Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 48, no. 1223: August 22, 1891

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August 28.1891 Record and Guide. 236 DP^Ttfi TO Rpi^L Estwe . BuiLdij/g /^crfiTECTOi^E .Household Decoi^tioiI. BUSKJESS Alto THEMES' Of Ge^EIVI l^TEHESl PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday. Tklephone - - - - Cortlandt 1370. Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14 & i6 Vesey St. J. 1. LINDSEY, Business Manager. Vol. XLVIII AUGUST 23, 1891. No. 1,233 The publication offices of The Record and Guide have been removed to Nos. 14 and 16 Vesey street, over The Mechanics' and Traders' Exchange, a few Jeet west of Broadway. IN spite of some very active work on the part of the reaczionista it will hardly be thought|posgib1e tbat there is now, in the face of the realization of hopes for the crops an uncompromising bear In existence. Tbe stock market has yielded but little and some stocks which were not particiil«rly active on the advance have made gains in the interval of wailing. It is rest rather tban reaction. If the volume of buying is not quite equal to that of the selling, it is so great as to be very promising for the next move. Under the bright prospect of a good foreign market for cereals, the return of gold this way and consequently plenty of money in the hands of the people with the consequent enormous expansion of business, whatever doubts clouded the mind only a few weeks ago are being rapidly dispelled. It is becoming even a dangerous matter to hint that free silver legislation by the ensuing Congress may undo what the agricultural and industrial prosperity may have done. President Harrison recently and Secretary Forster previously have given such emphatic expres¬ sion to the opposition of the administration to unlimited coinage of the white metal that all who share their views, on this point at least (and they are the best elements of most business circles), begin to hope that Congress will not be a disturbing iofluenoe only to find itself checkmated by the President. To come back from general to particular influences on the market, Union Pacific with its load of floating obligations has been responsible for most of the deterring influence, and this it will continue to be probably until those obligations are safely provided for. All things considered, the stock has acted well for vhe past few days, indicating a near end of its troubles with its creditors. Northern I'acifio securities, which have not advanced like some others, have shown indications of moving up oii the first favorable opportunity. A reaction of two or three points would be a very healthy thing, as it wonld at once decide intending buyers who are uow hesitating. It is not an altogether unknown thing, oue should remember, however, for the market to make a much larger advance than seen in this latest movement without reacting at all, and the strength of the week suggests that this is one of those occasions. IT is interesting to note that the Manchester Ship Canal Com¬ pany, vvhich has been spending millions of pounds in the task, certain to be ultimately successful, of making Manchester a seaport, is now in financial straits. Either the credit of the corporation has fallen so low, or the English market is at present so inhospitable to speculative undertakings, that the company has been unable to raise fresh capital for the prosecution and com¬ pletion of the work. Consequently the Manchester corporation has stepped into the breach and tided the company over its difficulties. Municipal stock to the amount of £1,500,000 has been issued, and the corporation has sanctioned tbe payment to the Canal Company for five weeks of money sufficient to meet running expenses not exceeding £40,000 a week. This, how¬ ever, would not exhaust one-seventh of the total issue of stock, and the opinion is prevalent that still more assistance will have to be rendered. The company will shortly issue a report showing exactly where it stands; and upon such a report will be based any future action. It is significant, however, of the present difficulty of obtaining funds in London that an enterprise already so far advanced and so certain of ultimate success should be reduced to such straits. The probabilities aro that the city corporation itself will have to undertake the completion of the n ork. All the European markets are, however, in a decidedly apprehensive and sensitive condition. The prices of the securities principally dealt in on the Paris aud Berlin Bourses have undergone an enormous shrinkage, from which there is no prospect of immediate recovery. There is very certain to be a severe drain of gold to this country; and manufacturers have to face an increased price of labor, owing to an increased cost of food. In Germany the depression in trade is creating a great deal of complaint. Two such important indus¬ tries as the iron and steel and the textile trades are described as " languishing." It is becoming evident that however good crop may restore to this country most of the commercial activity ot the years of 1889 and 1890, that Europe will stiffer from a protracted and severe season of dullness and depreciation. THE Rapid Transit Commissioners have given out a description of the West Side route above 131st street. As every one familiar with that part of the city knows, the ground is very irregular all the way to the Yonkers line, and any road on which the grades are not to be steep must alternately run well below and well above ground. Consequently a succession of tunnels and viar ducts will have to be built, the latter of which will be very expen¬ sive to construct. A detailed description of this will be found in another column. Here it is sufficient to say that the first of these viaducts will be 3,500 feet long, and at highest ;>oint 64 feet abovfe the surface. This, however, does not compare with the viaduct that begins at Fort George and continues to 313th street, a distance of 4,300 feet. At the crossing of Sherman's Creek it will be 110 feet above high water mark. The rest are small compared with this difficult piece of construction ; but some of them run through private property, which will, of course, have to be condemned. At the present, as we scarcely need say, there is no traffic along the line of the route sufficient to pay for the large cost of such a road. For some years any corporation operatmg the route will rtm trains north, say of the line of Washington Bridge, at a heavy loss; and it will be necessary to do this in order to build up the district. The bidders for the franchise will fully understand the full bearing of this fact, and it is likely to make them touch that part of the route most gingerly—at all events until they can see more clearly what their trafflti returns will be on the southern portion of the route. If they are forced to bid on the franchise all at once, the portion of earn¬ ings, if any, which they would be willing to make over to the city will be largely diminished by the knowledge that several miles of expensive road will have to be operated for future rather than for present returns. Now that the financial situation is clearing up, however, and it looks as if the year 1893 was going to be most prosperous, the prospects of selling the franchise advantageously are far better than they were. WHILE thoroughly sympathizing with residents roundabout the Boulevard and 133d street, who are trying to prevent the Standard Gas-light Company from erecting a gas tank in their vicinity, we very much fear that their efforts will be ineffectual. President Wilson of the Health Board doubts whether the Health Board has power to interfere; and his doubt is justified by common sense. It would be very difficult to show that a gas tank is unhealthy. It is not, of com'se, a pleasant object to have next door, aiid it will undoubtedly injure the value of real estate in the neigh¬ borhood; but we cannot understand in what way any injmy which it may inflict will come within the jurisdiction of the Health Board. It is a case where the prop;rty-owners ought to have pro¬ tected themselves. Experience has repeatedly shown that the ,only safe method of preserving a neighborhood from the nuisances of undesirable improvements is by an adequate restric¬ tion of the property against them. Otherwise it is dangerous for anyone to build a good row of houses or to cry to create a neighbor¬ hood of a uniformly pleasing and unobjectionable character. The buyers of the houses are always subject to be blackmailed by some rascal who files plans for a stable in order to be enabled to sell his lot at an extortionate figure ; and this project of the Standard Gas-light Company is but an exaggerated instance of what may happen to any locality not thus properly protected. The most desirable parts of the West Side have all been built up under restrictions that excluded not only nuisances in the ordinary sense, but any building that would tend to lower a certain high standard of improvement. We have frequently pointed out that the property-owners of Washington Heights must needs follow this example. That part of the city is next in line of improvement, and it possesses every natural advantage fitting it to become a delightful residential section. In certain parts of the Heights these restrictions have been made ; but if the section is to have even such a small measure of uniformity as has been accorded to the West Side, the restricted area must be largely increased. A NOVEL suggestion is made by the THvies for incorporation into the next bill amending the building laws—a suggestion which we very much fear was dictated rather by the natural refinement of the writer than by any very careful consideration of what should or should not be included within the ample limits of such a statute. The opening by the Association for Improving the