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REAL ESTATE
AND
(Copyright. 1917, by Tbe Record and Guide Co.)
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 16, 1918
WAREHOUSE CAPACITY MUST BE INCREASED
Proper Facilities for Reserves of Food, Fuel and
Materials Necessary—Coal and Milk Situations Similar
By Hon. TRAVIS H. WHITNEY, Public Service Commissioner
NEW YORK CITY in many ways is
the victim of its advantages. It
embraces one of the most wonderful
natural harbors in the world, with
access through the Narrows and Long
Island Sound and with the great Hudson
River stretching away to the northward,
with canal connections to the Great
Lakes. Its early advantages, arising
from such natural water facilities, like¬
wise caused a radiation of railroads out¬
ward from it to every part of the Union.
Shipping has developed here, industries
have grown up, population has increased
until now there are at least seven mil¬
lion people within the Metropolitan
area. This population must have food
upon which to live and material upon
which to work in enormous quantities.
Its residents cannot continue to work
nor can they continue to live in any com¬
fort if there is not a constant supply of
necessities, such as food, coal, raw and
manufactured materials. What has been
done to assure a continuous supply of
such?
I do not know of a more striking or
exact way to describe the thoughtless¬
ness of the city in respect to an
adequate supply of food and material
than to say that it is on a milk basis.
That is to say, the population of seven
million of people consumes an enormous
quantity of milk, which, because of its
highly perishable nature, must be
brought in day by day from an area that
extends as far west as Ohio. If a
winter storm or a wreck or other un¬
toward accident ties up an important
railroad for a day the milk supply of
the city is immediately interrupted.
Perhaps this condition as to milk cannot
be improved upon ; yet because improve¬
ment is not possible as to the milk
supply is no reason why the milk
system should be taken as a model for
all the other supplies of the city, and
yet, strange as it may seem, there are
no systematic methods of insuring a
supply of necessities for the city over
even a reasonable period of time. Cer¬
tain private establishments and certain
groups of dealers do place articles of
food, such as eggs and chickens, in cold
storage, so that, with respect to these,
there are at times a considerable
quantity of supplies in the storage
houses in the Metropolitan area.
The situation in respect to coal is
nearly that of milk. The greater per¬
centage of the population live in flat or
apartment houses, where, because of the
high price of land and the cost of build¬
ing, less and less space is devoted to
storage purposes, either for food sup¬
plies stored by the tenants or where the
landlord may store an adequate supply
of fuel. Certain storage space is pro¬
vided, and coal dealers are depended
upon for furnishing of additional coal
at intervals during the winter. The coal
dealers in turn have storage space to a
limited extent, and depend in their turn
upon regularity of shipments by the coal
mines and over the railroads.
During the past summer a great cam¬
paign was carried on to induce house¬
wives to can or preserve vegetables and
fruits for winter use. If every house¬
keeper in New York City ^anned for
winter use the average amoun* of vege¬
tables or fruit usually put ul by the
woman in a small town or country,
where would such food supplies be
stored in the average flat or apartment
house?
Long ago the city found that private
enterprise could not be relied upon to
develop transportation within the city
adequately and comprehensively to care
for the growth of the city, either in
respect to relieving actually existing
congested transportation or to develop
systematically the outlying portions of
the city. The city therefore had to enter
the transportation field, and has so far
invested more than $200,000,000 in rapid
transit lines. The great difficulty and
the lack of progress is that, great as is
the investment of the city, ten or fifteen
years of valuable time was lost, so that
when the lines now under construction
are completed the state of congestion
will be nearly as bad as it was when
the dual system was begun. In other
words, the dual system should have
been completed ten years ago and we
should now have under construction
extensive additions to it. I do not mean,
however, to go into a discussion of
transportation other than to point out
that because it was not being adequately
developed by private enterprise the pub¬
lic had to go into the transportation
business.
Warehouse and Storage Facilities.
Likewise the public must go into the
business of proper warehousing and
storage facilities to the end that the
population of this great city shall never
be short of food or fuel or material with
which to carry on its great industries.
