Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 48

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360

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One of his friends once sald to him: "Mr. Spelr, I should like to know what articles there are that you don't deal In ?" It is certain, however, that In whatever business he engaged, or whatever articles he dealt In, all tended to hls advantage and led to wealth.

With an Iron-like constitution, with an energy that never flagged, with ablllties that no vicissitude of business weakened, with a probity and honor that presided over all, he was long Identilled with the busl- ness Interests of New York city. It is said that, until his last illness, Mr. Speir was never lald up a day from sickness.

Very characteristic of him was the manner of his retiring from ac- tive business life. He had always said that he would retire from busl- ness when seventy years old. What he supposed was his sixty-ninth birthday arrived, and hils friends called to congratulate him. Among the number was an old friend, who told film that he was seventy years old Instead of sixty-nine as he supposed. Mr. Speir disputed it for a inoment, and then called to hls clerk to make a calculation and see what bls age really was. The clerk said he made It seventy; wherenpou, Mr. Spler turned to his son, Robert, the subject of this sketch, and sald: " Robert, write out a dissolution of co- partnership and put It in the morning papers; say in It that Robert Speir, Jr., will continue the business," Mr. Spelr then stepped to hils safe, turned the key, and said, " good day, gentlemen," and went home, having retired from active business on the day he had promised himself.

Mr. Robert Spelr was, and Is, a large property owner on Myrtle avenue, having paid taxes there for forty years. Mr. Speir built two brown-stone honses In Montague street, and otherwise was netive lu Brooklyn luterests.

Illa son Itobert, the subject of this sketch, Inherited very many of the qualltles of his father. After receiving a good education, he entered Into business withe hils father. He brought to his occupation rare business talents and industry, nolted with finblis free from the

excesses which often beset young men In New York entering Into business, under prosperous circumstances which usually prevent self- rellance, and destroys stimulants to activity. It Is, perhaps, needless to add, that his business relations with his father were both pleasant and prosperous. In 1826, Mr. Spelr's father removed to Brooklyn and erected a house in Willow street, now near Clark street.

The subject of this sketch was united by marriage, In 1833, to Miss Hannah S. Flcet, daughter of Samuel Fleet, of Hrooklyn. Four chil- dren were born to them; two sons and two daughters. The Fleet famlly, one of the oldest and most respected on Long Island, Is more fully described in another part of this work. Mr. Samuel Fleet became a resident of Brooklyn In 1820.

Very soon after removing to Brooklyn. Robert Spelr, whose blo- graphy we are sketching, united with the First Presbyterian Church, of Brooklyn, then sitnated in Cranberry street. Rev. Joseph Sandford was its first, Dr. Van Dyke, Its present pastor. The church edlfice in which Mr. Sandford preached, stood on the site now occupled by l'ly- mouth Church, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, pastor. The present church stands on the corner of Remsen and ('Ilnton streets. Through all the years of Mr. Speir's membership with this church-something over fifty years-he has been an active, conscientious, useful and highly estecmed member, and his relations with It at the present time, we do not hesitate to say, are not only pleasant and agreenble In a secular point of view, but profitable and hopeful in a spiritual sense.

Mr. Speir has never mingled lu politics to the extent of becoming an ardent partisan. He belleves that the best men should be elected to office regardless of every other consideration, and this belief Is the basis of hls politics.

Few men are better acquainted, from observation, with the history of Brooklyn for the first half century than he. In his youth, as a real- deut of the city of New York, he knew Brooklyn as a small hamlet, altunted on and about the bluffs, hills und rolling lands that over- looked the East river. He has seen It emerge from that condition to a thriving and beautiful village, and from that to the third city In the uation. With the men of prominence, who, through the long past, helped to make the elty of Hraoklyn what it Is, he enjoyed a pleasing nequalntance; nud now, at a green old age, In the enjoyment of men tal and physical faculties as vigorous as in the active perlod of his ilfe. surrounded by his eblidren and by numerous other friends, he Is meet- Ing the rewards of a useful and well-spent ilfe.

THE

ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS AND REAL ESTATE AGENTS

BROOKLYN.

BY L.P. Brackett M.L.

