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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 87, no. 2251: May 6, 1911

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May 6, 1911. RECORD AND GUIDE 837 DEvbTEBpf^lESTflJE.BuiLDIffe A;F^G}frrEemJRE,K0USQl01DDEeaElATK)ll, Bifsn/ESs AffoTiiEMES OF GEjto^L IMtefiesi^ PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communications should he addressed to C. W. SWEET "Published EVery Saturday By THE RECORD AND GUIDE CO. President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W. DODGE Vice-Pres. fi Genl. Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary, F. T. MILLER Nos. 11 to 15 East 34th Street, New Tork City (Telephone, Madison Square, 4430 to WSS.) "Entered at the Post Office at New York, ,V. Y.. as second-class matter." Copyrighted, 1911, by The Record & Guida Co. Vol. LXXXVL MAY 6, 1911. No. 2251 DESTINY OF PARK AVENUE. ONE of the most encouraging aspects of the real estate market recently has been the unceasing interest in apartment house coustruction. A number of large plots have heen sold for improvement on Washington Heights aud its neighhorhood. Several builders and operators are actively engaged in accumulating sites for improvement on the side streets west of Central Park. Finally, there are signs of renewed interest in similar construction on the East Side. A peculiar instance of this kind has been the purchase of a plot in 40th street near Park avenue as the site of a new apartment house. This particular neighborhood is undoubt¬ edly one of the pleasantest and most convenient residential districts in Manhattan, and it has of late years rather in¬ creased than diminished its popularity in this respect. Nevertheless, it looks like a doubtful place in which to invest several hundred thousand dollars in a fireproof apart¬ ment house. It seems inevitable that Parli avenue from 42d street soutli will within a decade be swallowed up by business after the New York Central has finished its Ter¬ minal. Park avenue will be a thoroughfare aud a noisy one at that. Business is pushing up from the south and over from the west. The life of an apartment house in such a neighborhood wil! be limited to only a few years. There¬ after it might be turned into a hotel, if planned with that contingency in mind, but a small hotel is rarely a profitable enterprise in New York. The purchasers of the plot on 40th street should consider carefully the probable status of their investment in 1921. DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION. THE last issue of thePecord aud Guide contained a very interesting map of the possible distribution of population in New York thirty years from now. The map showed the existing districts of population in the flve boroughs, which varied between 166 per acre in Manhattan and 36 per acre iu Brooklyn to 4 per acre iu Queens and 2 per acre in Rich¬ mond. At the prevailing rate of increase in the different Boroughs there will be added over 4,800,000 inhabitants to the city during the next thirty-years, and of these Man¬ hattan would get 955,000, the Bronx 1,370,000, Brooklyn 1,737,000, Queens 737,000 and Pichmoud 33,000. In that case the total population of Manhattan would be about 3,300,000, 234 inhabitants to the acre; of Brooklyn 3,371,- 000 or 75 to the acre; of the Bronx 1,881,000 or 69 to the acre; of Queens 1,121,000 or 15 to the acre; and of Rich¬ mond 119,000 or 3^ to the acre. Obviously however, there will be hereafter a very decided change in the rates of in¬ crease in the several Boroughs. After another fifteen years the population of Manhattan may well become stationary, if indeed it does not begin to diminish, and both B'rooklyu and Queens are likely to gain not only at the expense of Man¬ hattan but also at the expense of the Bronx. But whatever changes are likely to take place the transit policy of the city should undoubtedly be deliberately to favor a uniform distribution of population. The great object of the city government in this respect should, both for economic and social reasons, be to obtain for the inhabitants of the city a maximum of light, air and space for a given expenditure in rent, and undoubtedly one of the greatest advantages of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company's proposal is that it would accelerate the process of distributing the increasing population of New York more evenly. Of course it would be of much greater beneflt to Brooklyn than it would either to the Bronx or Queens, but it would make a good beginning in those two Boroughs and it holds out hopes even for Rich¬ mond. It is a fair guess that thirty years from now the population of Manhattan will not be much more than 2,700,- 000, th£\t the population of the Bronx will be about 1,800,000 that the population of Brooklyn wili be about 3,000,000 and that the population of Queens will be about 2,000,000. Whatever increase Richmond may make will have to come off these totals, but eveu with a tunnel under the Narrows the growth of Richmond will be slow compared to that of tlie more accessible Boroughs. SUBWAY NEGOTIATIONS. AT the present writing it looks as if the subway decision would be favorable to the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, and so far as the comparative claims of the two competing corporations have been made public, the Brooklyn Company's proposal is undoubtedly more favorable to tho city. The proposition of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company will give the city morei rapid transit for its money than any proposition which has yet been made. It includes all the new construction proposed by the Inter¬ borough Company, and it adds these to certain desirable ad¬ ditional lines iu Brooklyn and Queens and the extremely de¬ sirable Broadway-Seventh avenue line in Manhattan, The city will have to put up more money; but it will get a good deal more rapid transit. The advantage of all transfers be¬ tween the new Subways and the old Subway would be great¬ er to the travelling public than the free transfers, which will be obtaiued under the offer of the Brooklyn Company, but this difference, considerable as it is, is not worth the price demanded by the Interborough Company. Up to date that corporation has as usual botched its business and alienated public sympathy. In case it recedes from its posi¬ tion and will permit the granting of the Broadway-Seventh avenue route to the Brooklyn Company, the Record and Guide would still favor the grant to it of the remaining Subway extensions, but in the matter of that requirement there can be no compromise, THE INTERBOROUGH FOREWARNED. ONE cannot help wondering whether the Interborough Company fully realises the inevitable consequences oE allowing the Brooklyn Company to capture the new Subways, Such an outcome of the present negotiation would mean practically that in the case of all future extensions the city would have a plain interest in favoring its new tenant. The new system would be absolutely under municipal control and would be a source of proflt, and the city would be ob¬ livious to its own interest in case its paramount object did not become the strengthening of the new group of Subways. The result will be that as soon as the Subways now planned are in profitable operation a West Side subway probably on Seventh aveuue and Eighth avenue will assuredly be laid out. Little by little the whole of the Interborough system will be paralleled until it will become a comparatively unim¬ portant factor in the Metropolitan rapid transit situation. Every additional line, connecting as it would with a much larger system of Subways, would be preferred by the public, wherever there is any competition to a line of the Inter¬ borough Company, and iu the long run it would be completely isolated and its traffic actually reduced. If, for instance, the proposed contract is made with the Brooklyn Company, the city would be unwise to allow the Interborough Company to make any improvements to the elevated roads. Third tracks on these roads would be only makeshifts and would be of little permanent benefit. They would none the less have serious disadvantages from the point of view of a new rapid transit system under complete municipal control. The franchises would be perpetual; the returns to the city very small; and yet their granting would tend to diminish the traffic on the new system of Subways. For these reasons the city would be foolish to enter into any such arrangement with the Interborough Company. The only part of this ar¬ rangement which should be allowed to go through is the operation of the Belmont tunnel to Queens. Thus, should the Brooklyn Company get the contract, the luterborough Company would have a few years of great prospects until competition begins, then a few years of stationary t)usiuess, and finally, after a comprehensive city system had been completed, a series of years in which it would steadily lose ground. The ultimate result might be that it would be com¬ pelled to surrender its lines to the city at a fair contem¬ porary valuation in order to avoid further loss.