The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-03-07

prises became common it was necessary to resort to the chief financial centers in order to find a market able to absorb the newly issued securities The fact that the great corporations have had to be financed at New York has compelled them to establish their headquarters here, even when their manufacturing plants were situated in other states The officers and leading stockholders have been impelled to take up residence here, to follow and protect their inter- ests in the stock market. The notable increase in the listings on the New York Stock Exchange in the last four years has, therefore, been accompanied by an equally noteworthy immigration of wealth.
 How the concentration of wealth here on so vast a scale has affected New York realty is obvious. It goes far to explain the unprecedented activity in putting up offices, expensive apart ments, apartment hotels and private houses of great cost It has increased the scale of expenditure that character izes the most fashionable society, and it | ter to the luxurious and aesthetic life. It has affected deeply the habits of New York people.
 Nothing is more striking in connec- tion with building than the change in private houses; and of these the Fifth avenue district seems to have almost a monopoly. The average cost of houses built in Manhattan apart from the land, has quadrupled in the last feur years. And away from Fifth avenue new houses are scarcely known So marked is the concentration of wealth
 in the Fifth avenue district, and so keen has become the rivalry in architectural display and enlargement that the realty values prevailing there must be regarded as outside the natural domain of investment Of course, this helps to make the neighborhood the more exclu- sive.
 Four years ago the fashionable part of Fifth avenue lay below Eighty-sixt street and it was thought that the Madison avenue car stable at that point would permanently fix the northern boundary. Building on the avenue be- low Eightysixth street was proceeding in a leisurely manner. Each new house was built by some one expecting to live in it. Builders had not yet ventured to erect private dwellings valued at, say, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, merely for speculation. But in the fall of 1898 MT. Andrew Carnegie concluded to prepare for himself a mansion in what he termed the Highlands of Fifth avenue, and selected as q site the block between Ninetieth and Ninety-first streets MT. Carnegie proved to be a magnet. particularly to the western capitalists, who, together with New Workers grown more ambitious, soon pushed the accepted boundary of fash ionable Fifth avenue as far north as the new Mount Sinai hospital at One Hun dredth street.
 Speculative builders. recognizing the great spread and growth of the market for private houses, began to put up very costly residences. Many an em- bryo house was sold on a mere showing of the plans, and the prices they brought excited nowhere greater won der than in the building trade. Sales at quarter of a million dollars were not uncommon, and as high as four hundred and fifty thousand dollars was received for a house built on specula- ton. Probably between twenty five and thirty new residences, including some not yet finished will be offered for sale in the Fifth avenue section this spring at prices ranging from one hun dred and fifty thousand dollars upward.
 The increase in land values has been extraordinary. For example, in 1898 MT. Carnegie paid $1351 square foot for plot on the south corner of Fifth avenue and Ninety-ti first street. Mi Perry Belmont paid $29 80 a square foot for site on the north corner of the av- enue and Ninety-second street last Feb ruary. A well-known capitalist bought up the block of eight lots from Ninety fourth to Ninety fifth street between June, 1899, and April 1901, for 5000. In May. 1901, he sold the block for $625, 000 A plot, one hundred by two hum dred on the north corner of Ninety seventh street. sold in 1898 for $95,000, changed ownership later in the same year at $140,000. was disposed of in 1899 for $240, 1000, and brought $345,O0O last spring, MT James B, Haggin bought the Progress club on the north corner of Sixty-third street in 1901 for $735, 1000, with the intention of tearing it down and replacing 1t with residence. The club paid $225, 900 for the site in 1887. These are only fragments of the re- cent development in New York realty. The capital which has found this city a pleasant place to settle in adorns it and benefits it. Care should be taken that this capital be not scared away New York Sun.