W E hear much in these days of the growth of Chieago, the Queen City of the Lakes, and are often told that it surpasses, in the lightning- like rapidity with which it has attained its present magnitude, any eity of aneient or modern times. Perhaps this is true; but Brooklyn, which, as a eity, is not more than five or six years older than the Lake City, has advanced with equal but more uniform speed, and is to day, in all its material interests, the larger city of the two.

The little city which, not quite fifty years ago, ex- tended from the Wallabout Bay to a point a little be- low the present South Ferry, occupying for most of the distance only some very humble sheds and wooden shop's and warehouses, and extended baek from the East River, at Fulton and South Ferries, not more than a half mile at any point, was but little larger than the village which, about the same time, began to streteh back on either side from the mouth of the Chicago River. Both have made a wonderful growth in these fifty years; and the race between them for the rank of the third eity of the Union, though a elose one, and tasking all the energies of each, is yet free from bitter- ness. Chicago has grown spasmodically, Brooklyn inore steadily and uniformly. She has taken no step backward; and the town which, in 1834, had hardly one and a half square miles of elosely built houses, has now about 34 miles of densely populated houses and factories, with numerous churches, sehool-houses, the- atres, halls, and vast warehouses ; and, like her neigh- bor on the Lakes, is to-day pushing forward with more energy than ever before to occupy the lands whose vir- gin soil is yet unbroken, Her water front now reaches from the heights of Bay Ridge, which overlook the lower bay, to and along Newtown ereek, a distanee of twenty-five miles, as the water lines run, and from the river front eastward to East New York, Ridge- wood and Newtown, an average of about six miles, and with a capacity for extension to Montauk Point and the east end of Long Island, a hundred miles away.

Of this traet of more than fifty square miles, full three- fourths, excluding Prospect Park, Greenwood Ceme- tery, the east side lands, and some traets to which the title is elouded, are densely built up, and, for the most part, withi solid briek or brown stone buildings, though with a considerable percentage of frame dwellings in the eastern and soutli-eastern portions.

The assessment, for the purposes of taxation, of the real estate of Brooklyn, makes the value of real estate in 1883, in round numbers, $283,000,000. This is, according to the law, 70 per cent. of the actual value, which would give the full actual value, at foreed sale, at about $405,000,000. The appraised market value would undoubtedly exceed this by fifty millions. But the assessment expressly exeludes all eity, eounty and federal property, all sehool-houses, ehurehes, and insti- tutions of publie charity and beneficence; and these would be underestimated at fifty millions more-so that in the city of Brooklyn we have real estate of the value of $500,000,000.

It is not easy for the ordinary mind to comprehend a sum so vast. The long row of ciphers convey only a vague impression of an unknown amount. But let us analyze it a little. According to the eensus of 1880, there were 62,233 dwellings having an average popula- tion of 9.11 to each dwelling. The three years which have elapsed sinee that eensus was taken have added somewhat more than 12,000 to the number, and eae !! year shows a large inerease over its predecessor. Many of these 12,000 buildings are flats, containing from four to eight dwellings each. It is, therefore, within the limits of truth to estimate the present number of dwell- ings in the eity at 75,000, and comparing the average values of dwellings in all principal cities, we find $3,000 a low estimate for each dwelling. This gives $225,- 000,000 as the value of dwellings alone.

Our manufactories number about 5,400 establislı- ments ; some of them very rude and cheap, a mueh larger number of a value ranging from $25,000 to $150,000, and more than one hundred ranging from

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

$200,000 to $2,000,000. One of our assessors, who is very thoroughly versed in the valuation of this de- seription of property, assures us that the real estate portion of "the plant" of the Brooklyn manufactories (i. e., the land and buildings) considerably exceeds two hundred million dollars. The machinery contained is, we believe, generally classed as personal property, though not taxed as such.

