Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-08
FLATS In PITTSBURG.
A Chicago Man Says Local Capitalists
Don't See Their Chance.
GOLD MINES IF RIGHTLY PUT UP.
Properties That Realize Ten Per Cent Might
Produce Twenty.
THE SYSTEM POPULAR ELSEWHERE
rcoHnrsrosDxscx OF THE D1srArcn.I

CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DIsPArcH.i
CHICAGO, June 6.-After dinner at
downtown club to-day Chicago real estate
man. who had just returned from visit 70
Pittsburg, said that nothing about that city
surprised him more than the entire absence
of anything like the system OF nats, OF
apartment houses, which is such marked
feature of Chicago and New York.
ST cannot understand why Pittsburg capl-
tai does not 90 into investment OF tna'
kind" he said. "There is no place IN the
country where judicious investment IN
apartment houses would yield greater re-
turns. The land available for residence
purposes is very limited, and great
deal of what there is is made unavailable oy
reason of the broken surface OF the country
Consequently the bulk of the popuiatiou Vi
this city must always be crowded !nto =
comparatively small space, the limits OF
which are incapable of expansion. Ana IN
order that it may be provided with homes,
the buildings must eventually be arranged
SO as to accommodate the greatest NUMBER OF .
people. In a word, the residence portion Oh
Pittsburg must sooner or later build hlgn up
into the air, as it has already done In New
York, Boston and Chicago, and the capital
lists who first grasp the idea and properly
carry it into execution are the ones who are
likely to reap the golden harvest.
HOW CHICAGO MEN WOULD DO.
''These Pittsburg people do not seem to
know how to invest their money, the real
estate man continued. "For instance, saw
property worth from $3.50 to 600 per foot
front on desirable residence streets, on
which were being built resident houses cost
ing about $40. 900, designed for the accom-
mediation Of a single family, and rentlng
when finished at about S15O per month,
yielding net income OF about 1o per cent.
A Chicago man would take taat same prop
erty and build a five or six-story house with
a frontage of, say 30 or so feet. He would
put in stone front OF original and ele-
CANT design. He would have single en-
trance in the center and four hats-two front
and two rear-on each floor.
He would make each fiat of say six
rooms, three large ones and three small,
complete in itself with all the modern con-
yeniences, and if the locality was con-
yenient one, on the line oil one of the cable
or electric roads, he would get from $40 to
$50 for his flats on the street floor, from S35
to s45 for those on the second floor, and from
| $40 to $50 for those on each OF the floors
| above; and there is no reason in the world
why. in the present condition of Pittsburg,
| his investment should not yield 20 per cent
| ior the first few-years. But to accomplish
| that result the building must me made on a
| liberal scale, and its appointments must be
so elegant as to draw to it people OF taste
and refinement.
WOULD ADVANCE THE LAND.
eff the experience of Chicago can be taken
| as a guide the erection of one such build
| ing in a given locality will advance the
| value OF land all around it by demonstrat-
| ing that il is capable of being made to yield
so much more revenue when 1t Is properly
| built upon"
| Ii the Chicago man was surprised at the
absence of "fats" in Pittsburg his astonish-
ment was not greater than that of an old
resident of Allegheny who was
told as he drove up Dearborn ave-
nue one fine summer afternoon that
fully three-quarters of the elegant residences
which he encountered on every hand were
the homes of thriving business men, who
did not pay more than from $40 to S75 pei
| month for their apartments in them. By
means OF the fiat system the quarter which
was once entirely, and still is largely, the
| abode of the rich, now furnishes homes to
the rich and the poor alike. Indeed, the
rich and exclusive element is rapidly being
| crowded out of the finest residence streets oi
| Chicago.
| CRowDING OUT THE RICH.
The elegant brown stone palace of Con.
gresham Adams, just over the river on the
North Side, with its four or five acres o.
beautiful lawn, is now overshadowed by 8
ten-story fiat building of even greater ele.
gance, which has Just been erected by the
heirs of Mccormick, of reaper fame, and il
is only question of time when it mus
"go." In like manner the builder ol
FLATS" has crowded close up to the castle Of
Potter Palmer, on the famous Lake Shore
drive, and is almost next door neighbor o.
Robert T. Lincoln on the same thoroughfare,
He has invaded the sacred precincts of the
millionaire brewer and the railroad shark
on Prairie avenue on the South Side, AND
has strong ioothold on Ashland boulevard
| on the west. a.
| HE WAS WHOLE CIRCUS