YFOIt5f UC-NRLF E2 341 COMMISSION ON EAST SIDE APPROACH CITY OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND REPORTS 8F APRIL 10, 1911 Reports of " ineer John R. Freeman On Improved Highways and Parkways, Etc. For the EAST SIDE OF PROVIDENCE 1912 BERKELEY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA CITY OF , PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND REPORTS OF THE Commission on East Side Approach Created by City Council Resolution No. 49 Approved February 8th, 1910 INCLUDING THE REPORTS OF Engineer John R. Freeman Relative to Improved Highways and Parkways for the East Side of Providence May 10, 1912 THE LOOSE LEAF MFG. Co. CITY PRINTERS DOCUMENTS DEPARTMENT LIBRARY UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA -- 5 1 g M GO < LlJ UJ UJ 9 > o cc Q- >> & 1 APPOINTMENT OF COMMISSION In Common Council, Feb. 8, 1910. RESOLVED, That a commission of five persons, consisting of Henry Fletcher, *Benjamin P. Moul- ton, Walter F. Slade, John R. Freeman, and John H. Stiness, all of the City of Providence, is hereby created to consider and report to the City Council a plan for improved transportation facil- ities to and from the East Side of the City, by means of an easy grade highway, viaduct or tun- nel, or any combination of any of the same, and any new or improved highway or highways nec- essary or desirable in connection therewith or rel- ative thereto, and its recommendations as to how the same should be carried out. Said commission is anthorized to confer with and give hearings to persons interested, at the City Hall or else- where; to invoke the aid of any department or officer of the City in the performance of its duties hereunder; to employ, when in its opinion needed, the services of engineering and other experts, and generally to incur any other expenses incidental to the performance of its duties hereunder. Such sums of money as may be required for said pur- poses are hereby appropriated therefor, payable on the approval of the Mayor from the appropri- ation for contingencies. Said commission shall report with its recommendations, in print or oth- erwise, to either branch of the City Council. The members of said commission shall receive no compensation for their services. The official relations of the several members of the Commission to city affairs were as follows : *Henry Fletcher, Mayor of Providence; Benj. P. Mculton, President of Common Council; W;ilter F. Slade, Commissioner of Public Works: John R. Freeman, a taxpayer: John H. S'tiness. Formerly Chief Justice Supreme Court of Rhode Island, Retired. Albert A. Baker, Esq., City Solicitor , also attended the meetings of the commission. 070 ; ';%-- w~ ; FUTURE ROGER WILLIAMS STREET AS SEEN FROM TOP OF POST OFFICE. V' " Jl* rr.n. C E. OH )JncQ Xjpjqi-| REPORT OF COMMISSION. To THE HONORABLE THE CITY COUNCIL, GENTLEMEN : On February 8th, 1910, a Commission was cre- ated "to consider and report to the City Council a plan for improved transportation facilities to and from the East Side of the City, by means of an easy grade highway, viaduct or tunnel, or any combination of the same, and any new or improved highway or highways necessary or desirable in connection therewith or relative thereto, and its recommendations as to how the same shall be carried out." Pursuant to the foregoing, your Commission begs leave to report that it has considered the problem thus presented in its broadest application to the needs of the City and has attempted to solve it in a manner that will best serve the public a.', a whole. It is evident that the growth of the City demands in this instance a highway of such a character as to accommodate all classes of travel, including street cars, vehicles of all other kinds, and pedestrians. With this thought in mind the Commission entered upon its task, and after a free discussion and interchange of ideas as to achievements along similar lines in other cities, and the peculiar phases of our own problem, Mr. John R. Freeman, the engineering member of the Commission, consented to work out a plan em- bodying the general features outlined, a task which he has prosecuted to its completion in the form of the plan for an easy grade highway of 6.2% grade, approximately 100 to 90 feet In width and open to sunlight, and for a new easy grade street from the proposed new highway at or near DeFoe Place to Congdon Street, herewith pre- sented for your consideration, together with his clear and comprehensive report describing the same. If the plans so submitted meet the requirements of the situation and afford an adequate solution of a problem that has vexed this City for more than a generation, decisive steps should immedi- ately be taken by the City to build at its own cost and expense the proposed East Side approach highway, the ownership of which for all time must be vested in the City. Any street railway company to which may be granted trackage rights in and upon the proposed new thoroughfare should enjoy the same only under an agreement to reimburse the City to the extent of an equitable annual fixed charge. Your Commission has considered carefully the question of expense in the construction of such an improvement as is herewith set forth, and it has arrived at the conclusion that the estimated cost of $1,350,000 is not prohibitive nor excessive, when the importance of the work is regarded in its vital relation to the highest present and most consistent future development of the City. It would be unwise, in the opinion of this Board, to attempt to cheapen this broadly progressive undertaking by restricting its scope or seeking to reduce the scale of its construction, as compara- tively little would be saved thereby. Your Commission, therefore, desires to go on record as unanimously approving the plans pre- pared under the direction of Mr. John R. Free- man, as submitted with his report, and recom- mends that the City Council approve the same and adopt the accompanying resolution directing the City Solicitor to apply to the General Assem- bly for the passage of an enabling act. Respectfully submitted, HENRY FLETCHER, Chairman. BENJAMIN P. MOULTON, WALTER F. SLADE, JOHN R. FREEMAN, JOHN H. STINESS. Commission on East Side Approach. PROVIDENCE, April loth, 1911. Draft of a Resolution proposed by the City Solicitor for the purpose of carrying into etfect tne recommendations ol the Commission. RESOLUTION Directing the City Solicitor to apply to the Ger- eral Assembly for legislation to authorize the City to provide for a more safe and easy transit between the centre and East Side of the City. RESOLVED, That the City Solicitor is hereby directed to apply to the General Assembly at its present session for the passage of such legislation as will authorize the city of Providence to lay out and construct an easy-grade main public high- way in said city, beginning at a point in "Post Office square," so-called, and extending to Brown street, and to widen said Brown street from Wa- terman street to Olive street, and to change the grade of said Brown street from a point near Wa- terman street to a point near dishing street, and to lay out and construct an easy grade street from said main public highway, at and near DeFoe place to Congdon street, at and near Meeting- street, and to widen and change the grade of Congdon street from Meeting street, to near Bowen street, all substantially in accordance with the accompanying plans marked ''Easy Grade Street to and from East Side for street cars, vehicles and pedestrians, proposed by John R. Freeman, C. E., April, I9ii,"and comprising sheets marked A, B, C, D, and E with all neces- sary and reasonable powers required therefor or incidental thereto, including express powers to acquire by condemnation lands and interests and estates in lands ; to change the grades of existing public highways, or parts thereof, included in said main public highway to conform with the grade of said main public highway ; to make changes and adjustments of the grades of existing public highways which join, cross or connect with said main public highway, said easy-grade street to Congdon street and the parts of said Congdon street and Brown street in which the grade is changed, in the part or parts thereof at and near the points of connection, crossing or junction; to bridge over, across and along certain existing streets or ways or parts thereof ; to connect by stairways said main public highway with certain existing streets or ways ; to relocate so far as necessary public water pipes and sewers ; to ac- quire by condemnation in fee lands on the wester- ly side of Congdon street and the slope thereof ad- joining as a place for depositing earth excavation from said work, with power thereafter to dedicate the same for public park uses ; and relative to the prosecution of said work to close any part or parts of any existing public highway or highways and lay rails in any part or parts of any existing public highway or highways and operate cars thereon by any motive power, and enter upon any adjacent estate for the purpose of constructing any part or parts of said work, paying any dam- ages to the same, and for such temporary use or occupation to the owner or owners thereof; to acquire by purchase any lands authorized to be taken, by condemnation, including the whole of any estate, of which any part is authorized to be taken, and where any part of any estate is taken and remainder thereof is materially damaged to acquire by purchase such remainder; and to hold and improve any such remainder or any part of any estate acquired under any of the aforegoing powers, not needed for the aforegoing purposes, dedicate the same to any public use, or sell, lease or dispose of the same as the City Council of said city may determine ; and to hire the necessary money to defray the cost of all the same and to issue its bonds therefor for such time as said City Council shall determine ; and to hire the necessary money to defray the cost of all the same and to issue its bonds therefor for such time as said City Council shall determine; pro- vided, however, that before any such draft legis- lation shall be presented to the General Assembly it shall be first approved by the commission on improved transportation facilities to and from the East Side of the city. "And said commission is authorized to confer with any representatives of the State relative to any matters involved, in which the State has an interest ; and is further authorized to confer with any representatives of any street railroad com- pany relative to the terms upon which they or any of them may be permitted, when said main public highway is constructed, to lay rails in and use said new main public highway, and report with its recommendations as to said terms to the City Council." ,' T3 U J; n - 3 rt c 3 i rt +-I C (J ^ .C ^ ^ ~ Sj rt y** ^ 0) C JJ ex *> M'K .- S - -g 4) C rt c/) * o a, o 11 13 ty: tuD rt nj -. A 5 jrt ^H u o JU o\ ex -a JS ^H O +j "*< o - o C t S S S fe O nj K g 4) In' PQ ^ _c p Oi-O ->-. nj ui >-, " ^ S *" ex ^ u 3 "- 1 r- r*> , Q ^^ "H 1) >ji I n *- mi g ^ f 01 "2 a; < JJ c/> O c 5 " u O y^-, OJ D W O ^H > a * si m n " , O .- j^ (j CTj 4-1 Q^ a> fl S fe -S -3 * > 5 -o c >-. n) < - . 03 ^ r- (- H H 11 o 2 LJ r 12 u u U * I* u o o I o o z o PRELIMINARY REPORT OF ENGINEER JOHN R. FREEMAN. 13 April ist, 1911. HON. HENRY FLETCHER, MAYOR OF PROVIDENCE, CHAIRMAN OF COMMISSION ON EAST SIDE APPROACH. REPORT OF SUB-COMMITTEE ON ENGINEERING. SIR : The desirability of an easier grade up the East Side Hill has been before the people of Provi- dence since the days of Roger Williams. As Mark Twain said about the weather, "everybody complains but nothing is ever done." Yet this case is far from hopeless for the Providence papers are said to have published by actual count forty-eight different plans by either one of which this grade could be overcome. The fact that after all these years of recurrent discussion this obstacle to growth and conven- ience remains, simply indicates that the problem cannot be solved without strong treatment and liberal expenditure and that all must unite on some one good plan and put it through. THE PROBLEM. The problem as set forth in Resolution City Council Feb. 8, 1910, creating this Commission was "To consider and report to said Council a plan for improved transportation facilities to and from the East Side of the City, by means of an easy grade highway, viaduct or tunnel or any combination of the same and any new or improved highway or highways necessary or desirable, etc." THE SOLUTION PRESENTED. The solution offered by your engineer is that of a street 100 feet to 90 feet in width, open to sun- light, on a grade of 6.2 per cent., which is easier than that over which some of the heaviest street car traffic in Providence has been carried for many years ; much easier than the grade of Francis street past the State House and easier than the grade of Benevolent street in front of the Hope Club. The proposed street begins at the civic center, near the Post office and is a projection of Wash- ington street on nearly a straight line. It follows the straightest practicable course up the hill and ends at the crossing of Brown and Angell streets, opposite the middle of the College grounds. GRADES AND BRIDGES. After crossing over Canal street by a concrete bridge and occupying substantially the full open- ing to be secured by the removal of the Arnold Block, it crosses over North Main street also by a concrete bridge that gives more head room beneath it than is given by the tunnel bridge crossing North Main street immediately to the, north ; it then trims the corner of Jefferd's mar- ket building slightly, but does not touch the build- ings of the School of Design or the First Baptist Meeting House, although it cuts heavily into the the yard space of the latter. The church and the school can be left as they now stand or either can be raised bodily for bet- ter architectural effect in relation to the new grade. Crossing Benefit street at its present level, the new grade connects conveniently with the Water- man street curve for those who desire to reach Prospect street and proceeds straight up the hill in a deep open cut which attains its greatest depth just east of Prospect street. Prospect street remains the same as now and is to be carried over the new street on a broad and high masonry arch. This archway is continued only for a total length of 135 feet, or just past the projecting wings of the Corliss and Grosvenor mansions, thereby avoiding any disturbance of their archi- tectural setting, and since the opening under the arch is as high above the roadway as the peak of the roof of an ordinary two and a half story dwelling . it admits an abundance of light and air. The new grade starts at about 1 1 feet above tide and at Brown street has risen to 130 feet above tide, a rise of nearly 119 feet in a distance of about 1920 feet, which is at a gradient of slightly more than six feet rise per one hundred feet of length. i 4 ENGINEER'S PRELIMINARY LOTS AND BUILDINGS CUT INTO. The best alinement and proper width, compel moving the old Normal School building, now the Supreme Court House, to one side somewhat as the Armory was moved when the railroad built its tunnel two or three years ago. Proceeding up the hill the required gradient soon cuts so deeply as to require the City pur- chasing the seven dwelling houses on the east side of Angell street west of DeFoe Place and also several lots on the northerly side of Angell street enclosed by DeFoe Place, overlying the tunnel and belonging to the New Haven Railroad. Between DeFoe Place and Prospect street on the easterly side the three houses would need to be moved back a few feet. On the westerly side the Rosa Grosvenor house would not be dis- turbed. Northerly from Prospect street, the William Grosvenor house and the Corliss house would also remain undisturbed and the new street would here pass in a deep, broad archway, so that neither of these three large and beautiful houses would have its appearance changed as seen ' from Prospect street. Proceeding easterly to Brown street, neither of the three houses on the easterly side of Angell streeet would need to be moved ; each can be pro- vided with ornamental steps in a way that will not be unsightly. On the northerly side the four houses in- cluding the Baptist parsonage and the former Froebel School building would be cut into so deeply that it may probably be best to acquire these four properties outright. Easterly from Brown street, Angell street is not to be widened and no building would be moved. To promote rapid transit and the easy passage of large suburban cars around the corner by curves of ample radius and without cramping vehicular traffic between the tracks and the curb, it is extremely desirable to widen to seventy feet that short piece of Brown street lying between Waterman and Olive streets. This portion of Brown street would need to have its grade cut down a few feet, as shown on Plan No. 17, but the cut is not deep and there is no necessity for changing or moving the build- REPORT Continued. ings, save that it would give a little better width to that portion between Angell and Waterman streets if two of the wooden buildings on the east side were set back a very few feet. After all, it will be found in comparing the cost with that of a narrower street that the cost of an extra ten feet adds comparatively littfe where any substantial cut has to be made. It is the dis- turbance rather than the square feet of land that commonly forms the chief element in the payment for damages in street widening, and streets of the width herein proposed have proved their worth in various American cities of less population and wealth than Providence. In most of the various plans considered from time to time and for many years past, the neces- sity of removing the Arnold Block has been con- ceded. Your engineer recognizes that a suggestion to cut so wide and so deep as herein proposed may shock some of our conservative citizens ; but after a study of many plans and a long review of the conditions he believes it better to face some strong criticism than to be a party to the impair- ing of the convenience of posterity by a crooked street that is too narrow. If he may venture a criticism of some of the ingenious plans of the past it will be toward their manifest effort to economize by means of dodging around all prom- inent buildings and seeking a route up the hill through vacant back yards. THE STREET CAR SERVICE. From the above description and from studying the accompanying plans, it will be seen that sub- stantially all the work that need be done in the immediate future is comprised in the building of a broad thoroughfare about 2,000 feet long, from Canal street to Brown .street, and in readjusting the grade of a short portion each of Congdon street and Brown street and of Angell street east of Brown street, to meet the new conditions. The present street car service up Brown street will be conveniently served without the detour involved in carrying the new grade to Thayer street and the route by way of College Hill and Prospect street, with its expensive, slow and con- gested, if not dangerous counterweight car ser- vice, can be entirely dispensed with'. ENGINEER'S PRELIMINARY REPORT Continued. The access to Prospect street, via Waterman street, will remain as at present, but with a short cut for pedestrians down a stairway at one cor- ner of the arched bridge by which Prospect street will be carried over the new street. Two broad, easy stairways are provided at the end of the bridge over North Main street. FOUNDATION FOR NEW PARK. The Congdon street grade could be readjusted within its present lines ; but your engineer rec- ommends a broader treatment of this Congdon street connection, with a view to a future park development on the hillside near Prospect Ter- 1 race, and as laying the foundation for a future boulevard that might be without an equal in the United States, in its outlook over the City, with our beautiful State House in the foreground of the middle distance. The large amount of earth and rock spoil to be removed in excavating the broad new thorough- fare must be disposed of somehow, and the cheapest, and to his mind the best way would be the immediate purchase by the City of land for future park development surrounding Prospect Terrace and to the north thereof, upon which this earth should now be dumped and shaped up more or less roughly as the foundation for a future "Overlook Park." TYPE OF CONSTRUCTION. Concrete, plain or reinforced with steel, has been used throughout ; steel viaducts, bridges, trestles, stairways have been avoided because more noisy, less rigid and forever requiring painting. The steel reinforcement has been made particularly heavy in order to lessen trembling in