SECOND BOSTON OBJECT LESSON 71 
land itself. It is whatever is paid for the use of a 
Whole property, land and buildings, less taxes, insur 
ance, and repairs, and a fair interest on the value of 
the buildings. When new buildings, or extensive 
alterations are made by the tenant which are to revert 
to the landlord at the end of say a twenty years’ lease, 
then one-twentieth ofV his outlay becomes a part of 
the annual ground rent, because it forms a part of the 
price paid for use of the land. Ground rent is simply 
“a premium paid for the advantage of location; it 
is the value of the special privilege of the occupancy 
of a particular spot of land to all of which all men 
have an equal right, but from which all but one are 
and must be excluded.” To tax this value of land 
is no burden upon the user, because he can get a better 
living by using this land, after paying the rent, than 
by using some other land that nobody wants, and 
that hence has no rental value. 
The Transit Commission took the estate, northwest 
corner of Washington and Boylston Streets (Fig. X), 
by eminent domain for subway purposes,and the expert 
estimates of its value ran as high as $625,000, or $587 
a square foot; the Commission conveyed the property 
back, allowing the owner as compensation for the res 
ervation of the basement and part of the ground floor 
for transit purposes, $150,000, a sum only $17,000 
less than the assessed valuation of the whole estate, 
besides interest and an allowance of $10,000 toward 
necessary reconstruction of the building. While 
this is a very complicated case, and the owner, a well- 
known Boston merchant, claims that the sum received 
by him for damages does not compensate him fully 
for the diminution in the value of the estate, the facts