Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: [v. 93, no. 2395: Articles]: February 7, 1914

Text version:

AND NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 7, 1914 |illlilll!{llllEillll!ll{|llliqi1lli!llliii:qil;i!|lllilfliN3i|illli -j:i>iillllillllllilllill!lllllllllllllilllllllllllllllli[1lllllll!lll]|lilll!llil^ THE REAL ESTATE BOARD'S NEW ACTIVITIES I A Year of Notable Achievement to Be Celebrated Tonight — Enlarged Membership and Extension of Influence Under President McGuire. i'la-jiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii .......''WiiwiB'.....p.....Hiim.......?>.....:'.....f.....?!iaiii!iiiiii!iiiiiiiiiiiiipaii!iiiiiii!iiir:iiiiiiiiiiiB .....iiiiiiiiiiiiiaiiiiiiiiiiiiiaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil THE eighteenth annual dinner of the Real Estate Board of New York, which is to be held this evening at the Waldorf-Astoria, finds the board a much stronger organization than it was a year ago. During the intervening period it has acquired no fewer than SOO associate members, including a large proportion of the biggest owners of real estate in the city. Furthermore, its active member¬ ship, which is limited to 200, has been filled up and a waiting list established. The rapid progress made during the year is partly the result of a new inter¬ pretation of its functions adopted by the board and reflected in a change of name which went into effect in January of last year, when the old title of the Real Es¬ tate Board of Brokers was abandoned in favor of the Real Estate Board of New York. Under its original plan of organization the board was a strictly professional body and devoted itself to matters of special interest to the brokerage profes¬ sion. Under the new plan it takes a broader view of its duties and under¬ takes to deal with matters of interest to real estate owners as well. It has con¬ sequently taken up the work of following legislation at Albany, of scrutinizing ap¬ propriations by the Board of Estimate, of watching ordinances proposed in the Board of Aldermen, and in general safe¬ guarding the interests of real estate own¬ ers in matters of State aiid municipal leg¬ islation and administration. After Dinner Program. A variety of committees under ener¬ getic leadership have been appointed and important achievements have been ob¬ tained. The result is that the board has rallied to itself support from all quar¬ ters and the new enthusiasm and friend¬ ships which it has created will be nota¬ bly apparent at tonight's numerous gath¬ ering. The full complement of tickets for the dinner had been sold out by the middle of the week, and even the boxes on the mezzanine floor overlooking the dining-room fill be filled to overflowing. Nearly a thousand guests v^ill listen to addresses by Governor Martin H. Glynn, Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, Professor E. R. A. Seligmann, Arthur Brisbane and Frederick T. Murphy. Laurence M. D. McGuire, president of the board, will act as toastmaster. Origin of the Board. The board was established in Febru¬ ary, 1896, as an offshoot of the old Real Estate Exchange, which had quarters in the , building since displaced by the Chapiber of Commerce. It was incor¬ porated in 19Q8. As already noted, the change of rjame to the Real Estate^ Board of New York, which took place in Jan¬ uary, 1913, was followed by an important extension .of activities. A new infusion of energy in carrying out these activi¬ ties and in extending the membership took place upon the election in October, last year, of Laurence M. D. McGuire as president, and William J. Van Pelt as vice-president. Mr. McGuire, according to his friends, must be given a great deal of credit for LAURENCE M. President Real D. McGUIRE. Estate Board. the good showing that the board is able to make at its eighteenth annual dinner. He has applied himself with vigor to the building up of the association, and his presidency has also fallen in a period when the state of public feeling was such as to enable his work to count for most. New Work Taken Up. The general motive of the work re¬ cently taken up by the board is brought out in the following interview with Mr. McGuire: "New laws are suddenly imposed on owners, who are not given sufficient no¬ tice to make preparations and who con¬ sequently may be forced to disregard existing leases and contracts. Nor are they granted suflScient time in which to readjust renting conditions, to make changes in occupancy of buildings; they are even being deprived of the option of closing up buildings in which it is finan¬ cially impracticable to comply with the new laws. "These have been drafted and are be¬ ing enforced without regard to the cost of compliance on the part of the build¬ ing owner. To make the changes de¬ manded will in many cases cost more than the yalue of the structure, the amount of the owner's equity or the ren¬ tal income from the building for a period of years. "The laws of the last few years rep¬ resent the ultimate climax in the over- regulation and disjointed regulation of buildings; they contain obvious errors, the language is vague and uncertain, the requirements are condemned as imprac¬ tical by engineering experts, there is lack of co-ordination between depart- rnents. Even the Labor Department offi¬ cials are in doubt as to the law's mean¬ ing, while as experienced men, they de¬ plore the necessity of enforcing hard and fast rules which make no allowance for the merits of individual cases. The de¬ fects are so numerous that all classes of people are justified in challenging the laws and demanding a revision before irreparable loss and damage is caused. "These laws have been demanded by persons who, though well meaning, lack the experience and ability to construct a reasonable and efficient scheme of im¬ provement. It is conceded that many factory buildings need increased safe¬ guards, but such safeguards should not be enforced until they are properly de¬ signed and until there is some assurance that, if installed, they will really provide safety and will be permanently accepted by the authorities. "It is also conceded that sanitary im¬ provements are desirable, but they should be deferred until safety against fire and accident has been accomplished. There is a limit to the amount of money that can be extracted from a building owner and it is often a financial imnossibility to meet the current extraordinary de¬ mands for safety and sanitation. Defective Laws. '''The present enforcement of these laws brings the owners of factory build¬ ings face to face with the necessity of closing up such buildings or spending more money than the structures are worth, or the income they will produce for a term of years. These laws take no account of the operation of existing leases, they ignore the questions of the amount of rent paid, the present state of the building as a rentable proposition or the future of the building in the light of_ changing business conditions. "It is an absolute injustice that peo¬ ple who must pay for the improvements are not permitted to say anything about the spending of the money: they have hardly been given time to study the Labor Law or understand its require¬ ments, let alone plan for the financial burdens. In enforcing such laws, both the State and the city are requiring pri¬ vate owners to do what is a financial impossibility in the case of public build¬ ings. The Legislature would absolutely refuse to appropriate sufficient money to rnake the State buildings as safe rela¬ tively as factory buildings are required to be made; neither would the Board of Estimate appropriate sufficient money to make city buildings as safe as the Bureau of Fire Prevention is requiring private buildings to be made. Reforms Are Expensive. "The simple fact is that there is not enough money available, either for pub¬ lic or private owners, to carry out such a drastic and wholesale scheme of im¬ provement, as the new Labor law de¬ mand. It is not enough that these laws demand extensive and confiscatory ex¬ penditures for safety purposes, but they require simultaneously even larger ex¬ penditures and more haphazard improve¬ ments for sanitation purposes. Many owners of buildings simply have not the necessary monev to obey these laws and even those owners who have the avail¬ able means object to spending money on buildings that are vacant or being vaca¬ ted and .whose future from a rental stand¬ point no man can guess.