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1178 RECORD AND GUIDE June 1, 1912 ^ tSTABUSHlU•^MWH^I«:^la6e. BUSI iftM ArfD Tilt M E S Of C E(JCT(0. I [frtHtST Fonndcd Mird. 21, 186S, by CLINTON W. SWEET Pubiished Every Saturday By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO. !■• \V, DODGE, PfcsidciH V. T, MILLLR, Sccrtury aiiJ 'I'icasurcr Nos. 11 lo IS Eb»1 2
id-claes matter. CopyriEliied, IV12. by Tbe Record and Cuiili Co. Don't kill the public market project by making it too costly. After to-day all Pennsylvania Railroad tickets will be good to and from the up¬ town Hudson Tube stations upon pay¬ ment of the two-cent supplemental fare. Heretofore Pennsylvania tickets have been good only to and from the Hudson Terminal, downtown. Nelson P. Lewis, chief engineer to the Board of Estimate, has been elected presi¬ dent of the Anierican Road Builders' As¬ sociation, the purpose of whieh is to bring about an improvement in the methods of building and maintaining highways throughout the country. The association is composed of engineers and highway commissioners. The jury of the New York Chapter ot file American Institute of Architects in the Le Brun travelling scholarship com¬ petition has awarded the first prize to Otto R. Eggers. Honorable mention was given to the following gentlemen, in the order named; Steward ■\^'"agne^, Charles H. North, Joseph J. Gander and Oliver B. Raser. Jr. The competition drawings are on exhibition at the Architectural League, 215 West 57th street, where they will remain on view until June L The recent Aeroplane Exposition, held in Berlin, Germany, was in every way a brilliant success. The halls in the exhi¬ bition buildings erected in the Zoological Gardens were fliled to their utmost capac¬ ity every day, and only the fact that the buildings -were engaged i&r other pur¬ poses prevented the aeroplane exposition from being prolonged for two weeks. Curiously, a similar exhibition held some weeks ago in New York, attracted no popular interest. As a result of suggestions made hy the Merchants' Association, Boi^ough Presi¬ dent McAneny has planned to adopt the Liverpool style of pavement in re-paving Canal street, west of Broadway. This will be the flrst "really modern pave¬ ment" to he laid in this country and it is expected to serve as a standard for future work. Small, closely dressed stone blocks on a carefully laid founda¬ tion insure a long life to the pavement, besides giving a firm foothold to horses and keeping dcvwn the noise of trafRc, In the last two years the Committee on Budgetary Publicity of the Board of Estimate has disseminated information about the budget estimates of the vari¬ ous departments through the medium of the Budget Exhibit, departmental bulle¬ tins and statements to the newspapers. It has found that, during September and October, while the budget wa,s in the process of making, suggestions were re¬ ceived from many sources, urging the addition of some items and the amend¬ ment of others. Most of these sugges¬ tions were disregarded, because they were received too late to be passed upon by the heads of the departments concerned. The committee, therefore, asks for sug¬ gestions in regard to the 1913 budget at the earliest possible moment, as depart¬ ment heads have been notified to submit their estimates not later than July 15. The committee consists of George Mc¬ Aneny, President Borough of Manhattan; John Purroy Mitchel, President of the Board of Aldermen, and Comptroller Wm. A, Prendergast, Broadway Subway Traffic. There is said to be a dispute under way between the Interborough Company and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co. as to the extent to which the new Broadway- Seventh Avenue Subway is to be utilized. The Brooklyn company wants abundant room for switching at the two ends of the Manhattan section of the through route so that a large number of trains can be operated for the beneflt of the local Broadway traffic. The Interboro Co. is said to be protesting against such a service on the ground that the Broad¬ way, subway is intended merely for the purpose ,of enabling the passengers on the Brooklyn lines to obtain an entrance into Manhattan. If any such protest has been rnade, it should be effectually ig¬ nored. Subways are not being built for any single purpose. They are being built to accommodate all the traffic which can be developed by the best train service along that particular route. It w^ouId be absurd not to utilize the Broadway-Seventh Ave¬ nue line to the very limit. Indeed, it would be impossible, as weU as absurd, not to do so, because passengers would demand a full service—even if it were not spontaneously supplied. As a matter of fact an excellent local service on the Broadway line will be an extraordinary convenience to the residents of Manhattan. There always has been oongestion of traffic on the Broadway isurface cars, be¬ cause of the almost unprecedented den¬ sity of local trafiic along that particu¬ lar route, and business thereabouts will be enormously benefited by improved means of com-muni cation. Particular effort should be made to develop purely local travel in the Broadway iSubway. Local stations should be placed unusually close to one another, so as to tempt pas¬ sengers to use the subway. Broadway real estate and business needs the stimu¬ lus of such an improved service, and New Yorkers need the convenience of many trains and many stops. Express Stations The Record and Guide trusts that the Public Service Commission will consider carefully the location of the express sta¬ tions on the subways of lower Manhat¬ tan, When the Lexington avenue line was being planned, v\'e argued that the express stations should be situated not at 14th and 