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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 81, no. 2087: March 14, 1908

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March 14, 1908 RECORD AND GUIDE 439 ESTABUSHEI-^ ftWPH Zl^ i 86 8. Dd%6 pi RE*,L EsTATE.BUlLDIlfc ftRpfrrEerURE .KoUSEHOID DEGOfiATlOtJ. BusnteSB AiibTHEUEsof'GEllER^l IrftW^T.. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET Published Every Saturday By THE KECORD AND GUIDE CO. President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W, DODGE Vice-Prea. & Genl. Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary, F. T. MILLBR Nos. 11 to 15 East 24tli Street, New York City *■* (Telephone, Madison Square, 4430 lo 4433.) "Entered at the Post Office at Ncio YO! ■k, N. Y.. as second ■ -class matin-." Cop yrighted. 1907. by Tbe Record Sc Gui'ie ro. Vol. LXXXl. MARCH 14, 1908. No. 20S7. INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS. Advertising Section. Page. Page. Cement ......................xii Lumber ..........;..........xiii Clay Products ...............xiv Metal Work .................ix Consulting E'ngineers ...........x Quick Job Directory..........vii Contractors and Builders ----iii Real Estate ...................v Electrical Interests ..........vii Roofers & Roofing Malerials. .xii Fireproofing ..................ii Stoue .......................xv Granite .....................xv Wood Products ..............xiii Iron and Steel................xi THIS paper has always favored, as a matter of general policy, the construetion of subways by the city, but it also believes that tlie method of obtaining them is sub¬ ordinate to the necessity of possessing them. We quite agree with those civic bodies which hold that it is not necessary to charge against the city the fu-ll cost of a com¬ pleted road at the time of its inception, and that a-road can he built in sections, several each year, and so distribute the resulting benefits equably between the three boroughs in greatest need, with the preference to Manhattan as the largest taxpayer. If there has been a fund set aside for carrying forward the construction and completing an underground road anywhere, it is a fair appeal that it be divided for the benefit of the three boroughs instead of beiug given exclu¬ sively to one. While regretting the divergence of views re¬ garding alternative municipal policies, we fear that just at present the city would lose more by waiting for municipal construction than it would by offering private capital a sufficient inducement to construct the tri-borough system immediately needed. This the Record and Guide has said heretofore, so that its position has been made plain. The disastrous effect of delay upon Manhattan-Bronx does not need much emphasis, either in view of the near completion of the Hudson River tunnels or the subsidence of business in the buildiug trades. The growing sentiment in favor of the indeterminate franchise and the construction of subways by means of private capital, is not because it is thought to be the best way possible, but simply because it is thought to be the only way in which subways can be budlt within a reasonable time. Under all tbe circumstances it would seem the part of wisdom for real estate interests to take the ad¬ vice of the administration and urge the amending of the Els¬ berg law, particularly the hill prepared by the Allied Real Estate Interests along the lines of the Public Service Com¬ mission's recommendation, A good philosophy is, when we cannot get the best, to take the next. If we cannot get subways built by the method we prefer, it is better to obtain them in some other way rather than get none at all. Whether or not the Legislature passes an amendment excluding money spent upon remunerative improvements from within the debt limit, the beginning oE new subway work should not be delayed to that extent; and it must be apparent that puhlic sentiment should be immediately concentrated on a particu'lar legislative measure so that the measure can get the benefit. seek any one quarter of the city in order to engage in their daily employment. . It is perceived that dependence on rapid transit means the continuance of a shuttle motion on the part of the population when this could in a large degree be obviated by inducing the textile factories, for example, to move permanently into various separate sections of the met¬ ropolitan district, far from the present congested parts, where the operatives may be comfortably disposed around them within walking distance. The process repeated in various occupations would result iu building up a large num¬ ber of self-contained urban groups, as the educational aud other facilities of a fully organized community would re¬ establish themselves at the same time. The Governor in his speech on Monday night indicated the direction of his own thought on the subject when he repeated the prediction that if the northerly and northeasterly suburbs were all built over with habitations merely there would not be streets enough in Manhattan for transit lines to carry all the people to business. In other words, after the city shall have done its utmost in building transit lines the necessity for more will still exist, unless certain business divisions are made in the course of time to grow up, so as to segregate the work¬ ing masses and remove the necessity for so many coming to one part of the city as now. Very painful consequences must come from a continuation of the crowding into the lower half of Manhattan, which no exhibition such as that now open at the Museum of National History will be able to depict. A partial remedy lies in limiting the height of buildings so as to compel a spreading out of business, but a more effective one is to distribute the shipping, interstate railroad and local manufacturing industries more evenly around the port of New York, deepening waters now shallow, building moire terminals like the Bush terminals at South Brooklyn and so building up numerous self-sustaining urban groups, as in London, where people can work as well as live. AUTHORITIES are inclining more to the opinion that the answer to the civic problem of congestion lies not so much in rapid urban transportation as in multiplying the number of local business centers and distributing among them the working population. Not in trying to bring the workers living in a hundred square miles of territory all to one center within the limits of an hour's ride, but in so arranging industrial affairs that not too many will have to AT the hearing given by the new Committee on Limits of Height and Area of the new commission engaged in revising the Building Code, the weight of opinion as¬ sented to the broad proposition that proper regulation of the height of buildings with respect to the area of the lot could solve the three-fold problem of congestion, ventila¬ tion and light in the financial district. Restrictions in con¬ struction, in style and shape, and in area with respect to the size of the lot, would produce an automatic limit for office and hotel buildings; but as for non-fireproof buildings it was agreed that their height should he restricted to the elevation within which fire can be readily conquered by the fire department. Eminent authorities, however, advised arbitrary limitations in height for ail classes of buildings without regard to the proportion of the lot covered. Mr. Flagg would first establish a general height for all, hut he would permit an owner c&vering only one-quarter of his land to go to any height he chose, as engineering and economic considerations would furnish all the check needed. Around thi^ proposition a large body of supporting opinion is likely to chrystalize, and a suggestion by Prof. Humphrey is also commended—that the word "fireproof" be entirely eliminated from the code,—and that we should be asked to consider simply the question of first and second class con¬ struction. The question of height and area is one of the most interesting before the commission. The problem is how to accomplish the end which everyone feels must some¬ how be reached and at the same time conserve the great real estate values that are at stake. But these values are not all concentrated south of Chambers street. The rest of the city would be benefited, of course, by a spreading-out. As a profit-producing limit of height is plainly one not to be depended on to stop the congestion already become painful ill the lower part of the city, some legal demarkation fair to all—but not necessarily an arbitrary one—must eventually be hit upon. ^ PRING, warmth and the partial resumption of naviga- O tion on the Hudson indicate the imminence of the per¬ manent return of building weather. While the winter has been the slowest for the building trades in a decade, it has not been a time of distress for mechanics, although the number of unemployed is very large. A long period of con¬ tinued work under higher wage scales than ever before known has made the term of inactivity very endurable.- In view of this moderating fact it is a less unpleasant subject of consideration than otherwise it would be. Further, there is every prospect that business will regume at the usual time