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February 4, 1905
RKOORT) AND GUIDE
235
"eX ESTABUSHCD "^ tf^ARpH2isi^ 1368.
DE/oTEDiDRfJvLEsTWt.BuiLDif/c A,RPfiTECTJR.£,HouseholdDEOaRfiiDil,
BUSil^ESSAlJoTKEUESOpGEttER^l IHTER^SI.
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS
'Pabllsfied eVerg .Satnrda^f
Communications Btioulil be addressed to
C. W. SWEET, 14=16 Vesey Street, New YorE
J, T. LINDSEY, Bu3lno83 Manager Teiepiione, Cortlandt 3157
••Entered at the Pjst C
at New York, JV. Y., as second-class matter."
PEBRUART, 4, 1905.
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TWO OF A KIND
The Record and Guide is now issued as two papers:
1. Tlie Record and Guide—Manliattan and the Bronx
edition;
2, The Record and Guide—Brooklyn edition.
The Eormer will be supplied to readers and subscribers,
at present, for $6.00 a year, or 15 cents per copy.
The latter will be sold for $3,50 a year, or 10 cents per
* copy. Those who desire both papers will be supplied for J
â– $8.00 a year. j
Any subscriber, whose paid subscription is still cur- f
rent, may, by dropping us a postal card stating his de- j
sire, obtain both editions without any extra charge what- j
soever during the life of his existing subscription. Of f
-* course, at the end of the subscription, it will be open to *
J him to elect which edition he needs, paying for one or the j
* other, or 'both as the circumstances may be, *
I t
AS usual the Stock Market has had its ups and doY/ns, with
the ups rather more promineut than the downs. Little
by little the prices of securities are being forced to a higher
Ifevel, and the argument behind the process turns upon the bet¬
tor dividend prospects. Speculators are anticipating that some¬
time within the next two years several important railroads will
be shifted to the class of the Burlington and St. Paul, and they
are trying to make out with some certainty which of them can
be counted on to 'become gilt-edged stocks. That these anticipa¬
tions will be justified there is every reason to believe; but the
consummation is still remote, and in the meantime, it will bo
essy to discount too quickly these pleasant expectations. There
is still uo reason to suppose that the market will not remain
for some months, at bottom a waiting market—although a mar¬
ket in which there are many good things to be picked up.
Speculators must be prepared for patience, and must not be too
fore-handed. It would be easy to build up a superstructure of
values, which would again come down with a crash.
rpHE past week has broken all records in the real estate ac-
* tivity reported. The total number of transactions pub¬
lished in our "Gossip" columns is not far from 250 in Manhat¬
tan and 40 in the Bronx, Tho aggregate for the two boroughs is
a little less than 300, which is larger even than the aggregate of
the largest week last Fall or Spring. The mid-winter lull
is over, and the Spi-ing trading is well underway. If it keeps
anything like its present volume until the middle of June, it will
keep real estate brokers and operators busier than they have
ever been before. Moreover, the Spring business foreshadowed
by the transactions of the week is unusually good in char¬
acter. During the Fall a very large proportion of the sales
was furnished by the speculators in Bronx lots. Now the Bronx
furnishes only about 20 per cent of the total, the other SO per
cent being well distributed throughout the whole of Manhat-
tou. There have been few large transactions; but a good
demand is shown for business property, for tenements, for resi¬
dences, and for vacant lots. If no new tendencies appear in the
sales, several familiar ones receive further conflrmation.
Thus many sales are reported of the cheaper business prop¬
erties east of Broadway; vacant lots are active, both on the
West Side and Washington Pleights; groups of small dwellings
on the upper East Side and in Harlem are being turned over to
â– builders, for improvement with flats; and there is no abatement
of the interest in Sth Ave., and in 34th St. property. The most im¬
portant item of news respecting Sth Ave., has been the announce¬
ment that one of the largest of the remaining Broadway retail
firms—Van tine's—will oven a branch on 5th Ave. This is a very,
different thing from a complete removal; but it is an additional
tribute to the necessity for a 5th Av. location for retail stores of
a high class. Two new improvements on the avenue are also
announced which indicate the pressure which the present level
of values places on owners to obtain more incomo from their
property. Altogether it has been an extraordinary weclc, con¬
firming the most sanguine expectations as to the Spring business.
* S the weeks go by the city of New York does not seem to
i*. move one inch towards a satisfactory solution of the
traffic problem created by the Brooklyn and the Williamsburgh
Bridge. The Borough President of Brooklyn is proceeding cheer¬
fully on the assumption that public opinion in New York will
countenance the erection of a Centre and Delancey St, elevated
road connecting the two bridges; but that is a dangerous as¬
sumption to make. He will find in the end that the opposition
to any more elevated reads in the crowded streets down town
id invincible. One of the difficulties of the situation is that pub¬
lic opinion in this city has no confidence in the present admin¬
istration of the Bridge Department, and the recommendations
of that department are received with comparative indifference. â–
Public opinion is as much opposed to a temporary structure in
City Hall Park as it is to a Centre St. elevated road. On the
other hand the Poulson plan, which is economical both of
money and space, and promises to be a complete solution of the
terminal difficulties, and which the Bridge Departmnt, of course, .
opposes, is constantly growing in public favor. Is there not
some method of reaching a decision about this most important'
matter? Has not anybody aumcient power to obtain coopera¬
tion between the several responsible authorities, and insist upon
a practical solution—if only by the process of elimination?
T NASMUCH as everybody seems to be agreed that a longer
â– ^ term for the Police Commissioner is a necessary condition of
a reformed police department it may not be irrelevant to sug¬
gest that the. Police Department is not the only one which
would be benefited by a permanent ofiicial at its head. The
fact is that the chief of every branch of the city government,
except those who are elected, should serve permanently and
should be a man specially qualified by training and experience
to administer the department. The reasons which are convinc¬
ing iu the case of police, would apply with equal force to the
Health Department, that of Docks, Bridges, Buildings, Highways,
Law. Water Supply and so on. This is the way in which the ad¬
ministrative work of all large private corporations is conducted;
and the only reason why the city's business is not conducted
in th,3 same way is that changes with every new mayor are sup¬
posed to he politically desirable. They certainly are not desir¬
able on any other ground. There is good reason for a constant
shiftiug in the membership of the Board of Estimate, corre¬
sponding to the drift of public opinion as to which local party
should be retained in power. The Board of Estimate deter¬
mines matters of general policy, and should be responsible to the
voters. On the other hand the department chiefs attend merely
to administrative detail. They should be responsible to the
mayor or to the Borough Presidents, in the sense that they
nierely carry out their superior's orders and can he removed for
cause; but they should retain their positions as long as they prove
to be efficient and houest public servants. Their sense of respon¬
sibility would be increased rather than diminished by, making
their positions compai-atively permanent, and their chance of ef¬
ficiency would, of course also be very much increased. We are a
long way still from the time when the departments will be per¬
manently organized in this manner; but as the desirability of
higher administrative efficiency becomes plainer, we believe that
the methods of organization and discipline now'being applied to
the Police Department will with suitable modifications, be ap¬
plied to other departments as well.
A N authoritative account will be found in another column
A*- of the work, which the Architectural Lengue is doin''
and the purpose which it seeks to fulfill by means of its an¬
nual exhibition and its monthly dinners. What the League is
at bottom seekiug to do is to increase the popular interest in
architecture and the allied arts. It is an up-hill job, because
although Americans do much more building than any other