| Show P plan in extend i MIAN 0 aa 13 R 0 0 ka Y M X STATEN t 3 M am 1 74 ISLA Ill wa A hi 1 i iq IV V t aw mh awe HEATER NEW YORK which will celebrate its tercentenary as soon as it gets through squab bling blang over tho the date of the celebration has nn an nenod pretty much everything in sight which does not bel belong ong to now jersey pennsylvania massachusetts and connecticut and thereby lias has accumulated a population of something like people now it la Is talking about extending e manhattan island nine miles out into the bay and adding some worth of realty to the city according to the now york times anyway ono one man la Is going ahead with the idea of building a city of where now to Is but an expanse of water he Is T kennard thomson tho the engineer who jolted a good many imaginations when lie ho camo came forward with a plan for the enlargement of tho the city along lines nature never contemplated in the rev revision islon and detailing of this plan lie ho has altered tho the original outlines to extending manhattan toward now new jersey in fact to cross crosa tho the new jersey water line this possibility of increasing man 0 by nine square miles has stirred up so much interest in staten island and along the now jersey shore that the good folk there have become rivals to have love the plans favor their respective communities thus the tha baionno chamber of commerce brought all of its gunk to bear and had mr Thom sons plan so modified that tho the tip end of the now new Wan manhattan hattan would run down in the general direction of bayonne with a proportionate increase in property values there but staten island has not given up the fight lias has only begun and if this vision of a greater manhattan ever should be realized staten island may be depended upon to do its duty from an engineering standpoint the only thing necessary to reclaim nine 1 square miles from the upper bay and annex it to manhattan island according to thomson Is the construction of a series of sea walls ite ho proposes the caisson method used in building the foundations of new york skyscrapers to place such retaining walls down upon bed rock before enormous suction auction dredges are put to work to pump out nil all the water and ather material above rock at the southerly or lower end of tho the bay where the rock Is too deep mr thomson explained we would build massive concrete walls walla as before and then backfill back fill nil with clean bond and pumped from the ocean using bellou dredges with intake pipes of at least 40 inches in diameter dini such aa have bave been used in egypt for years pumping cubic yards of sand a day s tho the proposed extension la Is sold to have won tho the attention of financiers i engineers inventors ventora tn and civic organizers since it received the first serl seri ous indorsement endorsement Indor two years ago from the broadway Broad woy association among the first to declare for tho the scheme which mr thomson says would eliminate roost most of the difficulties arising from new yorks present congestion was ex judge alton B porker parker head bead of the national civic fede federation rution thomas A edison Is one of it a hundred or more experts who have in forwe mr thomson that tho thi thing A 71 1 n g 14 1 ailt I 1 rip k cwb can bo be done the inventor himself once pondered over the physical and geographical problems of manhattan and offered a solution he also proposed an extension of manhattan he would have extended it to brooklyn by filling the east river after studying the plan of mr air thomson mr edison expressed this opinion your extension of new york Is bold and seems practicable so far as engineering Is concerned it bents beats my old suggestion of filling in the east river instead of being better thanyous than your plan it Is only the first part of it replied the engineer he then explained that the proposed extension of manhattan island was only one step in a comprehensive scheme for a city of As the to the tip end of manhattan Is the first step in that scheme mr thomson Is concentrating for the most moat part on this phase of the undertaking der taking he Is designing what be believes will bo be an ideal city because in building a modern city from the ground up it would bo be possible to avoid all the mistakes made in the building of our present cities just to give you something to start on said eald the engineer imagine the whole of manhattan south of forty second street swept clean overnight of every building property line sewer subway etc think what a 0 wonderful opportunity there would be to improve each and every detail especially it if you did not have to start rebuilding without having timo to think as Is usually the case after on an earthquake or a fire one on womans comans view the views of women also have been sought by mr thomson because ho he believes it would bo be impossible to design an idealistic city without the ideas of the women mr thomson emphasizes the improvements prove ments which would add to the comfort of living and even suggests that each building be planned to cover an entire block with the tenants gov arned by u sub mayor we never want to bum a pound of coal nor cubic foot of rug in ID our now new city of manhattan extended as we hope to got get hydroelectric hydro electric light heat and power from tho the niagara st lawrence delaware Dela waro and hudson rivers which would supply all tho the light heat and power at a fraction of the cost required if coal were used ui aed lie ho said this would save the wear and tear of the streets from the hauling ol oi coal and ash carts to say nothing of tho the dust smoke and congestion of traffic it also would save space in tho the cellars from coal ashes furnaces and boilers we do not want to have any dark subways but above our sewer street we want to have three other street levels each with sidewalks and stores on both sides the lower of these three levels would be devoted do voted to heavy trucking with railroad tracks all around the waterfront the next level would bo be for rapid transit purposes some big rapid transit engineers tell nic me the moving platform system could bo be so developed that our rapid transit streets might be equipped that way the top level would be for light traffic automobiles buses and so on obviously we could handle at least four to five times the population per square mile of any other city in the world without congestion these different street levels would permit us to walk all over the city on the hottest day in summer or tho the coldest day in winter without a hat or overcoat merely selecting the proper street level every building would cover a whole block having root roof gardens on top with pools where children from three years up could learn to swim any one passing over the city would look down do wn on beautiful gardens instead of the N present eyesores would it not be possible to have the top floors of many of these build ings devoted to apartments the floor below given up to restaurants clubs and so on where the people on the upper floor could go down for their meals or havo have them cook cookie tj and sent up by dumb walters waltera in some cases where whole buildings above the street were devoted to apartments it would be possible to t 0 have a floor near the top devoted t to 0 school purposes where the children could havo have ready access to the roo gardens if the buildings were benl twenty ly or thirty or moro more floors tall a trolley line might run all around the city on en the top level so that lit in the hottest day in summer refreshing rides could be had plans could be made maae for handling snow in front of each building which would prevent any trouble from snow or the necessity nece of carting it away new york has baa a wonderful bay and has had wonderful opportunities but in one hundred and twelve years with the possible exception of the water sup ply every plan pl an I 1 it t I 1 ha iga laid d out was inadequate before it was waa com completed |