42d streets, as on the exist¬ ing subway, but at 23d and 59th streets. The reasons for such a change were obvious. An express station has a power¬ ful effect upon the distribution of busi¬ ness. If express stations on all the longi¬ tudinal subways are situated at the same streets, there tends to be an undesirable congestion of business at these points. It is better both for the convenience of travellers and for the better distribution of business that the express stations on different subways should be situated at different streets. Now that the Lexington avenue line has been abandoned south of 40lh street there is no longer any ques¬ tion about a 23d street express station on the East Side, although one undoubtedly should and wil! be situated at 59th street, so as to tap the great stream of traffic which will follow that line. On the new Seventh Avenue Subway an express sta¬ tinn will surely be situated at the Penn¬ sylvania station which will also supply 34th street and Greeley 'Square with the benefits of an express service. A question remains as to where the ex¬ press stations shall be situated on the Broadway-iSeventh avenue route. One will doubtless he needed at Seventh ave¬ nue and 59th street, and it only seems fair that the next one should be situated at Madison Square. Owners of real estate in and about Madison Square should cer¬ tainly make a flght for such a station. The vast recent development of mercan¬ tile construction in this vicinity makes it necessary that the Square should have the benefit of an express service on at least one of the subways. Presumably a strong claim will be made for the loca¬ tion of an express station at 42d street and Seventh avenue, and unquestionably there are many good arguments in favor of such a location. But, 42d street and Long Acre Square Is already supplied with abundant means of communication. It will be on the whole more accessible, from more parts of the greater city than any other section in Manhattan. Madi¬ son Setuare, on the other hand, has no corresponding advantages, and the city should deliberately attempt to keep busi¬ ness further downtown by affording 23d street and Madison Square the conveni¬ ence of an express station on at least one subway. Mr. Frick's New House, The announcement that a dwelling is to be built immediately for Mr. Prick on the site of the Lenox Library, while not un¬ expected, is nevertheless a matter of un¬ usual real estate and architecural inter¬ est. It is very rare in the history of New York City that mansions occupying a block front on an important avenue are erected. The old Vanderbilt brownstone houses occupy a whole frontage, but there are two of them. Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Schwab's houses cover a complete front¬ age with one building, and now Mr. Frick's will do the same. It is remarka¬ ble that these three gentlemen should all have made their money in the same busi¬ ness and should have heen at one time partners. Mr. Frick's enterprise is all the more unusual because of recent years the tendency for rich men to erect large and expensive dwellings in New York has been subsiding, and it has been sub¬ siding largely because New Tork is not so good a place to -accumulate a large fortune as it was, and because the pro¬ cess of business centralization has been checked by interference on the part of the government. Not only are fewer large fortunes being made, but when they are made their possessors are less likely to move to New York, It may be a long time before Mr. Frick has any imitators; and for that reason New York is to be congratulated that Mr. Frick is doing his job so well. In employing Mr. Hastings as his archi¬ tect, he has made an ad.mirable selec¬ tion, one which assures the erection of a beautiful and appropriate building. But from the arrhiteetural standpoint it is a pity that the new residence no matter how successful it may be, must stand upon the site of the Lenox Library. Ten years ago when the friends of Richard Morris Hunt M-ished to do honor to the memory of the dead architect, they placed his monument across the avenue from the building, which in their opinion might constitute his most permanent title to fame. Yet almost before the monument has weathered the building is to be torn down. The Lenox Library is not such a masterpiece of architecture that its loss cannot be replaced, but it is nevertheless distinctly unfortunate that the lightning should happen to strike it. It occupied a deflnite and worthy place in American architectural history, and deserved a longer life and a better end. Failure of a Holding Company. The failure of a large holding company whicii operates chiefly in mercantile buildings must not be considered a proof that the mercantile renting situation is bad. It undoubtedly is bad in certain of the older districts, but it continues on the whole to be extraordinarily and surpris¬ ingly good in the new mercantile district. In spite of the strong efforts which are being made to keep important wholesale and manufacturing houses downtown, the migration continues with very little abatement, and an enormous amount of new mercantile construction is being un¬ dertaken. Four block fronts on Fourth avenue are being improved. On Madi¬ son avenue a half a dozen large buildings are being erected. The few remaining vacant sites between Sixth and Seventh avenues north of 23d street have for the most part been bought for improvement, •A corresponding movement is beginning in the side streets . east and west of Fourth avenue; and there is no diminution m the number of new operations on and about Fifth avenue as far north as 48fh street. The money for financing such a large amount of construction could not be ob-
