Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: [v. 101, no. 2600: Articles]: January 12, 1918

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REAL ESTATE AND (Copyright, 1917. by The Record and Guide Co.) NEW YORK, JANUARY 12, 1918 THROUGH THE OPENING OF NEW SUBWAY BROADWAY IS BROUGHT UP-TO-DATE IT has frequently been charged against property owners that while protest¬ ing loudly against large city budgets they were not averse to clamoring for local improvements in their own par¬ ticular sections. This is less true than it was formerly. It cannot, however, be said that there are many instances on record where property owners deliber¬ ately threw aside a great opportunity for obtaining a benefit for their dis¬ trict; one. moreover, which it is almost uniformally considered most fortunate to secure. The middle Broadway district enjoys the unique distinction of having refused to tolerate a subway under its main artery, Broadway. It was not only willing to see this great achievement of modern times—the underground rapid transit railroad—diverted to another thoroughfare, but actually prevented its location under Broadway by protesting so loudly that the public authorities changed the plans and utilized Fourth avenue, turning west in 42d street in- ^stead of reaching Times Square by the 'shorter diagonal route under Broadway, past Union Square to 42d street. Improvement Welcome. To this extent the Broadway Subway, I opened some weeks ago as far north as 'Union Square and extended last week to Times Square, may be said to be fifteen years behind the times, and correspondingly welcome. A little more than twenty years ago I the area south of 14th street, with Broadway as its main artery, was in an I extremely flourishing condition. The hotel center was south of 23d street, and many of the hotels along Broadway, (south of 14th street, were still able to retain some of their former prestige. I Except in . isolated cases business had not gone far beyond 25th street. If .anything Mth street was a more pros- Jperous retail thoroughfare than 23d street. Business construction, both in office and mercantile structures, had not ' yet passed through that evolution that J has produced the modern building as we I understand it today. That is to say, (business housing in the area under con- i sideration was adequate to the demands i made upon it. The textile trades, silk, ^ woolen, cotton, hosiery, underwear, {knitted goods and commission houses J were all centered on the area approxi¬ mately between Mth and Chambers streets, mainly west of Broadway. The jobbing houses, retail specialty houses and offices were on Broadway. In the next few years some local shifting of trade took place, but this was not more than a normal movement, reflecting heavy expansion and without adverse effect on fee or rental values. Succession of Events. Several external events were taking place about this time, which had a more or less important local bearing. One was the re paving of Broadway. This apparently unimportant event was a serious one for middle Broadway, for the upheaval incidental to so large an undertaking directed attention to the adjacent parallel streets, including ■Greene and Mercer. These experienced a rise in values, representing approxi¬ mately what was being lost on Broad¬ way. Then followed the laying of cables for the cable car service. And not so very long after this came the neces¬ sary interruption, due to the change from the cable system to electric trac¬ tion. Broadway each time suffered to some extent from the resultant inter¬ ference with business. The limit of human endurance seems to have been reached when a new tearing up process was threatened in the late nineties. These points are worth noting in trac¬ ing the decline in rental and fee values on so prominent a thoroughfare as Broadway and in a contiguous territory which a few years before housed a number of wholesale concerns, whose annual trade represented many millions of dollars. And taken in connection with the fact that a large majority of these wholesale concerns occupied leased quarters; that, broadly speaking, this housing was antiquated, and that owners were singularly indifferent to the need of modernizing these struc¬ tures, they help to explain a condition which later became exceedingly grave. Both the normal shifting of trade and the uptown movement of retail business began to be emphasized prac¬ tically from the time that the subway was completed, in 1904. The influence of the Pennsylvania Railroad's activi¬ ties were reflected between 1901 and 1905 in the creation of a new depart¬ ment store center, extending from Herald Square through 34th street to Fifth avenue. When, in 1909, the notable building campaign began on Fourth avenue, from Ll^nion Square practically to 23d street, it found the old wholesale section south of Mth street unprepared to meet the competition coming from that quarter. This building campaign entirely trans¬ formed Fourth avenue, not only in its physical