July 21,- iQod
RECORD AND (^iJXDE
log-
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) . Tolaphon*. CortI«adt 3157
"Entered at Ih* P«»t Office at .ffeuj T»rk, N. T.. as srcond-class matter."
Vol, LXXVIIl,
JULY 21, 190(3.
No. 2O01
INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising Section.
Page- Page,
Cement ....................xilll Law.........................x\
Consulting Engiaeera ..........x Lumber..................xxviii
Clay Products ................xxii Machinery ...................iv
Contractors and Builders ......v Metal Work ................xvli
Electrical Interests ..........vlil Quick Job Directory ........xxvtl
Fireproofing .................il Real Estate .................x\v
Granite ....................sxlv Roofers & Roofing Materials.xxvl
Heating ....................xx Stone .....................xxlv
Iron and Steel ..............xvlil Wood Products ...........xxviii
77te Record and Guide has opened a-n tfptown Office in the
Metropolitan "Annex," Nos. 11-13 East 24th Street, in order
to accommoflate its customers, so many of whom are located in
the central and northern parts of the city, and at the same time
to provide additio7ial quarters for its own increased staff and
for the Architectural Record and,"Stoeei''s" Index.
FINANCIAL doctors are in complete disagreement as to the
immediate course of the Stock market. This is evidenced
l)y tiie opinions' lately expressed in the editorial and financial
columns of the leading dailies. A striking case in point ap¬
peared when an elaborate editorial In one paper setting forth
the bull conditions, and in fact pooh-poohing the claim that
V?all Street any longer reflects conditions or discounts the
future, was followed the next day in the same publication by
a bull financial review, the keynote of which was that Wall
Street might always be relied upon to express the consensus
of the best thought and to discount events not already dis¬
cernible to other than specuiators' eyes. Thus we have the
situation. The operators are divided into two camps, each
with its arguments and each confident of its position. The
bulls rely on the undoubted record breaking statistics of
trade furnished each week^the bears answer that stocks are
for sale in unlimited supply on every rally and that the vol¬
ume and class of selling indicate the source as from those
who are in "the know," They add tliat later the selling will
become general and a break be precipitated. The bears, more¬
over, insist that a campaign with a radical candidate for
governor in this State and a new Congress to be elected
with tariff revision as the principal issue, is hound to make
for financial and business disquietude. This they contend is
not taking into account the effect of the competition between
State and National government in corporation baiting, and
it must be said that there is much food for thought in the
bear arguments. If commission houses were loaded with stocks
carried on a margin even at the present low prices, the situa¬
tion might be vulnerable, but careful inquiry seems to settle
on twenty-five per cent, of their usual lines, that being the pro¬
portion of the amount of money now being borrowed by the
average commission house, thus showing the lightest bull
account open for years. The inference is that if the market
is to decline to the extent predicted by the hears, it will be
the result of the selling by actual holders as distinguished from
margin holders. The money market is now ceasing to be a
bugaboo, and indeed some foreign exchange experts claim
that there will be a large foreign balance to our credit before
the fall season begins, when the large exports of cotton and
grain normally turn exchange in our favor. It would seem,
therefore, and we still adhere to the opinion that money will
be unusually easy this autumn. As to the stock market itself,
it is dull, going through the process of what is known in nau¬
tical sailing parlance as "backing and filling," This is by no
means an unusual state of things in July and August, and is
not at all inconsistent with great activity afterwards.
IT is estimated by the "Sun" that during the past eighteen
months living accommodations have been provided in New
York City for something over 600,000 additional population; and
it is urged by that journal that the construction of all kinds
"of dwellings and tenements is being very much overdone. In
calling attention to these fact, the "Sun" is undoubtedly plac¬
ing its finger on the worst weakn-ess in the existing real es¬
tate situation, but it should be added that the danger is probably
exaggerated. Over-building there has undoubtedly been and
its results are manifest particularly on Washington Heights
and on the upper East Side; but the overbuilding is not so
bad as the figures given would lead one to believe. According
to the State census New York adds only about 125,000 people
per annum to its number of inhaliitants, so that we are appa¬
rently building houses for 600,000 people, when there are ap¬
parently Jess than 200,000 to fill them. The Record and Guide
doubts, however, whether New York is building at the pres¬
ent time three times as rapidly as it should, for if it were
the consequences would already have been much more disas¬
trous than they are. We believe that the census under-estl-
mates the recent increase in the population of New York City,
and there is every reason why it should do so. That popula¬
tion consists so largely of recent immigrants, who speak no
English, and who herd together in small quarters, that the dif¬
ficulties of accurate enumeration are much more serious than
they are in a city of private residences. Moreover, the error
would most assuredly be on the side of under rather than, over¬
estimate. The immigration officials calculate tbat some 200,-
000 aliens have settled in New York during each of the two
past years, and while the outgoing emigration must be de¬
ducted from this total, such a deduction would not be large.
On the whole, what with the unusually large alien immigra¬
tion, the great number of residents of other States, who are
attracted to New York in periods of prosperity, tbe displace¬
ment of existing residents by business improvements and the
natural increase in population, it is probable that during the
past eighteen months New York had to provide for about 400,000
instead of 200,000 additional residents. Of course, this is only
a guess; but it is a guess which is justified by a very strong
series of general considerations.
STATISTICS of Greater New York continue to furnish evi¬
dences of the great progress the city is making in all
its activities. Manufacturing industries thrive and fiourish,
and there has been a large increase in the number of estab¬
lishments since 1900, according to the Census Bureau, which
must liave its effect in increasing the value of real estate
generally and of sites for such manufactories in particular. In
1905 the city had 20,839 establishments, as against 19,243 in
1900, an increase of over S per cent. The capital invested in
them in 1905 was upwards of a thousand millions of dollars,
compared with $853,000,000 in 1900, or an increase of 22 per
cent. The value of the products of these manufacturing es¬
tablishments in 1905 was more than $1,526,000,000, showing aa
increase of 30.2 per cent, in five years. Taking the increase by
boroughs, Manhattan and the Bronx showed an advance in
output in the five years from $811,000,000 to $1,043,000,000, over
28 per cent.; Brooklyn increased from $313,617,000 to $373,462,-
000 or 19 per cent, and Queens and Richmond $48,444,000 to
$109,808,000 or the impressive percentage of one hundred and
twenty-six and a fraction. Comparative statistics of the prin¬
cipal industries show women's clothing first in Manhattan and
The Bronx, the output in 1905 being valued at $164,723,000
against $9.9,464,000 in 1900. Men's clothing, printing and
publishing, tobacco, slaughtering and meat packing, milli¬
nery and lace goods follow in the order named- The
chief industry in Brooklyn is in foundries and machine shops.
Other important industries in that borough are malt liquors,
boots and shoes, lumber products, cordage and twine and
chemicals. Prom present indications it would seem, there¬
fore, that in a decade or so Greater New York, if the-
increase continues in a like ratio, may become the largest or
one of the largest manufacturing centres of the world.
'PROM the Federal census a computation has been prepared
â– t^ of the number of Father Knickerbocker's possessions com¬
pared with the property of other mimicipalities, and it is some¬
what to the disadvantage of New York. So the Comptroller has
had prepared in his turn a statement from the Knickerbocker
point of view of city property officially footing up $560,000,000,
a tidy sum for a city which, twenty years ago, in a count of
its' assets, could figure only $150,000,000 in the present
Boroughs of Manhattan and The Bronx, and less than $50,000,000
additional in Brooklyn and the other territories now included