crown CU Home > Libraries Home
[x] Close window

Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Use your browser's Print function to print these pages.

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 75, no. 1939: May 13, 1905

Real Estate Record page image for page ldpd_7031148_035_00001132

Text version:

Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view About OCR text.
May 13, 1905 RECORD AND GUIDE 1055 ^ ESTABUSHED' _ ESTABUSHED-^ i^U^CH ZP^ IfiSS. Dev&TED to RP^L EsTWE . BinLOlKo I^RCKITECTORE .^{oIISDIOLD DEGORATlOlf. Bi/sii/ess Aifo Themes Of GEito^l If/iEi^Esi. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Published eVerp Saturday Communlcationa should bo nddreased to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, New York Tolophona, CorLliiudt 3157 "Entered at the i'ost Office at Neio York, N. Y.. as second-class matter." Copyrieht by the KenI Estate Esoord nnd Builders' Guide Company. rest of the year. Railways earnings are very large; build¬ ing of all kintis exceedingly active; and there is almost an as¬ surance of a record crop of -winter wheat. For the present con¬ servative purchases of stocks look sufficiently safe, even if they do not promise to he extremely profitable. Vol. LXXV. MAT 13, 1905. A Word About the Price. The real estate transactions offered for record in May have assumed an unprecedented volume. The percentage of increase is not any gTeater than it has been ref?ently, but inasmuch as this is the first part of May—the most active period for recording in the whole year^—the number of papers which the Record and Guide is obliged to publish has assumed a pro¬ digious total—a total which completely alters the rela¬ tion that has hitherto existed between what the Record and Guide offers its subscribers and what they pay for the service. During the first week in May, 1904, for instance, the Record and Guide published an issue containing 88 pages—and this issue compared to an average of about 72 during previous years. The last issue of the Manhattan edition of the Record and Guide contained 96 pages, and if to this we add the pages of legal records published in the Brooklyn edition (thus making the -terms of the comparison the same in both years), we obtain a total of 136 pages. It is perfectly obvious that under such circumstances the Record and Guide cannot continue to publish the accustomed amount of printed matter at the same price as hereto¬ fore; and in altering the relation between the price and the matter we are only following the example of otlier publications that attempt to handle the same material. One of tbe most important daily journals in the city has abandoned entirely the publication of the records, while none of them is able to publisii the conveyances and mortgages in full. THE SUBSCRIPTION PRICE OF THE MANHATTAN EDITION OF THE RECORD AND GUIDE IS NOW EIGHT DOLLARS A YEAR, and at that price its subscribers are obtaining one of the cheapest services in the world. THE course of the stock market during the week has served to make the speculative situation very clear. The most important fact in relation to it has been its dullness. Fewer transactions have been consummated on the average than dur¬ ing any week since the recent speculative movement began. There has been an absence of any interest in stocks, except that displayed by professionals; and the operations of the trading contingent have been hesitating and half-hearted. They neither sell nor buy stocks with any confidence, because the market has had no pronounced momemtum either in one direction or the other. They are awaiting a revival of speculative interest on tbe part of outsiders; and it is probable that they will have to wait sometime for such a revival. In the meantime, however, It looks as if the course of prices would tend upwards rather than down, A very dull market, which is not weak generally prepares the way for strength, when activity is resumed; and while there is not, under existing conditions, room for any con¬ siderable advance in prices, there is, on the basis of rea! values, more room for an advance than for a general decline. The business situation, no matter how it is tested, looks well. It is true that the consumption ot pig iron, large as it is, has not been sufficient to prevent an increase of stocks, and there are some indications of a recession in prices. It does not seem, however, as if there was much danger of a large shrinii- age in the demand for iron and stee! products. CJonsumption has not continued on the level established during March; but it could hardly be expected that it would do so. There is every prospect, however, that it will continue to be large enough to enable the producers to make good profits during the SPECULATION in vacant lots and their improvement has been held up by the uncertainty as to the mortgage tax bill. We do not believe that many real estate operators ex¬ pect that mortgages will escape taxation; but as long as there is any chance that the measure will not be signed, they naturally do not care to enter into operations which will be affected by the proposed tax. The consequence is. that the real estate mar¬ ket continues to be relatively dull. We say relatively dull, be¬ cause it is dull only compared to its activity of a few weeks ago. Compared to any other period in the recent history of New York reai estate, the demand, particularly for improved property is large and wholesome. As the Record and Guide has constantly predicted, the current year will riva! 1902 and 1901 ill the number of fire-proof buildings, which are in the course of erection. What with the new buildings, which will replace the oid Tower and Boreel Buiidings. and the several different enterprises to be undertaken on Nassau St., West St., Maiden Lane and elsewhere, there wiil be a great many million dollars invested in new office buildings downtown. The new wholesale district from 14th St, north will be similarly active; and the Altman and Clafiin jobs wili keep the vicinity of 34th St. and ath Ave. busy. Furthermore, we imagine that the sale of the Park & Tilford Buiiding on the Piaxa to Messrs. Boehm & Coon, wiil have a reactive infiuence on the neighborhood mentioned above. We should not be at all surprised, for instance, to find Parli & Tilford arranging for an establishment In a situa¬ tion not more than one block from the Waldorf-Astoria, There will aiso be a large amount of high-class apartment-house buiiding, which will be encouraged by the fact that rents in these structures are still rising. The only class of fire-proof buiiding, in which no revival has taken place is the apartment liotel; and under existing conditions no revival is probable in the near future. Speculative purchases in all the active neigh¬ borhoods still continue; and the demand for Fourth Ave, prop¬ erty near 32d St. is so insistent that it must be based on assured information. MR. BIRD S. COLER spoke very much to the point on Thursday last when he pointed out that municipal owner¬ ship of public utilities is impracticable as long as New York is hampered by its ten per cent debt limit Since the assessment list was increased under the Low administration, the agitation to modify the constitutional debt limit has subsided; but that is only because public opinion and the city officials refuse to look ahead for more than a few years. By careful economy in its borrowing, and by encouraging private capital to build the new subways, the city can postpone the question of modifying the constitutional provision for a little while; but it cannot be postponed for long. It stands in the way of any radical im¬ provement of the street plan of Manhattan; and this, in the opinion of the Record and Guide is the most serious dis-service which it performs. But it also stands in the way of any impor¬ tant enlargement of municipal functions, because the city can¬ not construct or operate pubiic utility plants without adding largely to its debt. In fact, wherever the city is hampered by its inability to carry out a vigorous and progressive municipal policy on account of the debt restriction, it means that private interests of one kind or another fatten on the city's helpless¬ ness. The situation seems to be discouraging, because it will require an agitation of, at least, several years before the debt limit can be modified, and at present there is no disposition on the part either of the city officials or the newspapers to take the matter up, and push it as it should be pushed. IT is hard to understand the violent and unreasonable opposi¬ tion which is provoked by any serious proposal to alter the existing plan of Central Park, The Record and Guide fully agrees with the people who declare that nothing should be done to diminish the park area of New York; but any one not blinded by prejudice must admit that the refusal to approve any encroachments on our parks is a very different thing from the blind worship of our parks in their present condition. If the public usefulness of a park can be increased by an alteration in plan, it is mere superstition to oppose such alterations abso¬ lutely and without reserve. There seems to be a large element of superstition in the opposition encountered by the project to run a parkway along the Fifth avenue frontage of Central Park. The strip which it is proposed to take for the purpose is at the preseut time scarcely used by the public at all. It is only occa-