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
â– 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.