Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view
About OCR text.
REAL ESTATE
AND
%) BUILDERS
NEW YORK, JUNE 26, 1915
WHO OWNS THE SO. BROOKLYN TERMINAL SITE ?
United Real Estate Owners Seeking an Injunction to Re¬
strain the City From Purchasing Land It Already Owns
iiyiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
A N objection on the part of real es-
•**• tate interests has been filed with the
Supreme Cotirt against any awards be¬
ing made in the proceedings instituted,
by the City of New York to acquire title
to lands for a marine freight railroad
terminal at Soutli Brooklyn in connec¬
tion with thc proposed marginal road.
An order restraining the commission¬
ers in the condemnation proceedings
from taking any further action has been
applied for on the ground that the
premises are already owned by the City
of New York in part and the State of
New York in part—and not by the First
Construction Company and others,
which are spoken of as the "claimants"
in the papers of the plaintiff iu the
action.
.•Xllcgations that the city is being de¬
ceived not only as to the present owner¬
ship of thc lands but also as to the ac¬
cessibility of the site are contained in
the brief which has been filed with the
court by J. Bleecker Miller, attorney of
the United Real Estate Owners' Associa¬
tion, the complainant in the case. Be¬
sides these allegations there are im¬
plications of an unpleasant nature calcu-
quire a title in fee by adverse posses¬
sion.
If it be assumed for a moment that the
State and City of New York never had
a claim or title to the land in, question,
the deeds from the Beard estate to thc
dummy of the First Construction Com¬
pany passed no title to such dummy, as
the Beard deed of the land was expressly
subject to the control of its use by the
State and City of New York and the
United States of America.
This Beard deed, says plaintiff's coun¬
sel, "transfers the whole title in fee sim¬
ple al)solute to these three beneficiaries
as if the deed had been made to them as
grantees; consequently the dummy had
nothing to convey to the First Construc¬
tion Company, and the First Construc¬
tion Company has nothing to convey to
the City of New York.
tion of the land was first proposed by
Dock Commissioner Calvin Tomkins,
the State by condemnation proceedings
for a l:)arge canal terminal obtained land
to the south, and so situated that,
according' to the plaintiff it shuts
out access to the land the city is seeking
for its marginal railroad freight ter¬
minal, and makes it inaccessible to
railroad barges from across New York
Bay. and so defeats the purpose of the
city in locating the railroad terminal
at this expensive site on the waterfront.
.Access by the puljlic to the railroad
terminal from the landside will also be
cut off by the presence of the barge
canal terminal immediatel}' in its rear,
as deponent is informed and believes.
Under the circumstances the payment
of $2,000,000 for the marine freight rail¬
road terminal would be illegal and
THE SOITII BROOKLYX WATERFKOXT. SHOWIXG THE LIXE OP PROPOSED MAR¬
GINAL RAILROAD. THE SITE OF THE PROPOSED TERMINAL STATION
AND T'HE STATE BARGE CANAL TERMINAL.
latcd to make the case a notable one in
thc history of the city government.
Tlie lands to which title is sought by
the city are in part under water and in
part filled in, some is upland and some
is covered by wharves. They are situ¬
ated on Gowanus Bay and bounded by
Otsego. Halleck, Sigourney, Columbia,
Bay. Court. Clinton and other streets.
All the land was originally covered by
high water, as can be seen on the Ratzer
map and other maps which have been
intrnduced in evidence by the city.
The Chains of Title.
None of the claimants of awards have
attempted to prove title out of the State
of New York into their grantors, and
the chains of title offered in the proceed¬
ing cover no more than a period of
twenty years, according to the plaintiff's
l)rief. which further alleges that the
statutes under which the claimant com¬
pany alone derive its several easements
expressly limit them to building wharves,
etc., and therefore they can never ac-
"Tlie Cornbury and Montgomerie
charters vested the title in the City of
New York to the land between high and
low water mark on the Island of Nas¬
sau, now Long Island, from Wallabout
Bay to the west side of the present
Gowanus Canal; the acts of the Legisla¬
ture under which the claimants of these
awards derive whatever rights they may
have, expressly recognize and except
these rights and titles in thc City of New
York.
Access Cut Off.
"The Beard deeds into the dummy of
the First Construction Company are ex¬
pressly subject to all covenants of rec¬
ord. The description in the deed,
through which the Beard estate claims its
rights, refers to maps on record in the
Register's oftice of Kings County show¬
ing the Henry street basin as extending
northward to Mill Street, the northerly
end of the land proposed to be taken for
the freight terminal."
Long after the plan for the acquisi-
grievous waste of funds, the plaintiff
declares. Besides this the erection of an
elevated railroad through the land to be
taken for a railroad terminal renders
thc tise of thc land for a freight railroad
terminal impossible without thc con¬
struction of some adequate means of
raising and lowering the freight cars
from and to the tracks of the elevated
railroad, and the means suggested
in the plans are utterly inadequate; nor
is there adequate allowance in the plan
for high truck loads to pass under the
elevated road.
No Estimate of Cost.
"Neither is there any estimate of thc
cost or of the means by which factories
along the waterfront could transfer
their freight from the surface of the
streets to the height oT an elevated
freight railroad, especially if said ele¬
vated railroad were sufficiently high, so as
not to interfere with street trucks hav¬
ing high loads. Neither is there any
estimate of the cost of consequential
damages caused by said freight railroad
to residential and mercantile houses,
fronting on streets through which the
freight railroad passes, or adjacent to
the freight railroad in such proximity,
so as to be injuriously affected by the
noises incidental to the operation of a
freight railroad in a city. The proposed
elevated freight railroad is an experi¬
ment, of the cost of which no adequate
estimate has ever been made, and a ncw
venture in railroad construction."
Finally, it is not at all certain, in the
plaintift''s opinion, that any railroad com¬
pany combination is ready and willing
to operate the propo.sed niarginal rail¬
road.