Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 79, no. 2044: May 18, 1907

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May i8, 1907 RECORD AND GUIDE 963 E5TABIJSHED^(WPH2li^lB68. Dtv6TifiPRfJ-EsTM^-S"iLDiiJ'& ARj:i(rre(rivFie,HousE3f(aiDeOT(«»oil, Bifsn/Ess Atfo Themes opGEitoifl I^ftafs^^ PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Pubtished eVery Saturday Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET Madison Square: 11-15 East 24th Street Tolephono , 4480 Madiaon Squara "Entered at the Post Office at Ifeio Tork, A'. T., as second-class matte}-." Copyrighted, I90T, by C. W. Sweet. Vol. ■LXXIX, MAY IS, IOOT. No. 2044 INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS. Avertising Section. Page Page Cement........................xv Lumber........................xs Consulting Engineers..........vii Machinery.....................iv Clay Products................xviii Metal AVork...................viii Contractors and Builders........ii Quick Joh Directory............xs Electrical Interests.............v Real Estate.....................si Fireproofing ....................vi Roofers & Roofing Materials,.xis Granite ........................xvi Stone........................xvi Iron and Steel................x Wood Products.................xx MR. HARRIMAN has occupied the centre of the Wall Street stage this week and there have been mixed sentiments regarding him, for among the numerous notahle American financiers who have more or less dominated Wall Street, Mr. Harriman certainly stands in the first rank. No one, therefore, was surprised when the counsel to the Inter¬ state Commerce Commission came out with a recommenda¬ tion that there should be an annulment of certain mergers and that legal proceedings should be initiated to dissolve the union between the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific railway companies. This was not all, as the recommendations included the can¬ cellation of the agreements for the acquisition of control of the Illinois Central. Stocks promptly went down on the publication of the report, but subsequently recovered. Sec¬ ond thoughts seemed to infiuence operators when they called to mind that after all the report consisted of recommenda¬ tions only, and that the existing conditions so far as the Harriman deals are concerned cannot be changed for some time to come, as there is absolutely nothing new in the spirit or letter of the recommendations of counsel. It is not, however, pleasant to hear the "Alton deal" referred to by the commission's counsel "as one of the most remarkable cases of manipulation and stock watering ever known," a decided refiection on Wall Street methods. Mr, Harriman is certainly not popular for the moment and many who rec¬ ognize his ability assert that it would be better for the railroads if he paid more attention to their physical condi¬ tion than to scheming in Wall Street in connection with them. Commission houses complain that business is dull and believe that there will be little activity during the summer. Union Pacific, however, has been well bought and much of the stock is now in stronger hands than hereto¬ fore. The general public has, during the week, been abso¬ lutely indifferent as to the course of prices. Mercantile business has not been so good, largely attributable to the unseasonable weather. We do not hear so much about crop scares. They did their work, however, but the excitement in grain subsided, wheat falling considerably aud actually developing weakness. Call and time money showed a ten¬ dency to advance. Some say it is being kept low in order to market prospective issues of bonds and other securities by Delaware & Hudson, Baltimore & Ohio, Reading and Wabash. New York Central also will soon ask for $60,000,- 000, so investors will thus have an ample choice as to the disposition of their savings. Whether reasonable rates for money which now obtain will be beneficial to real estate and building interests during the summer, it is a little too early in the season to predicate on. statement is true of the side streets, below Twenty-third Street, between Fourth and Sixth Avenues. A large num¬ ber of old brownstone residences on Twentieth and Twenty- first Streets are now being torn down, and when the new structures on those streets are finished there will be very little, space left south of Twenty-third Street for opera¬ tions of this character. In view of this occupation of the existing wholesale district, the question of the range of territory to be used for its further extension becomes of great interest. Of course a new wholesale district will have to come into being north of Twenty-third Street; but what line will it follow? And how far east and west will it ex¬ tend? The value of real estate on Fifth Avenue north of Twenty-third Street is too high to be available for the purpose of wholesale business. It looks as if the retail trade will also occupy Madison Avenue and the side streets off Fifth Avenue. There is a certain amount of room on Broadway, but the recent Improvements on that thorough¬ fare have been more in the nature of office than of loft buildings. Sixth Avenne might seem to he available, but here again real estate values have been increased to such an extent of late years that the erection of loft buildings seems to he wholly improbable. The level of prices on Sixth Avenue, between Twenty-third and Thirty-second Streets, is adapted to its use for department stores. On the whole it looks as if the values which the retail trade has given to real estate between Twenty-sixth and Thirty- fourth Streets, Madison and Sixth Avenues, would force the wholesale trade farther west and farther east. It will be found cheaper for business firms, needing a large amount of well-lighted fioor space, to follow lines of Fourth Avenue on the east aud of Seventh Avenue on the west. Cheaper grades of loft and light manufacturing buildings have already been biiilt in many cases on or near 'Fourth and Seventh Avenues, but it looks as if hereafter more ex¬ pensive fireproof buildings would also he driven farther away from the central Broadway and Fifth Avenue line by the wedge of the retail trade. The retail trade itself will not be pushed farther uptown, because the superior trans¬ portation facilties of this district, derived from the Penn¬ sylvania and trolley terminals, will make it more valuable for retail purposes than for any other. The operation of these novel conditions will be awaited with great interest, and will necessarily produce important changes in the dis¬ tribution of business in Manhattan. ^~\ NE of the most noticeable features of the buildiug ^^ activity of New York continues to be the number of loft buildings erected. The" construction of tenements, apartment houses and office buildings has diminished in volume; but there has been no diminution in the number of buildings projected for the wholesale trade. The whole of Fifth Avenne below Twenty-third Street is or soon will be occupied by new structures of this class; and the same OMPTROLLER METZ is a mau of many excellent ideas, who is realiy trying to introduce business prin¬ ciples into the administration of the important department of which he is the chief. His idea, for instance, of organiz¬ ing a central purchasing bureau for the whole city, which would have power to buy the necessary municipal supplies in large quantities and at the lowest possible prices, is ad¬ mirable, and if put into practice it would save the city many hundreds of thousand dollars every year. But the Comp¬ troller is a resident of Brooklyn, and in his attitude towards rapid transit he is more alive to the interests of his own borough than he is to those of the whole city. He appar¬ ently believes that whatever money the city has to appro¬ priate for purposes of rapid transit coustruction should be devoted to Brooklyn; and he argues that a subway built to the outlying portions of that borough would increase the local assessed valuations to such an extent that the city could then afford to build subways for Manhattan and the Bronx. In other words, the 2,7 0 0,000 people living in Manhattan and the Bronx should wait for their improved means of transit uutil the needs of the 1,300,000 residents of Brooklyn have been satisfied. Surely the argument would look more plausible when turned upside down. Why not afford the 2,700,000 residents of Manhattan and the Bronx the transit service they need, and use the proportionately larger increase in assessed valuations in order to help out the very much smaller number of people living in Brooklyn? Moreover, this revised version of the argument is still more plausible when we consider what is already being done for Brooklyn and Queens, and what is being done for Manhat¬ tan and the Bronx.' The city itself is now building two bridges across the East River at an expense of over $40,- 000,000, and it is just completing a subway to Brooklyn, which will alleviate the existing congestion. Furthermoi^e, it is about to spend $10,000,000 for a subway in Manhattan, connecting the terminals of the two existing bridges, which is intended chiefly for the benefit of the residents of Long Island. Finally, it is improving the existing terminal of the Brooklyn Bridge at a huge expense, which again will chiefly benefit Brooklyn. Besides these municipal improve-