Pocahontas Times

OWNING AN ACRE OF NEW YORK GROUND
BRINGS $7,000,000.

Tract on Which Fifth Avenue Hotel Stands Sold at That Figure
Once Bought for a Few
Glass Beads.

In Fifth avenue, New York, between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth streets, facing Madison square, a tract of land a little over an acre has just been sold for $7,250,000. The old Fifth Avenue hotel, which occupies this plot of ground, is to be torn down and a colossal office building is to take its place. Since the present buildings are to be removed, their value does not enter into the selling price, which is simply in payment for the exclusive and permanent use of an acre of Manhattan island

The first time that this tract of land was sold its value represented only a few beads out of one of the strings of glass beads paid to the Indians who were in possession of Manhattan Island when the white men came here. After that there were successive sales, each one at a higher price, until in 1859 Mr. Eno bought the roadhouse that then stood on the corner and the yards and stables around it, and spent $2,000,000 erecting what was then the most costly and the biggest hotel in the United States.

In 1900, after Mr. Eno's death, the hotel property was sold at public sale for $4,225,000. This sale to the office building syndicate is the third in 50 years.

Long before the Dutch founded the village of New Amsterdam on Manhattan island this tract of land was here. Since the geological changes which diverted the Hudson from the west of The highlands to its present valley, ever since there has been an island bounded by the North, East and Harlem rivers, this plot of land has existed in exactly the same dimensions and area.

For the purposes of raising crops it is not as valuable as it was then. Its intrinsic value has been further diminished by cutting down the great trees which grew there.

Why is this land worth so much? Because it is in the center of Manhattan island. And the area of Manhattan island is worth so many billions of dollars because so many millions of people live and work here. If there were fewer millions of people here the land would be worth fewer billions of dollars. If the millions of people here continue to increase-by further millions, the value of the land will continue to increase by further billions.