Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 81, no. 2096 [i.e. 2097]: May 23, 1908

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May 23, 1908 RECORD AND GUIDE 955 ^t usiir^ififia. H 21*^^1869, Dented pj r^L EswE.BuiLDijfc ^^rrEerunE ,t{ousEKou) DECORAnoiI. Btfsn/ras AifcTHEHEsbf'uElfcl^&l iKrcflfM.; fWCB PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET PabllsAtd Every Saturdag By THE RECORD AND GUIDB CO. President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer. F. W. DODGE .Vice-Pres. Sc Genl. Mgr,, H. W. DESMOND Secretary. F. T, MILLER No». 11 to 15 East 24th Street, New York City (Telephone, Madison Square, 4430 to 4433.) "Entered at the Post Office at Nrio York, N. J., «s second-class mailer." Copyrighted, 1908. by Th« Record & Guide Co, Side route at Broadway and Porty-second street, ,and; rimning do-wn Seventh avenue, could be planned so as, to have a station at Seventh avenue and Thirty-second., street, and an underground connection could easily be, planned with the Pennsylvania and Long Island stations. In arranging for the distribution and collection of these 250,0 0 0 or more daily travelers, it is of the utmost im¬ portance that the connection with the rapid transit systeni, of the city should be made with every possible convenience, and celerity. A delay of several minutes, such as would be necessary in the absence of a Seventh avenue subway, would mean a corresponding loss of business for shops and places of amuseraent situated all over the city, and it would increase by just so much the cost of transacting busi¬ ness in Manhattan. Of course both Mr. McDonald and Mr. liea have special interests to serve, when tbey insist on the necessity of a Seventh avenue subway; but iu this instance the special interest of the corporations they represent co¬ incides with the inierest and the necessities of the traveling public of New York. Vol. LXXXL MAT 23, 190S. No. 2096. A5AIN are the finances of the City of New York in a very serious condition. The ability of the city to borrow iuoney is more restricted at the present time than it has beeu at any period in the history of New York. The debt margin amounts to only a little over $1,000,000. On July I it will be increased by about if 40,000,000, but this increase will provide only a temporary relief. Practically the whole of this sum will be required to carry on the important pub¬ lic works which have already been started; and account must be taken of the probability that during the next year the ificrease in the real estate valuation will not be much more than half what it is during the current year. Ap¬ parently severe measures of economy will be necessary for an indefinite period in order to make both ends meet. Every proposed improvement which can be postponed will have to be postponed, and the Board of Estimate will have to be very cautious about committing the city to any large new enterprises. There is no doubt, for instance, that under the circumstances the city cannot afford the money neces¬ sary for the Fourth Avenue subway iu Brooklyn. That subway should be re-advertised under the new law. If a private company can be found to build and operate it, it should be built at once; but if no such bidder is forthcom¬ ing, its construction should be postponed until a consti¬ tutional amendment is secured excluding stock issued for subway construction from being counted as part of the net debt of the city. It is evident, however, that measures of economy, while they will relieve the temporary crisis, will not meet the permanent situation. Manifestly the increase in borrowing capacity derived from the annual increase in the assessed valuation of real estate will not be sufficient to provide the city with the money it needs for necessary improvements. Since 1902 New York has spent not only every dollar provided by the increase in the assessed valua¬ tion, but more than $100,000,000 besides; and out of all this money a very small proportion was used for transit purposes. Consequently, even if a constitutional amend¬ ment is passed placing stock issued for transit purposes " in the same class as stock issued to pay for the new acque¬ duet, the city will still be unable to borrow as much money as it needs. In the long run the assessed valuation of real estate wili increase even more rapidly, but so will the needs of the city for expensive improvements. What is to be done? Surely some raeans should be taken to raeet in an adequate way a situation which promises to be permanently critical. This serious problem should receive attention from the Charter Revision Comraission. OPPOSITION seems to be gathering to the Broadway- Lexington Avenue route, as projected by the Public Service Coraraission. Vice-President Rea, of the Pennsyl¬ vania Railroad Co., has joined Mr, ,Jobn B. McDonald in pro¬ testing against the fact tbat the proposed route does not provide any subway for the lower West Side. The 250,000 passengers, who wiil hoard and leave the Pennsylvania and Long Island, trains at Seventh avenue and. Thirty-second street wiil have to depend for access to the stalion upon the surface cars or the elevated roads, and, in any event, will be obliged to walk a block or two in order to find any sufficient means of transit;, and it is perfectly obvious that tliis irapprtent center of traffic should be connected with the subway system as closely as ■ Is the (3rand Central Station." A subway, connecting with the upper West THE great argument in favor of a Broadway subway is, of course, that the line of Broadway is the line of densest trafflc. This argument undoubtedly has great force, A subway must eventually be built ou Broadway, no less than on Seventh avenue. The projected..Broadway^Lexing.- tou Avenue,route does not, however, use the line of Broad¬ way to the best advantage. It connects lower Broadway with the upper East Side; whereas it would be far more convenient to connect lower Broadway with the upper West Side. At the same time it avoids entirely that very im¬ portant part of Broadway between Fourteenth and Porty- second streets. The Record and Guide has always claimed (and we see no reason to abandon the claim) that a Broad¬ way subway should be used chiefly for local traffic. All along its line the business population is so dense, and the local centers of trafflc so numerous, that a subway with stations every four blocks and no express tracks would provide the public with service raost needed. The thorough¬ fare is not wide enough for more than three tracks, and all those three tracks should be used to make as many points as possible along the line available for discharging and receiving passengers. When the time comes a most useful subway couid be constructed up Broadway as far north as Thirty-fourth 'street.. Prom that point it could turn into Sixth avenue and continue to the Central Park. It could be connected by a subway across Fifty-ninth street with the Blackwell's Island Bridge, and, by means of other cross- town subways, with the express services on the east and west sides. An underground road along the line described above, pierced by as many stations as possible, would de¬ velop more traffic per mile than the proposed Broadway- Lexington Avenue route, and would be a far more logical outgrowth of the plan of Manhattan, The time has not come for its construction; but it could be begun with profit as soon as a lower West Side and an upper East Side extension are finished. THE friends of the Broadway-Lexington Avenue route answer the advocates of a lower West Side subway by the assertion that such a subway will be built in the fulness of time; but this answer is not sufficient. To be sure a lower West Side subway must be built in the course of tirae, because its construction is demanded by the con¬ venience of the traveling public. The point is, however, that the construction of the Broadway-Lexington Avenue route will postpone a subway, which is immediately neces¬ sary in favor of one which is not immediately necessary. South of Forty-second street the projected route parallels the existing subway and merely divides traffic which can be handled by one subway among two subways. It inter¬ feres with the construction of a lower West Side subway just because it wastes upon a competing line money which should be spent upon a non-competing line. . At any one time only a certain number of subways will pay; and tho only way to obtain the early construction of the. largest possible addition to the transit system of the borougii is to plan subways which interfere and compete as little as possible one with another. A Lexington avenue connection wilh the existing subway for the upper East Side, and a Seventh avenue connection for the lower West Side, would provide the maximum accommoilation for lhe public at a minimum expense; whereas a Broadway-Lexington Avenue route leaves the lower West Side wholly neglected, and at the same time burdens-the whole subway system of Man.-