E.A.L ESTATE RECORD AND BUILDERS' GUIDE. VOL. XXIX. NEW TOEK, SATURDAY, FEBEUARY 4,1882. No. 725 Published Weekly by The The Mills building has been found defect­ on January 17th, from the Germania Insur­ REAL ESTATE RECORD ASSOCIATION ive by Superintendent Esterbrook's three ance Company, a house in Twenty-eighth inspectors. They have so far disrovered street for $33,000, and on the same day bor­ TERMS: that there exists a serious flaw in one of the rowed from the Union Dime Savings Institu­ ONE YEAR, in advance $6.00 columns that supports the building and sev­ tion $31,000 as a mortgage on the property. eral minor flaws in the basis of other The purchaser must have either made a very Communications should he addressed to columns. The building will have to be shored good bargain, or the institution lending have e. W. SWEET, 137 Broadway. up. Everything wiU of course be done to secured a doubtful asset. J. T. LINDSEY'Business Manager. make it perfectly secure by it owner. It is a noble pile and it would be a public disaster THAT FIRE. The great operators in the street have met if this fine structure could not be made per­ The burning of the old Wo7^ld building is with a disappointment. Everything was fectly secure. We judge the constructors a notable event. The ground is so valuable ready for a bull movement, when the news were in too much of a hurry in preparing that it will no doubt be immediately built came of the distm-bance on the Paris Bourse, the foundation and in building upon them upon, and a structure will take its place that which caused the firsr. shipment of gold of efore the ground settled. will vie with the several superb buildings in any large amount for nearly three years. In its neighborhood. As there are plenty of view of the probability of still further dis­ DOWN-TOWN VALUES. mere offices to be supplied by the Tribune turbances abroad, with our imports increas The great sales of last Tuesday developed Eugene Kelly and Vanderbilt structures, it ing and our exports decreasing, there is one fact which it would be well for i-eal is not unlikely Mr. O. B. Potter will cater every evidence that we will continue to shij) estate dealers to lay well to heart. Down­ for newspaper patronage. It is the natural gold from this time forth. In face of town property is in very active demand, and locale for newspaper publishing, and there adverse circumstances the market is very it is clear the shrewdest investors believethat are plenty of weekly papers that would pay well sustained, but the outfide speculative values of business property have a very large handsomely for proper apartments. We public would do well to leave the stock margin of profit. Such of our readers as have really think the office business has been market severely alone. This is no time for kept files of THE REAL ESTATE RECORD, by overdone down town. What is needed are the average operator to bet his money on looking back, will see that we have always suites of rooms to show samples of manu­ stocks, either on the long or short side. held that the construction of the elevated factured goods, or which can be used for Investors cannot do better than put their roads would not only put a stop to any up­ weekly and monthly publications and for money into real estate. People who have town movement, but would concentrate other business and light manufacturing pur­ plenty spare capital cannot do better than business down-town and immensely increase poses. purcliase down town business property, values in the more active business quarters. What a contrast is presented between the while those who have limited means would We have always held that two effects would complete destruction of the TForZcZ building do well to pick up vacant lots on this island. follow the establishment of the elevated and the mere singing of the party wall There is a larger margin in these two differ­ roads—one, a great advance in the price of which divided it from the Times building. ent kinds of property than in any other XDroperty in the old business locations, and What a lesson this fire ought to teach to descriiDtion of real estate. the other an equalizing of values in up-town capitalists,[architects, builders and insurance lots. In other words, the business tendency companies. To say nothing of the loss of The multiplication of huge buildings, and would be centripetal and the residence tend­ life, it is now seen that a fiimsily con- the packing of business population in the ency centrifugal. There will be no object in striTCted structure is a needless waste of lower part of the city and along the princi-j building stores up-town while the business capital, and that if a thing is worth doing pal business thoroughfares, has created a localities in the lower part of the city can at all, it is worth doing well. The Times demand for restaurants, v/hich is something be reached so easily, while at the same time company are fully justified in the greater unusual. Property holders have very gen­ t^ere will be no object in paying a high original cost of their building, in view of its erally overlooked the necessity for eating j)rice for a house and lot below the Central proved indestructibility. And here a dis­ places in tho densely populated parts of the Park when by going a couple of miles further tinction should be made which it would be city, and, as a consequence, down-town equally eligible property can be secured at well to bear in mind. A building may be in­ places of refreshment are rai-ely what they lower rates. combustible and yet not fireproof. Although should be. The eating places are crowded, We have repeatedly called attention to made of brick, stone and iron, the Florence incomodious, deficient in light and ventila­ the great possibilities of business property flat was the scene of a flre which destroyed tion, and, as a consequence, eating is per­ below the park. In no other spot on earth over $13,000 worth of property. Of course formed under circumstances which are un­ is there such certainty of an immense busi­ the conflagration was confined to the rooms comfortable and often unwholesome. It is ness being done as on the lower end of the in which it originated, but nevertheless distasteful for a person who has a clean and peninsula that jets out into New York dwellers in fireproof flats were a good deal roomy dining hall at home, to be forced to bay. In every other city there is a chance astonished on reading the accounts of this sit in a gas lit shop at a lunch table, where of growing in every direction, but business burning. he is packed so close that he really has no in New York is confined on three sides to a This fire emphasizes also the new danger elbow room. As the number of large busi­ certain quarter. Already this limited space which has come|from the multiplication of ness buildings is certain to increase, it is being filled with enormous buildings, and immense buildings. It' is often quite easy to would pay for some enterprising real estate wherever there are old edifices being torn confine a fire to a house situated on a 25x100 owner to construct proper dining apart­ down, they are sure to be replaced by im­ feet lot; but when the edifice covers several ments. One is badly needed in the neigh­ mense and many-storied structures. There lots, and sometimes half a block, the fire borhood of the Stock Exchange. The is no inheritance one can leave his children gets an immense sweep, and finds its way restaurants on Broad and New streets, so certain of a great increase as realty in up lo the draft of an elevator or along the where the brokers do their gorging (it can­ New York below the line of Chambers street. long corridors, in which there are inflam­ not be called eating), are all shabby and in­ It is there the great exchanges of the world mable material. As a matter of self-defence, convenient. Even Delmonico's, on the will eventually be located. we may be forced to prevent the erection of ground floor, is a constant scene of noise any large building which is at all combus­ and confusion. The rich men of that neigh­ As showing the different estimates placed tible. The great height of our new down­ borhood would very gladly pay a good price upon property by two institutions, THE town edifices makes them very dangerous in for a lunching place which was convenient, REAL ESTATE RECORD of last week should be case of a fire, owing to the impossibility of weU lighted and not overcrowded. consulted. Mr. James B. Hamilton purchased, any stream of water reaching the upper 96 THE REAL ESTATE RECORD February 4,188 stories. Fortunately, most of our very great Twenty-fourth Wards, which would be Barnum's Museum was situated on the site houses are really fireproof. There is no gradually transformed into beautiful resorts. of the present Herald building, it was danger of any such fire, for instance, in tlie There are bits of scenery worth preserving, thronged day and evening, although three Equitable, Western Union, Tribune build­ not only on the Hudson side, but inland and miles away from the residence portion of the ings or the new structure of the London, on the Long Island Sound shore.