April 16, 188'?
 

1 he   Kecord  ^nd   Guide.
 

Ill
 

THE   RECORD   AND   GUIDE,

Published every Saturday.

IQl Broad^v^ay, IST. "^,

Our Teleplione Call is      -      -      -      .      -      JOHN STO.
 

TERMS:

ONE YEAR, in advance, SIX DOLLARS.

Communications should be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.
 

Vol. XXXIX.
 

APRIL 16, 1887.
 

No. 996
 

While the business of the country continues to improve some
friction is being developed, due to the operation of the Interstate
Commerce law. The former deadheads are angry at the cutting
off of their privileges. Then the Grand Trunk ard Canadian
Pacific are taking freight at cut rates, and this has helped to
depress the shares of the American trunk lines. The large estab¬
lishments which had the benefit of special rates are very naturally
aggrieved at losing their former profits and advantages over their
rivals in business. In some cases there is a threatened stoppage of
old industrial enterprises. We look for quite a clamor against the
Interstate law and a demand for its repeal when Congress meets
again, but we do not believe that either the community or the rail¬
roads will be willing to dispense with the protection this law
gives them. Amendments, however, will be in order, but the
great danger is that they will be in the interest of the railroad
corporations, not of the public.
 

in wages, which gives a renewed impetus to all the operations of
commerce.
 

The Columbia College celebration was a memorable affair, but it
invites a comparison with other colleges that does not redound to
the credit of the New York institution. Its Law School does good
work and its School of Mines is an admirable institution, but its
Arts department is very far behind less rich and pretentious seats
of learning. There are few names of note among the alumni of
Columbia for the last forty years. This college did far better work
early in the century than of late years. New blood is required
among the professors ; fully two-thirds of the present instructors
should be retired and their places taken by more advanced thinkers
and scholars. The graduates of Columbia make good business men,
and are well thought of in social circles, but they make no mark
in the world of letters, science or advanced thought. There should
be no more money given to Columbia unless it promises to do better
in the future than it has done in the past.
 

But apart from the disturbance created by the action of the Inter¬
state Commission there is an undeniably bullish feeling in the
stock market. Promoters of promising enterprises find no diffi¬
culty in selling bonds, and hence specialties are in high favor in
Wall street. As for real estate there is a veritable boom under way
in many different parts of the country, especially in the South
and West. Indeed the craze for paying high prices for unavail¬
able land is assuming dangerous proportions, and can have but one
result, a collapse that will bring ruin to thousands of indiscreet
purchasers. Our local real estate market is active, but as yet there
is no unwholesome speculation in unimproved property. That
may come further along. We still regard vacant lots in this city
as a purchase. New York adds to its population over 50,000 every
year, and this of itself creates a demand for new houses, which is
steadily and rapidly diminishing the amount of available unim¬
proved land.
 

There is at present taking piace additions to the currency of the
country of a kind which is sure to advance values and stimulate
retail traffic. Within the last five months some twenty-two million
of notes—ones, twos and fives—have been issued. They have been
greedily absorbed in the minor channels of trade, and the effect has
been to create a buoyancy in all the industries of the country.' The
government paper mill etill keeps at work, but the inflation is not
dangerous, for the notes represent a silver dollar which is converti¬
ble into a gold dollar. There is some contraction due to the calling
in of the government 3 per cents., and there is also some with¬
drawal of the standard silver dollars. But the banks are buying 4
arid 4:}4 per cents, to keep up tlieir issues, for it pays to emit bank
currency when money commands from 5 to 7 per cent, in the open
market. Thefse additions to the currency of the country are not in
any way harmful, for they are based on the face value of gold and
silver coin actually deposited in the Treasury. They help, how¬
ever, to advance prices and stimulate production as well as con¬
sumption.
 