the structure under the rapid passage of heavy suburban cars. There is no donbt that the weight of steel shown on the detailed drawings could be lessened with a corresponding saving of cost and still conform to requirements of saftey and common practice. COST. Plans almost complete enough for contract drawings have been prepared for all the difficult or important parts of this work. The chief reason for preparing plans so much in detail was that" the cost might be accurately estimated and that any difficulties of construction might be surely forseen and that the work, if authorized, may proceed rapidly. I find by the estimate that the total cost of real estate taken, real estate damaged and the building of all structures connected with the street and the readjustment of grades for the distance from the river to and including the changes at Brown street, will be in round numbers $1,350,000, as to be set forth in a table subsequently to be pre- pared, the precise amount depending upon the liberality with which real estate damages are esti- mated. It is of interest in this connection to note that the estimated cost of a tunnel 16 feet high and 26 feet wide, in the clear, accommodating only a double line of street cars from North Main street to Thayer street, exclusive of the cost of acquiring the Arnold Block property and exclu- sive of tracks, electrical work and ballast, wa~ in round numbers $750,000, which included $207,570 for easements and lands east of North Main street, and with a further sum if the School of Design were seriously interfered with. Mr. E. G. Buckland in a letter to the Chairman of the Joint Special Committee, dated Sept. 4, 1907, stated : "The expense which the Rhode Island Com- pany must incur in the construction of the pro- posed tunnel will amount to between $750,000 and $1,250,000. The result of this expenditure will be merely to provide a highway. upon which to lay and operate tracks of the Rhode Island Com- pany from North Main street to Thayer street." This was exclusive of the cost of the Arnold Block property which is assessed at $116,640. The cost of acquiring this property would doubt- less be somewhat larger. It thus appears that by adding but little more than 50% to the cost of a tunnel for street ears only, a street can be secured which will serve the interests of the street railway better than this proposed tunnel, and at the same time give the very best facilities for pedestrians and all classes of vehicles for all future time. i6 ENGINEER'S PRELIMINARY REPORT Continued. REIMBURSEMENT OF COST. Although the question of financing this project does not fall particularly upon your engineer, he cannot refrain from venturing the following sug- gestions : In 1907 it was stated that the cost of operating the counterweight system on College Hill was about $12,000 per year above the cost of operat- ing on a highway without auxiliary power. It is not stated if this included interest, depreciation or renewals. Probably the cost is materially greater today ; and beyond this is the risk as- sumed continually of a bad accident and the fact that its capacity is outgrown, traffic impeded, and the natural increase in receipts thereby lessened, while the public is inconvenienced. It would appear that trackage rights upon this broad, new, easy-grade street should repay to the City the interest charge upon two-thirds of the cost of the proposed improvement. From the letter above quoted i "The Rhode Island Company has, in agreeing to construct the tunnel, voluntarily assumed a fixed charge of the interest upon the sum necessary to construct the tunnel, or, calculated at 5%, between $37,500 and $62,500." If the Street Railway Company was ready two years ago to pay interest upon the entire cost of a tunnel amounting to one million dollars, more or less, as per Mr. Buckland's letter quoted above, why not ask it to pay the same amount for some- thing better and more agreeable to its passen- gers? TIME FOR CONSTRUCTION. If the present Legislature should grant the nec- essary bond issue and provide for moving the Court House and pass any acts that may be nec- essary for acquiring land promptly and any other needful or helpful acts, the whole could possibly be completed within a year. Work could be begun on some parts even before possession had been obtained of all the real estate involved, and with ample dumping ground secured by the method already suggested, all of the excavation, masonry and steel work could proceed very rapidly. The bridges or via- ducts are short and simple structures, the entire number of cubic yards of masonry and the amount of excavation involved are not large as such matters go, and the whole question of time of construction is chiefly a matter of authoriza- tion and of obtaining occupancy of the real estate. LEGISLATIVE WORK REQUIRED. The chief legislative problems appear to be, first, to provide for the moving of the Supreme Court House (or for building a new one) ; Second, to provide for the necessary bond issue to cover land purchases and construction ; Third, any legislation that may be required for better controlling and defining an adjustment with the Street Railway Company for trackage rights over the new street ; Fourth, an authorization of City to take the whole of any parcel of land that is cut into by the rights of way required ; with freedom to sell the the portion not permanently required ; Fifth, provision for taking certain property along Congdon street for future park purposes, to be used immediately as spoil banks for the material excavated ; Sixth, any further acts required for properly defining or controlling the relations with property heretofore taken by the New Haven Railroad in connection with building its tunnel in the adjacent ground. LAND BETWEEN STEEPLE STREET AND ARNOLD BLOCK. It has often been recommended that the City purchase this lot in order to open a broader out- look from the civic centre and to relieve the traf- fic conditions on Steeple street. I most strongly urge that the City acquire and hold this property in connection with its purchase of land for the new easy-grade street. The present buildings can continue occupied as now, with their rentals ac- cruing to the city, until the traffic conditions over the new routes have been established, after which it will probably be found that the highest use for this lot will be in preserving it as the site for some future civic building. MOTIVE OF THE PRESENT DESIGN. Numerous other possible alignments and locat- ions have been considered and gradually elimin- ENGINEER'S PRELIMINARY REPORT Continued. 17 ated in favor of the straightest practicable line from the civic centre to the most convenient and central distributing point for traffic at the top of the hill. The crossing of Benefit street at grade and the preservation of the Waterman street curve for an approach to Prospect street have also appeared paramount considerations. It has also appeared of the greatest importance to find room for a street ninety to a hundred feet in width, in view of the lack of radiating streets from the congested civic centre, toward the easterly portion of the city and the easterly suburbs, and toward Paw- tucket, Boston, Bristol and the beautiful east shore of the bay. North Main street, with the advent of auto trucks and the development of navigation will doubtless become more and more a main thor- oughfare for freighting to and from industrial works located to the north and it has appeared essential that this street be crossed overhead, in order to lessen the obstruction of crossing currents of traffic. After studies of traffic conditions had been made in various cities, for which your engineer had the good fortune to find much opportunity during the past year, particularly upon certain of the wide streets of Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington ; and after repeated observations on some of the broader eastern thor- oughfares, such as Columbus avenue and Hunt- ington avenue, Boston, and Massachusetts ave- nue, Cambridge, the plan for this East Side street, first sketched out at 70 feet, was increased 10 feet at a time and the plans redrawn until the widths now shown were attained. It was found that convenience and freedom from accident, freedom from detention, conges- tion and the annoyance of slowing down, are all greatly influenced by a few feet of extra width of street and that the fundamental requirement for easy, rapid flow of traffic is a width between curbs great enough so that with a double line of street cars the space on both sides will permit two vehicles to pass between a street car and a third vehicle stopped at the curb; with such a width the fast moving automobile or taxicab Is not held back by the slower grocers' wagons and by means of the ample width the bicycler and foot passenger desiring to cross also find safer places. It is important that this main thoroughfare be straight as possible, and a matter for regret that this new street could not be made perfectly straight. However beautiful a winding street may be in a parkway, a straight street with a long look ahead is best for prompt transit and free- dom from accident. In this case the presence of the central fire station and the railway station upon the line of this street and the successive vistas as one comes down the hill, from the Pros- pect street arch, of the Railroad station, of Sir Christopher Wren's* beautiful steeple, the School of Design, the Federal building, and the ex- tremely heavy street car traffic of the future all contribute to the reasons for the direct course adopted. IN CONCLUSION. In the course of these studies, about thirty sheets of drawings have been prepared and numerous photographs taken to illustrate traffic conditions upon broad streets in other cities. Among these are plans showing the relation of the present improvement to other matters of City planning relating particularly to the future developments on the East Side and to providing it with one or more radial streets to the North- east and to the Southwest or toward Pawtucket and Bristol respectively; also certain plans for relieving the congestion where traffic is now throttled at the narrow throat comprised between Steeple Street and the Crawford Street bridge. With the permission of the Committee, I will present these plans with a description in print that they may be circulated and sent out and more *As a matter of fact this spire is a copy of an engraved design published long prior to the building- of the church by James Gibbs. an eminent Scotch-English architect, who followed Sir Christopher Wren James Gibbs was the designer of St. Martin's in Fields. London ; and submitted three designs for this to the wardens, one other than this was accepted ; but all three designs were published. The copy of Gibbs' book in the library of the late Alfred Stone, architect, of Providence is believed to be the same that was in possession of Joseph Brown, one of the original architects of the First Baptist Meeting house. In many other features besides the steeple the structure closely follows the beautiful lines of Gibbs design and bears a striking resemblance to St. Martin's in Fields. Mr. Norman M. Isham, architect, of Providence, has made a careful study of this matter. 18 ENGINEER'S PRELIMINARY REPORT Continued. conveniently studied by interested citizens and that they may not so readily become lost or for- gotten. These plans for further development in the future appeared necessary in order to make certain that the one new street now proposed should work in harmoniously with the more com- prehensive development that will be needed in the future. It is the belief of your engineer that Provi- dence presents more undeveloped resources than any city in New England. With its climate, which is certainly more agreeable than that of the cities of the north, its proximity to the most beautiful and most safe sheet of water for pleasure boating that can be found on the At- lantic coast, with its great university, and its School of Design, it should become second to no city in this country in its attractiveness to homeseekers and as a home for high-grade artisans. With some such effort as certain of our western cities have shown in educating its own citizens and others to a better appreciation of its attractions and its possibilities, it would enter upon a new era of almost unlimited growth and prosperity. It is in this belief that the undersigned has worked out these plans. Respectfully submitted, (Signed) JOHN R. FREEMAN, Engineer. IN COMMON COUNCIL, APRIL 10, 1911. VOTED, That the report of the Commissioners relative to an East Side Approach, including a report made by Engineer John R. Freeman, and the Resolution recommended by said Commis- sioners, be laid on the table ; that said reports and resolutions be ordered printed and distributed to the members of the City Council as soon as pos- sible, and that the said Commissioners be directed to hold a Public Hearing relative to the proposed plan for an East Side approach, on Thursday, April 13, 1911, at 8 o'clock p. m., in the* Council Chamber; and that the Clerk of the Common Council be directed to give notice of said hearing in the local daily papers in the issues of April n, 12 and 13. W. C. PELKY, Clerk. 19 20 SOME EXPLANATORY NOTES. For completeness in this permanent record, it appears necessary to explain briefly that although the plan as outlined in the preceding pages and in the five sheets of drawings (A, B, C, D, E,) had been very favorably received by the press and by many citizens when first published, a strong opposition was developed at the public hearings given in the Council Chamber in the City Hall on the evenings of April I3th and i8th, 191 1, primarily by attorneys and others representing property owners along the line of the proposed new street between Benefit Street and Brown Street and by representatives of the society owning the First Baptist Meeting House. Also at that hearing there was presented a new project for relieving this central portion of the East Side from the disturbance of heavy subur- ban cars by means of, first, a tunnel (for street cars only) to be built substantially on the same line and grade as had been proposed four years before ; extending from present grade at North Main Street easterly along the lines of Fones Alley to Thayer Street, but with the important new feature that this tunnel was ultimately to be extended in form of a subway for street cars only along Fones Alley, between Waterman and Angell Streets and beneath Medway Street, to the vicinity of Red Bridge. Following this, other citizens residing on the East Side, who feared that the quiet residential character of this region would be imperilled by the providing of any broad, easy-grade thorough- fare from the center of the city over the hill, joined with the original opponents and a public meeting was held at which a so-called "Citizens' Plan" was adopted, which "plan" was not ac- companied by any drawings but was understood to provide for the tunnel previously considered. A petition in favor of this "plan" was actively circulated and signed by many East Side citizens in the thought that the subway would follow the tunnel and that Waterman and Angell Streets would be spared the fate of becoming a route for heavy suburban cars to and from East Provi- dence and beyond. All of this agitation resulted in the action by the City Council presented on the next page. The members of the Commission refrained from taking part in this discussion, and the attitude of the city government was, to find out what the East Side wanted and let them have it. Upon the merits of the respective plans the members of the commission continued of the opinion already expressed, but respectfully attended to the further requests of the City Council. "CITIZENS' PLAN" FOR BETTER APPROACHES TO THE EAST SIDE. Adopted at a meeting held April 21st, 1911. I. The extension of Waterman Street to Canal Street through a new street or square and the removal of street cars from North Main Street between Market Square and Steeple Street and their relocation in Steeple Street. II. The building under College Hill of a tunnel for street cars only, without encroaching on -the present surface either of the yard of the First Baptist Meeting House or of the site of the old Market Building on Market Square or of the campus of Brown University. III. The removal of the street cars from College street to the new tunnel if an agreement can be made with the Rhode Island Company for its use upon fair terms including such regulation of suburban traffic as may be found reasonable pending the extension of the tunnel or other provisions for such traffic. IV. If fair terms cannot be agreed upon with the Rhode Island Company then the grant upon fair terms to some independent company of the right to use the tunnel with suitable approaches and connections. V. The immediate undertaking by the city of both the extension of Waterman Street and the building of the tunnel, the exact location of the latter to be determined with reference both to its probable use by the Rhode Island Company and its possible use by some independent company now or hereafter. VI. The formulation by the city of plans for tunnel, subway, open cut. or combination of them, from the easterly terminus of the College Hill tunnel to the vicinity of the Seekonk River, with such branch tunnels and rearrangement of traffic as the study of such plans shall show to be advisable. RESOLUTION AND REPORT UPON A TUNNEL FOR STREET CARS ONLY FROM WATERMAN STREET TO THAYER STREET. 21 PROVIDENCE CITY COUNCIL. RESOLUTION PASSED JULY 6, 1911. RESOLVED, That the commission appointed un- der resolution No. 49, series of 1910, to consider and report to the City Council a plan for im- proved transportation facilities to and from the East Side of the city, is hereby requested to have prepared, by the Commissioner of Public Works, with the City Engineer, and to submit to the City Council at the earliest possible date a plan with estimates of cost for a tunnel for street cars only, from the easterly side of North Main Street to the westerly side of Thayer Street, together with proper highway approaches to said tunnel practically as outlined in the recommendations adopted at a meeting of citizens held April 21, 1911, and based substantially on a plan approved by the joint special committee on new East Side thoroughfare and presented to the City Council September 9, 1907. REPORT ON A TUNNEL FOR STREET CARS ONLY. REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON EAST SIDE APPROACH. To THE HONORABLE THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PROVIDENCE. GENTLEMEN : The Commission appointed by City Council Resolution No. 49, series of 1910, approved February 8, 1910, "to consider and report to the City Council a plan for improved transportation facilities to and from the East Side of the City," begs leave to report : That, in accordance with resolutions adopted by the Common Council on July 6th and Septem- ber nth, this Commission has had prepared by the Commissioner of Public Works, with the City Engineer, "a plan with estimates of cost for a tunnel for street cars only, from the easterly side of North Main Street to the westerly side oi 'Ihayer Street, together with proper highway approaches to said tunnel, practically as outlined by the recommendations adopted at a meeting of citizens held April 21, 1911, and based sub- stantially on a plan approved by the Joint Special Committee on new East Side Thoroughfare and presented to the City Council September 9, 1907." Pursuant further to the above cited resolutions, this Commission begs leave to submit to the City Council for its consideration the said plans and engineer's estimates, as presented to this Com- mission by the Commissioner of Public Works and the City Engineer, the same being appended to this report. Respectfully presented for the Commission, (Signed) HENRY FLETCHER, Chairman, Commission on East Side Approach. CITY ENGINEER'S PLAN AND ESTIMATE FOR TUNNEL. PROVIDENCE, R. I., September 28th, 1911. To THE COMMISSION TO CONSIDER AND REPORT A PLAN FOR IMPROVED TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES To AND FROM THE EAST SIDE OF THE CITY : The undersigned herewith submit a plan with estimates of cost for a Tunnel for Street Cars Only, from the easterly side of North Main Street to the westerly side of Thayer Street, together with proper highway approaches to said tunnel practically as outlined in the recommen- dations adopted at a meeting of citizens, held April 2ist, 1911, and based substantially on a plan approved by the Joint Special Committee on New East Side Thoroughfare and presented to the City Council, September 9th, 1907. 