Next come the warehouses, on or near the water front. It is very diffienlt to estimate the value of these. There are more than two hundred and fifty of them; and one, said to be the largest in the world, is reported to have cost $2,500,000. Many others are large, lofty and costly buildings. More than fifty per cent. of the imports, and nearly 75 per cent. of the exports from the port of New York, pass through them every year. From the best information we have been able to gather, we should place their value at not far from sixty mil- lions. There remain the wholesale and retail stores- such of them as are not also dwellings or manufactor- ies, of which the number and value is considerable-at a rough estimate, not far from ten millions ; the rail- roud depots and stations, ferry houses, ete., perhaps about five millions; the churches and missions, about 270 in number, are estimated at about twelve millions; the hospitals, dispensaries, orphan and other asylums, homes, etc., etc., not less than ten millions; the schools and academies, public and private, not far from twelve millions; the libraries, museums, art galleries and halls, three millions; and the public buildings, at about six millions. Here we have an aggregate of about 520 millions. Now, of these buildings, with the increased value of the real estate connected with them, more than fonr-fifths of the ereetion and inercase has acerued since 1854, the date of the consolidation of Brooklyn and Williamsburg.

Our own architects, builders and real estate dealers have been the prime factors in effecting this immense accession to the city's wealth. A portion of the capital which has formed the basis of it has come from other cities and states, but the greater part has been from the aceumulations of the toil of our own citizens. The demand for building materials has led to the establish- ment of many manufactures connected with building, and now every item required in the construction and finishing of the most costly and elegant dwelling, or public or private building, is, or can be, produced in Brooklyn, and of a quality unsurpassed anywhere.

We might, indeed, come somewhat nearer to our own time, and review, with somewhat fuller and more defi- nite information, the condition of the. eity in 1854, after its consolidation with Williamsburg, when its popula- tion had reached about 150,000, and its geographical extent was the same as it is to-day. Nearly thirty years have passed since then, and its population, if a census were to be taken in this autumn of 1883, would not fall short of 700,000 souls. Its material advancement has

been even more rapid than its growth in population. At that time the assessed valuation of real estate in the consolidated city was $69,014,645. Then, as now, the rate at which real estate was appraised for taxation was supposed to be about 70 per cent. Add- ing the other 30 per cent .- $20,704,393-we have $89,- 719,038 as the market value, or value at forced sale. The additional $10,281,962 required to make up the $100,- 000,000 would probably have fully covered the value of the city buildings, churches and schools then exist- ing in the consolidated city.

We have, then, as we have already shown, an in- crease in the value of real estate alone, in this city, in thirty years, of more than $400,000,000-a rate of in crease which not even the most enterprising of western cities lias equalled.

There was then, it is true, the City Hall, but no Court-House, only a beer garden where it now stands ; no Municipal Building; no Academy of Music, or other music hall of sufficient dimensions to permit the pre- sentation of opera, oratorio, or grand coneert ; no Academy of Design; no theatres for our amusement- loving citizens, who mnst for music or the drama go to the great city across the river, to which they then fur- nished only lodging room. There was no Brooklyn Library; no Historical Society, with its rich eolleetions of antiquities, and its ample supply of historical works. There was, indeed, the Graham Institute, with its small but nseful library, a solitary hospital, a dispensary, a single orphan asylum, the Graham Institute for aged and indigent women, the church charity foundation, then just organized; these were the charitable institu- tions of the time, and only one of these was as well housed as now.

There were, at that time, aeeording to Mayor George Hall, whose inaugural address as Mayor of the con- solidated eity is still preserved, 113 churches in the city, of all denominations, the greater part having either church edifiees or chapels, though a few wor- shipped in temporary buildings afterwards sold or abandoned.

Some of the church edifices were stately and beanti- fnl buildings; most of these were then recently erected. The Church of the Holy Trinity, Grace Church, the Church of St. Charles Borromeo, the Church of the Pilgrims, Strong Place Baptist Church, the First Pres- byterian Church, in Henry street, the First Presby- terian Church, in Clinton street, and the Pacific street Methodist, being the most conspicuous examples ; but the greater part were plain but generally substantial buildings, of brick or wood. In the thirty years which have passed, not less than 200 church edifices have been erected, including those which were then unfin- ished, and the very considerable unmber which have been rebuilt, either on the old sites or on others. The quality of the new buildings has been as remarkable as their number. Very few of them have been frame

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ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS AND REAL ESTATE AGENTS.

buildings; the greater part were of stone, or of brick, with stone trimmings. A considerable number are among the most beautiful church edifices in the United States. Among these we may name the Church of the Holy Trinity, now completed by the addition of a beautiful and graceful spire of great height ; the new St. Ann's ; St. Peter's (Episcopal) ; the chapel of the Roman Catholic Cathedral; the renovated and enlarged Church of the Pilgrims ; the Central Congregational Church; the Tabernacle (Presbyterian); the Lafayette avenue and the Classon avenue Presbyterian Churches; the Reformed (Dutch) Church, in Bedford avenue, E. D .; the Summerfield, First Place, Simpson, and Seventh avenue Methodist churches, and St. Paul's Methodist, E. D. ; the Washington avenue, Strong Place, and Pierrepont street Baptist churches; and the Emmanuel Baptist chapel. The valuation of these churches, which, in 1854, was not quite a million dol- lars, now exceeds twelve millions.

