Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 68, no. 1742: August 3, 1901

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August 3, 1901. ItHi^JUlt-Li AJyiJ l>UlJLfJdJ. 141 ____-J^A -rv ^ estabusheh ^ (JWpaei-^ i^se. DEVb-TEi) TO f^L Estaie . BmLD^^fG A^rrEcmiRE .KousEbloiD DegohuioiI. BusiiJess aiJd Themes of GEtJER^l. IiftERfST- PRICE PER. YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS published eVerg Saturday Commxinlcatloiia should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, New YopR this cannot always continue, and we must surely now be on the verge of a better state of things," The first is a typical state¬ ment and the second rather exceptional in its tone of encourage¬ ment for the future and from these the general condition of feel¬ ing can be gathered. J, T. LTOTiSET, Businesa MaoaEer Telepiione, Cortlandt 1370 "Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y.. as second-class raatter." Vol, LXVIII. AUGUST 3, 1901. No. 1742, The Index to Volume LXVII. of the Record and Guide, cover¬ ing the period between January ist and June 30th, 1901, is now ready for delivery. Price, $1.00. This Index in its enlarged form is now recognized as indispensable to every one engaged or interested in real estate and building operations. It covers all trans¬ actions—deeds, mortgages, leases, auction sales, building plans Hied, etc. Orders for the Index should he sent at once to the office of publication, 14 and 16 Vesey Street. IN Wall Street there is no improvement or sign of any coming in the near future. Investment houses are as dull as those making a specialty of speculative accounts, and it follows that no matter how good the news, the market will respond only feebly and perfunctorily. There is always more or less stock coming on the market and in dull times this is more noticeable, because sellers must make concessions and when bad news in¬ creases speculative selling breaks are the natural consequence. Our troubles, including crop damage and strikes, have one good result, even if they are not good for business generally, and will reduce railroad earnings, and so forth. They are recalling the caution that was such an admirable characteristic of the people in the period of currency agitation and whichseemed to have en¬ tirely departed last spring; in the long run this will prove better for the community than a prolongation of price-inflation on the Stock Exchange would have done. "While the consequences of over-speculation, crop damage and strikes cannot be avoided they can be met best by a people in a cool, prudent state of mind. Wall Street may suffer, but the country generally will benefit by this. NEWS from European trading and financing centres con¬ tinues to be bad and yet not to have that element of sen¬ sationalism that proclaims the. worst is over and the time has come to buy for advances or to get tKe house in order for a new stretch of activity. Pecuniary trouble and consequent failure ■are reported from this point or that, taking a new direction each week, but rather arousing apprehension of what is to come than creating the feeling that all the bad and weak spots had revealed themselves and were, therefore, less dangerous. Judging from our own experiences, the German tariff discussion opened by the publication of the government's proposals would check a revival of business, even if the world were ready for it. The con¬ tinued heaviness of leading government securities, in spite of a prevailing cheapness of money, is the feature that most reveals the general want of confidence in the future, and when we find the German iron trades saying that their only hope for strength is in the prolongation of the strike on this side of the Atlantic, we may be sure that their condition is bad, a fact, in¬ deed, that the journals of the country are taking some pains to express. This frankness, though, is pretty general. In the re¬ port of a recent meeting of one of the prominent London banks, we find the chairman addressing his sliareholders thus: "As re¬ gards the future, if I were, in a prophetic mood, what I might say would perhaps be thought too pessimistic. We are, however, ac¬ customed to await events and not to prophesy, but with more or less dangerous position in Berlin and New York, the probabil¬ ity of an indifferent harvest, and the cost of the war going on indefinitely, there is much uncertainty before us. Moreover, it is probable that we. have yet to feel the full effects of the enor¬ mous loss of life and money, and the displacement of iaboi' caused by the war." At the same time we find the chairman of a big concern engaged in making cotton machinery telling his stockholders: '■Personally, 1 have been connected with the trade for over 25 years, and others on the lioard for a longer pei'iod. We can confidently say that never before have we known such stagnation in the cotton manufacturing