Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: [v. 89, no. 2310]: June 22, 1912

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^^^s 0^^ JUNE 22, 1912. - THE WHOLESALE DISTRICT IN MIDDLE BROADWAY Causes of the Emigration of Business from the Avenue Below Mth Street— Remedies Suggested—Probable Influence of the Dual Rapid Transit System. A FEW months ago several parcels of **■ real estate in the middle Broadway section, owned by the Lawrence estate, were sold at auction. The result of this sale showed that even under such a fair test of tile demand from investors and speculators as is afforded hy lhe auction method of selling, the properties could not bring in the open market a sum with¬ in about §200,000 of the valuation placed on Ihem hy the cily for purposes oE tax¬ ation. The holdings were asses.^ed at $803,000. They sold for SS03,150, or 25 per cent, below the amourit on which taxes were being paid. Some such result was not entirely un¬ expected by_ those familiar with the area between Canal and Fourteenth streets, along Broadway and the adjacent paral¬ lel and intersecting streets. But it laid startling emphasis on certain grave con- vital ciuestion.s for tenants as well as for owners. What radical causes have broug;ht about this decline in values along middle Broadway and adjacent streets? What remedy exists for these condi¬ tions, either through the efforts of prop¬ erty owners or through puhlic measures that may affect the neighborhood? To what extent will such favorable steps as may be taken offset or counter¬ act the present depression in rental and fee values? It is not the purpose of tJiis article to supply categorical answers to these ques¬ tions, but rather to trace briefly the causes that have brought about existing conditions, to present a rational analysis of these conditions and to weigh the chances for ultimate improvement. A.t present, the general opinion wilh regard taking place about this time which had a more or less important local bearing. One was the repaving of Broadway. This apparently unimportant event was a serious one for middle Broadway, for the upheaval incidenlal to so large an un¬ dertaking directed attention to the ad¬ jacent parallel streets, including Greene and Mercer. These experienced a rise in values representing approximately what was being lost on Broadway. Next followed the laying of the cables for the cable car service. And not so very long after this came the necessary Inlerruption due to the change from the cable system to electric traction. Broad¬ way each time suffered to some extent from the resultant interference with busi¬ ness. Meantime the amount of new con¬ struction which a betler method of trans¬ portation should have induced was not so BROADWAY, LOOKING SOUTH FROM BLEECKER STREET. The Corner Shows Au Extreme Type of Antiquated Building. BROADWAY. LOOKI The Souther] ditions and led to an amount of discus¬ sion not hy any means favorable lo this neighborhood, and to the obvious conclu¬ sion that the iocal assessments were too high. This, however, does not by any means express the full significance of conditions in this territory. Over assessment is commonly claimed by owners, and is as often claimed, and sometimes actually exists, in neighborhoods which for one reason or another, have experienced a sharp rise in values. Here, however, was a neighborhood where assessments, in spite of the fact that they were somewhat lower than they had been a year or two previously, still showed a marked excess over the best available prices in open competition. In other words, the high assessments did not represent, in the ordinary sense, an error of judgment on the part of the assessors. Neither did they reflect the prevalent habit of property ov.'ners to complain of assessments actually no higher than prices they would be willing to accept. Here was an actual and, indeed, radical decline in property values. The instances quoted are more or less typical of this section. Under these conditions it is only nat¬ ural that three important questions should now be presented to property own¬ ers in the neighborhood referred to. And it must be borne in mind that these are to this area is not particularly optimis¬ tic. Some twenty years ago the area below Fourteenth street, with Broadway as its main arterv. was in an extremely flour¬ ishing condition. The hotel centre was below Twenty-third street and very many of the hotels along Broadway, below Fourteenth street, wer© slill ahle to re¬ tain something of their former prestige. Except in isolated cases business had not gone far beyond Twenty-third street. Fourteenth slreet was, If anything, a more prosperous retail thoroughfare than Twenty-third street. Business construc¬ tion, both in office and mercantile atrnc- lures, had not yet passed through that evolution that has produced the modern building as we understand it to-day. That is, to say, business housing in the area under consideration was adequate to the demands made upon it. The textile trades silk, woolen, cotton, hosiery, un¬ derwear, knitted goods and commission houses were all centered on the area ap¬ proximately hetwewen Fourteenth and Chambers streets, mainly west of Broad¬ way. The jobbing houses, retail spec¬ ialty houses and offices were on Broad¬ way. In the next few years some local shifting of trade took place, but thia was not more than a normal movement, reflecting healthy expansion, and without adverse effect on fee or rental values. However, several external events were NG NORTH FRO-M CA.VAL STREET. y End of the Area of Emigration. exfenaive as might have been expected. It was confined to certain parts of Broadway, and mainly to Mercer and Greene streeits. There is probab'y only one case on record where a neighborhood deliberately threw away the chance of having rapid transit through ils entire length, because of the necessary disturbance and inter¬ ference to business that subway construc¬ tion would involve. Middle Broadway holds this record. It is because of the loud protest made by several prominent local interests when the Rapid Transit Commission was laying out the original routes that the subway does not follow Broadway between City Hall and Forty- second street. And it is undoubtedly largely for the same reason that tbe in¬ tervening territory, nearly as far north as Twenty-third street, where other coun¬ teracting factors come into play, has wit¬ nessed a decline in value and prominence almost exactly equal to the 'gain made by the territory traversed hy the present, or substituted, route. The middle Broadway and Fourth avenue sections illustrate these two extremes. It is, of course, possible to overestimate the importance of these pointa. But they are worth noting in tracing the decline in rental and fee values on so prominent a thoroughfare as Broadway and in a ccnliguous territory which a few years ago housed a number of wholesale con-