Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 87, no. 2238: February 4, 1911

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February 4, 1911. RECORD AND GmDE 199 ESTABUSHED^ M,ftRCH 21'J> 1668. "de/oteD p Re\L Estate . Bui LDI^fc AR.afiiEcruRE ,h[oiisnioLD DECORATiotJ. B^fsl^iESS AtJoThemes of Gej^eraI Interest. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Gommunications should be addreaaed to C. W. SWEET Published Every Saturday By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO. Presiaent. CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W, DODGE Vice-Pres. & Geo!. Mgr,, H. W. DESMOND Secretary, P, T, MILLER Nos. 11 to 15 East 24tb Street, Kew York City (TelepLone. Madison Square, 4430 to 4133.) "Entered at the Post Oifice at Ncic York, N. Y., as second-class ir^r.rr." {■opyrightGd. 1911. by Tlia Eeeord & Gaida Co. Vol. LXXXVIL FEBRUARY 4. 1911. No. 223S GREENWICH VILLAGE REALTY. FOR the last year there has heen a gradually inci-easiiig amount of activity in business property in Greenwich village, and no minor movement which hag recently taken place in Manhattan real estate has run a more natural course or is better justified. It has. not been accompanied by any blowing ot" horns or by any considerable increase in speculative prices. Indeed, if any such increase had taken place the movement would probably have come to a sudden end. It has been based on the fact that property available for business occupation can be purchased cheaper in the Greenwich district than can similiarly desirable property else¬ where in Manhattan. There is no room, consequently, for any great speculative profit. Business firms who are per¬ suaded to buy or lease in that neighborhood must be offered the inducement of comparatively low land values, because under prevailing conditions they would scarcely settle in a relatively inaccessible district on any other terms. It is they, consequently, who are reaping the advantage of the current activity. They are getting a good location for their ware¬ houses and factories without paying as large a profit to specu¬ lative operators as is usually the case with similar trans¬ actions in Manhattan real estate. Moreover, the business men who are moving into this district will have a good deal to gain hereafter from their forehandedness. Greenwich vil¬ lage will never be a worse location for a factory or a ware¬ house than it is at present; and within a few years it will probably in every way be a much more accessible and de¬ sirable location. The extension of Seventh Avenue will open it up for vehicular traflic; and the Seventh Avenue Subway will tie it close to the other business and the residential parts of the city. A certain increase in real estate values is sure to result. Any business firm which could occupy profitably a location in that part of the city should do so within the next year or two, and in this way obtain the advantage of the raoi'e favorable conditions under which business will be transacted thereabouts after the proposed street and transit improvements are completed. BORROWING CAPACITY. AFTER witnessing the effect upon the minds of certain people of an increased assessed value of real estate amounting to almost $900,000,000, one begins to believe more than ever before in the virtue of establishing a fixed limit to the borrowing capacity of the city. It seems to be assumed by the advocates of a competitive Subway system at any cost that the power of tbe city to borrow an addi¬ tional $90,000,000 for transit purposes constitutes a valid argument for taking advantage of that power. None of these gentlemen appear to realize that the issue of such a cart¬ load of additional securities would severely strain the credit of the city; and this strain would only be the greater in case the expense of an independent Subway system could be bor¬ rowed within five years instead of being spread over ten. The increase in the borrowing capacity of the city help's the argument in favor of competition at any cost, in the sense that it enables the advocates of this policy to promise the immediate construction of the Bronx and Brooklyn connec¬ tions of the Broadway-Lexington Avenue route; but, of course, it only increases the force of the objection to any such extravagant waste of the city's credit. The city is now borrowing at the rate of $50,000,000 or $60,000,000 a year, and it is obliged to pay 4^4: per cent, for its money. Its ordinary demands during the next five years will be equal to the larger of the two sums mentioned above. If, in addi¬ tion, it is obliged to borrow $40,000,000 a year for Subway construction, there is no telling how high a rate of interest would be charged by tbe money market—particularly in view of the fact that tbe whole conservative banking community w'ould regard with grave misgivings the risk which would be Incurred by such an adventure. This consideration has not bulked very large in the current discussions ot" the Subway problem, but it seems of paramount importance to the Record and Guide. It would increase the cost ot an inde¬ pendent system over that of a co-operative system by many millions; it would increase the cost of all other city improve¬ ments, and in any estimate of the comparative economy of the two policies it should be duly weighed. A competitive system would be costly, not merely because it is expensively planned, not merely because it would duplicate existing means of communication, not merely because it would exact double fares from millions of passengers, but because the money needed for its construction would be loaded with at least one-quarter of one per cent, additional interest charge. THE GENERAL TREND. RBPORTS from building contractors are now to the gen¬ eral effect that they have many more building plans to figure than a month ago. The plans filed in Manhattan Borough since the first of the year represent an appropria¬ tion exceeding hy 60 per cent, tbe sum involved in the plans filed in the corresponding weeks last year. In The Bronx, projects enough were announced last fall to keep the build¬ ers busy for a long time, and the Borough of Queens, which now claims the activites of many operators once prom¬ inent in Brooklyn, will break all records for construction this year. All the indications are that the spring building season will open vigorously with small work in the suburbs, and that later on there will be a formidable array of large work in Manhattan to engage the trades very generally. Not only is there a better state of building facts than a year ago, but a highly improved state of public mind. In the real estate market, star transactions are becoming numerous enough to warrant a prediction of general revival not long hence. Experts in fundamental building materials, such as structural steel, expect a large business to develop in April, and the rising prices of steel securities reflect this opinion. Building costs are again low, compared with the level of five years ago. The receding cost of living is helping to tone up the public spirit, and all the signs of the times are that the corner has been turned, tbe nadir of business depression rounded by the star of hope. In a more particular way, it can be said that never before in this city were there so many contracts for vast operations coming on at once. Think of an era in which there will be under construction buildings of the immensity and quality of the Municipal Building, the main portion of the Grand Central Depot, a new General Post Offlce, an office building that will overtop any building in the world, another almost as tall, a great hotel, a Masonic Temple, two church edifices of the finest quality, a great high- school, half a dozen office buildiugs of the first magnitude, besides a score of apartment houses of the first rank. And this is referring only to those erections which dent the sky¬ line or bulk large against the horizon. Business,views are shaped not by star projects merely, but by an unaccountable number of events tending in the same direction. From all, it is a fair deduction that when this winter is past the building trades will be entering a new era of good times. A HUDSON RIVER BRIDGE LESS CERTAIN. THE proposition before the States of New York and New Jersey of either bridging or tunneling tbe Hudson River has been narrowed down by the investigations of the past year to one possibility, and this hy reason of having its cost increased by one hundred per cent, is that much less a probability. A single-span bridge at 59th street is the conclusion that the Interstate Commission has reached, and the one span will cost double the sum that was esti¬ mated for a bridge having two spans. The latter has been found impossible because of there being no foundation for a pier in the middle of the stream. A tunnel to match the bridge in capacity would cost as much and yet not serve the purpose of a bridge. So large would the members of this structure have to be and so unprecedented the work in all respects, its cost cannot be estimated from present data. At one time the cost of a bridge having but a single span be¬ tween the two shores was considered prohibitive, but as the