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Real estate record and builders' guide: [v. 89, no. 2304]: May 11, 1912

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MAY 11, 1912' ECONOMIC CAUSES OF THE GROWTH OF BROOKLYN. A Marvelous Increase of Population an(J In(Justry, Which Will Be Accelerated by Improved Transportation—How Dependence on Manhattan Influences Real Estate. By CECIL C. EVERS, Vice-President of the Lawyers Morlgage Co. . ANY analysis of its growth, development '"*■ and probable future mu.st be preceded by a right understanding of the relation Brooklyn bears to the neighboring Bor¬ ough of Manhattan. Brooklyn is an integral part of the eco- nc»mic City of New York and in no way an independent community; the flnanciai center of the city, the principal centers of wholesale and retail shopping, of amuse¬ ment, higher instruction and o£ highest- class residences are to be found in Man¬ hattan, whose real estate values are strengthened by the population on this side of the river. This explains the lim¬ ited area devoted in Brooklyn to offices and to high-class shops, and the com¬ paratively low value of these properties, which, on Fulton street, and then only for a few blocks and on the south side, will not average more than about $5,000 to $6,000 per front foot. The best resi¬ dence property, very limited in extent, not exceeding in value $500 to $600 per front foot, would, in an independent city of equal population, have a value of sev¬ eral times that amount and would cover a far greater territory. The small num¬ ber of hotels, theatres, music halls, pic¬ ture galleries and other places of amuse¬ ment or instruction, are accounted for in the same way. Brooklyn, we may conclude, will prob¬ ably never have more than a very limited offlce section and a comparatively small high-class shopping street, which will not seriously compete with the more faah- ionable shops in Manhattan. For many years to come the centers of wholesale - and commission buainess will also ibe found in Manhattan, and Brooklyn will continue to be what it is at present: a residential part of the Greater City, with a growing manufacturing and shipping ■business. Factors o€ D eve loy ment, Brooklyn, for many years part of the economic City of New York, was ad¬ mitted within its political limits in the year 1S9S. The early growth, made possible by the ferries across the East River, was main¬ ly confined to the territory within easy reach of the ferry terminals at the foot of Catherine. Fuiton and Wall streets, At¬ lantic and Hamilton avenues, and in- ' eluded the section between the Navy Yard ' and Hamilton avenues, and from eight to twelve blocks back from the river. At about the same time the ferries runnlna to the foot of Grand street and Broadway, then called South Eighth street, in Wll¬ liamsburgli, encouraged the establishment of factories along the Bast River and residences on the higher land back of them. The opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 and the construction of the elevated railroads in 1885 projected new residen¬ tial sections into the territory reached by these lines of transportation. The procession of homeseekers from New York in search of lower rents and less congested conditions was accom¬ panied by the establishment of numerous factories along the main lines of com¬ munication, on the water front—Gowanus Canal, Newtown Creek, and in other lo¬ cations where they were attracted by cheap land and transportation facilities. Brooklyn has often been called the City of Homes. Its early development waa of this character; patrons of the East River ferries, and in the early days of the ele¬ vated railroads, Avere for the most part housed in sniall private residences (the high atoop house predominating) and in small brick or Irame tenements in the cheaper sections. As the demand for land in t'he more central locations increased, it Avas found more profitable to erect apartments, and these were built in large numbers. The comparative isolation of Brooklyn, when ferries were the only means of com¬ munication, has been growing rapidly less as bridges, eleA'ated railroads and sub¬ ways have connected the two boroughs and broken dow-n the barriers between them. One result of this closer connec¬ tion has been that some sections which owed their prominence to this isolated condition, have gradually changed char¬ acter and lost in value, if not absolutely, then relatively to the growth of the city. Thus properties on Columbia Heights, formerly the fashionable residential quar¬ ter, have for many yeai-s suffered a grad¬ ual decline in value, until the last two or three years, when the probable recon- sti'TJction of tills section with apartment houses, -of which there already is some evidence, has caused land values to in¬ crease to some extent, though not enough to offset the original cost of land and building-s. Similarly, the FuUon street dry goods section, not of much greater extent that its predecessor about twenty- five years ago, has suffered a relative de¬ crease in value when the great increase in population is considered. Chnrncfcr and Distribution of I'opnlafion. Brooklyn as a residential city is still the home of people of moderate means; for