Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 77, no. 1985: March 31, 1906

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March 31, 1906 RECORD AND GUIDE S61 •nil. 0#a ESTABUSHED ^ tWR,CH Sl'-^ 1868. Dev&TEB P ReJ^I. EsTWI , BUI LOIf/o ^acit'lTECTimE .HcfUSElIOLD DECORATlotf, BUsii^ESS AfloThemes OFGEito\f.l Wterest. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Pablis/ied eVerp Salardag Communications-should bo addressed to C. W. SWEET. 14-ia Vesey Street. New York Telephone, Cortlandt 3157 "Eidn-ed at lhe Post Office at JVeif York, N. Y. as second-class matter." earnings of most railroads have increased 50 jer cent., while the shares are selling for a lower price, on the average, than they were in 1901 and 1902. Vol. LXXVIL MARCH 31, 190e. No. 1985 INDEX TO DEPARTI«ENTS. Advertising Section, Pago. Pag*. Cement ....................xxv Law..........................xi Consulting Engineers .......xviii Lumber .................xsvill Clay Products ...............xxiv Machinery ...................iv Contractors and Builders ......v IMetal Work..................xx Electrical Interest ..........viii Quick Job Directory........xxiii Fireproofing ..................iii Real Estate.................xxiii Granite ....................xxvi Roofera & Rooflng Materials., .x Heating ...................xx! Stone .....................xxvi Iron and Steel................xix Wood Products ............xxix A SQUEEZE in money was looked for this weelv in Wall Street, but it did not materialize. Easy money after the first weelc in April now seems assured, and the hest banliing opinion is that if «asy money does not come in April there will be from ten to flfteen millions of gold from Prance to this country. It is but awaiting the money rates to be established here after the turn of the month. THE STOCK r-IARKET this weelv bas acted very much in the manner suggested and indicated in tliese columns. The strike issue has been discounted and fuel for a big ad¬ vance in stocks has been heaping up during the past three mouths. Only easy money is needed to touch it off, after which the fire of speculation may be counted upon to spread well into the summer, malting many new high records-before it burns out, Reading and Union Pacific seem fair to be the bell-weathers in the railroad list, with the metal stocks leading in the indus¬ trials. At no time during the entire boom since March, 1904, have tlie low priced railroad stocks had an inning. In Waii Street parlance they are overdue, and may have a whirl now. If speculation nins into railroad stocks the low priced issues will undoubtedly be the favorites with the commission houses, because requiring less capital to carry and having more margin for an advance. It is quite within the possibilities that the Erie's, Wisconsin Central, Iowa Central and Toledo, St, Louis and Western preferred aud common may show an advance on the next movement of twenty points and still be relatively cheaper than at the time when their previous high records were made. THB RATE BILL discussion will prove a sort of primer of national education on railroad values, and the pending legislation closes the booli and lifts railroads out of further political discussion, stops the chronic attacks to which they have hitherto been subjected in State legislatures, and also postpones paralleling for a decade at least, or until capital shall have had a chance to observe the worlving of railroads under the new provisions of the law. It is by no means cer¬ tain that the law has any hardship in store for railroads that is not more than offset by the abolition of free passes, the stoppage of rebates and the cessation of clubbing the large shippers through the medium of so-called terminal roads for which was exacted an arbitrary percentage of the through rate which often meant the entire profit in the business. Adding to all this immunity from paralleling it is obvious that railroad managers have a period of comparative peace ahead of them, and so in turn have the stockholders and the stock market. SLOWLY but surely all these things will dawn upon bankers and investors here and abroad, and, taken together with the fact that no new capital issues have been made for five years—the amount of stock per mile of road being small— the next advance will find more players and fewer counters than any preceding one, and higher prices than any hereto¬ fore attained may be expected. This may be predicated from the fact that In the interval since 1901 the gross and net THE LOCAL traction stocks begin to show undoubted signs of re-awalteuing. Their action at present is consistent with the handling of the Interborough stock after its birth. It will be recalled that this security was allowed to get dull and it sagged to 85, the Syndicate having paid 100 in cash for it. Participants were in the depths of discouragement, and the lower the price went the more the street was afraid of it, aa if it was some slimy reptile or monster. Yet but a few weeks ago it sold at thrice 85, and the new merger stock traded in this week at 50 may make a similar record, as it is under the same direction aud management. It may be trite to say that history oft repeats itself, but certainly the scare of Inter¬ borough at its inception has been repeated in the merger stocks during the past month. Why may not a similar advance be repeated? Real estate interests in this city are good judges of traction possibilities, and ought to be better judges of trac¬ tion values, other things being equal, than the ordinary Wail Street speculator. THE REVIVAL of interest and the increase iu values which has been takin-" place in One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street is the illustration_of a process which has frequently occurred in the history of New York real estate. Values on an important avenue or street, may, during the early years of its real estate development, be increased to a level not justified by substantial business reasons, and a reaction may follow; but eventually the growth of the city will justify even the most extravagant anticipations. So it has been with Fifth Avenue; so it is with One Hundred and Twenty-flfth Street; so it may well be with the Bowery. In 1890 and thereabouts prices on One Hundred and Twenty-flfth Street were advanced to a very high level on the conviction that this street would rival some of the broader streets down¬ town as a shopping and amusement centre; but while many stores and places of amusement flourished in the street, it was found subsequently that they were neither as numerous as was anticipated, nor of such high grade, and a sharp reaction in values succeeded. Of late, however, there has been a gradual recovery, brought about chiefly by tlie building up of the upper East Side, of Harlem and of the lower part of the Bronx, The character of the business transacted in One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street has not been raised to any considerable extent, but its volume has considerably increased, and many new enterprises have been started. Moreover, there is every reason to anticipate a still further improvement of the same kind. As Washington Heiglits becomes populated, the business men of One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street have a still larger area upon which to depend for trade, while the same statement is even more true of the Pronx. It cannot be expected that this trade will be concerned with a high quality of goods, because the population of this whole neighborhood is composed of comparatively poor people, who when they want to spend more money than usual will take advantage of the improving means of communication to travel down to the big stores on Sixth Avenue, but there will be an ever larger number of prosperous shops who sell cheap goods, and of vaudeville "stock" theatres. It so happens that One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street is the only broad cross-town tlioroughfare between Fifty-ninth Street and the Harlem River which runs at an even grade from the East to tbe Hudson River, and it is sure to get whatever gen¬ eral business that part of the city affords. It will probably even be more convenient for the residents of the west side of the Bronx than any centre of business which may be built upon the east side of that borough. T_-it;; marlted feature of the new development is the increase of business structures—lofts, offices, factories, and com¬ bination buildings at the points of contact at the new ter¬ minals—not the building of dwellings, as was the case in the "L" roads which first developed upper New York. In western states the alternate section plan gave value to farms and through farms to towns and cities. A government railroad grant oi land provided that every alternate section should be sold by the railroad, the intervening ones being for homesteads. The line was built, land was sold by the railroads and hy the government, and one complementing the other, there was a boom. The plan of development here was much the same, A car line, surface or elevated road was extended. The cost was a draft on the future. Around the stations or on the lines resl^ dences s[jraug up. The tendency was steadily northward. As