In public buildings, the increase and the costliness and beauty has been equally manifested ; the Court House, the Municipal Building, the Raymond street Jail, the Penitentiary and Alms-house, the Insane Hos- pital, and the City Hospital, are all buildings worthy of a great city ; while the Academy of Music, the Academy of Design, the Brooklyn Library, the His- torical Society building, Music Hall, and the five or six theatres, are all buildings which are not surpassed for their several purposes. The stately buildings for banking and insurance houses, and offices, which sur- round the City Hall, like the Garfield, the Dime Sav- ings Bank, now in process of erection, the Phoenix Insurance and the Continental Insurance building, are worthy examples of the combination of beauty and utility. Not less remarkable are our great collegiate schools, the Packer Institute, the Polytechnic and the Adelphi Academy.

Of Hospitals and Asylums, we have now more than a score, and near lyas many Dispensaries. Most of these are in their own buildings, and some of them, build- ings in which architectural beauty is allied with the most complete arrangements for comfort, convenience and restoration to health.

The building of the great . warehouses along the river and water front has been almost wholly the work of the last thirty years. In solidity and strength, as well as in capacity, they surpass the far-famed London Docks. One of them (Dows' stores), at the foot of Pacific street, is said to have no equal in extent, ca- pacity, and all the appliances for the rapid transfer- ence of grain to and from the vessels which lie at its docks, in the world. The bricks and mortar put into these 250 great warehouses, are sufficient to build an ordinary city.

The great manufactories are also, for the most part, the work of the last thirty years. The vast sugar re- fincries, ten and twelve stories in height, with walls

which would withstand the bombardment of even modern ordnance, covering many acres of ground and turning out a hundred million dollars worth of sugar and syrups annually; the immense petroleum refineries, the monster foundries and machine shops, and the great rope-walks, wall paper factories, the extensive paint works, white lead works, glass factories, porcelain works, and factories of all sorts, have taxed the builders' resources to the utmost. Not less than 180 million dollars has been put into these buildings during the past thirty years, an average of $6,000,000 a year.

We have purposely left to the last the dwelling houses, of which about 60,000 have been erected since 1854, and the number is constantly increasing. While wealthy citizens have erected many beautiful and costly residences for their own use, the habit has pre- vailed, ever since Brooklyn began to grow, of erecting houses " on speculation," as it was called. A builder, an architect, or a real estate dealer, obtained a tract of land consisting of from two to a hundred lots-25x100 feet-often paying only a small percentage of the value of the land, and having made his plans for a block of buildings, ranging from 12 to 20 feet in width, applied to banks, savings banks, insurance companies, or private capitalists, for a builder's loan sufficient or nearly suf- ficient to enable him to build houses of the style he in- tended. The security for this loan was a first mortgage on the buildings to be erected. The temptation was, to build these houses for the smallest possible sum con- sistent with an appearance sufficiently attractive to in- sure their salc. The buildings might be frame, brick, brown stone, or marble, according to the supposed wants of the vicinity, and the probable means of the pur- chasers. At first, these houses, especially in the out- lying wards,-which then included, in the Western District, much of the territory east and south of the City Hall; and in the Eastern District, most of the region east, and part of that west of Bedford avenue, and most of Greenpoint, and the region north of Broad- way-were mostly frame, and oftener than otherwise of two stories and basement, with balloon frames and flat, roofs. The modern improvements were, very few of them, introduced, the present sewerage system not hav- ing been perfected, and sewers only built on the great thoroughfare, and the Ridgewood water not being in- troduced. These houses were generally well built for the time, but the profit was sufficient to indnce many who had had no experience or practical knowledge to engage in it, and some of them disastrously. In some instances, capitalists furnished the money, employing builders to do the work, and when the houses were fin- ished, holding, and selling or renting them. The compe- tition soon led to the erection of better houses, of brick, brown stone or marble. Some of these were three stories in height, though the majority were still but two stories and basement. As the sewers were constructed, and the Ridgewood water introduced into the streets,

