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October i6, 1909
RECORD AND GUIDE
^77
ESTABUSHEd'^ march Siu^ 1868.
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Bi/sn/ESSAtfeThemes OF GEffcRAl IrlitflfaT.:
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Communications should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET
Published EVery Saturday
By THE RECOBD AND GUIDB CO.
President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W. DODGE
Vlce-Pres. & Genl. Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary, P. T. MILLER
Nob. 11 to 15 East 24th Street, Ne-*v York C(ty
(Telephone, Madisou Square, 4430 to 4433.)
"Entered at tlie Post Office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter,"
Copyrighted. 1000. by The Record & Guide Co.
Vol- LXXXIV.
OCTOBER 16. 1909.
No. 2170
NO THINKING MAN could have mixed -with the enor¬
mous crowds that flooded the streets during the Hud¬
son-Pulton celebration without being struck by the fact that
the problem of surface track congestion would during the
next ten years become the most critical problem connected
with the future growth and prosperity of New York City.
It is absolutely essential that steps should be taken in the
near future to study this problem from every point of view
and to consider the most practical methods of dealing -with
it. The question is: How can the pressure of vehicular and
pedestrian trafiic, particularly during a period of public cele¬
bration or excitement, be taken care of -with safety and -with¬
out too much expense? The buiiding of Subways will obvi¬
ously do nothing to make this problem less acute and mo¬
mentous. On the contrary, improved means of transit will,
at least so far as Manliattan is concerned, tend to increase
rather than diminish its difficulties. When the whole out¬
lying district within a radius of fifteen miles from the heart
of Manhattan is directly connected with the central borough
by express trains, the result will be a still greater conges¬
tion of traffic, whenever and wherever there is any reason for
a crowd to congregate. There are over 5,500,000 people
living within this territory at the present time. In another
ten years its population will be almost 7,500,000. Iu an¬
other twenty years it will be at least 9,500,000. Manhattan
will be the place to which a large increasing proportion of
these people will come for a certain proportion of their
pleasures and business. In the meantime that borough wili
be passing through a corresponding process of local growth,
in order to provide the necessary facilities to enable this
crowd to amuse themselves and to transact their business.
An increasingly large number ot people from all over the
country will be sojourning in its hotels. Its chief avenues
and streets will become a solid mass of skyscrapers. The
constant process of improvement and cheapening that is tak¬
ing place in motor-cars will result in an increase in vehicular
traffic greater in proportion than the increase in population.
If it is difficult for the street system of the city to accommo¬
date this traffic now, what will it be flfteen or twenty years
from now, when that traffic will have at least doubled in
amount. A man has only to recollect what has been accom¬
plished during the past ten years in the way of building up
Manhattan and of increasing the crowds of vehicles and peo¬
ple on its streets to understand that a corresponding process,
extending over another ten years will produce a condition
of congestion which will gradually become intolerable.
THE PROBLEM of dealing with this present and future
congestion has never been really seriously, scientifically
and comprehensively studied. Obviously, some means must
be adopted to increase the capacity of the streets of Manbat-
tain in certain central and peculiarly congested locations.
But what means? Various plans have been proposed to in¬
crease the street capacity by cutting through new thorough¬
fares or by widening existing ones. Some of these plans
must eventually be adopted, but it is becoming increasingly
obvious tliat proposals looking towards an increase of
street room in the central districts of Manhattan are becom¬
ing impracticable, because of the expense. It is still possible
for the city to improve its street, layout by cutting through
Sixth and Seventh avenues to the south, because the prop¬
eity which would have to be acquired for the carrying out of
such plans is not prohibitively expensive. But, manifestly.
it is no longer possible for the city to increase the area of
such centres of congestion as Greeley and Lougacre squares
by the purchase of abutting private property. Ten years ago
the expenditure might not have beeu prohibitive; but now,
when real estate values near the most important centres of
congestion, run all the way from $100 to $300 a square
foot, it is obvious that not even New York can afford the
luxury of such improvements. Yet, it is in precisely such
centres of congestion as Longacre and Greeley squares that
some increased street room is absolutely necessary. The
question remains, then, what can be done; and assuredly
this question cannot be ans-wered without a close and com¬
prehensive examination of tbe problem in al! its bearings-
The new Board of Estimate should cause such an investiga¬
tion to be made; and the taxpayers' associations of this city
should urge upon the Board the importance of such a step.
The report of the Commission appointed by Mayor McClellan
did not cover the uecessary ground. There is no use at all
in laying out a comprehensive scheme of street improvement
that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and of
shifting the responsibility upon the remote future of finding
the necessary money. What the city needs to know is what
can be done now or within the next flfteen years to meet the
immediately critical situation? No plau or part of a plan
should be approved without a careful consideration of the
probable expense, and without possible means of raising the
money. Such a commission is becoming an absolute neces¬
sity; and the increasingly intolerable condition ot conges¬
tion will force its appointment sometime within the next few
years.
WHEN SUCH A COMMISSION is appointed it will do
well to consider a suggestion recently made by Mr.
Theodore Starrett in a letter to The Sun. Mr. Starretfs
idea is that the streets in ail centres of congestion should be
double decked- The idea has, of course, frequently been
broached before; but it has never been embodied in what
looks like a really practicable method of constructing the
double-decked streets. "A continuous elevated sidewalk of
glass and iron, forming a balcony at or about the level of
the second story window sills, with bridges over the street
crossings would," he says, "theoretically double the sidewalk
capacity; but owing to the fact that the trafflc would be un¬
obstructed the pedestrian capacity of the street would be
fully quadrupled." We agree with Mr. Starrett that even
the briefest investigation of this idea bestows upon it some
surprising advantages. It could be built piecemeal, first for
a block or two at such congested points as Broadway and
Forty-second street. Fifth avenue and Thirty-fourth street.
Fourth avenue and Forty-second street and Broadway and
Porty-second street. Gradually the system couid be ex¬
tended to cover the principal arteries of traffic. A balcony
attached to the stee! frames of the buildings, leaving the
lower street level unobstructed would be the most advan¬
tageous form of these sidewalks, but in the beginning the
balcony in front of old fashioned buildings could be sup¬
ported by iron posts. When the pedestrian travel is diverted
to the upper level, the present footways could be narrowed
on all the streets, just as they have recently been narrowed
on Fifth avenue. A lower sidewalk ten feet wide would be
sufficient for ail people who would -wish to travel there; and
iu this -way the congestion of vehicular and pedestrian traffic
could be relieved at the same time. Mr- Starrett is also
right in believing that double-decked sidewalks would be
extremely profitable to the property owners in front of whose
buildings they were placed- Instead of having only one
ground fioor, they would have two; and this would be an
enormous advantage from the point of view of retail trade.
Customers alighting from vehicles would for the most part
enter below and pedestrians from above. The circumstance
which contributes most to the value of real estate is the
number of people who pass by it and to whom it is access¬
ible; and this idea would increase the accessibility of all
centrally situated property without in any way injuring the
interests of the abutting property owners. The owners of
neighboring real estate are always hostile to street wideu-
ings and extensions, because such improvements usually
cause them great inconvenience and loss, and if tbey wish
to avoid such losses in the future, they will do well to con¬
sider very seriously Mr. Starretfs suggestion. It has the
unusual advantage of accomplishing a necessary public im¬
provement, not only without hurting any individual prop¬
erty owner, but also with every probability of being as bene¬
ficial to the private interests affected as to those of the
public.