22 A TUNNEL FOR STREET CARS ONLY. The plan and accompanying profile represent the location, grades and dimensions of the pro- posed tunnel and its relation to adjacent streets and private property ; also the location and amount of land required for its construction and use and the position of buildings to be affected or removed. Beginning at the easterly line of North Main street, the westerly approach crosses private property, a strip bounding on the south line of Waterman street and forty feet wide being taken, the space thus taken being now occupied by a two-story business building. By depressing the grade of the tunnel so as to pass beneath the basement floor of the School of Design building, the westerly entrance of the tunnel may be placed upon the property taken as above, and from this point to the easterly portal near Thayer street the work of building the tunnel may be carried to completion without removing or damaging the School of Design or any other building of im- portance. At the easterly approach, connection with the present surface lines is shown. To provide room for the approach itself private land will be re- quired, as the width of Fones Alley, a platted street conveyed to the city in 1833, for highway purposes, is not sufficient for the purpose. The plan proposes, therefore, to take land of an addi- tional width from a point about 350 feet west of Thayer street to Thayer street, reserving the cen- tral portion for the tunnel approach, the side strips to be left for highway travel. The corners of Thayer street and Fones Alley are rounded to give free access to the Alley. In the connection with the surface at Thayer street the plan shows the tunnel tracks separating to the right and left for cars moving east and west in Waterman and Angell streets respec- tively. In estimating the cost of the tunnel, the land is first to be considered. It may be divided into three classes: First, that which is included in the street crossed or traversed by the lines of the tunnel structure and its approaches ; second, the land belonging to private parties, the surface of which is required for the approaches to the tunnelways, and third, that private land, beneath which the tunnel is to be constructed and operated without interfering with the continued occupa- tion by the owners of the surface for ordinary uses and purposes. Tables have been prepared giving the areas of the land required. Summarized, according to the plan, the area of land required for surface use in addition to that now included in Fones Alley is approxi- mately 28,649 square feet. The amount of land, in addition to the fore- going, through which a subterranean easement is required, is approximately 34,260 square feet. Without extended surveys and examinations, including systematic borings along the proposed lines, the relative proportions of rock and earth to be encountered and the comparative character and stability of each cannot be precisely deter- mined. CONSTRUCTION COST OF TUNNEL. Main Tunnel arched section ( i ,600 f t. ) $320,000 oo Main Tunnel rectangular section (200 ft.) 50,000 oo Approaches (368 ft.) 24,320 oo Engineering and inspection 39,43 2 oo General contingencies 20,000 oo Legal and commission expenses.... 15,000 oo Accident and liability 5,000 oo Interest during construction..- 15,00000 $488,752 oo LAND DAMAGES. Land required for surface uses, damages to buildings and land re- quired for underground use (ease- ments) not to exceed $100,000 oo ARNOLD BLOCK. (Waterman Street Extension.) Estimated expense including cost of acquiring above property and of constructing highway not to ex- ceed $200,000 oo Respectfully submitted, (Signed) WALTER F. SLADE, Commissioner of Public Works. (Signed) OTIS F. CLAPP, City Engineer. FINAL REPORT OF ENGINEER JOHN R. FREEMAN. 23 PROVIDENCE, R. I., February 8th, 1912. REPORT OF SUB-COMMITTEE ON ENGINEERING. HENRY FLETCHER, MAYOR, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON EAST SIDE APPROACH. SIR: SCOPE OF STUDY. I present herewith my completed report on an Easy-Grade Street to the East Side, together with the comprehensive studies for better transit facilities through that portion of the city lying easterly from the Providence River to the popu- lous and rapidly growing regions to the North, East and South. This is mainly an elaboration of the report which I presented through you to the Committee and to the City Council under date of April loth, 1911, and of which the text was then printed without the drawings necessary for a clear understanding of the important features that controlled the design. You will recall that when more than a year and a half ago I reluctantly accepted work with your Committee I explained that a proper study of the problem of the "East Side Approach" would take much time, that it involved consid- eration of much more than the cheapest method of devising means by which street cars could pass easily up and down College Hill ; that the future development of Providence for twenty- five, fifty or a hundred years hence must be con- sidered and an effort made to overcome the natural obstacle of the hill in a way that would fall in line with future improvements and add to the attractiveness of Providence as a city of homes. During the year that intervened before the presentation of my first report on April loth, 1911, various journeys undertaken in connection with other engineering work afforded me an opportunity for studying the problems of street travel in Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and in several important centers in England and on the Continent, and during these journeys such points were noted as appeared to have a bearing on future conditions in the sec- ond largest city in New England and one which is said to be the foremost in per capita wealth in the United States. PRESENTATION OF ACCESSORY PLANS DEFERRED. Nearly all of the plans presented with the present report had been outlined and the draw- ings largely completed prior to the presentation of my report to the Committee on April loth, 1911, and these drawings had been shown to various representative citizens in order to obtain the benefit of their criticisms and suggestions ; but following your advice and that of others, it was deemed best to simplify the issue and to pre- sent then only those plans covering the work which public necessity immediately required, namely better facilities for street cars and vehicu- lar traffic from a point near the Post Office east- erly up the hill to the vicinity of Brown Street, where crossed by Angell and Waterman Streets. Therefore, only plans "A, B, C, D and E" (Sheets i, 2, 3, 4 and 17), which are reproduced on pages 8 to 12, together with the artist's per- spective drawing of the view up the hill, were presented at the public hearings and the addi- tional plans that had been made for the purpose of so planning this first step that it would fall in with subsequent steps that might be taken five, ten, twenty-five or more years hence, as sentiment or growth should demand, were not made a part of the report of April loth, or ex- hibited at the meeting of the City Council on April I3th, lest they give a mistaken impression that something visionary, or a project far too grand for the financial ability of the City, or too elaborate to fall in with the present point of view of many of its citizens, was involved in the un- dertaking recommended. As a matter of fact the proposed "Roger Wil- liams Street," which is after all largely a widen- ing and re-grading of existing streets between Post Office Square and Brown Street, could for- ever stop near Brown Street and stand complete in itself and accomplish all that has been sought to obtain in the various plans before the City Council during the past five years or in the fifty 25 i 5 26 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. S3NOJ 9 1 1 r- ; f * ! f ; ., 1 i s a < 84 1^ o <*, 5b o H y < 1! K' 33 34 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. The building of Roger Williams Street from Post Office Square to Brown Street in no way necessitates incurring in the near future any large expense on account of the Boston Road, but the location selected for the 100 foot Roger Williams Street is so planned as to make tliis ncic north- erly boulevard possible whenever it may be deemed that the time is ripe for building it. DISTRIBUTION vs. CONGESTION. The effort in all street planning in the vicinity of the head of Providence Harbor should be to avoid the evils of congestion, seen not only in Providence but in many other cities, by means of broad avenues so placed as to distribute rather than concentrate and congest the traffic. The plan for the future should seek to distribute the traffic between Washington Street and Westmin- ster Street on the West Side of the civic center and to divide the traffic between Roger Williams Street and the proposed future Crawford Street viaduct, or Bristol Road, on the East Side of the river. In order to achieve their fullest use, these main avenues must proceed along obvious, natural and direct lines, such that drivers of automobiles and auto trucks will automatically follow them, and these main avenues must be sufficiently broad never less than about seventy feet of carriage- way between the curbs so that on either side of the double street car tracks there is ample room for a fast-moving vehicle to pass a slow-moving vehicle on the same side of the street car tracks, notwithstanding a third vehicle is stopped at the curb, as is illustrated in Sheet No. 4 of the draw- ings. In somewhat the same way that a two-track steam railroad can move four or six times the traffic of a single track road, by lessening the stoppages and slow-downs, so a few extra feet in width of a crowded street adds surprisingly to its capacity for rapid flow of traffic. Market Street in San Francisco, Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, Huntington Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, the chief business streets of Salt Lake City, the Paseo de la Reforma in the City of Mexico and many others, illustrate streets of sufficient width of traveled way to permit rapid vehicular transit alongside double street railroad tracks. On the other hand, Boylston Street in Boston, Second Avenue in Seattle and almost any one of the broadest present streets within the populous parts of Providence will illustrate the delay and inter- ruption to rapid flow of traffic caused by even a slight trimming down of the width below seventy feet, or at least sixty-six feet, between curbs. WIDTHS FOR MAIN AVENUES OF TRAVEL. In the earlier days of these studies I had mapped out certain portions of the East Side Approach as from seventy to eighty feet in width, but after studiously observing the conditions of street traffic in many populous cities in this coun- try and abroad, I am convinced beyond a doubt that these main thoroughfares for the future Providence should nowhere be less than ninety feet in total width or have less than sixty-six or seventy feet in the carriage path, including the two street car tracks. One hundred feet in total width will in nearly all cases be found well worth its extra cost. This may be impracticable here and there for short distances, to maintain the full width of an avenue as on the projected Boston Road near the Pumping station (or in Roger Williams Street under the Prospect Arch) but short con- strictions, like these, work relatively little harm and are no valid excuse for trimming down to the same width all along. CONCERNING THE DRAWINGS PRESENTED. Drawings add so greatly to the understanding of a project, the recent processes of relief-line photo-engraving are so cheap and the burial in forgotten pigeon-holes of drawings that have cost much thought and labor is so common, that it has seemed both wise and economical to pre- sent with this report photo-reductions of many of the drawings on a scale which is legible with a reading glass in all important features, and to urge the distribution of a fairly generous edition of the report containing these drawings. Whether or not Roger Williams Street is to be built now or ten years hence, the problem of beautifying the city should always have a place in the thoughts of the citizens and these definite street lines may at least give something on which thoughts can be focussed, or modifications de- vised. 35 36 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. Morevover, the presentation of detailed plans and estimates of cost help to a more general un- derstanding by the non-technical, that safe con- clusions on problems of this kind can be reached only by the aid of detailed scale drawings, and by a review of the actual real estate values, and a computation of quantities and costs. Copies of the original of each of these draw- ings, on sheets 24-inches x 36-inches inside the border line, are on file in the office of the City Engineer of Providence, and two sets have been delivered to the Vice-President and General Manager of the Rhode Island Company for the Providence and New York offices respectively, as a basis for an answer to the inquiry made on behalf of this Committee as to the extent to which owners of the street railroad would contribute toward either an open street or a tunnel, or pay in form of annual rental for trackage rights over "Roger Williams Street." A SOUTHERLY EASY-GRADE CROSSING FROM DORRANCE TO BENEFIT STREETS. The study for a broad thoroughfare to the Southeast, starting from Dyer Street and bridg- ing the river south of, and contiguous, to Craw- ford Street Bridge, as shown on Sheets Nos. 23 to 28, inclusive, was the outgrowth of a sugges- tion made to me by Senator H. F. Lippitt and of studying means of relieving the present conges- tion centering in Market Square. Obviously, if the city grows both easterly and westerly from the river at any such rate as the twenty to thirty per cent, increase in geometric ratio which was achieved in each of the last two decades, and with the prospect that the future industrial growth will be largely beyond Red Bridge, and also if Providence wakens to its opportunities, which non-resident railroad and steamboat men appear to comprehend better than resident citizens, of becoming the great dis- tributing center for coastwise traffic through, Central New England, the early day can be fore- seen when more than double the present street traffic must cross the rircr between the narroiv limits of Post Office Square and the Crawford Street bridge. The railroad freight yards absolutely prohibit a widening on the northerly side of this congested throat and the navigation interests appear to limit widening on the south. This central loca- tion of the freight yards can so admirably min- ister to the economies of commercial development, prompt shipments of manufactures and prompt distribution of incoming freight, that probably these freight yards are here to stay and will not be replaced by parks within our lifetime, in spite of the objections that have been urged by certain artists when describing their dreams of the city beautiful. And as I have elsewhere urged, the head of navigation for pleasure steam- boats should not be crowded away from the civic center. Point Street bridge, while already crowded to the limit and affording an avenue for freight handling around the Eastern and Western water- fronts, is out of the line between the homes and the chief retail and financial districts. Several of the East Side Approach plans of the past ten years, notably the original Makepeace Steel Viaduct Plan, the Gov. Lippitt Plan and some of the Francis Plans have sought a loca- tion south of Market Square and the College Grounds. The question therefore came naturally as to whether the location of the first new easy-grade street up the hill might not better be moved suf- ficiently far south and upon such an alinement that a broad street connecting with it could be cut westerly to meet the angle in Weybosset Street and ultimately receive and distribute traf- fic to the busy and important center at the broad intersection of Dorrance and Weybosset Streets, as well as down Dyer and out Pine and Friend- ship Streets. There can, I believe, be no question of the utility and economy of a street along the location which I have laid out on Sheet No. 19, and which is shown in smaller scale on Sheet No. 13, and on large scale in Sheets Nos. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28. This location has been studied out by going repeatedly over the ground with a view to the value of the land and buildings that would have to be taken and the location has been extended to the Southeast with a view to making it also serve as part of a comprehensive scheme that would be 37 ffifo II i; V* IB! 40 o u) z < u "X i o u z J K U U 00 O "* -I 5 < ? O ft D- 41 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 43 useful, year by year, for a hundred and more years to come, and in connection with the best development of the city as a commercial center and as a comfortable and beautiful place in which to live. THE HEAD OF NAVIGATION. For the long future it will be wise to retain the landing for recreation steamboats as close as pos- sible to the civic center, just as at Hamburg one starts for his voyage around the Alster Basin from the Jungfernsteig, or in London takes the excursion boat down the Thames from London Bridge, or in Paris takes the river boat along- side the Garden of the Tulleries. And here the statement may be interjected that the view down the Harbor from the civic center and from the steam cars should always be kept open, as a re- minder to railroad passengers that Providence is a seaport, rather than to shut off this interesting vista by any such undignified structure as is from time to time proposed by those who cannot see a building site unless it is vacant or who look only toward getting a building lot free of cost. THE ARNOLD BLOCK LOCATION THE BEST. After studying various possible routes for cross- ing the river by an East Side Approach, at loca- tions ranging all the way from near the railroad station to as far South as Crawford Street, it ap- pears plain that present needs and future develop- ments will be best served by laying out the first streets to be built, on the line shown in Sheets Nos. 2 and 3, and designated thereon as "Roger Williams Street," and that this should be built immediately from Post Office Square to Brown Street, on a line with Washington Street, leaving the building of another main thoroughfare for distributing traffic between the two sides of the river, westerly and easterly from Crawford Street, for consideration perhaps ten years hence. ESTIMATES OF COST. The following estimate of cost of Roger Wil- liams Street was prepared under my supervision and almost daily consultation, by Mr. Horace Ropes, an Engineer of more than thirty years experience on railroad construction and large public works. Mr. Ropes' former experience as Locating Engineer for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, and his later experience for ten or fifteen years in some of the most import- ant positions on the engineering staff of the Boston Metropolitan Water Board and elsewhere, have given him exceptional experience with methods and costs of acquiring land and building heavy work. In his studies of the various matters entering into the cost of the proposed Roger Williams Street and its accessory works, much care was taken to supplement experience elsewhere by seeking reliable local data as to costs in the office of the Providence City Engineer and in the office of the Engineers of New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R., by whom the recent railroad tun- nel under College Hill was constructed. In estimating land damages, the general rule where all of a piece of property was to be taken, was to add 50% to its most recent valuation by the tax assessors, in order to cover the possible cost of condemnation, legal expenses and contingen- cies. I was assured by city officials having ex- perience with previous takings of lands in Provi- dence that this was a safe basis for estimating and it is widely known that many protests and much public discussion within the past year or two has tended to show that the assessors' valua- tions, particularly of land in the business part of the city, are on a very high scale, and I doubt not that where the estimate may be in some cases too low, it is too high in enough other cases to offset this. In the case of property injured by taking only a portion or where buildings have had to be cut down or removed, the problem of injury and probable damages was studied in the field in a liberal spirit and in many cases, an estimate was made of the cost of the rearrangement required for fitting in with the new grade in the best pos- sible manner, and in other cases, where the dam- age was chiefly sentimental or where it could be measured only as a matter of personal judg- ment, the figures adopted were intended to be so liberal as to more than cover any reasonable de- mand and to allow, beyond this, a sufficient mar- gin for condemnation expenses. The awards made for damages to sundry estates by the con- struction of the recent railroad tunnel under Col- lege Hill, and the prices voluntarily accepted in other cases, were available as guides. 