Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 78, no. 2001: July 21, 1906

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July 21,- iQod RECORD AND (^iJXDE log- ESTABUSHED-^ MARPH 21'V*'1866. De6teD id RoJ-Estaje-BuildiKg ^RpfrrzcTini^^tousEaoiDDEeai^iKMt, PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Fublisfisd eVerp Saturday Communications should, be addressed to C. W, SWEET, 14-ia Vesey Street. Now York ) . Tolaphon*. CortI«adt 3157 "Entered at Ih* P«»t Office at .ffeuj T»rk, N. T.. as srcond-class matter." Vol, LXXVIIl, JULY 21, 190(3. No. 2O01 INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS. Advertising Section. Page- Page, Cement ....................xilll Law.........................x\ Consulting Engiaeera ..........x Lumber..................xxviii Clay Products ................xxii Machinery ...................iv Contractors and Builders ......v Metal Work ................xvli Electrical Interests ..........vlil Quick Job Directory ........xxvtl Fireproofing .................il Real Estate .................x\v Granite ....................sxlv Roofers & Roofing Materials.xxvl Heating ....................xx Stone .....................xxlv Iron and Steel ..............xvlil Wood Products ...........xxviii 77te Record and Guide has opened a-n tfptown Office in the Metropolitan "Annex," Nos. 11-13 East 24th Street, in order to accommoflate its customers, so many of whom are located in the central and northern parts of the city, and at the same time to provide additio7ial quarters for its own increased staff and for the Architectural Record and,"Stoeei''s" Index. FINANCIAL doctors are in complete disagreement as to the immediate course of the Stock market. This is evidenced l)y tiie opinions' lately expressed in the editorial and financial columns of the leading dailies. A striking case in point ap¬ peared when an elaborate editorial In one paper setting forth the bull conditions, and in fact pooh-poohing the claim that V?all Street any longer reflects conditions or discounts the future, was followed the next day in the same publication by a bull financial review, the keynote of which was that Wall Street might always be relied upon to express the consensus of the best thought and to discount events not already dis¬ cernible to other than specuiators' eyes. Thus we have the situation. The operators are divided into two camps, each with its arguments and each confident of its position. The bulls rely on the undoubted record breaking statistics of trade furnished each week^the bears answer that stocks are for sale in unlimited supply on every rally and that the vol¬ ume and class of selling indicate the source as from those who are in "the know," They add tliat later the selling will become general and a break be precipitated. The bears, more¬ over, insist that a campaign with a radical candidate for governor in this State and a new Congress to be elected with tariff revision as the principal issue, is hound to make for financial and business disquietude. This they contend is not taking into account the effect of the competition between State and National government in corporation baiting, and it must be said that there is much food for thought in the bear arguments. If commission houses were loaded with stocks carried on a margin even at the present low prices, the situa¬ tion might be vulnerable, but careful inquiry seems to settle on twenty-five per cent, of their usual lines, that being the pro¬ portion of the amount of money now being borrowed by the average commission house, thus showing the lightest bull account open for years. The inference is that if the market is to decline to the extent predicted by the hears, it will be the result of the selling by actual holders as distinguished from margin holders. The money market is now ceasing to be a bugaboo, and indeed some foreign exchange experts claim that there will be a large foreign balance to our credit before the fall season begins, when the large exports of cotton and grain normally turn exchange in our favor. It would seem, therefore, and we still adhere to the opinion that money will be unusually easy this autumn. As to the stock market itself, it is dull, going through the process of what is known in nau¬ tical sailing parlance as "backing and filling," This is by no means an unusual state of things in July and August, and is not at all inconsistent with great activity afterwards. IT is estimated by the "Sun" that during the past eighteen months living accommodations have been provided in New York City for something over 600,000 additional population; and it is urged by that journal that the construction of all kinds "of dwellings and tenements is being very much overdone. In calling attention to these fact, the "Sun" is undoubtedly plac¬ ing its finger on the worst weakn-ess in the existing real es¬ tate situation, but it should be added that the danger is probably exaggerated. Over-building there has undoubtedly been and its results are manifest particularly on Washington Heights and on the upper East Side; but the overbuilding is not so bad as the figures given would lead one to believe. According to the State census New York adds only about 125,000 people per annum to its number of inhaliitants, so that we are appa¬ rently building houses for 600,000 people, when there are ap¬ parently Jess than 200,000 to fill them. The Record and Guide doubts, however, whether New York is building at the pres¬ ent time three times as rapidly as it should, for if it were the consequences would already have been much more disas¬ trous than they are. We believe that the census under-estl- mates the recent increase in the population of New York City, and there is every reason why it should do so. That popula¬ tion consists so largely of recent immigrants, who speak no English, and who herd together in small quarters, that the dif¬ ficulties of accurate enumeration are much more serious than they are in a city of private residences. Moreover, the error would most assuredly be on the side of under rather than, over¬ estimate. The immigration officials calculate tbat some 200,- 000 aliens have settled in New York during each of the two past years, and while the outgoing emigration must be de¬ ducted from this total, such a deduction would not be large. On the whole, what with the unusually large alien immigra¬ tion, the great number of residents of other States, who are attracted to New York in periods of prosperity, tbe displace¬ ment of existing residents by business improvements and the natural increase in population, it is probable that during the past eighteen months New York had to provide for about 400,000 instead of 200,000 additional residents. Of course, this is only a guess; but it is a guess which is justified by a very strong series of general considerations. STATISTICS of Greater New York continue to furnish evi¬ dences of the great progress the city is making in all its activities. Manufacturing industries thrive and fiourish, and there has been a large increase in the number of estab¬ lishments since 1900, according to the Census Bureau, which must liave its effect in increasing the value of real estate generally and of sites for such manufactories in particular. In 1905 the city had 20,839 establishments, as against 19,243 in 1900, an increase of over S per cent. The capital invested in them in 1905 was upwards of a thousand millions of dollars, compared with $853,000,000 in 1900, or an increase of 22 per cent. The value of the products of these manufacturing es¬ tablishments in 1905 was more than $1,526,000,000, showing aa increase of 30.2 per cent, in five years. Taking the increase by boroughs, Manhattan and the Bronx showed an advance in output in the five years from $811,000,000 to $1,043,000,000, over 28 per cent.; Brooklyn increased from $313,617,000 to $373,462,- 000 or 19 per cent, and Queens and Richmond $48,444,000 to $109,808,000 or the impressive percentage of one hundred and twenty-six and a fraction. Comparative statistics of the prin¬ cipal industries show women's clothing first in Manhattan and The Bronx, the output in 1905 being valued at $164,723,000 against $9.9,464,000 in 1900. Men's clothing, printing and publishing, tobacco, slaughtering and meat packing, milli¬ nery and lace goods follow in the order named- The chief industry in Brooklyn is in foundries and machine shops. Other important industries in that borough are malt liquors, boots and shoes, lumber products, cordage and twine and chemicals. Prom present indications it would seem, there¬ fore, that in a decade or so Greater New York, if the- increase continues in a like ratio, may become the largest or one of the largest manufacturing centres of the world. 'PROM the Federal census a computation has been prepared ■t^ of the number of Father Knickerbocker's possessions com¬ pared with the property of other mimicipalities, and it is some¬ what to the disadvantage of New York. So the Comptroller has had prepared in his turn a statement from the Knickerbocker point of view of city property officially footing up $560,000,000, a tidy sum for a city which, twenty years ago, in a count of its' assets, could figure only $150,000,000 in the present Boroughs of Manhattan and The Bronx, and less than $50,000,000 additional in Brooklyn and the other territories now included