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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 82, no. 2111: August 29, 1908

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August 29, 190S RECORD AND GUIDE 417 ESTABUSHED^ MJWpH 21^^^ 1968. De^teD td Rf\L Estate , B^llLDT^'G AjiCi^iTECTUHE ,KousEaou) Deoo^jtmiI, Btfsit/Ess Alto Themes of CeSer^I ll/TtR.EsT., PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET PublisfJed Every Saturday By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO. PreEident. CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W. DODQB Vioe-Pres. Sc Genl, Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary, P. T, MILLER Nos. 11 to 15 East 24th Street, New York City (Telephone, Madison Square, 4430 to 4433.) ( "Entered at tlie Post Office at New Tork, N. 7., as second-class matter." Copyrighted, 1008, by The Record & Guide Co. Vol. LXXXII. AUGUST 29, 1908. No. 2111. BUILDING operations in the last week of August are exhibiting more ability to move ahead than at any time this season. August, under metropolitan conditions, is always the nadir month, hut with the autumn close at hand business has already regained the strength !oSt in midsummer and has taken on more force than it had during the first part of July. The oncoming of new work is not manifest yet in every trade, hut rather in those which first take hold of new works, as the steel fabricators for city work, and the planing mills for suburban work. The structural steel interests ave getting a decided uplift. The fifty-three million dollars' worth of building projects scheduled in Manbattan alone since the first of the year (in comparison with sixtymillion scheduled during the same period last year) is beginning to make an impression on the trades. Everything came almost to a dead stop last winter, and it takes time for new work, and especially for the large operations which are now characteristic of Man¬ hattan, to gather momentum. The structural steel mem¬ bers of a bu'ilding are the first material for a skyscraper that the general contractor usually arranges for, and hence we have learned to look for the first signs of new force in actual operations to the structural steel interests. It is perceived that these are more active at the present time than for a year past. The railroads are also again enquirers and purchasers for bridge material. Large orders are becoming more fre¬ quent in several of the fundamental trades, as for example, the contract for over five million dollars' worth of cement, which came to the Atlas company this week from the Panama Canal works. It is the largest single order in the history of the cement trade, and is equivalent to the production of five thousand barrels a day for three years. Several of the East¬ ern cement mills are again running at a normal rate, and in this city the state of employment among cement masons is better, at this stage, than in any other building trade, eighty- five per cent of the union membership being at work. Last week announcement was made of the order for common brick for the terminal building of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the largest single contract of which there is any recollection in the trade. This week tenders were invited from builders ■ for the construction of the new Grand Central Depot Building. In the huilding trades, business flows, like water in an irri¬ gating ditch, through one line into another, successively, from all reports, the tide has turned. Money is easy to ob¬ tain at five per cent by trustworthy builders, which is a much lower rate than could be obtained earlier in the year, Brook¬ lyn is the only part of the city which gives evidence of an oversupply of housing; in Manhattan the fall months are ex¬ pected to provide tenants for most of the residuum of vacan¬ cies in residential apartments. Building costs are estimated to be close to twenty-five per cent lower than two years ago, and one favorable circumstance unites with another to bring back normal conditions in building affairs. T^HE recent report of the receivers of the New York City *■ Railway Company does not offer much encouragement on behalf of the early release of that system from the re¬ ceivers' hands. The deficit is so big that no reorganization can be undertaken until the receivers succeed either in de¬ creasing the expenses or increasing the income to a very considerable extent; and these two processes will occupy, in all probability, some years. The income can^be increased ODij' by providing ?>, better service, and by gradimHy su'i)- stituting pay-as-you-enter cars on all the important lines. But the effect of these measures will be necessarily very slow; and in all probability the receivers will not be able to equip more than one important line each year with proper rolling stock. As for the reduction of expenses, that will have to be brought about by pruning from the system those leased lines which are unprofitable, but in accomplishing this work all sorts of legal questions will arise, which cannot be settled for several years. It will be a long time, conse¬ quently, before the owners of Interborough-Metropolitan stock, or any of the underlying securities will know what their paper is really worth; and this will be an unfortunate result, because of its effect on the credit of the Interborough Company. That corporation cannot assume certain necessary responsibilities connected with the rapid transit improvement of New York so long as its credit re¬ mains bad, and its credit can hardly recover as long as it is tied up with such a hopelessly bankrupt coi-poration as tbe New York City Railway Company. As the financial condi¬ tion of that company is gradually becoming fully exposed, ■ the merger becomes on the part of the owners of the Inter¬ borough stock an utterly inexplicable act of financial folly. TDRIDGE COMMISSIONER STEVENSON has again called ■tJ attention to the fact that although both the Manhat¬ tan and the Blackwell's Island bridges will soon be opened for traffic, absolutely no plans have been made to render them useful. The investment of some $40,000,000 which the city has made in these two structures, and which will cost the taxpayers not less than $1,500,000 a year in interest alone, Is bound to lie idle for an indefinite period. Assuredly this is the kind of management which would throw a private corporation into bankruptcy; but it must be remembered that the elected municipal officials can hardly be held responsible. For twenty years and more the power to lay out transit routes has been lodged in the hands of a State Commission whose work could be vetoed by the local authorities, but could neither be modified nor accelerated. The Board of Estimate had the power, consequently, to build bridges, but it has had no power to provide the termini of those bridges with any adequate means of collecting and distributing the traffic. The failure to provide sufficient connections is the inevitable result of such divided jurisdiction and respon¬ sibility, and it is connected, of course, with the existing inability of New York to arrange for any kind or amount of additional rapid transit construction. No serviceable transit connections with the termini of the new bridges will be possible except as part of a much larger scheme of sub¬ way and elevated construction in Manhattan and on Long Island. In one respect, however, the Board of Estimate does possess full jurisdiction, and that is in the equally important matter of providing for a proper distribution of the surface traffic. The city bas preferred to build bridges at an enor¬ mous expense compared to tunnels, partly because a bridge couid carry more traffic, but also because a bridge became a part of the street system of the greater city. It can be used for surface traffic of all kinds, and it will be increasingly so used as business and population increase in both sides of the river. But the authorities have been as negligent in laying out our proper surface approaches to these bridges as they have been in supplying transit connections and with less excuse. The development of vehicular traffic in and about New York has made spacious street approaches more than ever necessary. Now that motor cars, both for business and for private purposes, are constantly becoming better and cheaper, a huge increase of vehicular traffic during the next ten years has become inevitable. Thousands of men who travel today in the cars will, a decade hence, do their moving about exclusively in automobiles, and this will be particu¬ larly the case with business and professional men whose affairs demand frequent journeys between Manhattan and Long Island. The movement of this traffic and its develop¬ ment would be enormously facilitated by some adequate scheme of surface approaches, and it will not be long before the laying out of such a scheme will be absolu'tely necessary. .'T^HE possibility that Mr. Hughes may remain Governor .■■ for another two years has its obvious consequences upon the rapid transit situation in this city. His re-election would definitely close any possible prospect of the construc¬ tion of new subways by private capital. The Governor ve¬ toed the bill passed at the last session of the Legislatm-e which offered capitalists great inducements to build the additional Manhattan subways, so grievously needed, and Should a similar bill be passed at the next session, it would