New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-22
FUTURE OF THE
CHELSEA ZONE
Expert Believes II a LOCa-
ton of First Class
Business.

The lease of the property Of the
Consolidated Gas Company at 4bi
West 18th st. TO James j. Riordan
marks the beginning of new era Of
development in that section OF Chelsea.
Mr.. Riordan, through his agents.
Joseph p. Day and James II. Stryker,
iS negotiating lease for another
block in the same neighborhood. As
in the case of the Consolidated, he in
tends to improve this property and
rent il for high class business pur-
poses.
A number of inquiries concerning
property in the neighborhood have FOL
lowed the announcement of the Rior-
dan deal. In view of Mr.. Riordan's
prominence in banking and real estate
circles, his views on the future OF the
district are interesting.
1--WE had many opportunities to
lease our new building to drygood5
firms and department stores for ware
house purposes" he said. "a le"
years ago any one of these offers
might have looked good to us, but now
things are different We believed that
the neighborhood justified first class
business going in there, and our jude-
ment has been vindicated. We sue
ceeded in leasing the two upper floors
100000 square feet TO one of the
largest printing concerns in Chelsea,
and, of course, we were able to get a
much better rental than if we had
leased for warehouse purposes.
CAS- a matter of fact, there Is
great deal more idle property in this
section than is warranted by its ex-
cellent business situation. The Chei-
sea Greenwich district is really the
centre of population for Greater New
York and New Jersey.
"The line of 23d ST., extended across
Long Island, goes north of Brooklyn.
Extended out through Jersey, II goes
north of Newark, Jersey City, Eliza
beth, Hoboken and the Oranges. This
means that the ferries below this line
give the best access for trucks to Long
Island and all points in Jersey. Fur
thermore, the population south OF this
line in the metropolitan district IS
greater than the population north Of
this line, and in addition the number
of people tributary TO this section IS
one million greater than the number
north of this line, for the reason that
all important wagon roads in New Jer-
sey enter New York via liOboken and
Jersey City, delivering their traffic
south of 23d st.
Because Of the fact that this extra
million Of population is directly aces
sible to trucks going out from the ter
ritory south Of 23d ST., if a central
distributing station were located at
42d st. instead of at 23d st. and its
battery of trucks had to make dellv-
cries to one person in every 10000 in
the metropolitan district daily, a con-
Germ located at AID ST. would have to
cover 100 more truck miles a day
through dense traffic than would a
concern making an equal number Of
deliveries located at Odd ST. A con-
Germ at 42d st. making deliveries to
one in every 900 would have to make
900 extra truck miles daily to effect
the same deliveries as concern locat-
ed at 23d ST. These figures would be
effective in the deliveries OF any estab-
lishment making deliveries. to all
classes Of people, such as, for instance,
a great baking company.
"All that | have said refers 10 re-
tail delivery. On incoming and out
going freight there is no debate what
ever Practically all of the docks and
freight terminals are south of $50 ST.
OF twelve principal railroads enter
ing New York ten enter south OF
33d ST.