Bradsfreefs publishes some valuable statistics, going to show
the improvement in the wages of the working people. It seems
that in nearly every occupation, the leather business perhaps
excepted, there has been an increase in the compensation not only
of skilled but of unskilled working people. It is this fact which
furnishes a basis for the improved business of the country. The
wage receivers are the spending class; not one in a hundred of the
laboring millions ever save any portion of their incomes. The
aggregate expenditure from this source is enormous. If, for
instance, there are $15,000,000 of working pieople whose average
compensation has been increased $1.50 a week, it follows that
$30,000,000 additional is now being poured into all the channels of
retail trade. This increase, slight enough in each individual case,
averages over $1,000,000,000 per annum. Hence, while it is the
interest of individual employers to cut down and keep down wages,
as a clags eiaploying capitalists are greatly benefited hj au advance
 

The V/est Harlem Methodist Church.

Another attempt at the chronic architectural problem of a
Protestant church, that is to say of giving an ecclesiastical char¬
acter to the most convenient form of a lecture room, is making at
the northwest corner of 130th street and 7th avenue. The archi¬
tect is Mr. Thomas, the same we believe who - has already made
essays in the same direction in the white stone Baptist church in
57lh street, between 6th and 7th avenues, and in another cliurch of
thesame material on the Boulevard. Both these edifices show
interesting points of design or at least of planning, though neither
is uniformly artistic in treatment.

The building now under consideration has the advantage of a
conspicuous site and of ample dimensions. It must extend 125 feeC
along the street, including a chapel or Sunday school room at the
west end, by 100 feet on the avenue, including the par.sonage at the
north end. It is built of Croton brick, with copings, hoodmoulds
and bands of light sandstone.

Beginning at the west end on the street side, the Sunday school¬
room wliich takes up about 35 feefc of the frontage is in two stories,
with a gable of moderate pitch. It is extremely plain in treatment
and considered by itself shows nothing " architecturesque." The
lower and subordinate story has four round arched openings
grouped at the centre, the upper four larger openings of the same
form, and there is a bull's-eye in the gable head. The arches and
jambs are recessed with rectangular offsets, but neither stoue nor
terra cotta is used, excepting a band of the former across fche gable,
nor is there anything fco mark the springing of the arches. Tliis
building is separated from the church, or united with it, as you
please, by a tower-like strip of wall machicolated at the top, and
without visible roof, unless ifc be intended to add a tower-like roof.
The treatmentof ^-his piece of wall in the present case is very good.
One tall and narrow opening at the centre, amounting to little more
than a slit, serves to emphasize both the thickness and the expanse
of the wall which it pierces, and above is a pair of small openings—
all round arched, as indeed are the openings througliout. Next to
this is the main gable of the " auditorium." This is a wide stretch
of wall, covered with a gable of moderate pitch, not over forty-five
degrees. Its principal feature, and, with its counterpart on the east
side, the principal feature of the axchitecture, excepting the tower,
is an arched opening of about 15 feet span and a little more than a
semicircle in height. The arch itself is recessed with four offsets
in brick work, its extrados marked by a hoodmould of stone, and is
carried upon stoufc jamb-shafts of sfcone with low capitals carved in
relief. The arch is filled with a wheel-window, of ^wooden tracery
one regrets to observe, but the feature on the whole is
effective and appropriate. This window opens upon the gallery of
the auditorium, and below the arch and underneath the gallery is
a simple arcade of five openings, with bases, hoodmoulds and
springing course of stone. At the west end of this gabled wall is
the principal entrance, a low round arch recessed as before. Over
ifc is a round arched window, with a brick mullion and a stone
transom, the head withdrawn some inches from the face of the
wall shows a rudimentary tracery, the heads of the subordinate
arches continuing the double window, and a bull'g-aye between and
above them. At the east end the doorway adjoins the corner
tower, and somewhat crowds the window of its lower stage. It is
projected from the wall and has above its arch a low gablet with a
stone coping.

The avenue front repeats the streefc front, excepting that at the
end the narrower parsonage takes the place of the Sunday school¬
room. This is simply treated, in congruity with the chxirch. At
its base is an arched doorway, apparently serving for entrance both
to the parsonage on one side and fco the subordinate rooms of tha
church on the sther, and is rather awkwardly placed, crowding as
it does the large single window which is the only opening in the
first story of the dwelling. In the second story are a pair of seg-
me;xt-beaded opeuiiags |   in the third a group of three rounds