44 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. POST OFFICE SQUARE AND REGION OF PROPOSED APPROACH Photographed from Fire Station Tower, looking Easterly The location suggested for a municipal auditorium is just to the left of Roger Williams Street. Probably there is no other site so convenient to all quarters of the present and future city and to the cen- ter of all transportation lines, foot, horse, gasolene, electric, and steam, where the necessary area with ample space, free from fire hazard on each side, could be obtained at so small a cost as here. With this building as a beginning, the entire east front .of Post Office Square would doubtless soon be rebuilt with modern office buildings, because of proximity to Post Office, Railroad Station, and the best residen- tial districts. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 45 VIEW FROM FIRST BAPTIST SPIRE LOOKING WESTERLY, SHOWING RELATION OF ROGER WILLIAMS ST. TO PRE5ENT_ The above view illustrates how well this proposed alignment of the principal Eastern thoroughfare would fall in with the civic center and give a straight-away connection to Washington Street, which is one of the main avenues to the Westward. Note also that the bridges over North Main Street and Canal Street provide complete separation of the East Side current of traffic from the North and South currents, to and from the freight yards and steam- boat wharves, thus avoiding delay to street cars, automobiles, etc. The special advantage of this separation of the grades is that it avoids danger to pedestrians from the East Side as they come to the business center or the railroad station. 46 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. As a basis for estimating structural costs, the drawings were made after first computing the stresses, with fullness sufficient for contract drawings on a unit-cost basis, and so as to show every important member, as will be seen by in- specting the sheets submitted herewith ; then the quantities of each kind of material were computed with the same degree of thoroughness as for letting a contract. Obviously, if the work were to be done by day labor, with workmen paid at more than the pre- vailing rate of contractor's wages and under conditions that are believed to sometimes prevail on municipal work in various cities, this would swell the cost over that which could be obtained from contractors of the best standing; and if "the work contemplated could be carried out un- der the excellent organization which the New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R. Co. main- tains for its own purposes, or the same organiza- tion as that under which the railroad would probably build a tunnel, I have no doubt that some saving could be made from the unit prices and from the total structural costs that have been figured in this estimate. It has, however, seemed to me wise for present purposes to figure these structural costs on a liberal basis. It is of interest to note that the structural cost for the street one hundred feet wide, including the Canal Street viaduct and the Prospect Street archway and the moving of all excavated mate- rial to build up the end of the proposed Overlook Park, although it provides both for street cars and vehicular and pedestrian traffic up and down the hill, costs less than the structural work on a tunnel for street cars only. Tunnelling in the crushed, unsound and slippery graphitic ledges that underlie College Hill is a very expensive type of work. THE CHIEF ESTIMATED EXPENSE is FOR LAND. In my preliminary report, the total cost for land and structures was estimated at "about $1,350,000," but an extension of the proposed takings for the dumping ground to be made into Overlook Park, together with more liberal allow- ance for some of the possible damages has swelled this. Of the figure that I have now arrived at, $1,431,000, only about one-third is absorbed by all the structures connected with Roger Williams Street, including excavation, viaducts and bank walls, and the other two-thirds is made up of the prices estimated to be paid for land and damages, including the Arnold Block property. I believe that these land damages for the open street have been estimated on a far more liberal basis than the land and easement damages estimated by the City Engineer for his Tunnel plan. (I think it is most probable that the City Engineer's estimate should be increased $100,000 on land and by another $100,000 if, as is most highly probable, the front building of the School of Design and the Carr house have to be taken.) The land damages are swelled to the extent of nearly one-third of a million dollars above what they would otherwise be, by the proposed tak- ings of 5.4 acres of hillside land to be trans- formed into a park, by dumping the surplus material excavated from Roger Williams Street, between Congdon and Benefit Streets and extending Northerly to Bowen Street, and by additional small pieces outside the lines of the proposed 100 foot street, that may be used for a park-like effect along its borders, near Benefit Street and near Brown Street. After *making due allowance for the contribu- tion which the president of the company owning or controlling the street railroad system has promised for the privileges of laying its tracks on this street between Post Office Square and Brown Street, it is a fair statement that half of all the city's expenditure in connection with Roger Williams Street between the Post Office and Brown Street, would be derated to making beautiful the borders of the street and to the creation of a beautiful park, close to the center of the city, and unrivalled in sightliness and location anywhere in the East. Presenting the same fact in other words, after charging to the park its fair share of the whole cost, the street railway will pay the whole cost of the loo-foot street from Post Office Square to Brown Street, in return for trackage rights along its center. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 47 ROGER WILLIAMS STREET FROM BENEFIT ST UP THE HILL TO PROSPECT ST. AS IT WOULD APPEAR IF THE: PARTS OF LOTS TAKEN C CITY WtRE NOT 50LO BUT PERMANENTLY DEVOTED TO PARKS. l from sleep* of T.rgl Bepl.il Uect.ng Ho) Note there is no canyon-like effect, because of the depth of open cut required for obtaining the easy grade. The high retaining walls extend only for the length of the several Grosvenor properties and these walls can easily be given architectu- ral treatment no less beautiful than the walls of any monumental building which stands close to the street line. 48 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. VIEW UP ANGELL ST. FROM FIRST BAPTIST SPIRE SHOWING RELATION TO EASY GRADE..SIRE:ET. Note that all this area would be deprived of street car service if Tunnel from North Main 5>. to Thayer Sf.were builh Roger Williams Street connects at substantially the present grade with Benefit Street, the Waterman Street curve and Brown Street and presents a new connection at grade with Congdon Street, and thus gives the best possible access for street car passengers to the Court Houses, the University Club, and the future buildings of the School of Design. Prospect Street is reached from the street cars by means of a stairway, as shown on Plate No. 15, while with the tunnel plan it is reached only by climbing the whole length and height of College Hill. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 49 ll^jl c tu 1 +J tu o rt rt rt M en "*~* C o u rt a> *W) 'rt E ,*-* 4-! OJ cu r^ *-t-^ /. " x: p. *J ^_J- -*-> rt ^ :: OJ rt s _*~ c/) rt u CR ^ .5 ~ i > -t-j' CJ si tu & 2 o "rt tu XJ S V *4-l a. ' 1 kjj ^^ T3 tu s tu "rt > XI V o ffi '" en E u Xj "eu tu 4-1 rt u O C Z O en tu XI en c* 12 rt cu \ T ^ cC ^^ . j _ .C rt ^ tu bjO a, C .c c O tu "^ V > T3 tu ^ c T, C 3 t-l So 3 CU J . 4J bo O "*^ . C d, rt en tu 3 *t7] en j j . cu 'p. XI $66 Engineering and inspection (10 per cent, on proceedings) General contingencies (about 5 per cent.) Legal and commission expenses Accident liability Interest during construction Total expenses appurtenant to construction CONSTRUCTION COSTS, per Railroad Engineers, 1909: Tunnel section, 1,850 lin. feet @ $215 per foot $397,750 00 East and west approaches 600 lin. feet excess costs 20,000 00 Extra expense Main Street to Benefit Street supporting buildings, repairs, etc 38,000 00 Extra excavation and concrete, etc., No. Main St. approach 3,725 00 Extra excavation and concrete, etc., Thayer St. approach 22,815 00 (Contingencies and accident liability included above.) $478.565 00 Engineering 25,000 00 Grading 1,000 00 Law, printing, interest and commission, insurance 24,200 00 TOTAL CONSTRUCTIVE COST (which is about $40,000 more than City Engineer's estimate of 1911) $528,765 00 Neither of the above estimates include railroad tracks or electric- trolley appurtenances. Totals, including Arnold Block and appurtenant expenses, at $200,000 . $936,335 00 $200,000 00 Including removals and street sur- facing. $100,000 00 $320,000 00 50,000 00 24,320 00 39,432 00 20,000 00 15,000 00 5.000 00 15,000 00 $488,752 00 $788,752 00 Neither of the above estimates includes the cost of taking the front building of the School of Design or the cost of taking the Carr house. It is now a matter of current report that the front building of the School of Design will have to be taken. Note that the Railroad Engineers estimated that in this contingency about $100,000, would be added to the cost and that they thought it probable that the character of the rock encountered on this location would be worse than that in the adjacent railroad tunnel, still further increasing the cost. 54 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. beneath the School of Design and the Carr estate, "It is not at all certain that such construction is practicable without great damage to the building. The annoyance and inconvenience caused by blasting to the occupants of the building during the construction period would be extreme and it is hardly probable that the necessity for purchas- ing the real estate and building can be escaped," and stated that if this became necessary at least $100,000 should be added to the land damage estimates of 1909.* It was also stated by the officials of the Rail- road that there was every reason to believe that the cost of excavating this street car tunnel would be relatively greater than that incurred in build- ing the adjacent railroad tunnel, upon which Mr. Ripley's estimates for the street car tunnel costs were based. Regarding this new street car tunnel, Vice- President McHenry said : "During the construc- tion of the railroad tunnel, it was found that the roof was uniformly bad throughout and that the difficulties increased as the surface was ap- proached, as the rock becomes more rotten or disappears entirely. The City tunnel, as sug- gested, is very much nearer the surface than the Railroad tunnel and there is every reason to believe that the construction will be correspond- ingly more difficult under the conditions above noted." From my own studies of the ground, I am led to believe that these words of caution should be weighed very carefully when balancing the merits of open street against those of the tunnel. The Ripley estimate of tunnel cost two years ago, did not include the Arnold Block, and the estimates by the City Engineer in 1909 took land simply at its assessed valuation without attempt- ing to estimate the additional cost of acquiring it under condemnation proceedings or by forced purchase, nor did the City Engineer's figures cover consequential damages to the remainder of the property mutilated. It now appears probable that the cost of the tunnel for street cars only, plus the cost of acquiring the Arnold Block property and extend- ing Waterman Street to Canal Street, including damages at the School of Design and the Carr property would amount to at least $1,100,000, and possibly even $1,250,000; as was intimated by Vice-President Buckland. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 55 COMPARATIVE MERITS. STREET CAR TUNNEL FROM NORTH MAIN STREET To THAYER STREET vs. i oo- FOOT OPEN STREET FROM POST OFFICE SQUARE To BROWN STREET. CONCERNING THE BEST FORM OF "EAST SIDE APPROACH/' Both of these plans, open street and tunnel, contemplate the removal of the Arnold Block group and building a broad street in its place through from .North Main Street to Post Orrke Square. The present condition at the foot of the steep Waterman Street hill is certainly bad and the promise of the removal of the Arnold Jjlock and a straight, broad street in extension of Waterman Street in its place is very attractive to anyone who has had the responsibility of guiding an automobile or heavy carriage down this steep hill, and this has doubtless been a great factor in securing endorsements to the so-called Citizens' Plan, which was indefinite in most things except the projecting of a broad highway over the site of the Arnold Block and the building of a street car tunnel that would avoid the dangers and con- gestion of the counterweight system up College Hill. The undersigned has carefully, and as he believes, impartially reviewed the respective merits of a tunnel from North Main Street to Thayer Street for street cars only and an open street 100 feet in width from the river in Post Office Square to Brown Street, for providing ample passageway for street cars, vehicles and pedestrians, and has given due regard to the time required for construction, contingencies, and the estimated cost. In brief, the comparison between "Roger Wil- liams Street" and the tunnel stands as follows : (i) Whichever plan is followed there will be no difference in noise or congestion from street cars on Angell Street and Waterman Street, east of Thayer Street. Near Thayer Street the tunnel plan involves the greater noise because it compels every car that travels along Angell Street and Waterman Street to turn two sharp corners, with the incidental squeaking and grinding of the wheels, as it enters or leaves the Thayer Street end of the tunnel. (2) The Roger Williams Street viaduct over Canal and North Main Streets has the great advantage of separating the grades and bringing the east and west currents of travel across infith- out the delay, danger and confusion of mixing the east side stream into the cross stream of North and South bound motor trucks and wagons and cars from North Main and Canal Streets, which confusion and danger will greatly increase as the city grows. (3) The open, easy-grade street provides a v/ay for automobiles, carriages and foot pas- sengers and- also a better way for street cars, while the tunnel serves street cars only. (4) The tunnel plan leaves the Waterman Street hill steep, slippery and dangerous, in wet or icy weather or when freshly oiled. (5) The tunnel plan gives poorer service to Brown and Camp Street districts and to all the the crest of College Hill, and cuts off all direct street car service to Benefit Street, Prospect Street and Brozvn Street and all through car service from Brown Street. (6) The College is much more poorly served by street cars from the tunnel ending at Thayer Street than by the open street and the broad entrance from Brown Street. (7) The open street plan provides a new, easy-grade route for street cars and vehicles, branching north toward Pawtucket, over Cong- don Street, giving a beautiful view of the city. (8) The open street plan in addition to a broad way for vehicles, provides free, half the cost of a magnificent park development. (9) The trackage agreements and rentals for the open street can be concluded immediately, without reference to extension of the street rail- way franchise, and with the aid of the present session of the Legislature, the broad, open street can be completed and opened to street car and other travel a year sooner than the tunnel. These alternatives of tunnel and broad, open street should properly be judged from the point of view of the present and future greatest good to the city and citizens as a whole. It is plain, 56 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. This isometric drawing shows the relation of the new street to the present buildings. These present buildings would soon disappear and be replaced by modern office 'buildings, harmonizing with the dignity of the civic center, and there would be a tendency for the improvement to spread southerly along Canal Street. The area northerly from the new broad street might well be acquired immediately for the future site of a public auditorium. PLATE 8-A. FLOOR SPECIALLY DESIGNED FOR MAXIMUM CLEARANCE s of Bridge HOOT . including paving . ii 20) Ft. B* I* Concrete cd'fwtca wi*i II inch Ml B*n . -*olb) . IB "i cl><. / continue, r lupp.rtl tt T*r n il prittiufclt. P^ | I I HEADROOM UNDER 30Mt PROVIDENCE BRiDotS Gaspe St- 14'- 5" Francis 5T- - t3'-1l* Oecfnc cars $0 under. -i Canal 5* - V- 0" _, No. Mam 5f- 14 -8 Etectnc can o under t iu.t 13 prtttftT n T^ gr*t >t IOC Ft I 1 I i ^t from Ita L 1 Poit Offit Lt 10'- O >i* 'i * Dra>ni ^O be SO built ttijt , whtntvcr JtSi jradelcould be lowered t ft or 2 ft or nCMHy to pew trolley can . x- Cl. 0. Me on _HJ Jh .Water il'-O" - -72 feeV Total Width - SOUTH Cl_CVATlON R CVl 5 C D PLAN OF CANAL STREET BRIDGE! The sketch above is drawn accurately to scale and shows the very ample provision made beneath the viaduct for accommodating the growing traffic of Canal Street. