Viewing page 7 of 71

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

✓

The Fifth Avenue Association INC
EMPIRE STATE

350 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK
Telephone: PEnnsylvania 6-7900

BULLETIN NO. 69, MARCH, 1932

TO OUR MEMBERS:

ASSOCIATION ELECTS OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS FOR 1932

Following the Annual Meeting of the Association, which was held on February 16, the Board of Directors of the Association reelected Captain William J. Pedrick president of the Association for 1932. Other officers elected were John H. Towne, Chairman of the Board of Directors; Douglas L. Elliman, John S. Burke, and Franklin Simon, Vice Presidents; Harris A. Dunn, Treasurer; and Thomas V. Hughes, Secretary. Announcement was made also of the election of J. E. Pridday, President of Lord and Taylor, and LeRoy T. Pease, Secretary and Treasurer of Ovington Bros. Company, as directors.of the Association.

Captain Pedrick's comments on the work accomplished in 1931 and that ahead of the Association for 1932 should be of interest to our members. "During 1931 the Association was faced with the task of carrying on greatly increased activities with decreased strength due to liquidations of business, withdrawals and mergers. In times of depression the work of our organization becomes proportionately harder because of the efforts that are made by cheap businesses and speculative interests to gain a foothold in our section. Combine these efforts with the weaknesses caused by resignations and you can see why it is that we are fearful of the year that lies ahead unless we can not only retain the strength of membership which we now have, but restore to a great extent the losses suffered during 1931.

"Daily, the importance of organized resistance to those things which would quickly destroy every standard of business, every bulwark of value in this section, becomes more apparent. The development of the Fifth Avenue Section is not the result of mere chance; it is the outcome of carefully planned efforts, supported by a strong, influential membership; it is the result of daily, hourly supervision of the many factors which today enter into the conduct of business or the maintenance of property or residential interests. Once discontinue that supervision or abandon the planning so necessary to development, and this Fifth Avenue Section would be just another business district at the mercy of every speculator, showman, or exploiter who wished to capitalize upon the prestige or address and the desirable reputation which has been so carefully developed here over the past twenty-five years.

"The Fifth Avenue Association in the past twenty-five years has proved itself to be an agency of great practical benefit to business men and women and property owners and residents. Its success has always been measured by the degree of support it has received from those who are benefiting directly or indirectly from its activities. Today, the guardianship it exercises, the resistance it offers to cheap practices, the development plans it has perfected, are more essential than ever before. No other agency can do the work it is doing, no individual can hope to accomplish what the strength of membership makes possible. I call upon every member, therefore, to continue to give the support to the work of his organization that he has given in the past, and to try with all the means at his command to help build up that organization, in his own interest and in the interest of the future of the section."

ASSOCIATION WINS LAW VICTORY ENDING LONG FIGHT
When an amendment to the Sign Law in the Code of Ordinances became a law during the week of March 1st, a long campaign by the Association for extension of the restrictions against signs to the district east of Fifth Avenue came to an end.  The new law, which encountered one obstacle after another since it was first proposed by us in April, 1929, until finally passed in its new form, extends the restrictions against projecting illuminated and projecting non-illuminated signs to the district between 32nd and 60th Streets, exclusive of 42nd Street, between Fifth and Lexington Avenues. It also adds to the restricted territory Madison Avenue, 23rd to 34th Streets, and 72nd to 96th Streets, and Park Avenue between 32nd and 40th Streets, and between 45th and 96th Streets, and Vanderbilt Avenue between 42nd and 47th Streets.  In this new area, permits for illuminated signs will not be renewed at the end of a year's time from the date on which the law became effective.

MADISON AVENUE STREET CAR REMOVAL PLANS
Largely as a result of the Association's efforts in bringing the Madison Avenue Street Cars to the front in the discussion of proposals for bus lines on our streets, great attention is being given to this line today as one of the "key" lines in the entire Manhattan controversy. Two of the most recent applications for franchises

Transcription Notes:
Headings and other unfinished, indents in paragraphs not indicated.