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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 29, no. 740: May 20, 1882

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Real Estate Record AND BUILDERS' GUIDE, Vol. XXIX. NEW TOEK, SATUEDAY, MAT 20, 1882 No. 740 Published Weekly by The Real Estate Record Association TERMS: ONE ¥EAR, ia advance.....$6.00 Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY. Business Manager. Now that bricks are lower and the price of other building material seems in a fair way to decline, there is some renewed ac¬ tivity in building. O. B. Potter has, it is said, decided to go on with his great structure on the site of the old World building. He had, it seems, made up his mind to postpone the building till such time as labor and material would be down to lower figures. We hear of several instances where builders have decided to go ahead, as they feel confident that the present prices of labor and material cannot be maintained. The stoppage of work on account of the high price of material all over the country was very serious. Building in Cincinnati was paralyzed by the demands of the labor¬ ers. Should we have good crops and cheap food work wUl be resumed along the whole line, for then the laboring classes wiU not have the present excuse for demanding such high wages. The stock market has been very stupid during the past week. Business has come to a standstill, and the tape records more quotations than transactions. The strength of the market is surprising in view of the rather blue outlook. The season is very late and the crops are backward. The weather in not unfavorable for winter wheat, but it will limit the area of corn to be planted. General business is undeniably dull. The exchanges in sixteen of the largest cities show a heavy falling off compared with last year. Gold is leaving this port in alarming quantities, the price of wheat and corn keeps up the high figures. Laborers everywhere are clamoring for higher wages, but the out¬ look for them is anything but reassuring, as there are no new enterprises, and manufact¬ urers everywhere are curtailing the number of their hands. But the average American investor is always hopeful. He will believe the crops will turn out all right untill the contrary fact is established beyond the possi bility of a doubt; and so prices are flrmly held. May not this unnatural quiet be a weather breeder? It is very certain that if we are to have good crops a lower range of figures will be established in order to make a profitable buying market; while if the crops fail partially, there will be a tempo¬ rary bull market, so that the operators can put out short lines of stock. It is a good market to leave severely alone. Surely Mr. Gladstone's amendments to the land laws are not likely to establish order in Ireland. The Government proposes to re¬ mit aU arrears of taxes up to the last three years. There are, it seems, about $30,000,000 due the landlords. The tenants are to pay $10,000,000, the Government furnishes an¬ other $10,000,000, while the landlords are to remit one-third of their claims. But suppose this bill is passed, what guarantee have the landlords for their rents hereafter? Will not the tenants be emboldened to again be¬ come delinquent upon their rents and ready to enter upon a new agitation to get a further remission ? This settlement is full of the seeds of future trouble. The true solution of the difficulty was that first suggested by Bright and Cobden. Let the Government purchase the land from tbe farmers and re¬ sell to the actual occupants of the soil, who could be given fifty or sixty years to repay the debt. By giving Irishmen an ownership in the soil, the same results would follow as those witnessed in France after the distribu¬ tion of the lands of the nobles and the church. The land question is of course a vital one in Ireland, for the island can never be a manu¬ facturing community in the absence of coal and iron. •----------------------< •'►---------------------' SCAMP BUILDERS. Not only the public but builders them¬ selves, are benefited by some regulation in the matter of new buildings. If there were not some legal requirements, the scamp builders would do the largest business for they would resort to all manner of tricks to put up cheap and worthlesa structures. Our readers will doubtless recall the case of the houses purchased by Mr. Steinway some years ago on Fif ty-second street and Park avenue. There were seven in all, brown stone front buildings, ana to all appearances 1,'ood houses of their class. But it was soon found that the builder or builders were de¬ liberate rascals. The roof was a swindle, the plumbing was insufficient, and in the whole seven buildings there was only one connec¬ tion with the sewer. As soon as the houses were tenanted, the contents of the closets, having no outlet, overflowed into the base¬ ments and cellars. The Board of Health took the matter up and Mr. Stein-way was called as a witness, when the curious fact appeared that he did not know the real builder who had constructed the seven houses. The Board of Health seemed to think that Mr. C. A. Buddensick had some¬ thing to do with the construction of the houses, but Mr. Steinway declared in court that he never heard of that gentleman in connection with the construction of the houses. But here was clearly a villainous piece of work. The scoundrelly builder ought to have been sent to State prison for life, for he swindled his employer, put re¬ spectable families to great inconvenience, and imperilled the health of the whole neigh¬ borhood. It took, it is understood, some $30,000 to establish the required connections w^ith sewers and reconstruct the plumbing work and roofs. Mr. Buddensick, who, it seems, was suspected, as he says without reason, of being the builder or one of the builders of the Fifty-second street houses, has recently constructed stores with apart¬ ments above on the corner of Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets and Third avenue. He is also said to own these houses. They have one peculiarity, the entrance ways and halls on the ground floor are singularly narrow. The Fifty-second streefc houses are not the only ones built by scaxnping house con¬ structors. A French lady recently bought a front on an uptown street aud found she had to spend a great deal of money to per¬ fect the plumbing and drainage. She was deliberately cheated by one of these swind¬ ling builders. It is understood that this same dishonest person is to build over one hun¬ dred houses in New York this summer. The Building Department and the Board of Health will doubtless see that he complies with the law, but if he gets a chance he doubtless will put in scamp work and rob the purchasers of the buildingg he erects. It is people such as these who bring discredit upon good work and will discourage build¬ ers who expect to get a fair price for a well built house. Every interest should conspire to discourage the scamp builder and hence laws that will be reasonably stringent and faithfully enforced will not be objected to by the honest builders of New York. FINE PUBLIC BUILDINGS. Some fault has been found with Congress because of the liberal appropriation for fine buildings in varioiis parts of the country. If however there is a surplus of mouey it could not be much better employed than in constructing handsome edifices. Our post offices, custom houses and court buildings should be structures worthy of what is destined to be the most powerful nation on the face of the globe. In eighteen years the United States will have as large a popula¬ tion as Germany and France combined, ancl there will be no richer nation potentially on the globe. The federal government doeg not come in immediate contact with the people except through custom houses ar.d post offices, and it is desirable that our vot¬ ing population should be duly impressed by the wealth and importance of the country to which they belong. There is no justifica¬ tion for any waste or extravagance, but it is manifestly unwise for federal buildings in any of the States to be cheap or mean structures. New York ought to have a superb custom house, the finest in the world ; a great emigrant depot should also be established in this city under the direct auspices of the federal government, for im¬ migration is not a local but a national matter. Let Americans wherever they go see in every large city evidences of the might of the country to which they belong. In Athens, in its glory, architects, sculp¬ tors and artists were not permitted to work for private persons. The State monopolized their services and the Government of the United States should be the especial patron of architects and builders of the better class. ------------a-----------. The Grand Jury are overhauling the HaU , of Eecords. They find that the building is r-