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 57 that the tunnel would compel the taking of a few less homes than the open street, that by avoiding stops at Benefit, Brown and Prospect Streets it might give one minute less running time from Phillipsdale than the straight, open street ; and that to provide only for street cars costs two- thirds as much as to provide for streets cars with ' a broad carriage way and broad sidewalks on a straight, easy-grade and a beautiful park in addition. THE VISIONARY EASTERN SUBWAY. The suggestion presented at the public hearing of April 18, 1911, and speciously held out in the so-called ''Citizens' Plan," that a subway could be constructed easterly from the end of the proposed tunnel through the back alleys and along Medway Street to Red Bridge is utterly vision- ary and impracticable from the financial stand- point. Such an extension, with its necessary connections to receive surface cars at Thayer Street and one point near Wayland Avenue, irrespective of other desirable exits and entrances would cost much more than $1,500,000, and this extra expenditure would not add anything to the earnings of the Street Railroad Co. On the con- trary, it would lessen the number of fares taken and therefore the Company is not likely to ex- pend this sum merely for the relief of the nerves of those who dwell upon Angell and Waterman Streets. Only three subway systems for street car travel have yet been built on this continent, namely, those of the Boston Metropolitan District, the Greater New York system, and about two miles in Philadelphia, and no subway system has yet been built for serving municipal districts having less than one million population. That subway construction is enormously expensive is shown by the table on the following page. It involves rebuilding sewers, relaying water pipes and many items of snecial expenses for supporting founda- tions of buildings and for the temporary main- tenance of access. SECOND, THE ADVANTAGES OF SEPARATING THE GRADE. The following important advantages of the open street over the subway are so obvious that no expert in engineering or transportation is needed to demonstrate them. The "Roger Williams Street" plan separates the great and increasing stream of East and West traffic upon a different grade at North Main and Canal Streets from the great and increasing stream of North and South traffic, which stream of traffic will grow as the commerce of Provi- dence grows, from freight yards, steamboat wharves, suburban factory villages. It separates by means of an overhead crossing which retains the full present width of North Main Street and at Canal Street presents a width between curbs sufficient for six vehicles of the largest size to pass abreast and with head-room more than suffi- cient for the tallest express wagon or even for a large load of unpressed hay to pass beneath. (See Sheet No. 8-A of drawings attached.) This matter of separation of the grades at these tii'o great and increasing streams of traffic is of the utmost importance. The viaduct actu- ally doubles the street area at the crossing of North Main and Canal Streets, beside lessening the tangle. The tunnel plan mixes, confuses and congests these streams of traffic at the foot of the hill and in Post Office Square and compels the pedestrian down Waterman Street, as now, to pick his, or her, way across an increasingly dense stream of drays, farm wagons, and motor vehicles, while Roger Williams viaduct takes him over the head of those in the North and South bound streams. As the City grows, this North and South stream will increase rapidly, first, due to the rapid development of motor truck conveyances; secondly, due to the proposed development of a great system of freight transhipment wharves by the New Haven Railroad, near Fox and India Points. The East and West streams will develop with the industrial growth of East Providence and from the natural tendency of this increasing popu- lation to do its shopping in the Providence shop- ping district and westerly from the Post Office, and from the transit of minor industries, which doubtless will more and more be transferred to the Phillipsdale and Red Bridge district while keeping their business offices near the financial center. It is important to the present mercantile and financial center of Providence that ease and 58 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. The following table compiled for the Chief Engineer of the Boston Street Railway system is of interest as illustrating the enormous cost of street railway tunnels and electric subway construction. Note that these figures do not contain land damages. APPROXIMATE COST PER LINEAR FOOT OF SOME OF THE VARIOUS TYPES OF TUNNEL AND SUBWAY CROSS-SECTIONS SHOWN IN BOSTON TRANSIT COMMISSION ANNUAL REPORTS. B. T. C. Report and Plate. CttOSS-SECTION. Construction Method. X 7 East Boston Tunnel, Section B, (Un- Roof 1904 der Harbor.) Shield XVI 3 Beacon Hill Tunnel, Section 1, Sta- Roof 1910 tion!2 + 50 Shield XVI 3 Beacon Hill Tunnel, Section 1, Station! Open 1910 2 + 44 J Cut XI 4 Washington Street Tunnel, Section 1, 1905 Station 6 + 52.5. Two-track cross- Open section. | Cut XI 5 Washington Street Tunnel, Section 2, 1905 Station 9 + 25. Two-track cross-sec-j Open tion j Cut XI 6 Washington Street Tunnel, Section 2, 1905 Station 10 + 83. Two-track and Open Platform cross-section Cut KI 10 Washington Street Tunnel, Section 4, 1905 Station 21 + 00. Two-track cross- Open section. Cut XI 13 Washington Street Tunnel, Section 4,1 1905 Station 23 + 85. Two-track and Open Platform cross-section-.. Cut Cost per lin. ft. Includes Construction, Field Engi- neering and Incidentals. $272 00 $263 00 $280 00 REMARKS. Ground Blue clay. Work done in compressed air. Ground Sandy, clay, hard Work done in free air. pan. Small amount of street bridging. Built mostly under and through brick buildings. $332 00 |Cost of new sewers shown on sec- tion included. Direct cost of other pipe changes not included. Ditto. Ditto. $480 00 $615 00 Ditto. Ditto. $427 00 Ditto. Ditto. XIII 3 Washington Street Tunnel, Section 7. 1907 Double tube, two-track and platform Ditto. Ditto. $578 00 Open Cut $920 00 Ditto. Ditto. General expenses, administration, land, interest and other damages, interior finish and equipment and office engineering are not included in the above figures. General expenses, administration and office engineering, add about 14% -to the total cost excluding damages and interest. Compiled by G. D. EMERSON, May 12, 1911. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 59 promptness of transit to and from the outlying industrial districts be preserved. The removal of car lines from North Main Street at the crossing of Waterman Street, as is urged in connection with the ''Citizens' Plan" for crossing here at grade, may be very far from the best arrangement in the final analysis or when conditions 10 or 20 years hence are considered. In the best development of the principle of the terminal loop for distributing suburban traffic around the civic center and the commercial center, it is quite likely that it may prove best to have one track of the broad loop continue straight down North Main Street to Market Square and ultimately to Crawford Street, there to join with the new street indicated on Plan No. 23. DISADVANTAGES OF TUNNEL vs. OPEN STREET. Third, the tunnel plan improves nothing but the street car traffic, by avoiding the delays, dan- gers, and congestion of the counterweight system on College Hill and by permitting larger street cars to be run over Waterman and Angell Streets to Phillipsdale, Taunton, etc. Fourth, the tunnel plan does not relieve the present dangerous condition on the steep Water- man Street hill, where more than one automobile has skidded and lost control on the steep grade, when wet or freshly oiled, or when covered with ice or sleet. The opening afforded by removal of the Arnold Block applies equally to both plans. Fifth, the tunnel to Thayer Street practically moves the population travelling by the Brown Street cars to the Camp Street district, a third of a mile farther away from the center of the city, by compelling them to twice pass over the dis- tance between Brown Street and Thayer Street, and by the swaying, discomfort, slowing down and delay incident to all of these cars, going and coming, being compelled to pass around two additional right-angle curves. This doubling back also compels the street railway company to haul each of its passengers for the Brown Street line the equivalent of more than a quarter of a mile additional and introduces the extra wear and tear on cars and tracks inci- dent to the two extra curves at Thayer Street. The tunnel plan deprives the Benefit Street dis- trict near the Supreme Court House and the University Club and that at the top of the hill near the Prospect Street front of the College and Northerly therefrom, of convenient street car services. Transportation experts recognize the instinc- tive dislike of passengers to make a long detour or to follow other than a direct route between two points. Although passengers for the hill-top could, after the removal of the College Hill counter- weight tracks, go through the tunnel to Thayer Street and then take one of the small number of cars that after going through the tunnel would re- verse their direction around the two corners and proceed back up Angell Street to the corner of Brown Street; this detour would cause loss of time and would doubtless also have as note- worthy an affect on the revenues of the Railroad Company as upon the convenience or annoyance of the public. Sixth, Brown University would be poorly served by the proposed tunnel arrangement. Passengers leaving the car at Thayer Street are a long way from the Administration Building or from Sayles Hall or from the center of the campus and would reach the college by an undig- nified backdoor entrance, whereas under the Roger Williams Street plan they are landed oppo- site the center of the College grounds and at a dignified and convenient entrance. The broaden- ing of Brown Street between Angell and Water- man Streets, proposed in connection with Roger Williams Street, would add to the dignity of this entrance to the College. Seventh, the Roger Williams Street plan per- mits, at any convenient future time, the branching of a new car line toward Pawtucket and the large undeveloped portion of Providence in the vicinity of Rochambeau Avenue, which would be partic- ularly attractive in its course up Roger Williams Street and along the border of the proposed Overlook Park and in marked contrast to the present congested and somewhat dismal outlook along the course up North Main Street and Con- stitution Hill. All of these matters of agreeable surroundings on their daily pathway are material 60 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. considerations in attracting a desirable popula- tion to the city. Eighth, the Roger Williams Street plan works hand in hand with park development, and without the subdivision of costs and the economies ef- fected in excavating the street and in building up a sightly hillside in extension of Prospect Ter- race, it becomes beyond hope that the Overlook Park project can ever materialise. Ninth, the tunnel plan tends to drive away traffic and decrease street car revenues within the important area tributary between Main Street and Thayer Street, where the broad open street tends to promote them and meanwhile add to public convenience. Tenth, the Roger Williams Street project can probably be installed at least a year sooner than the tunnel project, and except for whatever de- lays may be incident to the securing of titles to the land, Roger Williams Street could be sub- stantially complete and open to traffic within the coming year. If the negotiations follow the lines of a recent oral agreement, which it is hoped to soon have in written form, an arrangement with the Railroad can be concluded immediately under which the Street Railroad would pay to the City of Provi- dence yearly for trackage rights up Roger Wil- liams Street (which would permit them to dis- pense with the expense of the counter-weight system and permit also the much needed increase of car service (both in size and number of cars) with the consequent increase of convenience to citizens and increase of earnings to the Com- pany), a sum in the form of annual rental for trackage rights on this portion of the street, amounting to the interest at 4 per cent, per an- num on $750,000; (possibly at the rate of $35,- ooo per year), or, in other words, more than half the entire cost of the project, including its park accessories, would be paid by the Street Railroad Company for rights simply co-exten- sive in time with whatever franchise may be agreed upon during the negotiations of the com- ing year between the Railroad and the City in connection with the expiration and renewal of their present franchise. This arrangement can be made independent of all questions and delays incident to the discussion of the street car franchise. Although the Railroad Company may be wil- ling, free of all expense to the City (except the outlay estimated at $200,00 for the removal of the Arnold Block), to build the tunnel and own it, just as they would own a car barn or a power house, it should be remembered by the citizens that this would leave the Street Railroad Com- pany the owners of the most vital link in street railroad transportation between the center of the City and the East Side and the Eastern suburbs, and one which would in itself be effective as a perpetual, exclusive franchise, and with no guar- antee of better relations in future between the corporation and the public. It is of present interest to thoughtfully read between the lines, as well as in the lines, of the reports of the negotiations of two years ago and try to see clearly just where the views of the two sides diverged. Now is a good time for study- ing out some good plan for mutual confidence and co-operation. OVERLOOK PARK. The accompanying drawings (Nos. 19, 20, 21 and 32) show the possibilities of this park de- velopment so fully that hardly anything additional need be said except to urge every citizen not already familiar with the district to take his earliest opportunity to walk up Congdon Street to Prospect Terrace and then continuue his walk to Jenckes Street, with copies of these maps in hand. He will find here a remarkable opportun- ity for a park which cannot be financed without the aid of Roger Williams Street. It will be noted that the cost of Roger Williams Street has been made to carry the estimated cost of acquiring all of the land needed for this park south of Bowen Street and extending westerly to a line which approximately follows the back line of the lots on the Northerly side of Benefit Street. This area would all be graded out to the westward for a width of nearly 200 feet on the top, to a line averaging nearly as great as the present elevation of Prospect Terrace and would be given the steepest practicable slope on the western face in order to obtain the benefit of the O c o o o 01 61 ID a t/5 a fl c V o M -w o 43 3 O O o 3 n! bJ 2 "w OJ ^ b/) "^ )- *-n u o O fj S 1 li. (J *-" ^ z H rt c T3 -4-1 a E 'En | -C ifl 4 . < U. a> fx UJ a '3 w 5 > S^ 43 &5H O 1 a "O 0) D U <0 -o ^ u cfl en T3 4) 3 O ID J3 C S a. O a: I OJ rt 3 O "en rt o en tic is '3 Q J-t C/3 '- i CS o x C rt O *" 8 * 1 ^ .5 O O 3= -a rt H 62 VIEW FROM SITE: OF 'OVERLOOK PARK' A sen oi six consecutive pnotojrapba covering more than 22.0 decrees of the horizon overlooking three quarters of Ihe buildings of Providence and parts of the adjoining Towns. In order to fully appreciate the wonderful possibilities of ''Overlook Park*' one should visit Prospect Terrace on a clear morning and extend 'his walk Northerly along Congdon Street as far as Jenckes Street. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 63 broadest possible park at the bight level. I have suggested, however, that a portion of this area be shaped up in the form of an amphitheatre as indicated. Although it is not beyond the bounds of hope that some public-spirited citizen or someone desir- ous of leaving a worthy memorial would in course of time supply the concrete structure, we really need not wait, for the City itself could well af- ford to meet the small cost of an open-air audi- torium of this kind in the center of the city, close to the main lines of transportation. Providence could learn much from Denver or Minneapolis in this matter of making the city a pleasanter place for every citizen to live in. AN OPEN AIR AUDITORIUM. This as drawn on sheet No. 20 and as shown more distinctly in connection with the problem of park development upon sheet No. 32, is drawn to scale from measurements of the Greek Theatre at the University of California, which in acoustic properties is one of the most remarkable audi- toriums in the world. When the writer was inspecting- it some years ago under the guidance of President Wheeler, and testing its acoustic properties, he asked whether their perfection was the result of acci- dent or design. President Wheeler replied, "We simply copied with all practicable accuracy the shape of the most noted theatre in ancient Greece and this is the result." This auditorium has seats for 8,000 people and by filling the aisles and the central space is reputed to hold an attendance "of a%out 9,000. It i" built mainly of Portland cement concrete and thus is at once fire-proof and practically proof against ordinary deterioration or need of repairs. 'It serves for public concerts and lectures as well as for one of the chief centers of social interest for the university and the city. Its cost is reported to have been $42,000. Up to the present time, for reasons of cost, the architect's complete design has not been carried out, the photograph on the following' page therefore differs from the perspective drawing. In the design of a Greek Theatre for Overlook Park consideration has been given to the possi- bility of sudden summer showers and provision made for a surrounding narrow strip of concrete roofing which would shelter a crowd of several thousand persons while they were .waiting for car service on the neighboring street. By planting the steep hill slope back of the stage with quick- growing evergreens, white pine, for example, something of the nature of a sound screen could be developed in a way that would also add to the landscape effect. My pencil sketches of the details of this struc- ture were carried merely far enough to demon- strate the practicability of the constructive features and it has not seemed worth while at present to draw them up in ink for reproduction. Public band concerts for some years past have been maintained on the West side of the city, at Roger Williams Park, and have proved very popular, but necessitate a long, crowded and uncomfortable street car journey for residents of the eastern and central portions of the city. Roger Williams Park, beautiful and spacious as it is, should not be the only center for recreation, or educational collections of stuffed birds, min- erals, weather observation instruments, popular telescopes, etc. By the time a father or mother of scanty means has paid car fares for children and self back and forth to a concert at Roger Williams Park and although weary with the day's work has had to stand during much of the evening and had to crowd for a place on the homeward bound car, the day's burdens have not been lightened as they might be here. And on a summer Sunday after- noon or mid-week evening, how can the city min- ister more to the pleasure and culture of its peo- ple and cultivate their civic pride than by free public concerts of the kind that the city of Den- ver gives? The writer has been much impressed with the pains taken in many of the chief European cities, even those no larger than Copenhagen and Chris- tiania, to provide the public with convenient places of entertainment not far from the civic center and available to the central mass of popu- lation without long street car rides. This hill crest would receive the benefit of the southwesterly wind following up the bay and prove a very acceptable location for a summer 65 The Greek Theater or open-air Auditorium of the University of California. From the architect's perspective drawing, showing the completed structure. For reasons of economy, the exterior collonade 'has not yet been built and the present condition of the structure is shown by the view below. A portion of an audience of 8,000 in the Greek Theatre, listening to Col. Roosevelt. 66 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. The Municipal Auditorium, Denver, Colorado. A free public concert in the Denver Auditorium. Mme. Schuman-Heinck, singing to an audience, estimated at 14,000. