Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 81, no, 2090: April 4, 1908

Text version:

April 4, 1908 rJEtECORD AND GUIDE 591 ESTABLISHED^ f^fiRpH 21^"^ 1668. Dn6TlDK)f^LE:STATE.BinLDIlfe%C.rfHECTUnE,KobSnlOU)DESQFtABOt^^ Bt/sii/E3s Alio Themes ofGEilERfel. Ir/TE^Esi.. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET Vablished Every Saturdap By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO. President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, P. W. DODGE Vlce-Pres- fi Genl. Mgr,, H. W. DESMOND Secretary. F- T. MILLER Noa. 11 to 15 East 24tli Street, New York City (Telephone, Madison Square, 4-130 to 443H,) ".Entered at the Post Office at Nein York, IV, T,, tis second -rltis!-. ! ma tier.-- Copyrighted, 1908, by Tbe Record fi Guide Co. Vol. LXXXL APRIL 4, 1908. NO. 2090- FOR the quarter ending with March the record of build¬ ing operations projected, as well as work under way, was one of the lightest in a long period of years, but at the same time one of the least discouragiiig of all'the dull winters within easy recollection, owing to the good years immediately preceding, and to a general expectation of ai\ early return of life and vigor. We would be obliged to search back througli many years to find another winter of like inactivity, but not very far to reach a twelvemonth when building operations were no larger than in the twelve months just past. The year 1903 as a whole was not equal to last year in activity, mainly attributable to the labor war¬ fare which continued throughout tbe whole of that year and left consequ'enees for its successor as well. According to the official figures and proportion of population, the year 1898 corresponded closely with 1907 as to-the- degree of activity in bu'ilding work, and the year ISSS was consid¬ ered a normal one, and typical of the time when the city had fully recovered from the effects of the panic of 1893. Previous to 1895 the estimated cost of "building operations never equaled the total for 1907 except once. For tEirty- three years, from 1S6S to 1900 inclusive, the average yearly appropriation for new buildings in old New York was but $48,500,000. From this it is apparent that the huge under¬ takings of 1905 and 1906, when the estimated cost of new buildings approximated one hundred and sixty-two million and one hundred and thirty-five million respectively in the two boroughs, were the fruit of abnormal conditions rather than standards to be regularly reached by the building op¬ erations of succeeding years. Yet things must be judged in proportion, and the relative standing of one year with an¬ other must, in order to be just, be figured with respect to growth of-population. Dull winters do not necessarily make dull years in a builder's calendar, and the announcements of several exceptionally important projects during the past fortnight, which are to be undertaken at once, together with a marked increase in real estate activity, indicate that the current year's work" is likely to gatjier a very fair amount of headway before long. ished work and a road in profitable and satisfactory opera¬ tion are matters of much less importance to tbem. With the chances thus favoring the beginning of actual construc¬ tion sometime this summer, and the absorption of the city's surplus means therein, there is but one way left open to Manhattan-Bronx of obtaining a similar line, and that is by enlisting private capital, and this will be possible only after adequate modifications Jn the existing rapid transit laws have been secured. Mr, John D. Crimmins holds that under the. Public Service law. in particular it will be difficult for the city to obtain a responsible association of men to under¬ take the operation of new transit lines, as investors will not readily be found to supply capital for an undertaking ""so absolutely subject to such an administration." A fifty-year period for a franchise would be none too long, he thinks, in order to provide a sinking fund so that the city could pos¬ sess the property at the end of the period without any out¬ lay. While this may be regarded as an extreme view, it suggests the prospect of the city having to make a larger concession than has been generally reckoned on unless some new financial elements and resources are about to come for¬ ward. A CRITICISM rged upon the Aldrich bill in Congress and which was found pertinent enough to necessi¬ tate an amendment in. that respect, was one made as fo the issue-by savings banks of credit-money based on rail¬ road securities. "It may be the entering wedge for the acceptance of undesirable bonds as securities for note issue," and "there are recent examples in the laws of New York State legalizing such bonds for savings banks," was the language of criticism used—decisive to kill the proposition in the national councils, scathing in its satire of New York local legislation. Again, a report of a New York savings bank, quoted a few days afterward, that it was a loser to the tirne of $200,000 by its investments in Alton or some other similar railroad bonds, was a fitting climax to the . criticism! And what, after all, has been the good of it (for the patron or depositor of the local savings banks ■throughout the State)? What used to be a system of stimulating' home trade in realty, a strong arm for the ■ farmer, to lean' on when private necessity or greed "called in the mortgage on the farm," and an always efiicient local . real estate and financial, pulse, has now become a mere feeder throughout the State for the grist mill of the "Street." With no present purpose .to criticise WaU Street, or its always urgent needs, or to inveigh against the much bela¬ bored System which has turned banks of note discount into banks of collateral loan, turned private banking houses into trust companies for the utilization in finance of both sides of a dollar, converted the country banks into feeders, and the savings banks into railroad bond investors, yet we do think, if mortgage on realty is ever to have a futu're agaio, and the charity settlements a rest, savings banks must be . turned back to some form of investment of use to the local - resident, and the growth of the immigrant census at Castle Garden (for this year at least) cut back a few inches. NEXT MONDAY the Public Service Commission will aC- vertise for bids on the construction of the projected Fourth Avenue Subway in Brooklyn as the next necessary ■ proceeding imder the resolution to build on this route at - the expense oC the municipal corporation. While the case is by no means closed and every chance of defeating the ■project eliminated, yet the probabilities seem to favor tlie prediction that the Board of Estimate will eventually ratify the contracts when about to be awarded and will find a way of meeting the cost of constructing some portion of the line, and that the work will be actually started. Several con¬ trary things, including injunctions, may intervene, but among men who have followed the proceedings closely the weight of opinion favors the assumption that the Borough of Brooklyn will have its way in this case through to the end, as it has thus far. Private capital would not undertake to build, but the prophecy is that it will be ready enough to operate the road upon completion, as in the meantime a very large development will arise in the attractive sections of Bay Ridge, Fort Hamilton, Bath Beach and BensonhuTst, through which the route is laid, as well as in old Brooklyn,— in consequence of the new rapid transit conveniences. Mani¬ festly, the primal consideration with some of the interests behind the scheme is a subway construction started. A fin- TIME and again, when those who in a professional capacity have sought to cash some country mortgage for a client, have said in reply to oft-granted requests for further time in which to replace the loan, "'why don't you go to your local savings bank?" the reply has been, "Oh, our savings bank don't loan any more on mortgages much; they buy railroad boridsdown in New York." Now, we are of those who believe the world wiil go all right in its appointed course if let alone, and needs but little legislation or medi¬ cine to keep it straight; and that even whefl the axe is laid at the foot of the tree, to change the metaphor, the tree will ultimately even grow round the blade, and go on its way upward to fruition,—but we regret to see all roads lead to Rome—vernacular now for Wall Street—and would gladly see the balance of investment restored. Thus would- be rendered- unnecessary the protective union benevolent loan associations which now seek to meet the want formerly supplied by tbe local savings banks throughout the State. As in early days when neighbors in small ruTal hamlets joined shoulders to a barn-raising, impossible for one man, so through these loan associations have neighborhoods sought to pool their pennies month by month to enable each mem¬ ber in turn to build the home or addition, or pay off the incumbrances, which in former times the local savings bank was supposed to be there for, like the local bank of note- discount. Both still survive, but one at least has survived its usefulness, or a part thereof.