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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 87, no. 2239: February 11, 1911

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February ii, 1911. RECORD AND GUIDE 349 ^ ESTABDSHED ^ C^ftRCH £1^1^ 1868. Dev&teD p r^L Estate . Bui ldijIg ^cKiTEeTURE .HouseiIoid DegoratioiJ. Btrsn/Ess f^tb Thewes of GEffeRfil Wteresi, PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communleations should be addressed to C. W- SWEET Pablished Every Saturday By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO. President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W. DODGE Vlce-Pres. & Genl, Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary. P. T. MILLER Nos. 11 to 15 East Situ Street, New Tork City (Telephone, Madison Square. 4430 to 4433.) "Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter." (■opsrighted, 1911. by The Keeord & Qnide Co. Vol. LXXXVIL FEBRUARY 11. 1911. No- 2239 THE PASSING CRISIS. DESPITE the extraordmary emigration to Long Islanci and New Jersey last year, the vacancies In the apart¬ ment houses on Manhattan Island are fully ten per cent, less than a year ago. This is the estimate of good authori¬ ties. There is a considerable percentage of vacancies still, but it is steadily decreasing under present policies. For builders and operators in apartment houses conditions are, consequently, much improved over a year ago, so far as the aggregate of all tbe particulars is concerned. For, tlie pro¬ portion of vacancies does not extend equally through all grades of apartmeuts. It is a remarkable fact that iu houses which by reason of their location, their elegance and their exclusiveness are rated highest, comparatively few vacancies are to he found. There also are intermediate levels iu the scale of costs, and also intermediate locations, where excep¬ tions must he made aud building opportunities can be found. During the year 1910 whatever shock the real-estate Inter¬ ests of Manhattan Borough sustained from the opening of great traffic tunnels, bridges, subways and other sluice gates for congested population, must have culminated, and passed Its meridian, ou the theory of anticipation exceeding expecta¬ tion. For years Manhattan real-estate interests had antici¬ pated a serious declension in consequence of an enormous emigration from the island that would attend the installation during the period of 1903-1910 of the biggest series oC traf¬ fic Improvements ever invented for depleting the population of a civic center. One of the very foremost men in suburban development warned the Record and Guide that Manhattan would be depopulated. But old New York stood the "shock" aud to some extent thrived on it. While the Bronx and Yonkers were getting their subways, Mauhattan realized as her share the wonderful building movements in apartment houses on Washington Heights and Morningside; and while New Jersey and Long Island were getting their several tun¬ nels and bridges, central Manhattan obtained its New Fifth Avenue, its New Fourth Avenue and, in a word, the New Mid- town Business District. If the "worst" is over, the old bor¬ ough must be rather sorry than otherwise. The only remain¬ ing interurban traffic lines of note to be completed are the Belmont tunuel and the Subway extension iu Brooklyn, if the new electric express line to New Rochelle aud White Plains is not counted. Builders have now only to exercise a little patience aud a little judgment in respect to types and locali¬ ties. Instead of building promiscuously, in order to pass through the remainder of the crisis successfully. THE SMALLER TENEMENTS. THE probability of a general resumption, eventually, of the construction of small tenement houses on Manhat¬ tan Island is stronger than it was; both because the tech¬ nical position ol the market is improving and because a type of house fairly profitable for builders and real estate operators seems to be in process of evolution. By the smaller class of tenements we mean those which are pos¬ sible and suitable for construction on inside plots in lateral streets of ordinary width. Among the men of controlling influence in this field the opinion is growing that the six- story non-elevator house is the economic expedient that will be employed to revive small tenement-house work when the existing vacancies are filled. Houses of this bind would not only be suitable on original sites in the northern part of the island, hut also on old sites ou the far East Side, where rows of small private dweUings still remain. For some years now comparatively few tenement or apartment houses without elevators have been erected in Manhattan, and for a while it seemed as if no more ever would be. Almost nothing hut elevator houses of fine c[uality have been built in the borough since the panic of 1907. With the pass¬ ing of tlje pinching times and also with the moderating of suburban booms, Lhe percentage of overfiow from the island is lessening, and it is believed that there will in the next year or so be a real demand for apartments at rates ouly possible in nou-elevator houses,—a demand which Manhat¬ tan builders will feel called upon to meet. In the superior locations, as on the lateral streets of the West Side of the city, it is becoming certain that the eight-story elevator house will be largely constructed. "As a builder's proposi¬ tion," said a large oj.Derator this week, "it answers the same purpose as the twelve-story house." But the hour has not yet struck for a general resumption of apartment house construction iu Manhattan. The coming season will rather be more notable for the erection of business, public aud institutional buildings. COMPETITION IN SUBWAYS. ONE of tbe arguments which the advocates of subway competition at any cost have urged most persistently depends on the assertion that in any event the Interborough Company would be obliged to build au upper East Side aud a lower West Side Subway. Such extensious are supposed to be necessary to a rounding out of the Interborough system, aud Mr. Belmont's company will be forced to construct them with its own credit. As to the confident prediction that such a course will be adopted, the Record and Guide is not in¬ clined to offer any opinion. It might be that the direc¬ tors of the company would under such circumstances refuse to invest any more money in New York rapid transit. They might'well argue that if the city administration has decided to discriminate against them and turn down their proposal, no matter what its advantages in favor of an independent Subway, they could not count upon fair treatment iu the fu¬ ture. The city would be investing so much money in an in¬ dependent Subway that necessarily it would thereafter con¬ tinue to strengthen the Triborough system and to discrimi¬ nate against the Interborough Co. in all its subsequent ar¬ rangements. Why, then, should not the company simply stand pat, and he content with the large profits it is now making? But let us assume that the arguments of the Tri¬ borough advocates are well founded, and that the Interbor¬ ough Co. would construct a Madison aud Seventh avenue Subway by the use of their own credit. What would be the economic consequence of such an action? In the first place, it would mean that the $200,000,000 or more borrowed for the construction of the competing subways would be raised at greatly increased cost. The city's money would probably cost 14 of one per cent. more. The company's money would cost probably % per cent. more. The cost of borrowing and amortizing the $200,000,000 would be increased ou the aver¬ age by one per cent, or more a year, or by something like $100,000,000, before the securities were paid off. This huge sum would have to be contributed by the New York travel¬ ing public. It would come out of the profits ou these sub¬ ways, which, hereafter, are to be shared by the city; aud this diminution of subway profits would also serve to make the money borrowed for additional subway extensions more costly. Furthermore, the construction of a Madison avenne line would mean that the City's subway would be pai'alleled throughout the most profitable part of its route, and that the traffic would not for many years be anything like as dense as it is on the existing subway. Iu short, the imme¬ diate coustruction of the Interborough extensions would in¬ crease the cost and diminish the income of the independent subway; and this result would be so necessary, so obvious, that the very men who are now claiming that the Inter¬ borough would build anyway, would be determined to pre¬ vent that company from building-—as soon as an indepen¬ dent subway was once under construction. THE ROOT OF THE QUESTION. IT is worth while dwelling on the considerations sug¬ gested in the preceding paragraph, because they go to tlie root of the whole question. The argument in favor of a unified rapid transit system is hased absolutely on the economy of such a policy, and considerations of economy ought to be conclusive. Any subways that are constructed, either with the City's credit or by private credit will eveut-