832

HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

the inevitable plumber began to introduce his pipes and fixtures, and decay and disease soon visited the new houses. But the constantly increasing competition led to new improvements, and swell or angle fronts of brown stone, often only a veneer of stone, three stories and a mansard roof, elegant fixtures for the wash-basins, stationary tubs, finely furnished kitchens and dining rooms, hard-wood doors, stairs and floors, elaborately carved stairways and newel posts, bronze door-knobs, hinges, locks, etc., etc., took place of the earlier and plainer finishing. There was, in most cases, consider- able slighting of the work which was not intended to be seen. The prices of these showy dwellings went constantly higher and higher, till the classes who had hitherto purchased them, mainly young and enterpris- ing business men, who had but little ready money, but good prospects ahead,-found themselves unable to purchase these expensive houses, even though the first payments were but small. There was a demand for a cheaper class of houses which should yet be sufficiently tasteful and elegant to satisfy the cultivated tastes of the purchasers.

This demand has been partially met in several ways. The greater part of these honses had been 20 feet in width and of varying depth from 30 to 50 feet. Some builders resorted to the plan of making them narrower -three houses, 163 feet each in width, on two city lots, or fifty feet-some even narrowed them to 12 or 14 feet, with the miminum depth. Others built brown stone houses of the regulation width, 20 feet, but only two stories and basement, sagely remarking to the pur- chasers that it would be very easy for them, by and by, when they wished, to put on a third story, not mention- ing the fact that the walls were too thin to make this possible, under the existing building laws. Others, desirous of furnishing more room, made their houses two stories in front and three stories in the rear.

None of these plans proved perfectly satisfactory; there was a great rage for brown-stone veneers on the front, though the best brick is in all respects a better, safer and more durable material. Within the past three or four years a great demand has sprung up for apartment houses, or, as they are less euphoniously called, flats. In the eastern wards of the Western Dis- triet, as well as in the region west of the Park, these buildings have gone up by hundreds. They are of all grades-good, bad and indifferent; a few with elevators and skylights, interior courts, and all the latest im- provements, including that very doubtful improvement, If we take into the account the employees of these 1,343 firms, we shall have an aggregate of not less than 15,000 persons connected with the house building trades and professions. And to this number should also be added the manufacturers and dealers in paper-hangings, 30 in number; the manufacturers of iron work for honses, of whom, in all branches, there are about 75; and the brass founders who make a specialty of house the tyrant janitor-but the rent of these was as inneh, or more, than that of a neat and comfortable house. Others had dumb waiters, narrow and stuffy dark rooms in the centre, and comparatively few conveniences. Some, even poorer than these, very soon degenerated into tenement houses. The imposing exterior of these flats had mneh to do with their temporary popularity, but the business has been overdone. The Eastern Dis- I furnishings, of whom there are 24, and, with their em-

trict-Williamsburg-has not been so extensively " flat- tened " as the Western District, but its immense fac- tory population has required a much larger number of tenement houses, and these are of all kinds except the best.

While the great enterprise in the erection of dwell- ings, manufactories, warehouses, school edifices, churches, halls, theatres and public buildings, has called in a vast addition to our population, and has increased, and will still increase, our wealth and prosperity as a city, its first effect was to greatly increase our taxation. The territory of our city was so large, and the building up of the streets with outlying wards so rapid, that it necessitated enormous expenditure in the constrnetion of sewers, the laying of water pipes, and the grading and paving of the new streets. Prospect Park and the other parks, as well as the Sackett street or Eastern Parkway and the Ocean Parkway, and the Bridge, have also come into these thirty years, and have, with the other outlays, made the taxation in some of the past years very heavy. These extraordinary expenses are now among the reminiscences of the period of our eity's adolescence, and the taxation is not now as heavy as in many other eities. The present year it is about 2.58 per cent. on the assessed valuation.

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Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 48

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909. Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York : Munsell Number of Pages: 1360

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360