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Real estate record and builders' guide: [v. 95, no. 2467: Articles]: June 26, 1915

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REAL ESTATE AND %) BUILDERS NEW YORK, JUNE 26, 1915 WHO OWNS THE SO. BROOKLYN TERMINAL SITE ? United Real Estate Owners Seeking an Injunction to Re¬ strain the City From Purchasing Land It Already Owns iiyiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii A N objection on the part of real es- •**• tate interests has been filed with the Supreme Cotirt against any awards be¬ ing made in the proceedings instituted, by the City of New York to acquire title to lands for a marine freight railroad terminal at Soutli Brooklyn in connec¬ tion with thc proposed marginal road. An order restraining the commission¬ ers in the condemnation proceedings from taking any further action has been applied for on the ground that the premises are already owned by the City of New York in part and the State of New York in part—and not by the First Construction Company and others, which are spoken of as the "claimants" in the papers of the plaintiff iu the action. .•Xllcgations that the city is being de¬ ceived not only as to the present owner¬ ship of thc lands but also as to the ac¬ cessibility of the site are contained in the brief which has been filed with the court by J. Bleecker Miller, attorney of the United Real Estate Owners' Associa¬ tion, the complainant in the case. Be¬ sides these allegations there are im¬ plications of an unpleasant nature calcu- quire a title in fee by adverse posses¬ sion. If it be assumed for a moment that the State and City of New York never had a claim or title to the land in, question, the deeds from the Beard estate to thc dummy of the First Construction Com¬ pany passed no title to such dummy, as the Beard deed of the land was expressly subject to the control of its use by the State and City of New York and the United States of America. This Beard deed, says plaintiff's coun¬ sel, "transfers the whole title in fee sim¬ ple al)solute to these three beneficiaries as if the deed had been made to them as grantees; consequently the dummy had nothing to convey to the First Construc¬ tion Company, and the First Construc¬ tion Company has nothing to convey to the City of New York. tion of the land was first proposed by Dock Commissioner Calvin Tomkins, the State by condemnation proceedings for a l:)arge canal terminal obtained land to the south, and so situated that, according' to the plaintiff it shuts out access to the land the city is seeking for its marginal railroad freight ter¬ minal, and makes it inaccessible to railroad barges from across New York Bay. and so defeats the purpose of the city in locating the railroad terminal at this expensive site on the waterfront. .Access by the puljlic to the railroad terminal from the landside will also be cut off by the presence of the barge canal terminal immediatel}' in its rear, as deponent is informed and believes. Under the circumstances the payment of $2,000,000 for the marine freight rail¬ road terminal would be illegal and THE SOITII BROOKLYX WATERFKOXT. SHOWIXG THE LIXE OP PROPOSED MAR¬ GINAL RAILROAD. THE SITE OF THE PROPOSED TERMINAL STATION AND T'HE STATE BARGE CANAL TERMINAL. latcd to make the case a notable one in thc history of the city government. Tlie lands to which title is sought by the city are in part under water and in part filled in, some is upland and some is covered by wharves. They are situ¬ ated on Gowanus Bay and bounded by Otsego. Halleck, Sigourney, Columbia, Bay. Court. Clinton and other streets. All the land was originally covered by high water, as can be seen on the Ratzer map and other maps which have been intrnduced in evidence by the city. The Chains of Title. None of the claimants of awards have attempted to prove title out of the State of New York into their grantors, and the chains of title offered in the proceed¬ ing cover no more than a period of twenty years, according to the plaintiff's l)rief. which further alleges that the statutes under which the claimant com¬ pany alone derive its several easements expressly limit them to building wharves, etc., and therefore they can never ac- "Tlie Cornbury and Montgomerie charters vested the title in the City of New York to the land between high and low water mark on the Island of Nas¬ sau, now Long Island, from Wallabout Bay to the west side of the present Gowanus Canal; the acts of the Legisla¬ ture under which the claimants of these awards derive whatever rights they may have, expressly recognize and except these rights and titles in thc City of New York. Access Cut Off. "The Beard deeds into the dummy of the First Construction Company are ex¬ pressly subject to all covenants of rec¬ ord. The description in the deed, through which the Beard estate claims its rights, refers to maps on record in the Register's oftice of Kings County show¬ ing the Henry street basin as extending northward to Mill Street, the northerly end of the land proposed to be taken for the freight terminal." Long after the plan for the acquisi- grievous waste of funds, the plaintiff declares. Besides this the erection of an elevated railroad through the land to be taken for a railroad terminal renders thc tise of thc land for a freight railroad terminal impossible without thc con¬ struction of some adequate means of raising and lowering the freight cars from and to the tracks of the elevated railroad, and the means suggested in the plans are utterly inadequate; nor is there adequate allowance in the plan for high truck loads to pass under the elevated road. No Estimate of Cost. "Neither is there any estimate of thc cost or of the means by which factories along the waterfront could transfer their freight from the surface of the streets to the height oT an elevated freight railroad, especially if said ele¬ vated railroad were sufficiently high, so as not to interfere with street trucks hav¬ ing high loads. Neither is there any estimate of the cost of consequential damages caused by said freight railroad to residential and mercantile houses, fronting on streets through which the freight railroad passes, or adjacent to the freight railroad in such proximity, so as to be injuriously affected by the noises incidental to the operation of a freight railroad in a city. The proposed elevated freight railroad is an experi¬ ment, of the cost of which no adequate estimate has ever been made, and a ncw venture in railroad construction." Finally, it is not at all certain, in the plaintift''s opinion, that any railroad com¬ pany combination is ready and willing to operate the propo.sed niarginal rail¬ road.