April 1, 1913.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



343 



RUBBER MANUFACTURING IN THE "NEW YORK 



ZONE." 



By C. Wilfred Pcarce, C.E. 



'T'HE year 1912 chronicles the highest volume of trade ever 



* attained in the zone of Xew York as to sales of manu- 

 factures of rubber to the marine, mechanical and electrical en- 

 gineering interests, and to the building trades. The zone of 

 Greater New York is a radius of twenty miles from the City 

 Hall. The area is 2,345 square miles and the population is almost 

 seven and one-half millions. This zone is growing faster man 

 the nation; New York City alone yearly adds to its population 

 the equivalent of the population of Paterson, New Jersey. Since 

 the opening of the year 1910, the increase in the population of 

 the zone of Greater New York has been as many persons as 

 are accounted for in the last census of Boston. To provide for 

 the wants of the vast population of the zone of Greater New 

 York the manufactures of rubber, calls for the employment of 

 as many rubber trade workers as were employed in the whole 

 domestic rubber industry in 1850. 



Accurate statistics of the volume of rubber goods consump- 

 tion in this zone are not procurable. There is no good reason 

 why manufacturers or jobbers should make known the volume 

 of their sales, and there are cogent reasons why they should not 

 set forth the volume of sales in a community, in which hundreds 

 of promoters are looking for arguments for the flotation of 

 schemes based upon the manufacturing interest. But fairly good 

 estimates of the annual consumption of mechanical trades re- 

 quirements in manufactures of rubber, are obtainable from the 

 principal designing and constructional engineers. Judging from 

 what the principal local scientific engineers set forth as estimates 

 as to the consumption of all kinds of rubber manufactures 

 bought by final consumers for use within 25 miles of the City 

 Hall, and under specifications which cover the twelve months 

 of 1912, the sum is not under $3,000,000. This sum does not 

 include an estimate of the purchases by thousands of janitors 

 and tens of thousands of householders, concerning which statis- 

 tics are not collectable. 



Thirty-four millions of our population reside at places that 

 are reached by watercraft documented at New York and ad- 

 jacent ports. These vessels consume largely both staple and 

 special manufactures of rubber, and in addition to this trade, 

 the local marine engineering outfitters are doing a yearly increas- 

 ing trade with many of the almost 12,000 foreign steamships 

 that come to this port in a year. 



So much is printed by the daily press as to the alleged decay 

 of our mercantile marine, and the necessity for Federal aid to 

 nurse our ocean carrying trade, that the general public takes 

 it for truth, whereas our coastwise, river and lake shipping 

 interest is enormous in tonnage, and. for the most part is paymg 

 good profits to the owners. In the past twelve-month, our water 

 transportation lines carried two and one-half times as iiiuch 

 freight as was carried within the same period by all our steam 

 railroads. Many of our great lines of coastwise, river and lake 

 steam vessels are owned by railroads, and in all that relates to 

 the use of the best grades of mechanical and other rubber wares, 

 these steamship lines are as well circumstanced as the railroad 

 interest is at such plants as the Pennsylvania system's shops 

 at Altoona, Pa., and the plant of the Vanderbilt lines at West 

 Albany. It would be difficult to find anywhere among the store- 

 rooms of the greater steamship lines of Europe, a stock com- 

 parable in variety and quantity with those maintained at the 

 Great Lakes ports for the one hundred big steamships operated 

 by the United States Steel Corporation. What is shipped from 

 New York City and vicinity in rubber goods to the Great Lakes 

 ship yards, marine engineering works and vessels, aggregates 

 about $750,000 a year, as is estimated by an officer of a local 

 corporation engaged in the manufacture and jobbing of marme 

 engineering supplies. But this amount is not included in the 



estimate herein given for the animal sales of such wares within 

 the zone of Greater New York. 



A factor of importance in 1912's local rubber goods trade 

 is the large number of mercantile buildings and apartment tiouses 

 that were completed, and most of which are so high that the 

 fire engines cannot force water to the upper stories. That fact 

 has developed in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, and in 

 parts of adjacent cities, the installment of fire pumps, hose and 

 other fittings for fighting fire by employees of the owners and 

 tenants of the tall structures. So well provided are scores of 

 the new tall mercantile structures, completed on Manhattan 

 Island, with fire-fighting apparatus, and with driven wells be- 

 neath the buildings, that upward of 2,500 concerns in the textile 

 industries moved during last year from the downtown whole- 

 sale drygoods district to new quarters above Union Square. 



For fire hose and hose for vacuum cleansing apparatus, the 

 expenditures by owners of new buildings completed within the 

 zone of Greater New York during 1912, aggregated almost a 

 third more than the sum' estimated for the previous twelve- 

 month by conservative mechanical engineers. In the twelve- 

 month, ending with last December there were completed within 

 New York, and in cities within a few miles thereof. 2,687 high- 

 class apartment houses. Few of these cost less than $500,000; 

 many cost upward of $750,000 each. None of these houses is 

 without private fire-fighting equipments. In the larger and 

 most costly of these houses, steam, electric, hydraulic and com- 

 pressed air power are used, and the resident engineer has under 

 him from six to twenty assistants to care for water, steam 

 heating, refrigerating, power and lighting apparatus. A year's 

 requirements of engineerin.g rubber products for these apart- 

 ment houses comes to a big sum. Just how much it comes to 

 the sellers do not care to tell. But it is certainly a factor of 

 importance to the trade. 



Cheap and good coal from Southern mines, laid down at the 

 port of New York and vicinity at extraordinary low water 

 freight rates, has enormously stimulated manufacturing within 

 this zone, so that it now ranks first in the viforld in number 

 of employees and value of production. Cheap coal has brought 

 about a number of very large power-producing and selling cor- 

 porations that sell power much cheaper than any but a very 

 large manufacturing plant can produce it for. One such power- 

 producing plant in this city employs 187 mechanical draughts- 

 men in designing electrical apparatus and planning electric power 

 installations for users of power. 



To take advantage of this low-priced and steady power, many 

 buildings have been especially built hereabouts within a few 

 years, in which manufacturers can rent room and power at low 

 rates. All this results in making this zone a continuously in- 

 creasing market for a very large sale of rubber wares used in 

 constructural engineering work, and in many lines of manu- 

 facture in which rubber goods play a considerable part. 



.•\ short time ago it seemed as if the local jobber in rubber 

 goods was being pushed to the wall by manufacturers who 

 employed all arts to reach the consuming interest. Today, the 

 jobbing trade is in good case, and a number of manufacturers 

 have abandoned the solicitation of consumers, and are selling 

 through the engineering trades supply concerns. The jobbers 

 are serving the retailers and final consumers with promptness, 

 and are doing sound educative work in introducing new and 

 improved rubber wares in many lines. By means of the tele- 

 phone and fast motor wagons these jobbers are filling orders, 

 local and within 20 miles out of town, on very short notice, 

 so that it is no longer necessary for the retail and consuming 

 trades to carry large stocks. Several jobbers within the zone 

 of Xew York, having accounts with power plants that work day 

 and night, now provide for filling emergency orders at night, by 

 having employes at warehouses all night, who fill orders and 

 rush them off at once by their emergency motor wagons. 