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 67 evening concert and the superior acoustic prop- erties and comfort of the stage and auditorium would permit orchestral music and other types of entertainment as well. RELATION OF SITE FOR A CITY AUDITORIUM TO THE NEW STREET. Hundreds of citizens have been impressed with the need of a better indoor auditorium than any now available in Providence. Several of our New England cities, Lawrence for example, have large public halls, owned by the municipality, which are centers of ministering to the popular intellectual life of the city, particularly in the winter season, by means of orchestral concerts, choral festivities, stereopticon lectures on travel and scientific topics, etc., for all of which good auditory qualities and a seating plan with sloping floors and a good outlook toward the stage are fundamental needs. It is an impossibility to combine, as at present attempted in Infantry Hall, a proper housing for grand balls, fairs, symphony concerts, lec- tures and political conventions. Denver has apparently solved the problem better than any of our other cities, by a building owned by the municipality, occupied each Sunday afternoon for a free orchestral concert of care- fully selected music, commonly attended by about twelve thousand persons, which doubtless brings a greater amount of uplifting pleasure into the lives of the working people than any other form of entertainment that could be devised, and illus- trates a wise type of socialism which the munici- pality could be justified in paying for, even on the narrow ground of making the city a better labor market. The problem in Providence is somewhat dif- ferent from that in Denver and would require a somewhat different type of building, but it should be primarily a fire-proof auditorium with the capacity for seating comfortably say at least five thousand people. The Denver auditorium is ingeniously devised with movable partition by which in a few hours time, it can be transformed from a vast auditor- ium to a theater of moderate size. In Denver's case the leasing for entertainments for which an admission fee is charged, serves to defray a large part of the maintenance and in- terest charges and in addition the great mass of citizens have their civic pride quickened by the possession of such a building- and the high quality of the public entertainments, which are free to all. The location of a municipal auditorium may properly be considered in any comprehensive study for street development and obviously it should form a part of the setting of the civic center and be as near as possible to the point of convergence of the main radial arteries of travel. Considering land values and locations in rela- tion to transportation and also considering the desirability of proximity to the steam railroad as adding to the facility with which the artists, in attractions of which the Boston Symphony Con- certs is an example, can return to Boston or proceed elsewhere after an entertainment, I have been able to find no better location for a city auditorium than that immediately North of the Arnold Block. This could be increased in width northerly by the acquisition of the narrow strip of building lots next to the railroad and a slight shifting of the location of Steeple Street north- erly, and it was this purpose that the writer had in mind in making the suggestion contained in his preliminary report of April 10, 1911, that this land be purchased along with the Arnold Block. The writer believes that the taxpayers and other residents of the city would be benefited should this parcel of land be immediately acquired, and plans for an auditorium upon it worked up at an early date in connection with the great problems of radial streets, street car travel and the civic center. The parcel of land just north of Steeple Street should be purchased at the same time and the street location shifted so as to increase the width of the "Auditorium lot." A TUNNEL FOR VEHICLES. It has frequently been suggested that the tunnel on the location now proposed for street cars, between North Main Street and Thayer Street or anywhere in that vicinity, even as fai south as College Street and beneath the college grounds, might be made of a width sufficient to 68 69 70 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. accommodate both street cars and vehicular traffic, and several have cited the tunnel under the yuinnal Hill at Rome, Italy, as an example of such a structure. The writer has carefully inspected the yuinnal Tunnel at Rome and also has often been through a similar tunnel for carrying street traffic beneath a hill at Los Angeles, California, and tindj them somewhat dismal and musty-smelling places in spite of abundant artificial light and the applica- tion of the best engineering and architectural skill. The urine and droppings of horses and dogs are certain in course of time to develop persistent odors, and the absence of the natural sanitation by heavy rainfall or sunshine becomes more noticeable as the years go on. Such a structure, moreover, is enormously expensive in comparison with the open cut of Roger Williams Street and would be particularly expensive for supporting so broad an expanse of arched roof in the crushed and slippery geological formation found in College Hill. Some idea of what such a tunnel is like can be obtained by a walk from the Providence City Hall to the Rhode Island State House under- neath the railroad tracks, altho this particular tunnel lacks the architectural setting and finish of that under the Quirinal. RADIAL STREETS. The value of radial avenues, so well shown by Major L'Enfant and Baron Haussman in their works of years ago in great capitals, has in recent years come to be appreciated as one of the first principles of modern city planning and is no less useful in smaller communities, in order- to meet the ever-increasing demand for economy in time and transportation. The West Side of Providence is wonderfully well equipped with these radial avenues leading to and from the business center and the civic center, but the East Side is woefully deficient, because of the natural barrier of the hill. The two maps, 18 and 19, have been traced from the City Atlas to bring out this feature. No. 18 shows the present conditions. Note how the city has spread to the Westward, North and South, not only to centers of industry but to residential districts as well, occupied largely as homes of those who come to the center lor their day's work, and note how scant the corresponding growth has been to the Eastward. On No. 19, there have been added lines to show how two new radial lines of travel, one to the Northwest, another to the Southeast, would aid all concerned, by relieving the overcrowded and unattractive lines of travel up North Main Street and down South Main Street, in addition to the better flow of travel afforded over the hill by the proposed Roger Williams Street. If we can save time and add pleasure in street car travel and in effect bring the suburb nearer to the center or the home nearer to the workroom, we are all the time adding to the pre-eminent attraction of Providence as the home of the high- grade artisan, the skilled toolmaker, the artist- jeweler, the designer of special fabrics, and help- ing to give its growth a character, distinctive from that of factory cities founded on the basis of cheapness in yardage and tonnage. AN EASTERN BOULEVARD vs. A SUBWAY. So much stress has been laid on the idea that if a tunnel were built up Fones Alley to Thayer Street, this could be extended in the form of a subway for street cars to Red Bridge along Fones Alley and Medway Street, that it has seemed to me worth while to present here a parallel plan and to take space to go into details as to the feasibility and comparative cost of building a broad avenue from Brown Street easterly to Red Bridge by widening Angell Street. It has been found by carefully going over the ground and by studying the assessors' maps and valuations that the probable cost of an avenue extending easterly from Brown Street to Red Bridge and the River Road along the Seekonk basin, 160 feet in width, comparable with the Blackstone Boulevard (which is 200 feet in width), would cost nearly half a million dollars less than the proposed subway for street cars, and would provide for all vehicular traffic and broad areas for trees and grass besides. The estimates give $1,787,000 for the cost of extend- ing the subway and $1,351,000 for the cost of extending the boulevard and, the contingencies on tunnels and subways are vastly greater than in surface work. 71 72 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. The above shows the type of main eastern thoroughfare proposed to be built on the lines shown in Sheet 30, on the previous page at some future time. Rapid progress for the street cars is helped by a low curbstone separating their tracks from the carriage road, as on Huntington avenue. Boston. The broad strip of greensward and shrubbery and the double row of trees lessen the disturb- ance by the traffic to the residents in the adjacent houses. Huntington avenue, Boston, Mass., carrying a very heavy suburban traffic on substantially the same width of carriage way between curbs, that is proposed for Roger Williams street and its future extension, and also proposed for the Boston Road and Bristol Road. It is interesting to observe that all of this traffic passes closer to Trinity Church, than Roger Williams street does to the First Baptist Meeting House, and that Trinity Church continues useful. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 73 While the writer has no expectation that such a street will be built for many years to come, it certainly is more within the range of possibility than the suggested subway, and is more attractive because it would beautify the city, would provide amply for both vehicular traffic and street cars, could relieve narrow Waterman Street entirely from street cars and could afford so generous a width of grass plat and shrubbery on both sides between the travelled way and the sidewalks, that a very heavy and rapid-moving suburban street car traffic could be accommodated with little detriment to the residences and it would not lessen street car receipts. At one point only, near the Congregational Church, does it appear impracticable to obtain the width desirable for such a main artery of traffic ; at other points, in the vicinity of Olive Street, even a greater width could be obtained and parked, giving, for this space, a width even greater than the Blackstone Boulevard, but either of these projects, Eastern Boulevard or Eastern Subway, is so far off that we need not linger to discuss the details further, save to remark that if sometime public sentiment becomes aroused to devoting the Dexter Asylum grounds to the higher public use of a park instead of a poor farm, removing the poor farm to surroundings better adapted for its needs than those which the growth of eighty years has brought around the present site, such a boulevard precisely on the lines that I have laid out for "Roger Williams Street" would serve well for connecting this park with the civic center and the city would be pro- vided with a remarkably dignified and beautiful entrance from the East. I present this plan No. 30, and the estimate of the cost of an Eastern Boulevard at the risk of being regarded as hopelessly visionary, and I venture to present it now only because of the prominence given to the Red Bridge Subway, which would cost much more and promises far less, and which subway is utterly without suffi- cient financial basis to warrant the hope that either the street railroad or the city will ever build it. FURTHER NOTES CONCERNING THE BRISTOL ROAD. Un pages 47 and 51, reference has already been made to the new street beginning just south of Crawford Street bridge, which is shown on Sheet No. 18 of the drawings, but more plainly on Sheet No. 19, and is presented in detail on Sheets 23 to 28, inclusive. Following the course of this projected street by the aid of Sheets 23 to 26 of the drawings, it is to be noted that the concrete bridge and viaduct with which it starts is a full 100 feet in width, and that the road continues of this width for its entire length, with nowhere less than about f>8 feet to 70 feet of width between curbs, for accommodating vehicles and a double line of street cars. This requires a widening on the southerly side of Crawford Street, bridging over South Water and South Main Streets and proceeding up the hill on a grade of seven per cent. The projected street passes between Infantry Hall and the Providence Institution for Savings, bringing the beautiful architectural features of the latter prominently into view and providing a much better and safer public entrance than the present one, to the main floor level of Infantry Hall; which will doubtless remain for many years to come, the chief public hall for certain classes of gatherings. Crossing Benefit Street very nearly at its pres- ent grade, the line of the Bristol Road continues toward the corner of the college grounds in order to give the University its proper setting as one of the chief glories of the city ; thence by a curve of broad radius it proceeds in the straightest pos- sible line toward the New Barrington Boulevard, having due regard to the character of all of the important buildings along the route. It will be noted that it passes by the Ann Mary Brown Memorial in a way to make this an inter- esting architectural feature of the route. At the Hope Club the proposed location leaves the original building undisturbed but compels moving the newly built annex bodily about forty or fifty feet in a southerly direction, leaving the floor area and the cubical contents of the main buildings unimpaired and giving to the club an 74 F.xr.iN'iCER's FINAL RKITIRT. LOOKING SOUTH EASTERLY FROM ROOF OF THAYER STREET SCHOOL SHOWING LOCATION OF PROPOSED STREET TO SOUTHEAST I On walking over the line of this proposed boulevard it is of interest to note how few buildings would have to be removed to give space for it. A surprisingly large amount of residential land in this region is still vacant, near the business center, 285 years after the founding of the city. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 75 excellent outlook along the new boulevard and toward the University grounds. Thence the Bristol Road runs straight until a slight deflection and curve is necessitated near the intersection of Hope Street, by reason of St. Joseph's Parsonage and Church, and the Cleary Grammar School. Thence, it follows along Hope Street lor two blocks, thus bringing it into suitable relation with our street of most beautiful residences and then cuts across lots to the corner of Tockwotton Park and proceeding on a straight line over the viaduct narrowed to eighty feet in width, it passes over the freight yards and railroad tracks with ample head room beneath, and crossing the river by a new drawbridge to a point close to Fort Hill, reaches the high level of the new Barrington Turnpike parkway by a very easy grade. It is of interest to note the admirable manner in which such an avenue would connect with the network of cross-streets and on walking over the line one is surprised to find a relatively large pro- portion of all the land included within the aline- nient of the proposed new street, although loca- ted within three-quarters of a mile of the center, is still unoccupied, 285 years after the founding of the city. There can be no question that such an avenue would add greatly to the value of real estate in the sparsely settled district between Thayer and Hope Streets, in the vicinity of Benevolent, Charles Field and Power Streets. The proposed width of one hundred feet is ample to admit of eight feet for parking with shrubbery and green-sward between the curb and the sidewalk and, as the writer has stated else- where in this report with reference to a possible future broad avenue between Red Bridge and the head of Roger Williams Street, it is believed that the creation of a broad, direct highway of this character, with an ample width between curbs, tends to collect the through traffic into itself and thereby tends to preserve or increase the quiet of the adjacent streets. A chief feature in accomplishing this result is the providing of a width of seventy feet between curbs for the purpose already explained, of giving ample width on either side of a double car track for a rapid-moving vehicle to pass a slow- moving vehicle and a third vehicle stopped at the curb. The oblique character of the intersections as well as the great width of the street would permit a very rapid flow of motor car traffic with a minimum danger of collision with vehicles coming from the cross-streets. Crawford Street Tide Gates. An explanation has been asked of certain notes about Stoney gates on my outline design for the bridge near Crawford Street, Sheet 27. Sometime in the future the street developments will doubtless require covering the river all the way from Exchange Place to Crawford Street, and because the problems of sludge and bad odors naturally fall in with bridging the river at the harbor head, I have indicated beneath the concrete arches of the proposed Easy-Grade street and viaduct, certain additional partition walls and gates for controlling the discharge of the fresh water of the river into the salt water at the head of the bay. I was prompted 'to put on file a suggestion for study along these lines by reason of extended studies made under my direction in 1903 as Chief Engineer to the Committee on the Charles River Dam, Boston, in connection with changing the 'tidal estuary of the Charles into a fresh water lake, and because of certain later studies made while I was acting as Consulting Engineer to the Massachusetts Metropolitan Park Commission and designing tide gates for controlling the outlet of the Mystic River and improving the sanitary condition of the Fresh Pond marshes. In the course of those studies it was proved that when polluted fresh water is discharged inlo salt water a flocculation and precipitation of sludge takes place as a result of the mixture and that putre- faction of organic material in this sludge follows by reason of the stratification between the heavier salt water and the lighter fresh water, which prevents vertical circulation and aeration. The offensive condition at the head of Providence River between Crawford Street Bridge, which occurs in hot weather, and the large deposit of pu'trescible sludge that is continually taking place in the river for a thousand feet upstream from this bridge (which sludge we have seen during the past few months being pumped and dredged out at an expense of about sixty thousand dollars), results chiefly from the mixing of the salt water of the harbor with the polluted fresh waters of the Moshassuck and the Woonasquatucket Rivers. These waters will always carry a relatively large amount of pollution because of the street gutter- wash that they receive and the drainage into them, from factory yards. Therefore, in a tentative way, 1 venture to suggest that there be placed beneath the new bridge, gates of the Stoney type, or other easily-amoved gates, which could be opened quickly in great floods but would normally be kept so nearly closed that the level of the fresh water would be maintained about one foot above mean high tide. At somewhere near the low level of the night ebb, at any time between nine p. in. and five a. m.. a single one of the four (or six) sluice gates would be suddenly opened wide, thereby creating for a brief period a rapid current that would scour the sediment from that special channel leading to this particular gate. The 76 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. next night, another gate would be opened and another channel flushed out, and on the following night still another, thus scouring each in turn. The partition walls supporting the several channels would probably have to extend upstream nearly to the Railroad, but could be cheaply built of concrete and supported from 'tipping over by occasional lengths of steel piling driven vertically into the river bed. By making these partition walls a little heavier, they would furnish a convenient support for the reinforced concrete bridge with which all the open areas from Crawford Street to the Railroad should sometime be covered. The deposit in this fresh water pool probably would be far less than in the present channel filled with mingled salt and fresh water and under a proper sanitary control of the river above it need present no worse appearance than does the slack water stream which flows through the park near the center of Hart- ford, Conn. Sludge would collect just below the Crawford Street bridge in a deep pocket that could be dredged to receive it, and could at rare intervals be dredged out from this pocket just as it is being dredged to-day, by means of a dipper dredge or in a more odorless manner, by a suction tank dredge. The water at the head of navigation would be no more unsightly or odoriferous than to-day and upstream from Crawford Street, past the civic center, it would cease to be a nuisance in hot weather and in time of drought. This problem requires much additional study as to details, and the above is put on record here simply as a suggestion for a line of study. A WATER PARK. Particular attention is called to the proposed public boat landing shown on Sheet No. 19, besides the words "Water Park." The precise position of this might have to be slightly changed in connection with the new harbor lines needed for a possible vast extension of the wharves in this vicinity, but a reservation a thousand feet in length along the river, title to which would for- ever be held by the municipality, should be care- fully established and maintained as a landing for pleasure boats, with a narrow strip of parking between the viaduct and the water. Beneath the arches or panels of the adjoining viaduct, space could be found for the service buildings appro- priate to a water park. This public landing available both to East Providence and to the whole East Side of Provi- dence proper, would add greatly to the attractive qualities of this entire district and make it easy in summer for the stay-at-homes to get an even- ing or week-end outing on the river in small boats. SOME FRANCHISE CONSIDERATIONS. Since a franchise for tracks on Roger Williams Street can be made to pay half the cost oi that improvement, including park-like borders and a 5-acre park, with benefit to all concerned, and since Denver is on the point of obtaining $50,000 for a new pipe organ for its auditorium out of trackage rights, and a yearly sum of $50,000 additional for its civic center development from its gas and electric franchises, we are led to a broader look at the public franchise question, in its relation to public improvements, as we con-' sider the possibility of transplanting some of these progressive Western ideas on civic devel- opment in the East. And since the principles de- scribed below would provide means for building the "Uoston Road" and the "Bristol Road,'' the Overlook Park and the Auditorium, and bring other benefits in due course, it seems proper to mention them in this report. Some twelve or fifteen years ago the writer was appointed by the City Council as the City's representative upon a Board of three which was to arbitrate upon the annual franchise tax to be paid by the Street Railway Company to the City of Providence for the use of its streets. Studies made at that time and the studies of another kind of public service corporation fran- chise that the writer has had occasion to make in several cities in the practice of his profession have led to views regarding the feasibility of a happy solution of the difficulties between the public and the corporation, which views might be considered Utopian except for the admirable re- sults obtained for several years past in the City of Chicago by the application of similar principles to its street railway problems. This solution was worked out by Walter L. Fisher, Esq., now a member of the Cabinet of the President of the United States, and under it the City of Chicago without putting up any money has become a partner in the prosperity of its street railroad system and received in 1910 in cash about $1,705,000 as its yearly share in addition to taxes, with prospect of large future increase. My recommendation would go further and definitely apply all income from franchise taxes directly to the embellishment of the City. This ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 77 would, I believe, tend to promote amicable rela- tions, leaving the real estate tax and personal property tax to go toward current expenses of the city government. Obviously, the present franchise tax for use of the streets, consisting of some per cent, of the gross earnings of the corporation, could be defi- nitely appropriated for municipal embellishment, but there are good reasons for going further and establishing the partnership principle. The chief reason is that no one is wise enough to figure out at the beginning of a 2o-year term just what increase in profits may come from im- provements in the art or in growth of traffic, nor what accidents or contingencies ma\ befall or what oppressive legislation; and capital being pro- verbially timid, the public receives a smaller share than if it took its chances along with the stock- holder. Moreover, the partnership interest in growth of profits will tend toward helpful legis- lation. A valuation of the physical property is the foundation of the method, and the publication of earnings and expenses in detail is a main feature of the superstructure, and a public service com- mission the guardian of both the contracting parties. The writer believes that this principle of direct partnership in the profits between the city and the corporation has a much wider application and is applicable to franchise arrangements with all public service corporations, whether they supply transportation, gas, electricity, telephone communication, electric subways or private water supply. By an application of its principles through one, two or three generations, Provi- dence might be made without a superior as a beautiful and attractive city in which to live. Stated in the fewest words the method sug- gested is that from time to time as the franchises of existing public service corporations come around for reconsideration or as new public serv- ices are developed with the progress of the arts, that a physical valuation of the Company's prop- erty used in this service should be made and a proper amount added for organization expenses and for overcoming the ills of childhood and making it a "going concern.' 