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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 78, no. 2010: September 22, 1906

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September 22, igo6 RECORD AND GUIDE 475 ESTABLISHED'^ N\My:H £1^1^ 1863. Dev&teO p [^ea.L Estate .BuiLDiifc Ar,cKitecture .HobSEHoLD DEQOFfATiorJ. Bi/sir/EssAftoThemes Of GEiJEi^fil Interest. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Published eVery Saturday Communications should lie addressed to C. W, SWEET Downtown Otfice: 14-16 Vesey Street, New York Telephono, Corthiuilt 3157 Uptown Olfice: 11-13 East 24th Street Tolophono, Madison Square 16»S . "Entered.at ilie Tost Office at New Tork. N. Y.. aa second-clans mailer." Vol, LXXVIIL SEPTEMBER 22, 1906. No. 2010 INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS. Advertising Section. Page Page Cement.....................xKiii Law........................xi Consulting Engineers ..........x Lumber.................xxviii Clay Products ..............xxii Machinery ..................iv Contractors and Builders......v Metal Work...............xvii Electrical Interests ........viii Quick Job Directory ........xxvii Fireproofing ..................ii Real Estate................xiii Granite..................xxiv Roofers & Rooflng Mater'Is.-Xxvi Heating ...................xx Stoue....................xxiv Iron aud Steel ............xviii Wood Products ...........xxviii WALL STREET and its elements seem this week in perfect agreement to he scared and remain so as the safest and wisest course at present. Tlie tape, generally a sure guide, reflects this tremulous feeling. Stocks are held with a light hold, Ltnd they are brave bulls who do not part with them on anybody's whisper. Great deals and combinations are in the air, but toot their metaphorical fish horns as they will, the manipulators cannot "sell a clam." As a matter of course, this state of mind makes for safety, unless the big men were to begin to sell on each other. The professional traders are very apt to take the short side again should the halting tendency of the market continue and money remain tight. It is still almost impossible to get funds on time, and the situation is bound to hear hard on real estate buildiug and business interests before long- The Secretary of the Treasury must know by this time that something should be done to release the Treasury hoards. But there again politics comes in. He is apparently first of all a politician, and that may he the reason he has been rewarded with the all-important portfolio he holds. Still, it is comforting to know that matters might'he worse; that Is to say, if no relief had come from any quarter. This is an age of record breaking in money matters. The largest amount of gold ever brouglit into New York iu one vessel arrived on "Wednesday last in the Cunarder "Carmania." The gold was in 273 iron-bound boxes, each containing from 250 to 350 pounds of gold, valued at upwards of two mir.ion pounds sterling, or, to be precise, $10,328,000- With new gold imports, the total aniount so far, as announced to date, is twenty-four millions of dollars. One good feature of the financial outlook is the disposition on the part of French investors to buy Ainerican securities. The insta¬ bility of Russian investments is the principal cause. That is why French gold comes so freely to the United States in exchange for our railroad and other stocks. THE flling of mechanics' liens against newly built tenement houses in the upper part of Manhattan still continues to be the most prominent feature of the real estate and building market. Many conditions are beginning to work against the builder with only a small capital. He cannot fill his building with tenants as readily as he could last year, and it has been much more difiicult to obtain permanent loans. The title com¬ panies are appraising new five and six-story tenements in the upper part of the city at much lower figures than they did a year ago, and the difference is sufficient to wipe out small builders who cannot afford to wait. Of course, the effect has already been very much to diminish the numher of new tene¬ ment houses projected, and. it may he surmised that many years will elapse before as much money will again he spent on tenement houses in Manhattan as was spent in 1905. Before the existing over supply has been filled up, Manhattan will begin to feel even more keenly the competition of the other boroughs. Within a cjDuple of years trains will be running under the Bast River to Long Island City and Brooklyn, and uuder the North River to the suburbs in New Jersey, while during the same period the local services of the Central, New Haven, and Harlem roads will he very much Improved. This competition will not hurt the lower part of the city, nor the areas to the east and west of the Central Park, but it will divert large numbers of residents who would otherwise have occupied apartments on Washington Heights and at Inwood, Washington Heights will, of course, continue to grow, because practically all the Increase in population which prefers to live in Man¬ hattan must settle there; but it looks as if a larger proportion than heretofore of the increased residents of New York City would seek the larger amount of living room which they can obtain in the outlying districts. Just how far this diversion will go it is impossible to say. The fact remains, however, that New York is on the eve of a transformation in transit, and consequently in residential conditions similar to that which took place early ia the nineties. This transformation can only help centrally situated business and residential property; hut it may play some unexpected tricks on the owners of real estate which is less centrally situated. COMPLAINTS about the service offered by the surface rail¬ road cars in Manhattan are being heard on every side at tfce-present time, and are eliciting the usual responses from the officials of the company. These complaints do not concern the service during the rush hours, for New Yorkers have by this time reached the conclusion that comfortable travelling during these hours is beyond human power. It is obviously one of the Ifiws of nature that men going to their business and returning therefrom should stand upon their feet and be packed, jambed and crowded just as far as human endurance will permit. The current complaints concern the service during other hours, when the company can hardly allege that it is physically impossible to move any more cars. It is being found that during all hours of the day, and on all the more central surface car routes in the city. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a seat, simply because the company will not run as many cars as are needed to accommodate with seats the people who are willing to ride, and if such is the condition in the summer and fall, when there is nothing to impede smooth operation, it may be imagined how much more it will be the case next winter. We do not know that there is anything to be done about the matter, for the inter¬ ference of the State Railroad Commission is always futile, and the company believes that it can afford to ignore the opinions and the comfort of its passengers. Like all the other street railway companies in the country. Its intention Is to run just as few cars as it possibly can, in order to accommodate the traffic- All the public of New York City can do is to bide its time. The opportunity will eventually come for getting back at the company. Corporations such as the Metropolitan Street Railway and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Companies are gradu¬ ally creating in the public an amount of cordial dislike which will some day, and in the most unexpected manner, overflow and cause considerable damage. It is the street railway cor¬ porations themselves which are the most active friends of the movement in favor of municipal ownership, a fact which they will doubtless discover some day, when it is too late. OF the "little rivers" of the world the Bronx is the quaintest and most irregular. The Spree, in Germany, or the Lark, in England, are not to be compared in insignificance with the Bronx. The last Legislature provided for tbe appointment of a special commission on the subject of the Bronx River, acquiring the land along its banks for park purposes. This commission was appointed to inquire into the desirability of establishing a park from the limits of the present Bronx Park to the end of the Bronx River, with that stream as the dividing line. The committee organized and has since made two trips of inspection the whole length of the river and conferred with Westchester county and New York officials. Under the plan now considered, New York would bear the expense of improving the river and its borders inside the city limits and Westchester county the expense of, beautifying the twenty miles of the river in its territory. The Bronx is in two counties. As the matter stands at present the gurgling Bronx, the delight of artists and tbe confusion of scientists, is a small but rugged stream in winter, when it is seldom seen by New Yorkers, except out of railroad car windows, and is a sluggish stream, with muddy banks and a varying volume of water in summer time, when many thousand New Yorkers show themselves glad of the opportunity to visit the Bronx to study its beauties and perhaps, where it is deep enough, to row upon its surface. A comprehensive system of improvement which would fix permanent banks and regulate the volume of water by the installation of dams has long been advocated by intelligent New Yorkers, who have had the active co-operation of Westchester residents, whose influence was sufficient last year to induce the Legislature to take the flrst step forward towards the improvement of the Bronx River and incidentally of Bronx Valley real estate.