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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 80, no. 2076: December 28, 1907

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December 28, 1907 RECORD AND GUIDE 1041 ESTABDSHED ^ ííARpH SI'jN'1868. Dn&jri) K> REA.L EsTAJE.BuÍLDĨjfe %a(m:eTUR.E.HffllSE3lOLDDEGaftAT10:í, BtISI[/E3SAflDTHEMESbF'GĩĩJEIÎ^LIl/TER.ESl.. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communications shculâ he aãdressed to C. W. SWEET Tubíished EVery Saturdaff By THB KECOBD AND GUIDB CO. President, CLIKTON W. SWEET Treasurer, P. W. DODGB Vice-Pres. & Genl, Mgr., H. W. DBSMOND Secretary, F. T. MILLER Nos. 11 to 15 East 24tli Street, New York City (Teĩephone, Madison Square, 4430 to 4433.) "Entercd at the Post Office at Xein york, N. Y., as secoiiã-class matler." Copyrighted, 1007, by The Record & Guide Co. Vol. LXXX. DECL'MBER 2S, 1007. No. 20T6 INDBX TO DEPARTMBNTS. Advertlslng Sectlon. f ' Page. Pago, Cemcnt ......................xiv Luniber ......................xv Clay Protlucts ................vi Machiuery ....................xil Con.sulting Engineers .........xili Mutal Work ..................xi Contractors and Builders......iii Quiclt Joh Directory............ix Electrical Iiiterests...........sĩii Rcal Estate ..................vii Firepro(íĩing ...................11 Roofers & Roofing Materials.xvi Granite .....................xvli Stone ........................xvl IroE and Stee!...................v Wood Products.................xv THIS, the last fuĩl week of the calendar year, aceordiiig to all propheeies, should he the ending' of a períod of flnancial stringency which has continued some eighteen months. We should know presently what to expect, whether the period of reaction is to he prolonged, or if we are really seeing the last o£ the bank crisis and its sequences; for the flrst ten days of Jan- uary nsually determine the course of business for a consider- able portiou of the ensuíng year. Bven with normal conditions the reaĩ estate market is dull in December usually, but after' the holidays improves rapidly. If the month of January sees the usual rebound, the augury wil! be good for even a more prosperous era in real estate and building affairs than the pre- vious one, which began in 1S97 and was choked off in 1906 —choked off, as is now known, by pernĩcioiis banking meth- ods, and not terminated by any rea! exhaustion of resources or overproduction of material. The present case, tlierefore, differs from any precediug national panic and should not be atteuded by a similar sequence of events. The money which the banks of the city should have loaned to local business channels, and especially to real estate interests, was poured into Wall Street instead. Aside from the bank flurry, condi- tions have never been better in the United States than they are now, certainly not in New York; but something is funda- mentally wrong with a banking system whích alîows, yet does not through its workings, directly cause, these periodical pauics. In Canada there has been nothing of the sort în thirty years, while this country has passed through three or four. The harm done to young business men from being turned back in their careers by recurring finaucial eclipses cannot be expressed in words or set down în figures. After the experience which the banks and investors have had this year in Wall Street there ought not to be much ãifficu!ty hereafter in getting mouey for building loans and permanent reaĩ es- tate mortgages, and this is the belief with which the allied interests approach the new year. IS the Cîty being trifled with by public service corporations? Several cases that have reeently been exposed to public view are rather confirmatory of this suspicion. For a while the Steinway (or Beĩmont) tunnel projection seemed to be runniiig away with a franchise for a transportation line with- out making a proper settlement with tke city, For some years the New York Centraî Railroad Company has been using por- tions of Twelfth avenue without taking the trouble to inquire what the rent might be, or to make any payments at all to the City for the use of lauds which are unquestionably the property of the municipality, Agaĩn, it transpires that two railroad corporations chartered to compete for local tralRc with existing railroad systems from the Harlem River to the State line are actually owued or controlled by one of these existing systems, with the probabîlities strong that oue of the projects, the New York, Westchester & Boston, has been for several years engineered in the interests of the corporation which now avowedly controls all the roads, unknown to the public. At any rate, the termination of the long and cir- cuitous proceedings in which the projects for the construc- tion o,f one or more high-speed electric railroads into the northern suburbs Is into the financial arms of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Raiiroad Company, with prophecies decidedly against any new road whatever being built, For several years the Borough of the Eronx and the adjoining county of Westchester have based large anticipations upon as- surances of the eompletion of at least one of the two projects, it did not matter which, but whatever may be the result now, since the New Haven president has opeuly admitted his con- trol of both liues through the media of the MiIIbrook Com- pany, it is apparent that the advantages which property in- terests expected to follow from a promised competition will not arise under any circurastances which the New York & New Haven can domlnate. So numerous have been the dís- appointments to the public under the head o£ transportation, the impulse is strong to advise investors never to believe untíl they see. Added to this present disappointment is the fur- the circumstance that the offlcial notice which has been served upon property owners that a railroad has been laid out from the Harlera River to the cîty line casts a certaln cloud over the parcels affected, wbich makes the case all the ĩoore disagreeable when taken with the remoteness of the probability of the completion of eíther of the roads. Whcn the application o£ the New York & Portchester Railroad Company for a change of route was made au express aud au- thoritative denial was recorded at the same time that the Millbrook Company was in any way allied with the New York & New Haven Railroad, this de- nial being made to the represeutative of the Board of Estimate, as he has testified to in an oflicial report. Under all the circumstances which eonfront reaĩ estate in- terests and eitizens generally, they have need to gather up all the patienee and loyalty that eome from faith ín Amer- ican principles and wait for the time when the country will get back into "the old paths" and respeet once again the o!d landmarks o£ truth and honesty. Thc Auuual Number of the Bccord and Guide Will Be Issued Next Week, Saturday, January 4. It wíll be the Best Boview of Beal Estate and Building Conditions for the Year 1907. Articles by the Leading Authorities on the Sub- jects Treated, with Numerous Illustrations. ADECIDEDLY serious turu is given to the eontempla- tion of the pollutiou of New ork Harbor and the Hudson River by a report from a committee of the IVIerchánts' Association upon the sanitary conditions o£ the waterfront, together with studies of the consequences of these eonditions upon the populations on the shores, Only a few observers of the steady process of coutaminating the waters have con- sidered it a preseut danger. For the most part people have regarded the subject with feelings similar to those with whieh they think of the time the íand will be denuded of forests, as something not likely to arrive in their lifetime, and as noth- ing £or them to worry about. They regret that the water of the river and harbor is not so pure as^it was witkin t]ieir remembrance; that the flsh are disappearing and that even the ouce blue waters o£ the central Hudson have become offeusJve to the eye and the nostrils aud deadly to the taste. But, like the man who will not plant a tree because he can- not live to enjoy its shade, they think the case is not up to. them and therefore dismiss it from their thou'ghts. But they cannot in truth give it the "go-by" much longer. Over five thousand cases of tyhoid and other iutestinal diseases werc réported în this eity within a period o£ three mouths in this preseut year, and scientiflc investigatiou has actually traced the fecal bacteria in its course froni the eddying masses~floatîng on the surface o£ the river, or exposed on the shores near the outfall of sewers, to the famiĩy boards, io the homes o£ the people, throughout the eity, It has long been contended that the discharge o£ sewage into the Hudsou from the growing cities on its banks was only sentimentaĩly objectionable, as the disease germs contained therein were rendered inuocuous by the natural action of the moving