Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-02-18
A CITY EVER. CROWDED.
New York Hotels Always Seem
to Be Full.
CAN ACCOMMODATE 100000
All the Rooms Usually Occupied Ev-
cry Night.
GROWING USE OF AUTO CARS
Building Operations Stupendous-
Gain in 1905 Was go Per Cent
Over 1904.
GROWING USE OF AUTO CARS
BY WILLIAM Z. CURTIS.

Special Correspondence Of The star and the Chicago
Record Herald
NEW YORK. January II, 1906.
New York seems TO be more crowded
every time one comes here and the greater
the accommodations the greater the de
mand seems to be. Not long ago you read
In the papers. doubtless, that Mr.. Grover
Cleveland, who came over from Princeton
one evening without notice. drove to four
different hotels without being able TO find a
vacant room, and was then compelled to
call up Paul Morton on the telephone and
aslk.to be taken In. That is the experience
of almost every traveller who reaches New
York late in the day. You are never GER
tain Of finding "A vacant room at any of the
big hotels after MONDAY unless you have
sent word that you are coming. There are
said to be accommodations for 100000 tran
silent visitors among the hotels IN New
York, more than in any other city in the
world-morc than London or Paris, and 1t Is
asserted by those who are in a position to
Know about such things that they are
usually occupied every night. So great is
the demand for hotel accommoda tions that
the apartment houses are now taking in
transient visitors when they have room to
spare. In addition to the twelve or fifteen
great hotels that charge high prices, twenty
two or twenty-thrCe apartment houses are
now on the list and receive the overflow
from lHe W Waldorf, NdnNdltdIl, NelHtI-
lands. Aston, Gotham. ST. Regis. Holland,
Breslin, Imperial and other hotels that
turn people away every day. Mr.. Hill
lizard of the Waldorf told me that that hotel
did TIE biggest business on record during
the month of January last and that every
one of its 500 rooms was occupied nearly
every night. There nothing special
going on except an automobile show which
lasted a few days and did not draw many
visitors from outside the city.
The same conditions are seen and felt
even more plainly in the transportation
facilities Notwithstanding the subway,
which carries several hundred thousand
people every day, the passenger traffic by
the elevated and the surface roads was
just as large I'm 1900 as il was the prev!-
Gus year before the subway was opened.
The patronage seems TO increase even more
rapidly than the facilities, and whether you
go uptown by the subway or the elevated
or the surface roads during the busy hours
of the day, you VIII find every car crowded
and the aisles full of people standing. The
World printed a table the other day show
ing that there is an average of 12J,OO0
strap-hangers on the cars in the city of
New York every day, 10000 each in the
elevated and surface trains. and 5000 In
the subway. Plans have been adopted for
the extension of the subway system, but
they viii not be completed for two years
al least and, IN the meantime, the city is
growing. the patronage is increasing and
there will he no relief to the public.
Use of Automobiles.
Automobiles are now carrying hundreds
OF rich men downtown i'm the morning and
back at night. They are affording excite
meut diversion and recreation to a great
many tired bankers. stock brokers, lawyers
merchants and other business men who
hitherto have ridden between their resi-
dences and their Offices in the subway or
the elevated trains. If you will sit in your
. hotel window between and 10 clock in
no rraAV inn md har a "a a
at night. you will see continuous pro-
Cession of motor cars going by, carrying
both ladies and gentlem.n-amost as many,
il not more. than carriages. At the lunch
hour and at tea time in the afternoon there
are hundreds of automobiles waiting around
DclmoniCo's, Sherry's, the Waldorf and
other fashionable places of resort You
will find them around the operas and the
theaterS In large numbers, and around the
fashionable dry goods stores in shopping
hours. There seem to he as many autono-
biles carriages. An idle man at the
Union League Club told me not long ago
that he counted 1900 passing the window
in about two hours one afternoon. and II
you will notice the numbers attached to
the backs OF the machines you Will see that
they run way up into the thousands, as
high as $1,000. Motor cars are being used
more and more also for delivery purposes
Tiffany. Gorham, Wanam7keT, Mack, S1lls
and other big shopping firms do not use
anything else.
serted the other night that 81 O0OO 900 worth
OF automobiles We're sold in New York last
year, not TO mention the rest of the coun-
try, which probably bought as many more.
While this seems like an eXaggera ton, the
official statistics of the treasury show that
more than 100000 of machines We're i'm
ported into the United States from foreign
countries during the calendar year OF 1893,
and the domestic trade must have been at
least ten times large.
The increasing use OF autocars does not,
however. have any effect On the value OF
horses. ] called at two sale stables here
the other day. and IN answer TO my in
quirics the prOprietors brought out their
books 10 prove that both private and auc-
iiou prices for first-class carriage horses
were quite as high last year as they were
five or six years ago, and they are very
much higher than they were before the
present period Of prosperity began In 1897.
From 1893 10 that latter date horses were
IN little demand. and even The finest thor
oughbrcds sold for what an ordinary hack
horse would bring today. Since then troll
ley cars have been introduced into every
city and town and thousands Of miles OF
suburban and country railroads have been
built In the thickly settled states Il IS
now possible for half the farmers families
10 so To town on electric cars without using
their own carriages but the demand for
horses Is lust as great and prices are even
higher than they were before electric cars
were introduced
stupendous Building Operations.
building operations in New York are stu
psnLous. You cannot go or look in any
direction without seeing monstrous skcle-
ton 81 steel rising above the roofs of the
old-tashjoned buildings that surround IT,
and YOU wonder who is going 10 occupy all
the great structures that are now being
erected. But. Notwithstanding the continu-
Gus Increase iu The number OF sllyscrapers
for business houses and apartments during
the last ten years. the amount of money
Invested IN new buildings il New York city
IN 1905 was - per cent greater than in
l9nf. and the total was SiiT, GO3643 The
only cities OF the country Ca which there
was greater percentage OF gain were ST.
Louis. Indianapolis Louisville Columbus
and Washington The only cities where
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