Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 68, no. 1756: November 9, 1901

Text version:

November 9, 1901. RECORD AND GUIDE. 607 il®l. ESTABUSHED ^ WRPH SVT^ 1868* Dr/oTfl) TO Real Estate , BuiLoif/o ApcKiTEtmiRE ,t{ousDloiD DEem^flimL Rn-^Lir^ii i^^^Ty^:MES0FGEl4ER^ IjflERpST. PRICE PER. YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS fubtished eVers Sattiriap Commuiiicatloiia should be addressed to C. 'W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, New YorK J. T. IiINBSEY, Business MB,iiager Telepbone, Cortlandt 3157 'Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as seeond^class matter.' Vol. LXVIII. NOVEMBER 9, 1901, No. 1756. FOR the first time for months there was good commission buying in the stoclt marliet this week. There ia a decided preference for railroad issues, both bonds and stocks, but there is also some demand for promising Industrials. The buying of railroad securities is encouraged by the continued increase of earnings reported by all but a comparatively few properties. The increases are not as large as they were last year, and the de¬ creases, although individually small, are more numerous; but seeing that they the increases are piled upon increases, it is no wonder that they invite capital into the railroad investment field and create besides the best impression of the general business situation, of which after all the railroad reports are the best gauge. It is evident, too, that an agreement has been reached among the handfull of men who really dominate the railroad world which cannot be without good influence on prices. An¬ other feature of the situation which cannot be overlooked is the positively gorged condition of the iron and steel industry, which appears to be only restricted in its activity hy the ability of the railroads to carry away its products. This ought to react favor¬ ably on iron and steel stocks, and doubtless will do so. There is apparently ahead of us another speculative movement of con¬ siderable proportions in which money may be made by the prudent and sprightly. Whether this movement is Justified by the probabilities of a future not exactly near nor yet far we are not saying. While our affairs are thus moving so satisfactorily, from Europe comes the old lugubrious complaint of dulness and want coupled with a precarious money market that must check all development until the close of this year at least, and which may prolong its obstructive influence into the nest. IN the view of the property owner one of the most important appointments the new Mayor will have to make is the Tenement House Commissioner. The charter under which this appointment is to be made requires no technical qualifications in the appointee, and the Mayor therefore has free and unre¬ stricted choice. Yet the gentleman selected for this office ought to he a man of administrative experience and capacity, because he has to create and put into running order a new department; he ought also to have practical knowledge of tenement-house construction, and of the economic conditions pertaining to the housing of two-thirds of the city's population and a much larger proportion of its poor. 0£ all things he should not—the negative qualification is perhaps more to he insisted upon than the positive ones—be a man of extreme views. A dispassionate, unprejudiced, capable man will be able to avert much of the litigation and fric¬ tion that is obviously impending between many of the property owners and the city over the provisions of the tenement-house law applicable to old tenements, while so directing his depart¬ ment that tbe dwellers in the tenements shall be benefited and property interests and consequently the public revenue pro¬ tected. HOW much longer is Commissioner Shea's report on the Manhattan approach to the New East River Bridge to be delayed? The Commissioner ought really to consider the anxiety all the Bowery, Grand, Broome and Delancey street property owners have been in since last summer, when the various sug¬ gested lines of approach were referred to him for report by the Board of Public Improvements. A couple of weeks ago word went out that his report was to be presented at the very next meeting of the Board, hut although the meeting took place there was no report. For some reason or other the Commissioner re¬ considered his determination and extended the public suspense. It is taken for granted that the present administration will decide this matter before their term is up, and all sorts of rumors are going the rounds as to what their choice will be. It is generally believed that, if the direct westward approach along Delancey street ia adopted, It will end at the Bowery, and so be shorn of its Spring street end; and it has even been asserted lately that it has been decided in official circles to abandon the Delancey street plan and make the approach along Broome street. If the latter is their decision the authorities may expect a storm of protests and opposition that they will find it hard to meet, because not only would such an approach be in itself inadequate, but it could not give the bridge traffic the various lines of dispersion that it will require. The Fusion Victory and After? T^ OR the second time in the history of the city the people of ^ New York liave reached an unequivocal decision that they want an administration of their municipal affairs on non-partisan lines and for reform purposes. This decision was undoubtedly the proper decision to have reached under the circumstances, because an admicistration on partisan lines, and for "organiza¬ tion" purposes, had proved to be a distressing failure. Tammany made a distressing failure, not because its administration lacked men of ability, not because its positive and constructive policy was ill-conceived, but because its appointees owed feaky to the organization flrst, and to the public interests only in a secondary degree; and the business of no municipality can be efticiently and economically conducted on the basis of sueh a divided allegiance. The reform administration will start unhampered by any similar temptation to prefer the interests of a faction to the interests of the city. It will start, moreover, with the support of almost every important metropolitan newspaper and with that of the majority of its intelligent inhabitants. And, flnally, if it proves to be any kind of a success, it will possess a good chance of keeping its control of the public offices, for under normal conditions a majority of the inhabitants of the greater city are apparently opposed to Tammany, What must the reform administration do and avoid doing to be a success? This is a question which the example of the late Mayor Strong's administration affords some assistance in answering; and the answer in general is that it must not apply its reform ideas in a pedantic and rigorous spirit, but whenever it takes any corrective measures, it must see they have for their basis some end that is positive, constructive and stimulating—at once to the material and social interests of the greater city. If it adopts a policy of mere interference, of an inflexible determination to put the narrowest and most illiberal construc¬ tion of existing laws, it will exasperate large and important sections of the city's population, injure business, and arouse an¬ tagonisms that will accrue only to the benefit of Tammany Hall. Of course a reform administration must attempt a reform; it must apply the standards contained in its platform both to the Police Department and to all the other departments in the city; but it must not apply them as they were applied to the saloons and to the Building Department six years ago. The new city officials must work with and not against the commer¬ cial and business interests with which they come into contact, for if they do not they will justify the Tammany election cry about the dangers which threaten personal liberty under a reiorm rule. The reform administration must not turn the city into a reformatory. . | j Take, for instance, the case of the Building Department and the building law. Everyone in the trade knows that there are abuses to be corrected in the way the building laws are at present executed, and no one not directly interested will object to the reform of these abuses; but the application of a statute that necessarily leaves so much to the discretion of the officers who execute it is an extremely difficult matter, requiring a combination of firmness and flexibility, of tact and determina¬ tion, of absolute honesty and skilled technical knowledge, which will be difficult to flnd. The execution of the law touches one of the most important trades of the city at a thousand tender spots, and might, without anything worse than a very illiberal construction of its provisions, cause builders and architects an amount of loss which would not only exasperate them but which might seriously diminish the sum total of building operations. The Building Department has, no one will deny, certain police functions, and these police functions must occa¬ sionally be administered in a way that will make enemies; but at bottom the head of the department is not a chief of con¬ structional police. He has to deal not with a set of law-breakers, but with the heads of important industry, which spends more than a hundred million dollars a year, and employs thousands of skilled laborers. His office must not be run, as it was under the former reform administration, in a way that will make these builders the determined enemies of anything that smells of reform, but in a spirit that will promote good feeling wherever possible, and which will secure the department the support of 1