appearance, but also in the character of its tenantry, and it made serious inroads into the fee and rental values on middle Broadway nearly as far south as Canal street and for some blocks west. Large vacancies were created in the territory about West 4th street, Wooster and Greene streets. The emigration of the lace, silk, ribbon, woolen and em¬ broidery trades and of numbers of notion houses, mainly into the new Fourth avenue section left whole build¬ ings empty. Incomes fell from 25 to SO per cent. Lofts in Wooster and Greene streets, which brought an annual rental of $3,000. had fallen in 1913 to a $900 rental. In the vicinity of Broadway and 4th street office space in a typical build¬ ing that brought $1,200 in 1912 was a little later let for $600. In some parts of this section small tradesmen and contractors secured quarters in 1913 at as low as 20 cents a square foot. In the side streets loft space for various trades was as low as 30 cents, and on Broadway 45 cents a square foot. Along Greene and Wooster streets mercantile buildings, on 25-foot lots, that in 1900 brought $50,000 went at $30,000 a dozen years later. In the interval between the refusal of the late nineties and the subway open¬ ing last month the northerly section of this territory, between 33d and 42d streets, to and within the immediate influence of the Grand Central terminal and the Pennsylvania station, has missed the penalty through the force of cir¬ cumstances—the northward trend of business and the great constructional expansion that has takep place since the first subway was started. The lower section, from Chambers strret north to beyond 23d street, has undoubtedly suffered largely from this refusal to be temporarily disturbed through the derangement of business incidental to subway construction, and later Sixth avenue lost its old-time prestige as a great retail center. All this, however, is about to be changed; is already being changed. Having finally submitted to the in¬ evitable and gone through, several years later than was originally planned, the throes of subway building, this in¬ teresting section of New York City is already responding to the improved transit conditions. Not only does it now enjoy, between Brooklyn or the Wall street district and Times Square, a shorter route than the older Fourth avenue subway, but it has come doubly into its own through the recent opening of the Seventh avenue subway tapping the Broadway line at Times Square, where the latter branch will continue under Seventh avenue to 59th street and across the Queensboro Bridge, with ex¬ tensions into Queens. Realty Values Improving. It is a coincidence merely, but a satis¬ factory one, that even before the open¬ ing of these two subway lines—the Broadway and the Seventh avenue— property values in the middle Broadway and lower middle west side sections had been improving mainly on account of the fact that for more than a year building has been held in check and practically all forms of housing in New York City, and notably in Manhattan, are as a consequence very much in demand. The northerly section, south of 33d street, reflects a like condition. Sixth avenue in the twenties—the old retail district—is a notable example, while the side streets are reaping large benefit from the ex'-lusion of manufacturing from the Fifth avenue section. Much is also expected frrom a solution, now hoped to be within sight, of the New York Central's West Side problem. John P. Kirwan, of John P. Kirwan & Sons, who have been closely identified with real estate in the Times Square section for many years, in speaking of the opening of the new subway said: "The new line will do much to improve realty values along Broadway. South of 42d street property has suffered be¬ cause of inadequate transit facilities, though the blame for this condition rests upon the property owners them¬ selves. They had an opportunity several years ago to obtain subway transporta¬ tion, but they were bitterly opposed to the scheme. In fact, they went so far as to get out an injunction. As a result the subway was built in Elm street, and Fourth avenue, the latter thoroughfare receiving the direct benefits. The build¬ ing movement of a few years ago is ample testimony of this fact. Owners Grant Permission. "It was not until the realization of the iiarm done to Broadway through this short-sighted decision was thoroughly ai^parcnt. that owners saw the errors of their ways, and then they were only too glad to grant their permission for the present line. '*I firmly believe, that as soon as the building conditions improve and finan¬ cial accommodations are obtainable, there will be a reconstruction movement started in Broadway which will change the entire skyline. By this I do not mean that exceedingly tall buildings will be erected, for the Zoning Law will come into play, but I do mean that modern structures will supplant the present anticiuated buildings. I have RECORD AIVO filTIDE IS IIV ITS FIFTIETH YEAR OF CONTINUOUS rUBLlCATION.