1 This value should serve as the basis of capitalization, bonds and stock. The corporation should, first of all, be permitted to apply out of its net receipts, after providing the best of maintenance and the best appliances for serving the public, sufficient to pay whatever may be deemed a fair and proper rate of interest and income upon the bonds and stocks represented by this valuation and to furthermore set aside proper amounts for amortization of items liable to become obsolete. Then, of the remaining income, which under conditions widely prevalent throughout the coun- try, goes to pay interest on "common stock'' or "water" in the stock, the city should receive one- half and the Company one-half (in Chicago the city receives 55 per cent.). This arrangement presupposes some agree- ment as to a fair price for the service per- formed ; for example, as to whether 8oc is a fair price per thousand feet for gas, 30 to I2C fair prices for Kilowatt hours in different services, 5c a fair price for a street car ride, etc. The special merit of such a partnership method is that after providing financial stability for the investment and proper security for money ex- pended on the enterprise, meanwhile also making due allowance for earnings that in past years have been put into the property instead of being paid out to the stockholders in dividends, it gives tc the citizen and to the management of the Com- pany an equal interest in supplying gas, elec- tricity, telephones, etc., etc., with the greatest pos- sible economy and promotes the introduction of the best possible appliances and permits the ready financing for purchases of improved appliances as the arts develop ; meanwhile, it gives to the citizen a direct personal interest in seeing each enterprise achieve the highest possible degree of profit. The unfortunate results in less efficient service that appear likely to follow the present wide- spread mutual distrust existing between the public and the public service corporation can. I believe be far more effectively met and conquered Ly some such community of interest than by municipal ownership, with its far less efficient administration. 78 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. In a majority of our growing American cities it is probable that an application to parks, boulevards and civic embellishment, of one-half of that sum which is represented by what is popularly termed "water" in the capitalization of its public utilities, would work a wondrous change in adding to the daily enjoyment of life. What would five million or ten million dollars have done for beautifying Providence? Is it now forever too late? NATURAL MONOPOLIES. In the so-called "Citizens' Plan" for a tunnel, the delusive thought is held out, of improving the public service by municipal ownership of the tunnel and the threat of its possible lease to a rival street car corporation. Obviously, trackage rights on the 2,000 feet of open street could be similarly managed, but is not all talk of this kind less hopeful than that of getting into a partnership that will give the citizens a larger share of the future prosperity which comes from growth and from a certainty that exclusive rights will not be disturbed. Year by year it is more clearly seen that tele- phone service, gas supply, street car service, etc., are natural monopolies and that competition by rival corporations occupying the public streets as a matter of fact and history always brings poorer service and ultimately brings increased cost to the public and diminished income to the investor. Instead of trying to hold the club of a rival grant over the head of the public service corporation to compel its good behavior, can not we secure at the start a recognized community of interest and income by which the city will aid the corporation to hire its money for improve- ments more cheaply under its guaranty of sta- bility ; encourage it to make improvements of the most permanent kind, the cost of which could hardly be warranted under a 2O-year tenure, and under which guaranty both citizens and stock- holders would share in the prosperity that comes from always being up-to-date in improvements? Granting that the exclusive feature of all of these present franchises rather than their con- tinuity, is the debatable question, for I think most students of the situation will admit that the present occupants can not be put out of the streets, why not cut short the debate and admit that an exclusive right is now and always will be, best for all parties concerned in these natural monopolies ; and admitting this, try to arrange more fair, more just and more encouraging terms for partnership in the greater prosperity which the exclusive right brings to the investors? Is it not true that on the old basis of a per- centage tax on gross receipts or on the basis of limiting the dividend to be paid to stockholders, the city has made a much poorer trade than if it had gone into partnership on the net income, on the Chicago basis above referred to ? And is not all talk of the city building or buying the tunnel and offering a lease of it to some rival street railway simply nonsense? Is not there more hope in first giving the street railway system a fair chance to recover from errors made in the past until the consent of the public, and to shape the future so that after a term which will soon pass we can enter on some such arrangement as suggested above? ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 79 OBJECTIONS TO THE PROPOSICD ROGER WILLIAMS STREET. Your Engineer has listened attentively to all the objections that he has heard or that he can learn have been raised in public and private dis- cussion during the ten months since the report of the Commission on East Side Approach was presented to the Common Council on April 10, 1911. These, as the writer understands them, are substantially all comprised in the following: That the First Baptist Meeting House will have its architectural beauty destroyed by the encroachment of the proposed avenue upon the southerly side of its yard and that its utility as 3 place of public worship will be impaired, some say destroyed, by the noise of the increased traf- fic due to widening and easing the grade on this part of Waterman Street. The estimate of cost presented last April pro- vided liberally for the payment of any damage that might be suffered here. As will be seen by reference to page 105 of the present report it was estimated that $46,200 would be paid for damage to the Meeting House property, although the new street does not come within 14 feet from the nearest corner of the edifice and another $22,700 paid for converting the parson- age lot largely into a bordering park. The sidewalk of the new loo-foot street at its nearest point would not come within 14 feet of touching the corner of the church building and the roadway would be 29 feet away and all of the Roger Williams Street traffic would be farther away than the Thomas Street traffic now is on the other side. The Church would be far less exposed to noise or the disturbance of dense traffic than Grace Church in Providence, or Trin- ity Church in the Back Bay district of Boston ; (See the -photograph on page 72) and Grace Church instead of being driven away has just added buildings of increased area and other im- provements at a cost of $75,000, for extending its parish work. The present intolerable noise from the open- ing exhausts of automobiles as they climb the present difficult grade past the church would be lessened by the new easy grade of about 6% instead of the present 12%. And it is easy to believe that the number of vehicles could be treb- led and give far less noise than worshipers now suffer; for the great majority of all the automo- biles and taxi-cabs that now seek the east side from the center of the city now pass this church with their mufflers cut out. It is indeed an open secret that the abandon- ment of this location by the church society has long been discussed. I have been told by men prominent in the Society that because of present disadvantages of noise and various inconveni- ences, the matter of moving to a new location farther over on the East Side has been discussed and that if some way could be found by which the city would take the building as a sort of historical museum and thus preserve it from destruction and at the same time pay for the property enough to help materially toward the new lot and structure, it would be regarded by many as a satisfactory solution. I should be sorry to see that solution, because the present structure is far too much of a fire trap for a historical museum, and because I am sorry to see a church run away from the center of population. The bringing of the church into prominence by virtually placing it on the most prominent street in the city would give it great opportunities for serving the community and for restoring its dwindling congregation and it is believed that the present architectural setting of the church, which from certain points of view is not attrac- tive, could be greatly improved by raising the church to conform to the new grade and by re-grading its lot. With the funds derived as damages, betterments in construction could be carried out while thus raising it, which would greatly improve its Sunday School quarters and its mechanism for modern parish work and which would make it far safer atrainst fire. 80 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 4, ENGFNKER'S FINAL REPORT. 81 -Drawn m true perspective THE FIRST BAPTIST MEETING HOUSE AND THE PROPOSED .VIADUCT OVER NORTH MAIN ST. As they would appear with Church raised 10 feet and lot rerded but without addition of low evergreens or other shrubbery for partly hidifij the. unattractive basement" story. 82 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 83 COMMERCIALIZING THE EAST SIDE. The objection that appears to be most prominently urged in conversation, is that the new street would tend to open the quiet, semi- secluded residence district which the hill-top pre- sents as a unique feature of Providence in its convenient proximity to the business center ; is that this district would be opened up, made noisy and "commercialized ;" that its seclusion would be destroyed, that there would be a commercial invasion eastward, that business would follow along Roger Williams Street. Perhaps each citizen can best satisfy himself on these points and as to the destruction of the present beauties of this quarter of the city by a leisurely stroll up the hill along Angell Street from Benefit to Brown Streets. By continuing this walk to the corner of Thayer Street and not- ing the present "commercial'' conditions and in- quiring as to the occupancy of a majority of the houses near Benefit Street, asking in which cases old-time private residences have been changed into boarding houses, and also enquiring as to the movement of real estate values in this immediate vicinity for the past twenty-five years and how long certain of the owners have been looking for buyers, he may learn much that is pertinent. He will find that the commercializing in the vicinity of Thayer Street began at least ten years ago and a little reflection as to the course of retail trade will show it preposterous to expect that much business or many stores would jump the broad gap of Post Office Square, School of Design, Court House, and the parked borders presented in the plans for Roger Williams Street. It will be well for the inquiring citizen to also stroll up Thayer Street to Meeting Street and study the character and tendencies all through this district for years past and at present and get a better view of the local color. As to the effect upon the two beautiful man- sions at the corner of Prospect Street and Angell Street, I believe these would be benefited rather than injured, for the present squealing and grinding of the street cars around this street corner would be removed and the cars would pass these houses at so low a level and on such an easy grade and with so little call for stops in the vicinity that their noises could hardly be so serious a matter as now although the traffic were more than doubled. Such care has been taken to extend the arch- way easterly from Prospect Street and to give a park-like treatment to a part of what is now street surface, that to a person walking up Pros- pect Street the change from present conditions would not be offensively apparent. Both houses would be given a broader outlook to the West- ward, toward the civic center over the widened street; and furthermore, in the estimate of cost of Roger Williams Street there has been figured an allowance for damages which is a very liberal percentage of the tax assessors' val- uation of these estates and similar liberality has been shown in valuing others near them. The claim that a broad, easy-grade thoroughfare over College Hill would depress real estate val- ues over the whole 1 East Side, from IJowen Street on the North to Power Street on the South, presents a question more open to ridicule than to reason. The long years of waiting for customers for certain dwellings that can be named and the slowness with which vacant lots have filled up in this district during the past twenty- five years and the extent to which old houses have been improved, all give a fair index to present conditions. To the writer, after having tried to impar- tially analyze the objections, it has appeared that the advocacy of a tunnel for street cars only had ! ts foundation in groundless fears and in a will- ingness to preserving a certain present local stag- nation that is comfortable to a few estimable citizens, without regard to the promotion of the best interests of the city as a whole. WHY is GROWTH DESIRED? Evidence accumulates that there are many residents who prefer to see Providence remain as it was twenty-five years ago rather than to see it grow, and therefore it is proper to enquire why growth is desired. Why should the city be made more attractive? 84 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. By some the answer will be : In order that trade conditions may be improved, that more customers may be brought to our stores, that more demand will be created for our real estate, quicker sale for vacant lots, better rentals received for business property, etc. ; by others the answer is that with the city made more attractive we shall grow in civic pride, shall pro- mote better citizenship, gain in support for our University, get more fresh air and sunshine into our lives, and be able to support better enter- tainments, better music, more instructive lecture courses, etc., etc., and in a hundred ways develop better opportunities for the average man's fam- ily to enjoy a broader and fuller life. It would not be proper to conclude this report without expressing my warm appreciation of the assistance kindly extended to me by the En- gineers of the New York, New Haven and Hart- ford Railroad in matters of data for estimating costs; to Mr. Geo. A. Kimball, Chief Engineer, Boston Elevated Railway for information upon cost of subways ; to Professor Charles W. Brown for his preparation of notes upon the geology of College Hill, as a guide to the kind of ex- cavation likely to be encountered in tunnel and subway. I desire to also record my appreciation of the liberal and friendly spirit in which Mr. Chas. S. Mellen, President N. Y. N. H. and H. R. R. and Mr. D. F. Sherman, Vice-President of the Rhode Island Co. showed .their desire to assist not only in the improvement of transportation but also the embellishment of our city. The thanks of their fellow citizens are parti- cularly due to Hon. Charles O. Gorman and to various members of the firm of Edwards and Angell for their painstaking review, pro-bono- publico, of the terms of the Dexter will, and the legal aspects of transforming the Dexter Asylum grounds into a public park, as per the opinions set forth in the appendix. Respectfully submitted, JOHN R. FREEMAN, Engineer. Past and present conditions at Thayer and Meeting Streets. On pages next following are presented a few of the many typical photographs collected in course of studies upon the minimum width of street between curbs, required in order to give a rapid flow of vehicular traffic alongside of a double line of street cars. It was found that the controlling feature was width on each side of the car tracks sufficient for a fast moving vehicle to pass by a slow moving vehicle and between a street car on one side and on the other side a vehicle stopped at the curb. For this a width of 70-feet between curbs is desirable. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 85 Boylston St. East oF Berkeley - Boston 50 Ft. between curbs This is found too narrow to give a free flow of traffic: congestion often results from this and the progress of the street cars is impeded. 86 ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 16 to 51". - Denver 80 Ft befween buildings 48 n " curbs. The ample sidewalks have left too narrow a space for rapid vehicular traffic between the curbs. This photograph happens to have been taken at an hour when traffic was light. The fact that this street is paralleled by numerous other 8o-foot streets lessens the discomfort. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 87 2** Ave. Seattle. 90 ft. between buildinjs. 54 f> " curbs. The distance between the curbs is not quite sufficient for a fast moving vehicle to pass one that moves slowly, and congestion of traffic is the result. 88 ENGINEER'S FIXAL REPORT. Market" St - San Francisco. 76 ft. between Curbs This gives the best and most rapid flow of traffic of 'any of the streets studied by your engineer. The branching streets pour a vast volume of traffic from the entire business section of the city into this street, which it takes care of easily. ENGINEER'S FINAL REPORT. 