countries of the world on which we textile machinists principally depend for work. But The Public Squares of New York. IT is an unfortunate fact, but true, tliat there are scarcely any public squares in New York. Tliere are a number of public places, which 'are called squares, but the name does not square with the fact. The fa-ct is there are several small parks, and several crossroads, at which Broadway intersects with some other avenue, but a square properly so-ealled^a square com¬ parable to a dozen of the smaller squares in a foreign capital— is almost entirely lacking in New York. W'ere it not for Broadway, the 'Metropolis would be merely a wilderness of streets—none of them leading to any particular place, and al¬ though Broadway does give some variety and distinction to its street system, the opportunities that it offers have not been used ito advantage. In no respect did the officials who laid out the street system early in the century perform their task more clumsily than in the ugliness and insignificance to which they reduced the appearan-ce of New Y'ork by this blunder. A little consideration will show that our indictment has not been drawn too strongly. In the first place it must be remem¬ bered that a square is not a small park. Small parks are prop¬ erly placed, not in centers of business and traffic, but in quiet residence sections. The purpose should be to bring them as near as possible to the doorsteps of large numbers of people. They are meant as playgrounds for children, and as quiet resting and breathing spaces for men and women during intervals of leis¬ ure. Squares, on the contrary, are meant to be centere of ac¬ tivity. They should, when properly placed and planned, be sit¬ uated at the intersection of important thoroughfares, and in this way become the great exchanges of city trafii'C—places to which all the world must go and from which many other places are easily accessible. They should, consequently, be spacious, be entered by a number of important intersecting streets, and be laid out, not as parks with lawns and shrubbery, but should be paved for tie freer movement of man, beast and oar. It is in this sense that Trafalgar Square and the Place de I'Opera are squares. It will soon be seen that in the same sense, New York has scarcely any squares at all. Union and Madison squares are merely small parks, formed by putting together three city blO'Cks, at a place near which Broadway happens to intersect with some other avenue. But in each case Broadway only skirts the park on one side, and the park is no more a clearing-house for traffic than if it never existed. The so-called squares offer little or no chance for architectural effect; they provide no interesting vistas. When the Dewey Arch was situated at the intersection of Broad¬ way and Fifth avenue, a proper line on the two streets was ob¬ tained only by crowding it much too close to the buildings on the west side of the square, so that the arch was in some meas¬ ure dwarfed by the Fifth Avenue Hotel. As' for the mis¬ called Herald and Long Acre squares, they are mere repetitions of Union and Madison squares, but without the parks. They are entirely insignificant and ugly, with their long dimensions, the unshapely triangular plots at either end, and the utter lack of ■nny opportunity offered for effective architectural treatment These deficiencies have not made so very much difference in the past, for the squares in question were lined, for the most part, with comparatively insignificant houses, but now that handsome birildings are abont to be erected, now that Long Acre Square promises to become the central point, not merely of Manhattan, but of the whole of New York, it is a thousand times a pity that the square has been planned with such an utter absence of spa¬ ciousness, interesting lines, and proper proportions. It would cost too much to make any radical changes at the present time, and New York, when she becomes the greatest center of popula¬ tion and human activity in the world, cannot avoid at the same time the sorry distinction of a street system more befitting some provincial manufacturing city. A little further up town there are two squares, which more nearly deserve the name. Wc refer, of course, to the Circle at the intersection ol Broadway and Eighth avenue and the Plaza. Both of these places are genuine squares, sufficiently spacious, and designed entirely for the purpose of accommodating traffic. Moreover their proportions and lines are such that there is no necessary reason why buildings erected on these squares should not be architecturallyintei-esting.for they can be seen fromproper points of view, and at sufficient distances. In the case of the Plaza this is particularly fortunate, because both the avenues and streets in that vicinify are gradually assuming an air of sumptuous splendor, which almost amounts to distinction. The