OooovJuoiJy -giJ The Borough Beautiful? A BRONX OPPORTUNITY By ALBERT E. DAVIS, President of THE NORTH SIDE BOARD OF TRADE. Being a Paper Read Before The New York City Improvement Commission, at a Hearing in the Office of the President of The Borough of The Bronx, in Crotona Park, Third and Tremont Avenues, New York City, on July 27th, 1904 'I3l5r'06 TO THE NEW YORK CITY IMPROVEMENT COMMISSION. Gentlemen : — When, in 1807, a Commission consisting of Gouverneur Morris, Simeon De Witt and John Rutherford devised the present street plan of Manhattan Island from Houston to 155th sts. they wrote apologeticall} "It may be a subject of merriment that the Commis- sioners have provided space for a greater popu- lation than is collected at any spot on this side of China." And then they ventured this prediction: "It is improbable that for cen- turies to come, the ground north of the Harlem flats will be covered by houses." Little did its chairman dream that his fine old estate, stretching fanlike from Harlem Bridge to Fordham and West Farms, would become a city in itself; yet in less than one century the northward march of development has swept past the Harlem fiats and across the Harlem River until to-day tenements a'^d fac- tories have invaded the old Manor of Morris- ania and the undreamt of City beyond the Harlem is teeming with a population four times that of the City of New York at the time he planned for its future. That Commission stated that however much stars, circles, crescents and the like might embellish a plan, square sided houses were the cheapest to build aid the most convenient to l>ve in; hence the street system should con- sist of rectangular blocks. Yet, judging from results, who would claim to-day that the plan of Maahattan Island, with its monotonous grid- iron of parallelograms, was to be preferred to that of Washington, with its broad, tree- lined, diagonal boulevards, embellished by circles or parks at the intersections ? For convenience of intercommunication between remote sections; for beautiful yistas; for op- portunities for architectural effect, which are the essentials of a model city, we see at a glance the superiority of Washington. DISTRICT OF CHESTER. In the undeveloped portions of New York City opportunity is afforded to profit by the experiences of older communities and avoid their mistakes. Especially is this so in the ter- ritory east of The Bronx river — the District of Chester — which comprises about 14,500 acres, and is therefore larger than the whole of Man- hattan Island. Of this great area it may be said that it is as broad as it is long, as distin- guished from narrow, elongated Manhattan. This breadth at once suggests the need of di- agonal streets or short cuts to brings its diff- erent parts into convenient access to each other as well as to the City below it. Now naturally the trend of travel will al- ways preponderate to and from Manhattan. This is as iixed and unchangeable as the mov- ing of the tides; and so plain that "he who runs may read." The best indication of it is the course followed by the old roads, the sole purpose of which was convenience of travel to and from New York. Thus we have the Old Boston Post Road, the Fordham and Pelham Road, the West Farms Road and Westchester Turnpike giving unmistakable evidence of the natural course or direction of travel. Logically the nearer that these could be paralleled in the intervening streets, for manifestly they are too i^-regular for City streets, the greater con- venience to the greater number of people would result. This was apparently recognized in the sec- tion known as Unionport; and the street sys- tem in this small section has been retained in its original form in the adopted map. Clearly the first essential of a street system is conven- ience of intercommunication. Yet strange as it may seem throughout the major portion of the district, the streets as laid out, would di- vert the bulk of travel in a direction at right angles to its natural course, two streets being run that way to every one toward Manhattan, in an apparent attempt to imitate what every one now recognizes as the vital mistake in the street system of Manhattan. Consider how vastly easier the solution of the Rapid Transit problem would be for Man- hattan to-day were the grid -iron twisted side- wise, giving a greater number of longitudinal, and fewer lateral thoroughfares, the bulk of travel being up and down rather than across the island. EMBELLISHMENT OF PLAN NEEDED. We ask your Commission to examine care- fully the map or plan prepared by former Chief Topographical Engineer Louis A. Risse, which was approved by the Board of Public Improve- ments and had the enthusiastic endorsement of our Board and other civic bodies and repre- sentative citizens, and then compare it with the unsystematic arrangement of streets with zig zag diagonal roads devoid of any attempt at artistic effect or embellishment of the sub- stituted plan. RIVER BANK RESERVATIONS. Your attention is also called to the splendid opportunities for locating public recreation and picnic grounds by acquiring strips of land along the banks of the Bronx River from Williamsbridge to the city line and of West- chester Creek and Hutchinson River similar to the public reservations upon the banks of the Charles River as laid out by the Metropolitan Park Commission of Boston. Now is the time to acquire these strips at small expense; the city will be the loser by delay. I refer espec- ially to the upper portion of the Bronx River, and it will be noticed that provision was made for this in the Risse plan. Lovers of the pic- turesque and beautiful will have deep cause for regreo if this opportunity is lost. LAGOONS AND WATERWAYS. The Chicago, Buffalo and St. Louis Fairs have demonstrated the artistic value and effect of grand basins, lagoons or waterways as surroundings for public buildings. Why not preserve some of these admirable ideas in permanent form? In the locating of civic centres I would suggest that in the new terri- tory these features be incorporated. A SUGGESTIVE PLAN. Herewith I respectfully submit a suggestive plan for a street system for that part of the Borough of the Bronx lying east of the Bronx River and south of Pelham Bay Park of which the southerly boundary is the East River and the easterly Long Island Sound. It might not be desirable to have the streets only :iOO feet apart, cor the intersecting streets so close together,but this will serve to illustrate the idea desired to be conveyed. In this plan a civic centre is proposed at the junction of Tremont ave. extended to the Sound, the Eastern Boulevard and Westchester Creek, the waters of the creek being diverted into lagoons and waterways upon which and upon the broad intersecting streets the public buildings would front, graceful bridges and statuary adding to the general effect. This would be convenient ai