in a general way those who become sufflcieiTtly wealthy are apt to be at¬ tracted by the superior social and other advantages to be found in Manhattan and migrate there. The average monthly rental of the bet¬ ter class apartments (excluding a few of the highest class) was ten years ago from $50 to $60; this is now more nearly from $75 to $100, and is accompanied by a steady improvement in the standard of accommodation offered, both having been forced upwards by the greatly increased rent of equal accommodation in Man¬ hattan. Brooklyn is inhabited mainly by three classes of people; those who in one way or another are employed in Manhattan, either in the financial sections or in the coinmercial quarters further north (the average daily travel'by subway, over the bridges and by ferries in 1910 was about 923,000, showing that, allowance being made for return journeys, about half a million people, or one-third of the popu¬ lation, pass daily from Brooklyn to Man¬ hattan and back); others are workers in the factories and warehouses lining ths water front and scattered through the city (the number of operatives and employes in Brooklyn factories in the year 1910 was 139,737); others again find cmployi-nent in the numerous Brooklyn stores and in oc¬ cupations created by the various local needs of the borough. Although there ia in the more closely built up sections a tendency to the erec¬ tion of apartment houses mainly, Brook¬ lyn still appeals strongly to the class of people who are anxious to secure for them¬ selves an independent home, where they can find better conditions for bringing up their families than those which exist in more densely populated sections. This accounts for the great number of small suburban residences erected between 1908 and 1911, and which havs found a ready market at good prices. Although Brooklyn has a very cosmo¬ politan population, including in 1900 about 20,000 negroes, the percentage of native born of native parentage, according to the census of 1900, was 37 per cent., as against 17 per cent, in Manhattan. As in all cities, the population dis¬ tributes itself according to its effective demand on the locations considered pref¬ erable, forming sections in which the standard of accommodation and rentals will not vary greatly, and established with reference to means of transportation, ex¬ isting and expected, topography, sur¬ roundings, etc. The effect of expected transportation was shown when the Bay Ridge section witnessed the erection of several hundred houses when the building of the Fourth Avenue subway was announced in the year 1904; the delay in starting construc¬ tion resulted in depreciated values, and the foreclosure of the mortgages on a number of these buildings. Tlie Influence ot Trau.siiorfniton. The influence of transportation on dis¬ tribulion of population is evidenced by the relation different sections bear to the transportation offered and to Its outlets in Manhattan. Thus the traffic lines over the Williamsburgh Bridge, connecting Brooklyn to the East Side in Manhattan, has caused the erection of tenements mainiy; vi'bii^t tran.^portation over tho Brookly,1 Br-dge, entering Manhattan at or near the office and flnanciai section, serves numerous residential dhitricts of better character. The best class residential districts for attached dwellings are, leaving aside the so-called "Heights" section, which is un¬ dergoing a change of character; the Park Slope, the Bedford, the "Hill" (east of Fort Greene Park), and the St. Marks section.?. [he h'^st class detached residences are fi.und in Prospect Park South, Fiske Ter¬ race and Manhattan Terrace, with cheap¬ er neighborhoods at Eorough Park, Bath Beach, Bensonhurst; these being reached by the rapid transit lines—the most dL- ■^irable by the Brighton Beach Railroad, vs'hich offers the best service beyond the clostly built up portions of the city and which has been of such service to the sec'ionfi it traverses, that at the present time a considerable number of apartmant houses are being erected in parts of Flat¬ bush ^-/ithin easy reach of the principal stati'-.ns. Excrpting the above-mentioned sections, 3rooklyn consists principally, in its set- iled roitions, of the cheaper apartments and tenements. Tlie foreign element, especially of the poorest classes, are mostly to be found i.i distinct sections, such as the Jewish settlements in the neighborhood of Gra¬ ham avenue to the north of Broadway, in HrDv.'nsvilie and in the territory within easy icpch of the Williamsburgh Eridgkj Plaaa. Italians congregate in large num¬ bers al-^ng Columbia street and Hamilton avenue. Swedes are numerous at about Fourth and Fifth avenues, between For¬ tieth iird Forty-fifth streets. There is a .strung German settlement northeast o' Broadway and Bushwick avenue and south of Myrtle avenue; also in the new¬ ly built up section in East New York, north of Pulton street, 'beginning where Ridgewood avenue runs into Jamaica ave¬ nne. The principal negro quarter Is to be found on both sides of Myrtle avenue, on Navy and Raymond streets and on Hudson avenue. Movement ot Lnnil A'alucH, In growing cities, especially where they cover large areas and there Is no bar to their extension into undeveloped terrl-