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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 29, no. 739: May 13, 1882

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Real Estate Record AND BUILDERS' GUIDE. Vol. XXIX. NEW YORK, SATURDAY/MAT 13, 1882 No. 739 Published Weekly by The Real Estate Record Association TERMS: ONE YEAR, in advance - - - - - $6.00 Communications should be addressed to e. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. While not so many new ^dwellings are being put up this May, there is, after all, a great deal of activity in altering old houses, in providing accommodations for new busi¬ ness enterprises, and in starting or com¬ pleting large apartment houses. Times may be bad in general trade, but it is evident that our mechanics will have all they can do for tlie year to come. Plumbers, masons, house painters, plasterers, all are busy, while the house furnishers and decorators are pretty well assured of constant work until the winter season. Still there will be not so many new private houses as were erected last summer, but the increase in the num¬ ber of apartment houses will doubtless make up for the lack of increased accommodia- tious. Despite the croakers the country is growing, while the percentage of increase is greater in New York than in the country at lai'ge. All who have watched the transactions in vacant lots on this island, will have noticed many changes in ownership on "the West Side, above Fifty-ninth street, between Eighth and Ninth avenues. It 13 the unani¬ mous opinion of experts that the next build¬ ing movement of any magnitude will be in that locality. Brokers say that the majority of the new owners are people who intend to build within the next three years. There would be more signs of it to-day, were it not for the advance in the prices of labor and material. The activity at present, so far a5 dwelling houses is concerned, is more mani¬ fest on the central zone above the park, be¬ tween Second and St. Nicholas avenues; but the class of houses going up in that quarter are not of a choice variety. They are in¬ tended for people of moderate means, and some are apartment houses'of a rather cheap kind. There are as yet no signs of any building movement on the heights, west of Morningside Park. Brokers report a quiet movement going on to absorb West Side property by persons who are intent upon speculation. While the houses on the flat land immediately north and south of One Hundred and Twenty-fifth streec are not of a costly character, the contemplated struc¬ tures west of the Central Park are fine apartment houses. • On Ninth avenue it is believed that large structures will be erected for families above, with stores below. The outlook in the general markets is not particularly brilliant, indeed, it may be said to be blue. Gold is beginning to leave our shores in large quantities, and there does not seeni to be any likelihood of a stoppage of the drain until September next, and not then unless we have very heavy crops. Then the banks are contracting their curren¬ cy; wheat holds its own in Chicago, and corn is working higher. Production continues unabated, while consumption", is falling off. The demand for iron has ceased, which shows a stoppage of construction and a ces¬ sation of the demand for new tools, always a bad sign. Everything depends on the crops, ana there will be nothing certain about them until July. We will probably have less cotton than last year ; wheat does not xjromise more than an average crop, but if the weather is favorable more oats and corn will be grown than in any other year in the history of the country. The falling off in the demand for coal and iron must in time have its effect upon the price of the coal stocks; in short, the immediate future, ex¬ cept in real estate, looks dubious. The in¬ vesting public are not in the stock market, but there is still a great deal of money in the country, and in times like these it is seeking real estate for an investment, Governments giving.too small an interest for the average investor. A NEW BUSINESS CENTRE, PERHAPS. A short tine since we published the opin¬ ion of a real estate expert that the time would come when Reservoir square, from Fortieth to Forty-second street, and from Fifth to Sixth avenue, would become a great business centre. At that time it was sup¬ posed that the reservoir would be removed and a iDark created of the whole two blocks. It is now very doubtful whether the reser¬ voir will ever be removed. Open spaces at¬ tractive to pleasure seekers, build up in time a lucrative retail business, as witness the City Hall park, Union squ.ire and partially Madison square. This must have been the view of ^Pottier^& Stymus, as they have pur¬ chased a portion of the ground now occu¬ pied by Rutgers Female College on which to erect a splendid warehouse to exhibit their furniture to those who wish to purchase. This movement is significant, especially in view of the presence of Brewster's .carriage warehouse on the corner of Fifth avenue and Forty-second street. Some years since there was a general impression that Fifth avenue, between Madison square andThirty- foiu'th street would become the seat of a certain retail trade. It was supposed that jewelers, art and bric-a-bi-ac dealers, confec¬ tioners and other departments of what is known as the carriage trade, might grow up in that portion of our fashionable avenue, aud there are certain such establishments there which seem to do a profitable business. But it is evident that dealers of that kmd think that for the present there is more money to be made in ^Twenty-third street. Sixth avenue or even Fourteenth street. But Pottier & Stymus and Brewster may create a new break upon this fashionable quarter. The opening of a few similar establishments below Forty-second street would soon make that section of Fifth avenue as unfashionable ^ns is the portion which .now/extends from Madison to Washington square. The mar¬ ket value of the property would increase for, although fashionable private houses would no longer be looked for in that quarter. Fifth avenue from Forty-second street down would be a headquarters for clubs, first-class apartment houses as well as great ware¬ houses for the sale of substantial and fancy goods of an artistic character. The Grand Central Depot is an argument for the devel¬ opment of a great retail trade centre around Reservoir square. In view of the travel be¬ tween the elevated station on Forty-second street and the depot, it is surprising that be¬ fore this private houses have not been con¬ verted into stores. ' A horsecar track on Forty-second street is very much needed, while an elevated railw.ay from river to river along that street, would be a real accommo¬ dation. It would improve the value of the property, but the private houses would rapidly disappear to give place to the store and the warehouse. THE NEW TRUNK RAILROAD. Referring to our article on the New York, West Shore & Buffalo Railway in the last number of The Record a correspondent asks whether tlie business of building new railroads, and especially additional trunk lines, is not 'being overdone. The Record was one of the first journals to warn people against the speculative railroad fever, but it seems to us that in reference to certain rail¬ road enterprises the general indiscriminate cry against. too much railroad building is unjustified. It has been shown, for instance, that in the case of the New York, West Shore & Buffalo Railway, an entire new country, one of the richest and most fertile regions of the state, lying immediately along the west shore of the Hudson River, will obtain the first direct railway communica¬ tion with New York it has ever had. The New York Herald, in its financial article of last Monday, very correctly prognosticated that the development of the west shore of the Hudson would even be more wonderful than that of the east shore was, as soon as the New York, West Shore & Buffalo Rail¬ way would be running. This it is to be rejnembered is a growing country. Between 'Gland '81 the three trunk lines, the Central, Erie aud Pennsylvania, increased their earn¬ ings from 130,000.01)0 to $80,000,000, to use round figures, or SCO per cent. This is a yearly increase of 17 percent., and the West¬ bound freight business, from New York City, which is much the most remunerative, increased from 715,000 tons in '78 to 1,198,000 tons in '81, or 67 per cent, in three years, although the rates from Boston and via Canada w ere less than the New York, rates. People forget that the existing trunk lines were all opened nearly 30 years ago, and chat since that time the population west of Buffalo and Pittsburg has already increased from 5,782,400 to.1.9,132,800 or nearly 300 per cent, up to 18S0, while the miles of railroad which arc the feeders of the trunk lines have giwyn from 6,000 to 53,583 or over 700 per