars are intolerably congested at the present time. What the Interborough company and its ally should offer to do is to construct a moving platform under Broadway, between the City Hall and 42d street, with which connections could be made to the rapid transit tunnels, and from which transfers could be issued. Such a platform would develop an enormous amount of traffic and would add largely to the convenience and efiiciency of the subway system. The traffic requirements of Broadway will never be fully satis¬ fied until sucb a platform is constructed; and one of tbe great¬ est objections to the plan of tbe New York City Railway Com¬ pany is tbat it proposes to use lower Broadway as a rapid tran¬ sit instead of a local transit route. With a Broadway moving platform (to be constructed without any ditch) added to its pro¬ posals, the bid of the Interborough company would be beyond competition. —--------------------♦■---------------------- THE sale of the Kemp Estate proved to be, as was anticipated, for the most part a family affair; but in the cases of those two parcels, in which there was any outside bidding, good figures were offered for the property by would-be purchasers. This incident probably closes the season so far as activity in Fifth avenue property is concerned; and, in this respect, a most re¬ markable season it has been. Throughout a year, in which large real estate transactions were few, and in which retail business on Fifth avenue was distinctly bad,the demand for Fifth avenue business property has been active and persistent, with the result that prices have moved up all along the avenue, and a number of important new buildings have been projected. The Record and Guide prints in another column some interviews with gentlemen whose opinions are best worth having as to the source, the permanence and the effect of this increase in values- and It will be seen that these gentlemen are substan¬ tially agreed upon the salient points of the argument. Fifth avenue is to get the so-called carriage trade, which is enor¬ mous, and which increases with the growth of New York as the rich American's playground. Firms now situated south of 23d street will be forced eventually to secure situations on or near Fifth avenue, and there are many such firms remaining. Business of this kind can afford to pay high rents-rents so high that apparently the value of Fifth aveuue property may be expected in another ten years to reach a level, not far from the level which obtains in the financial district. But this level cannot well be reached without bringing in its train certain other changes For one thing, higher buildings than those which now prevail will have to be erected. For another thing, a num¬ ber of smaller tradesmen who fish in the shallow waters of the Fifth avenue trade, and cannot afford very big rentals, will be forced otf the avenue, and oa to the side streets, near the avenue many of which will take on the present appearance of SSd street opposite the Waldorf. We expect that the impulse, which has made the operations in Fifth avenue real estate so interesting during the season now past, will not lose its force during the scasen of 1904.5. but will, on the contrary, derive new momentiim frnm the events of the coming year.