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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 84, no. 2155: July 3, 1909

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July 3, 1909 RECORD AND GUIDE SI V F?,nBI.ISllED r;T^ \ ESTABLISHED ^«\AR,CH£l^'^ 1868. DD^TEDlOl^LEsTATH.BtnLDlKG A,R.G>(lTECTiJnE.Ho^3nlOU)DECtaiATK»f. BiTsit/ESS At^Themes of Gi}i£T{ki If/iERESi., PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET Published Every Saturday By THE RECORD AJVD GUIDE CO. President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W. DODGE Vlce-Pres. & Genl. Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary, F. T. MILLER Nos. 11 to 15 East 24tb Street, New Vork City (Telephone, Madison Square, 4430 to 4433.) "Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y.. aa second-class matter." Copyrigliied, 1900, by The Record & Guide Co. Vol. LXXXIV. JULY 3, 3909. No. 23 55 THE prominent property owners in Twenty-third street have done well to form an association for the pro¬ tection and assertion of their peculiar local interests. Of late years Twenty-third street has suffered from the compe¬ tition of Fifth avenue and of Thirty-fourth street, and no longer occupies the supreme position it used to occupy in the hierarchy of cirosstown streets. Moreover, the tendency is still northwards, and if it is to be counteracted, energetic and decisive measures must be taken to make Twenty-third street more available both for retail trade and for general business purposes. We believe that the widening of Fifth avenue, while it is intended for the benefit of shopkeepers on that thoroughfare, will, also, be beneficial to Twenty-third street, because it will enable carriages and motor-cars to reach that street with less delay. But in this matter the property owners in Twenty-third street should not only profit from the improvement of Fifth avenue but should learn a lesson from the example. The roadway of Twenty- third street Js wretchedly congested, particularly during win¬ ter snow storms, while the sidewalks are unnecessarily wide. If five feet were taken from the sidewalks and added to the roadway from Lexington to Eighth avenue, the retail trade of all these blocks would be considerably benefited. The other great need of Twenty-third street is the establishment of an express subway" station at that point. The amount of business transacted in the vicinity of Madison Square makes it extremely desirable that the express trains on the Lexing¬ ton avenue subway should stop thereabouts. At least one express station is essential to the business prosperity of every important crosstown street. The existing subway provides for the needs of Fourteenth and Forty-second streets. The Lexington avenue subway should have express stations at Twenty-third, Fifty-ninth and One Hundred and Twenty-fifth streets. The Seventh avenue subway will naturally have an express station at Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth streets. The new association of Twenty-third street property-owners should immediately begin agitating in favor of such a dis¬ tribution of express stations. THE real estate market has, during the present season, maintained an unusual degree of activity until a very late date; and this fact indicates plainly the vitality of the economic forces, whereby this activity has been caused. Al¬ together it has been one of the most remarkable bursts of speculative trading ever witnessed during a similar period in New York City. A year ago when all kinds of business were just beginning to recover from the effects of the panic, the Record and Guide predicted that in Manhattan the first outbreak of renewed speculative interest would be shown by a buying movement on the margin of the new wholesale and business district between Twenty-third and Fiftieth streets. Never has a prediction been more abundantly justified. Not only have a great many purely speculative purchases been made in this section, but there has been an extraordinary number of sites sold for immediate improvement. In a few months the whole aspect of Fourth avenue from Eight¬ eenth to Thirty-second street has been changed. The al¬ teration of Madison avenue north of Twenty-sixth street Into a business thoroughfare has been definitely begun. Several new buildings have been started on Fifth avenue and there are indications of an outbreak of activity in the near future on Sixth avenue. In addition there has been an enormous amount of scattered activity in the side streets. The worst aspect of the movement is that it is taking place partly at the expense of the old wholesale district south of Fourteenth street, but the best aspect of it is its permanent and whole¬ some character. At bottom it is based upon the fact that hereafter the business carried on in Manhattan instead of being distributed along a line, will radiate from a centre'— as it dees in other large cities. Of course the financial district ivill remain iu its present location; and of course, the whole area south of Fourteenth street and west of Broad¬ way will remain of the utmost commercial importance. But it is inevitable that hereafter the great increase in business will be centralized in the middle district, and that it will radiate from this centre to the east and the west as well as to the north. The steady process of expansion exclusively to the north, which has up to the present time characterized the business growth of Manhattan will be checked by the bridges and tubes, which are tieing Manhattan to New Jer¬ sey and Long Island, and the people living on the other side of the two rivers will want to transact their business and gather their amusements somewhere near the point at which they board or leave their trains in Manhattan. Roughly speak¬ ing, (he business center of the future New York will be Gree¬ ley Square; and good testimony to the general appreciation of this fact was afforded by the recent sale of the old site of the Union Dime Savings Bank at a figure stated to be over $350 a square foot. Lucky are those business men who secured a situation on or near this square at the prices which pre¬ vailed a few years ago. T N VIEW of the enormous business importance which Gree- ■^ ley Square is destined to have, nothing could be less convenient and less congruous than its layout. It is by all odds the worst-looking, most congested and least impres¬ sive square in Manhattan. Even Times Square, al¬ though laid out upon substantially the same plan is both better-looking and more convenient, because it is not tra¬ versed by an elevated road. There is not the slightest prospect, moreover, that anything can be done to improve it. What is needed is more space, and a plan that would per¬ mit the traffic to circle around the square instead of intersect¬ ing it. But considering the prices now p"revailing, and the buildings which are being or have been erected thereon, not even New York City could afford to buy the land necessary to do away with the present and prospective congestion. Seven years ago when the Pennsylvania company first began to build, the Record and Guide drew attention to the pros¬ pective business importance of Greeley Square, and to the necessity of providing more space for the coming increase to business and traffic. If the city had possessed at that time the legal powei- and the prudence to purchase the real estate within a radius of several hundred feet of the Square, it could have made enough money from the sale of the land, which it did not need,'more than to pay for the whole im¬ provement. But it is too late now, and the fact that the opportunity was neglected at that time will not only be very annoying, hereafter, to the people of New York, but it will diminish the business prosperity of the Square itself. All sorts of devices will have to be used in order to get rid of the congestion. Both subways and bridges will be pressed into service to take care of the traffic, but in the end business will simply be obliged to go elsewhere, because it cannot be conveniently transacted in that vicinity. THE West Side Taxpayers' Association in the last issue of the Record and Guide put up a very strong argu¬ ment on behalf of the early consideration by the Public Ser¬ vice Commission of the needs of the West Side for addi¬ tional means of rapid transit. Assuming that it was neces¬ sary to make a choice between the East and the West Side, the Public Service Commission was unquestionably right in arranging first for a Lexington avenue subway. The enor¬ mous population to the East of Central Park is in greater need of an express subway service than are the inhabitants of any other part of Manhattan. But after their needs have been satisfied, the Commission will have to face' tile problem of West Side transit. The lower West Side will then be the only district of Manhattan wholly unprovided with thoroughly modern means of communication; and it stands to reason that something will have to be done to meet the legitimate demands of the property-owners in that vicinity. Whether a new West Side subway will extend north of Forty-second street as is recommended by the association is a more doubtful matter. The idea has been hitherto that the existing subway would be carried on south from Forty- second street along Seventh avenue, and that only some years