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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 84, no. 2157: July 17, 1909

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July 17, TO09. RECORD AND GUIDE 105 \ FSTABTlSHm ESTABUSHED^ i\ARPH 2Lii^ 1868. Dr6-tfi)ToFHLEsTAjE,BuiLDii/G A;R.cKlTEeTUHE.Ho^sEKoiLpEoaH«K»ft' Bi/sn/ESS AtfcThemes OF GEfiEi^ftUKtEf^si.. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communications should he addressed to C, W. SWEET Published Every Saturday By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO. President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F, W. DODGE Vice-Pres. & Genl. Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary, F. T. MILLER Nos, II to 15 East 24tli Street, New York City (Telephone, Madison Square, 4-!30 to 4433.) "Entered at tiie Post Office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter." Copyrighted, 1909, by The Record & Guide Co. Vol. LXXXIV. JQLY 17, 1909. No. 2157. THE XEW BUiLDING CODE which passed the Board of Aldermen during the past week is in certain respects an improvement on any code of building regulations as yet enacted in New York; hut at the same time it arouses the opposition of the great majority of people interested in New' York real estate and building. This opposition is justified; and can be justified, quite apart from the injustice wbjch it works upon certain types and methods of concrete con¬ struction. The fundamental complaint is that it will in¬ crease the cost of huilding in this city without, at the same time, doing anything effective to diminish the fire risks. In view of the validity of this complaint, the improvements which have been made in certain sections of the code avail nothing. The fact remains that building will be more ex¬ pensive, while the city will be to a very small extent better [irotected from a disastrous conflagration. New Yorkers will have to pay more, but they will get nothing really worth having for their money. Alt the actual aud fundamental problems in respect to the height of buildings and the danger of flre-co!itagion have been avoided, and the net result will he a code which will demand another drastic revision within a few years. We doubt, hcwever, whether New York will ever got a salisfacLory building code out of a board that i^ so subject to underground influences as the Board of Alder¬ men; and it is certain that no satisfactory code will be passed by any local legislative body ^until expert opinion under¬ stands better what the real object of building regulations should be. The real object of a building code should be to make good construction as cheap as possible, whereas the object of code makers in the past has been to penalize a builder just as much as they can in ease he has Lo make his building fireproof. The consequence is that practical build¬ ers and the makers of building codes are always at cross pur¬ poses and that no loyal co-operation can be obtained in tiie interest of good construction. The further consequence is, as we all know, graft, graft, graft! It is all as usual; but the usual unfortunality is based upon a fundamental division of interest and point of view between the experts and the practical builders, and therein tho grafters find their profit. THE OPENING OF THE M'ADOO TUNNELS, terminating at Greenwich and Cortlandt streets, will unquestion¬ ably have a most important effect upon the real estate situ¬ ation in Manhattan and the whole metropoiitan district. Hitherto the business men who lived in New Jersey and came to business every day in New York have been obliged to sacrifice a certain amount ofitime in return for the pleasures and advantages ot" suburban residences, and the consequence has been that many families continue:! to live iu Manhattan who would under ordinary conditions have preferred a house in a convenient suburb. The new tunnels will diminish by a good many minutes the advantage which New York build¬ ing sites have enjoyed over those of New Jersey; and the 'consequence will undoubtedly be a certain shifting of popu¬ lation. Not only will a larger proportion of the annual in¬ crease of inhabitants seek homes on the other side of the Hudson, but for m^ny years there will be a certain migration of families now living in Manhattan and, the Bronx to Hud¬ son and Essex counties. This migration will have a certain effect upon, residence property in Manhattan. It will not affect tenement house sections, or the more expensive laiid on which private dwellings and high-grade apartment houses can be built, but it will diminish the demand for the medium- priced flat, .lust bow far the migration will go cannot be pre.iicted in advance; but the certainty that it will take place should make builders cautious about erecting very many new tenements of that class. On the other hanS, the new tunnels will, of course, benefit business property in the financial dis- Iriet and in the newer mercantile district. It will mean that a larger proportion of New Yorkers will waste less time and energy than they do at present in daily traveling, and that Ihey wili live under pleasanter and more wholesome sur- I'oundings, Their business efficiency should, consequently, he increased. Of course, Manhattan will lose a good deal of business because the money these people spend upon living will not go into the pockets of New York tradesmen; but even this less will be mitigated by the very condition which brings it about. The mere fact of improved communication under the Hudson will encourage the residents of New Jer¬ sey to spend more money in the larger shops and places of amusement uptown. In this way the opening of the down¬ town tunnels will indirectly contribute to the pi'osperity of the retail and theatre districts. The only business neighbor¬ hood in Manhattan which may suffer from the trolley tun¬ nels is the older mercantile section. Business men working in that vicinity will not derive any advantage from the im¬ proved means of communication; and this fact may swell the migration of wholesale firms to new locations farther up¬ town. T TICE-PRESIDENT REA, of the Pennsylvania Railroad V Company, believes that the corporation he represents has a grievance against the city, because nothing has been done to provide the new Pennsylvania Terminal with sub¬ way connections. Although the Pennsylvania company has been at work seven years and has spent more than $100,000,- 000 in establishing its terminals in Manhattan, not a defi¬ nite step has been taken to give its 300,000 daily pati-ons any opportunity of spreading over the city. Neither was Chairman Willcox, of the Public Service Commission, able 'D make a wholly convincing reply to this criticism. It is true, of course, that a Seventh avenue subway route was laid out, and was submitted to public competition, and it is true that the city officials cannot be blamed for the fact that the Interborough Company refused to bid. But the attitude of the Public Service Commission since this fiasco has been \v holly inimical to a Seventh avenue subway. It has per¬ sisted in laying out a Broadway-Lexington avenue route, which merely duplicated the existing subway south of Forty- second street, and which increased very much the difficulty of obtaining a bidder for a Seventh avenue subway. The Interborough Company is willing to construct an extension south from F'orty-second street under Seventh avenue, but only on condition that it can also construct a subway north from Forty-second street under Lexington avenue. If conse¬ quently the Public Service Commission insisted on its Broad¬ way-Lexington avenue route, the Seventh avenue subway was apparently indefinitely postponed. The Interborough Com¬ pany would Hot build it without a Lexington avenue exten¬ sion as well, and no other bidder would be likgly to ^.ppeaj' until the Lime came lov a now West Side route running the whole length of the island. It did look, consequently, as if the Public Service Commission had made its plans, as Mr. Rea charged, without any consideration of the needs of the patrons of the new Pennsylvania Terminal. WITHIN the last few days, however, the situation in re¬ spect to a SevenLh avenue subway has altered for the better. It is now stated in the daily journals that the con¬ tracting syndicate that wants to bid on the Broadway- Lexington avenue-South Brooklyn route is pi'epared also to bid uiion a Seventh avenue subway. Tbe route they pi'oposed would run from Canal street and Broadway, where it would connect with the Manhattan Bridge and th,e financial district, up Hudson street and Seventh avenue to Thirty-fourth street, where it would turn east and connect with the Lexington avenue. There can be no doubt that this proposal, in case it actually becomes substantial, very much increases the strength of the position of the Brad ley-Gaff ney syndicate. The system which they propose to build would then be toler¬ ably complete, aud would meet all the more pressing needs for subway construction in Manhattan. Moreover, their route would have certain peculiar advantages over any route which has as yet become a matter of serious discussion. It would, for instance, give the dense po])ulation of the upper East Side a much better connection with the Pennsylvania Terminal and the retail section than it could get under any other plan, and it would have the additional advantage of