When I speak of the public of New York
City I mean in realty the Metropolitan
area; that is to say, not only New York
City proper, but that portion of New
Jersey which constitutes a part of the
natural city. The west side of the Hud¬
son, Newark Bay and the Meadows
must be developed as a part of the
whole area, just as the east side of the
Hudson, the Brooklyn waterfront and
Jamaica and Flushing Bays should be
developed with piers and dock facilities,
industrial buildings and connecting rail¬
road facilities.
It is fortunate that with the neces¬
sities of the present winter emphasizing
the problems of the city the Legislatures
of New York and New Jersey last
winter provided for a Joint Port Inter¬
state Commission, of which Hon. Wil¬
liam R. Willcox is the chairman. That
commission has the opportunity to rec¬
ommend on a broad scale a compre¬
hensive development of the great natural
opportunities that exist on both sides
of the Hudson River, and upon which
the city and the municipalities of New
Jersey, the States of New York and New
Jersey and the National Government
can cooperate. Moreover, their co¬
operation is necessary, for literally hun¬
dreds of millions of dollars should be
spent in the development of proper rail¬
roads, port terminals, warehouses,
storage and industrial buildings.
It may be said that an opportunity
was presented in the proposed agree¬
ment between the New York Central
Railroad Company and the late Board
of Estimate for the creation of ware¬
houses and industrial buildings along
the west side of Manhattan, which
would care more adequately for the
necessities of the city. It is true that
that proposed agreement gave the
opportunity and the right to the New
York Central Railroad Company to
develop industrial buildings and ware¬
houses from Canal street to 60th street,
on both sides of the proposed right of
way. My criticism, however, of that
agreement on that point was that,
although the company was given the
right and opportunity to invest in such
development, it was not put under the
obligation so to do. That is to say, the
company was given the right, but there
was no provision in the agreement
whereby the company must, within a
given time, or at any time, do any of
the things in respect to industrial or
warehouse buildings that were urged as
one of the reasons in favor of the agree¬
ment. Had that agreement been signed
the perpetual rights granted to the New
York Central would have stood as a
Chinese wall along the west side of
Manhattan against access to Manhattan
by the New Jersey railroads, and at the
same time the company would have
chosen its own time to afford any
development for the city whatever.
It was perhaps fortunate for the city
that that agreement was defeated, even
from the point of view of delay, for
there is now the opportunity of a com¬
prehensive plan whereby there shall be,
from at least 60th street southward, a
method of transportation accessible to
all railroads and connecting with piers
and docks and with sites for warehouses
and industrial buildings.
In respect to the coal situation, the
city, as I have stated, has already
entered the transportation field, and is
in partnership with the Interborough
Rapid Transit Company and the New
York Municipal Railway Corporation in
the dual contracts. It is essential to
the life of the city that these two rapid
transit systems shall be in continuous
operation, yet the Interborough . Com¬
pany, which consumes more than 2,500
tons of coal a day, has storage capacity
in its power houses of only 11,000 tons,
which is less than a week's supply. The
Brooklyn company, which consumes
about 1,500 tons a day, has a storage
capacity for a somewhat longer period.
Neither of them has a storage capacity
adequate for an unusual period. It
seems, therefore, only a proper precau¬
tion with the dual system, upon which
the city and the companies have and are
spending more than $350,000,000, to have
included as a part of that system an
adequate coal reserve. An additional
million dollars would afford storage
capacity within the city to the extent
perhaps of 500,000 tons. Such a reserve
would be adequate in and by itself for
nearly four months. Such a situation
would free the railroads in an emer¬
gency like the present of the necessity
of bringing in daily some 4,000 tons for
the rapid transit systems of the city.
The city now has an adequate water
supply. In passenger transportation it
is nearing the completion of the dual
system, although that system must
undergo constant expansion. It has
liardly made a start on the third and
fourth great problems which confront
it; namely, proper harbor development
and proper facilities for reserves of
food, fuel and materials.
RECORD AND GVIDB IS IN ITS FIFTIETH YEAR OF CONTINUOUS PUBLICATION.