Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 32, no. 799: July 7, 1883

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July 7. 1883 The Record and Guide. 473 Published Weekly hy THE REAL ESTATE RECORD ASSOCIATION. TERMS' OXE YEAR, in advance, SIX DOLLARS. . r Communications should be addressed to ^^ C. ff. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSET, Business Manager. JULY 7, 188S. Kext week our siibscribers will receive the semi-annual index of volume 31 of the Conveyances and Projected Buildings in New York City and Kings County as published during the six months ending June 30, 1883. A neat and suitable binder can be obtained at the office, 191 Broadway, price one dollar. The. adjournment of the various exchanges over the national holiday has seriously interfeied with the business of the past week, but there is every indication that we will have our usual summer activity in stocks and grain. Capitalists who visit Europe or go to the country for the summer do not care to leave their money on call at a low rate of interest, and hence they purchase bonds and good securities that bring in more chan 5 per cent interest. This is usually a safe thing to do from the first of July to the end of August. Hence the active and often buoyant market which usually prevails in July and August. Then, railroad earnings are apt to be good in summer time, due in part to the pleasure travel but principally to the movement of the crops. True, the new grain ia not ready to move, but if the crops promise well, the left¬ over surplus of last year is sent to market. The brokers who stay in town will consequently fiud more to do during the present sum¬ mer than they did during the past spring. The stock market promises not only to be more active but higher. city. It will be many years before down town property will be assessed according to its relative value with other sections of New York. The region showing the greatest absolute iocrease of /^^ourse, is that just east of the Central Park. This is where the 11 moat new houses have been erected, and where in all probability, the as.jessors are more nearly accurate in their figures. They com¬ menced their work de novo so far as the newly built houses are concerned, and the variations in value in the older sections of this district were easily estimated. The Twelfth ward, comprising the upper portions of the island, naturally shows the next largest increase in valuation. This region has the advantage of rapid steam transit, and within a few years the increasement of values will show larger percentages than the district just east of the Central Park. The latter will soon be covered with buildings, while the former is as yet notable for its many vacant spaces. Very significant are the figures of the Seventh, Tenth, Thirteenth and Seventeenth wards, in the extreme eastern part of the island, compared with the Twentieth and Twenty-second wards on the west side. The former shows a stationary or diminishing valua¬ tion, while the west side shows a relatively large increase. Once the island is built over, this tendency will be intensified. East of the Bowery and Third avenue valuations will show little or no change, while west of Fifth avenue, below the Park, and of Eighth avenue, above Fifty-ninth street, will steadily increase in assessible value. In other words. New York will become like all other large cities; its eastern wards will be occupied by the working popula¬ tion, while the rich and those who effect costly and ostentatious dwellings will live in the west side proper. This is a fact which purchasers of realty would do well to bear in mind. The total increase of valuation of over $44,000,000 is gratifying as testifying to the rapid growth of the city. It is a comfort to know that the increase in the tax rate will be trifling, 2.27 this year as compared with 2.25 m 188^. The law's delay in the Western Union case, as well ss that of the elevated roads, is very exasperating to investors. Thousands of families are kept out of their incomes by the entirely unnecessary procrastination of the courts. Gases quite as complicated are set¬ tled satisfactory by the arbitration committees of the Stock Exchange and the Chamber of Commerce after a few hearings and in a few days time, but the courts proceed under the theory that the disputes of the business world are for the benefit of the legal fraternity, while business people naturally think that arbitration committees and courts exist to see that justice is done and the work of the world is expedited. The latter theory is clearly the correct one, and some time or other there will be a popular upris¬ ing against our procrastinating and justice-denying courts of law. The business exigencies of this age demand expedition and econ¬ omy, but our judges and the bar fail to understand the age in which they live. There was nothing in the Western Union or the elevated road controversies which could not have been settled in three months time. Yet two years have been consumed and hun¬ dreds of thousands of dollars wasted, and the final decisions are apparently as far off as ever. Our great corporations must in some way follow the example of the Exchanges and ignore the courts and the lawyers in settling their disputes. They have indeed taken the first step in adjusting the percentages of the railroad pools and in submitting the disagreements between the several roads to Commissioner Fink. Long ago they realized that it was better to compromise all claims for damages rather than permit the aggrieved parties to take their cases into court. But in other matters, unfortunately, the transportation lines are forced to employ the leading members of the bar to carry out their plans and protect themselves against hostile legislation. The assessed valuations of real estate for this year compcjed with 1881and 1883 as given elsewhere, are an interesting study for dealers in and owners of city realty. It is to be regretted that the metropolis is not divided into sections, having some relation to the geography of the island. If this were done, it would he Been at a glance what portion of New York had most advanced in taxable value. But the arbitrary division into wurds, scattered promiscuously over all sections within the city limits is con- ■fusing to all. save those, who are thoroughly posted as to the street boundaries of the several ahlermauic districts. I Arranged in groups, the sections really showing the largest advance in value are down town property, comprising the first five wards and the region, east of the Central Park. The increase in valuation in the lo\yer district over last year amounts to nearly .^8,000,000. This is probably less than the actual increase, for ^ More Fifth Avenue Houses. We remarked last week upon some new houses opposite the Park, which seemed to show that the improvement in domestic architecture, which we like to felicitate each other upon, if not superficial, is, at any rate, the work of a minority of educated architects. The bulk of house-building continues to ha under the direction of men who either do not profess to be architects, or have no artistic claim to that title. Even among large and costly mansions, built for the persons who are to live in them, the houses we quoted last week are by no means alone in showing no trace of progress beyond the architectural state of middle Fifth avenue. In fact the latter state of the incom¬ pletely trained architect is worse than the first, inasmuch as he has been emancipated and encouraged to embody his own conceptions in building material. The middle Fifth avenue house was done apparently by a person who never once paused in his work to con¬ sider what he was doing, but simply drew what he had been accus¬ tomed to draw. The result was a commonplace " pattern," which was varied by different but all stereotyped methods of treating the openings. It was gradually degraded also by the exaggeration of the details in scale, and by the increasing protrusion of the sham cornice. This was scarcely so bad as if the unreflective designer had been encouraged to launch out upon his own account, as has lately happened to him. The inevitable result is that he would make more " things," not better, and that the multiplication of features would add confusion to the other demerits of the old brown stone fronts. This is what happened to the two houses noticed last week. This is what has happened also to the large and costly house at the corner of Fifth avenue and Sixty-eighth street. This is a double house, only the door is not in the middle, and would be the familiar old brown stone box, but for the following variations : A three- sided kind of tower perched upon the porch and running one story above the roof, on the front, and on the side two bay windows running through two stories, and a hanging oriel between them at the second story. There is also on the side a monumental dormer and a monumental chimney. It is a very " thingy " edifice. The trouble with it is that none of the things is good in itself, and none has any particular relation to any other. It is not by refining upon features, and by adjusting them carefully with reference to each other, but by adding more and yet more unrefined features, that the designer has endeavored to make the house a work of architecture. The result is not to be achieved by that method. The most pretentious feature of the house, and about the most ungainly is the sort of tower. The placing of a tower upon a classic porch is an original idea, we believe. At any rate it is not likely to be repeated. The porch consists of two pairs of polished granite columns with a very exaggerated entasis, one pair on each side of the doorway. These carry a triglyph frieze, over which is a cui-ved broken pediment with an urn in the opening. This being assessors are apt to be guided more by former valuations than the |_pptuEkl increaee rent^ of reaJt^ m ^hp most settled portion^ of the [ t-bus apparently' a amshed porch, t-lie tOweysi^tideiilyeetBift without