89 The two views above are "snapshots" on Massachusetts Avenue. Cambridge, Mass. This street here is 100 feet wide and the width between curbs presents ample width for rapid transit, for a future population larger than the present. The main Central Avenue to the East Side of Providence should be built of a width suitable for a future Providence of much more than double the present population. MAIN ST., ROCHESTER, N. Y. FOURTEENTH ST.. WASHINGTON, D. C. Both of the above streets are of the same width that is proposed for Roger Williams Street. At times both of these streets carry successfully a much larger traffic than happened to be in evidence at the moments when the above views were taken. 90 ENGINEER'S FINAL RKPOKT. "Isle of Safety'' for street car passengers Market Street, San Francisco, Calif. The detail photographs below show the form of seat more clearly. Seats similar to these are incorporated in the design for the East Side Ap- proach, at the beginning of the incline in Post Office Square. They might well be provided also in connection with an overhead shelter at the more important stopping places, alongside the grass plats or parking, on the "Bristol Road" and along the "Boston Road." Group waiting for street car near middle of a broad street. Market Street, San Francisco. Detail of Seat for "Isle of Safety' with stopping place for street cars. San Francisco. Calif. in connection APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. 91 DETAILED ESTIMATES OF COST. Report of Horace Ro[>cs, Civil Engineer. PHOVJDENCE, R. 1., May 4th, 1911. MR. JOHN R. FREEMAN, Consulting Engineer, 1'roiidence, R. I. SIR: Relative to the proposed "Easy-grade Approach" for the East Side of Providence, R. I., 1 am transmitting herewith an estimate of quantities of work and cost of construction for Roger Williams Street, so-called. This estimate has been made almost wholly by myself but under your directions, and it is based on your latest plans for this new thoroughfare, as at present on file in your office. In order that the questions of necessary immediate outlay may be intelligently differentiated from expendi- tures which may be deferred, I have arranged my computations to show, Estimate A, covers cost of land and construction for Roger Williams Street only, but in addition to work within the lines of the 100 foot street, the estimate includes for those portions between Benefit Street and Brown Street where side slopes are used between the new grade and the adjacent ground left vacant, an additional allowance of three feet in width on each side in order to provide for gutters to carry the drain- age from, the "1 on 1%" side slope. In estimate A (except for learning and seeding the side slopes just referred to ) no cost is included for any noteworthy improvement of the residue of the land takings remaining on either side outside the 100- foot limits of the new street. This estimate includes the cost of about five acres of land surrounding Pros- pect Terrace, on the steep slope of the hill westerly from Congdon Street, extending northerly from the N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R. tunnel right-of-way to Bowen Street, which it is assumed would be acquired by the City for the purpose of providing a convenient dumping ground for the economical disposal of the surplus of earth and rock and debris excavated along the deep open cut, and the estimate provides for depositing this material in a form suitable to the requirements of a future park. The amount of cut and fill required for this purpose is indicated on the attached cross-section sheets by areas colored red.* "These cross-section sheets not photo-engraved. Blueprints on file in City Engineer's office. ESTIMATES OF COST. Estimate B, This covers additional cost for land and grading required to put certain lands left vacant by removal of certain buildings between Benefit and Brown Streets, on both sides of Roger Williams Street in attractive shape for park purposes. For this purpose it is assumed that walls three to four feet high will be built along the street lines next the lots devoted to parking, and that the adjacent land will be graded to the flatter slopes shown by the broken grade lines "A" on the blue areas of the cross-section sheets. "A" is a sub-grade on which it is proposed to refill with twelve inches of yellow sub-soil and six inches of black loam. Estimate C, This covers an additional cost which it may be advantageous for the City to incur in order to render certain of the lands left vacant alongside Roger Williams Street between Benefit and Brown Streets more attractive to purchasers, in case it appears desirable for the City to sell the said land. The amount of grading required to make these lots suitable for building upon would affect the sale value of the lot and since this charge would ultimately be borne by the purchaser, it obviously is better and more economical in the end for the grading to be done sys- tematically by the City at the same time with the cut- ting of the street to grade, rather than to have it done in an irregular and haphazard manner by individual owners. This is rendered more important by require- ment of long and rather high retaining walls on the back line of these lots, which should be built continu- ously and in a substantial manner. The additional amount of grading and masonry required for this purpose is shown by the blue areas on the cross-section sheets and if the parking plan were first put into effect, would comprise only that portion of the blue area below the broken grade line "A." Estimate D, On the cross-section sheets there are some areas between Waterman Street and Fones Alley, westerly from DeFoe Place, and between Fones Alley and Roger Williams Street easterly from DeFoe Place, which are colored brown. The excavation for those portions of the cross-sections is no part of the street plan or of the park plan, but I regard these out- lines as suggestive of the lines to which the ground will gradually become shaped in the more or less dis- tant future, and thus these lines and areas serve a pur- pose in showing why the rear and face walls west of Prospect Street have not been projected quite so high as originally proposed for Estimate C. In the estimates you will find a memorandum of the quantities of earth and rock included in these brown sections, but as before stated, the cost of moving this material has no bearing on the Roger Williams Street project. METHOD OF MAKING THE ESTIMATES OF COST. My estimates have been made in considerable detail, as can be seen by reference to the summaries at the end of this report. The quantities have also been fig- ured carefully from the data at hand, and reasonable allowances have been included to cover uncertainties due to the absence of accurate surveys, and the lack of information as to the true depths to rock formation at various points along the route. To determine the amounts of excavation, embankment and masonry to be built, four standard size sheets, A. B. C. D., 25 inches by 37 inches of cross-sections have been pre- pared for purposes of this estimate. The cross-sections for Roger Williams Street were compiled from elevations shown on a tracing obtained from the records of the City Engineer, said tracing showing contours at two-foot intervals. These con- tours have been checked by one of your assistants by comparing them with the curb-levels used by the City Engineer and have been otherwise verified and ex- tended by hand level surveys on the ground. The cross-sections for Boston Road and Overlook Park are the results of actual measurements made by two of your assistants. The work was done by stadia methods. Three of the sheets of cross-sections relate to Roger Williams Street, and one to Overlook Park. For present purposes this future Park area is considered merely for its utility as a dumping ground for excess excavation from Roger Williams Street and its immedi- ate vicinity. 92 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. On three white print copies of your drawings num- bered 2, 3 and 20, I have shown the location of these cross-sections and also the limits to which operations would probably extend under the plans herein pre- viously outlined. These prints are called Sheets E, F and G. LAND DAMAGES. Obviously, the item of greatest expense and the one involving greatest uncertainty as to actual cost is that comprising the payments to be -made for taking full possession of certain lands and buildings, and for ob- taining easements on other parcels for the permanent location of walls or graded slopes, together with inci : dental damages occasioned by these takings, and by the temporary occupation and disturbance of some adjacent property. According to your instructions, wherever an entire parcel is to be taken, the cost to the City has been estimated at one and one-half times the official assessed valuation of said property for 1909. Cases where only a portion of the property need be taken have been considered each by itself as to the actual value of the land taken and the consequential damages to the remaining land and buildings. A tabulation showing the owners affected in any way, the assessed valuation of their properties as a -whole and the estimated payments to be made to them for that portion taken and for damages inflicted is given on pages 158 to 175 and is followed by notes explaining the allowances for consequential damages in the cases especially considered. EARTH AND ROCK EXCAVATION. No special test pits or drill holes have been sunk along the line of Roger Williams Street, neither have there been any cellar or sewer excavations in progress from which to judge the character of the materials to be dealt with. My observations of the ground ex- posed to the east and west portals of the railroad tun- nel, and in the old cellar excavation in Braxton Court, where the earth is of a light, sandy nature, soft and easy to handle, and apparently quite like the deep deposits of sandy material generally surrounding this locality, though some considerable distance away, lead me to believe that the earth excavation on Roger Wil- liams Street will be easy digging which can be done at a low cost per cubic yard. The assumptions for the probable depth at which ledge would be encountered, as shown on the cross- sections, were based qn data obtained from the Sewer Department as to the depth at which rock was found in the sewer trenches on Angell, Olive. Meeting*. Cushing and Congdon Streets, and other information as to depth to rock in three drill holes, one on Benefit, one on Prospect and the third 420 ft. easterly from the first, all about 50 ft. northerly from College Street. Good data upon the character of the rock and its depth below the earth surface was also found at the west portal of the railroad tunnel. Between these known ledge elevations at not far distant points, others were interpolated on the line of Roger Williams Street to give a general center line profile. The general slope of the ledge, transversely to this center line, was deduced from approximate cross-sections of the ledge at stations 9 plus 70 and 15 to be as follows : At Sta. 9 x 70, slope 1 on 9 to left and 1 on 14.7 to right. At Sta. 15 slope 1 on 9.7 to left and 1 on 14.6 to right. Of course no great accuracy can .be claimed for this method, but although at many spots the actual location of ledge may vary widely above or below my assump- tions, probably on the average it is reasonably correct. The recent railroad tunnel pierces the ridge within which the excavation is to be made and between Cong- don and Brown Streets the tunnel is beneath the pro- posed street, and practically parallel to it, so that it has been .possible to obtain good information as to the character of the rock to be excavated. Although it is generally understood that much of. the rock formation through which the tunnel was driven was scrft, slippery, and in manjy places disintegrated, it appears from the engineer's progress profile that the greater part of that portion immediately underlying our proposed excavation for Roger Wil- liams Street was through a fairly firm sandstone and shale formation, the beds of which have been tilted to a steep angle from the horizontal, so that our excava- tion will intersect them at a higher level. The profile indicates that between Congdon Street and DeFoe Place we shall find fine sandstone grit with thin seams of graphite; large veins of quartz inter- mixed with graphite ; a thick bed of light-colored, fine- grained sandstone gradually increasing in hardness 'cowards Prospect Street. Near Prospect Street the formation may be expected to change to firm sandy shale with graphite veins in considerable quantity and before reaching Brown Street it will again change to carboniferous shales with veins of graphite and quartz. These probabili- ties are in a measure confirmed by the ledge outcrops to 'be seen on the east side of Congdon Street at Bowen Street, Lloyd Avenue and on towards Jenckes Street. The hard, gritty nature of some of the sandstone and the prevalence of soft seams may perhaps make hard drilling at places, but generally the rock should be easily broken with light charges of powder, and excavated at a comparatively low price for rock work. Although the harder formations will be more costly to excavate than the softer rocks found in the east- erly portion of the tunnel, it will be fortunate if the rock near Prospect Street turns out to be hard, since much of it can then be utilized for concrete, thus saving the expense of bringing crushed stone or gravel from distant localities. I estimated that there will be 106,800 cubic yards of earth and 60,500 cubic yards of rock excavation. Allowing that one cubic yard of rock in place will ex- pand to 1.6 cubic yards when broken the total volume of excavated rock to be disposed of will be 96,800 cubic yards, adding the earth we have 203,600 cubic yards. Of this about 26,000 cubic yards will be used for filling to grade of the new street from Post Office Square to Benefit Street ; 21,000 cubic yards more will be required for back-filling of trenches, for filling behind masonry walls, for surfacing slopes, etc. and about 26,000 cubic yards of the broken stone, if it proves suitable, can be utilized for the concrete walls. Deducting these quantities from the total of 203,600 cubic yards of excavation there remains approximately 131,000 cubic yards to be wasted. This can be dis- posed of without difficulty on the five acres outlined on Sheet G. APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. 93 It is estimated that the acquisition of this dumping ground will cost the City $268,000, but the saving effected in the final disposal of the 131,000 cubic yards of excavation to 'be wasted would probably amount to nearly one dollar per cubic yard and possibly to more when all the costs are counted, the depending on the distance it had to be hauled, and on the fact that the economy of the steam shovel would disappear if the slower transportation by teams had to be used. Thus half the cost of this land and all the cost of grading it is saved by creating the park in connection with the easy grade street. The time element must also have weight in consid- ering the park site as a dump, in comparison with hauling by horses and carts over the hill or to any of the common dumping grounds, or in comparison with taking it in scows down the river, as was done for the smaller daily volume from the west portal of the railroad tunnel. Another item of expense to be considered if the material were to tie hauled a long distance is the wear and tear 'by heavy teaming over certain streets. Moreover to move this large quantity by teams over a long haul through public streets would keep these streets dirty and congested, cause delay and inconvenience the public far more than the method of short haul by narrow gage railroad cars to the site of Overlook Park. This excavation is naturally a steam shovel propo- sition, with light railroad tracks and cars for trans- porting the material. The average length of haul for the street filling would be about 600 feet, and for material placed in the Overlook Park dump, it will average about 1,200 feet. It is reasonable to assume that with due allowances for depreciation of plant, laying and shifting of tracks, building trestles, etc., the cost for hauling and placing will be very nearly 10 and 18 cents per cubic yard respectively for the two cases mentioned. The extra cost of re-filling behind walls, and spreading surface material on slopes, etc., will be about 10 cents per cubic yard, even though the haul is made (as it should be) very short. There is 'much variation in the cost of steam shovel work in similar materials, clue to the differences of skill in the management of the transportation system, which should 'be arranged so as to keep the shovel working as steadily as possible. Assuming that there is a sufficiency of cars and a well-managed train ser- vice, one 40 to 50 ton steam shovel operated at a cost of $75 per eight-hour day should easily maintain an average rate of 800 cubic yards per day in the light, sandy earth, and not less than 400 cubic yards per day with this shale and sandstone, which gives good promise of breaking up small and therefore will be easily handled by the shovel. Using the above assumptions as to cars and fairly skillful management, I find that the excavation, in- cluding a fair profit to the contractor, on the basis of an eight-hour day and wages of $2.00 per day to common labor, should cost for earth finally deposited, 9 cents per cu. yd. for excavation ; 16 cents per cu. yd. average cost of hauling and plat-ing; 5 cents per cu. yd. for contractor's profit, etc. 30 cents per cu. yd. to cover everything, including superintendence, depreciation of plant, insurance, etc.. but to be safe I have used 35 cents per cubic yard in this preliminary estimate. For the rock work under skillful handling I judge the cost would be about as follows, 20 cents per cu. yd. (in place) for drilling and ex- plosives ; 18 cents per cu. yd. (in place) for shovelling; 26 cents per cu. yd. (in place) for hauling and dump- ing; 10 cents per cu. yd. (in place) for contractor's profit. 74 cents per cu. yd. (in place) to include everything, but to avoid possibility of under-estimating, I have used 85 cents per cubic yard as a fair average price for this rock. In sewer trenches, the excavation will have to 'be made by hand and it has 'been classified at higher prices. 94 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OK ESTIMATES. FOUNDATION FOR WALLS. The best available data show that nearly all of the walls west of Canal Street will rest on firm foundation, not requiring the use of piles. Easterly from Canal Street the fine sandy material is compact and will have sufficient bearing power at a depth of four or five feet, so long as not disturbed by some deeper excava- tion nearby. Between Congdon and Brown Streets. where the walls are highest and heaviest, a bed-rock foundation will probably be found. Most of the foundation trenches will be of shallow depth and they have been figured as taken out with their bottom two feet wider than the base of masonry and with slopes of 1 on 1 in earth and 1 on % in rock. with the thought that if the contractor elects to sheet the trench the extra excavation allowed will practically compensate for the cost of lumber and labor required for sheeting. COST OF CONCRETE. Sand. The chances of finding -much sand suitable for concrete on the site of the work appear to me very slight. For the railroad work the sand and gravel were all hauled by teams from a pit on Hartford Avenue a distance of nearly 2% miles. Sand pits in East Providence are more accessible now, but even from them the haul would not be less than 1% mili;s. It is stated on good authority that sand can be hauled from the Hartford Avenue gravel bank to Market Square for about $1.00 per cubic yard or delivered by rail f. o. b. at Providence railroad yard for 75 to 80 cents per cubic yard. Mr. Joseph McCormick, a local contractor, quoted me a price of 80 cents per cubic yard for sand delivered at Benefit and Angell Streets from East Providence. It is quite possible that a suitable sand could be produced at materially less cost right on the work, by mixing a certain proportion of the fine sand coming from the cuts with a coarser grade obtained by pulverizing selected rock (quartz and sandstone) also from the cuts on the work. It is assumed that 80 cents per cubic yard will be the extreme cost for sand. Stone for Concrete. Mr. Wescott, Assistant Engineer of the N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R., informed me that crushed stone can be delivered by rail f. o. b. Provi- dence for $1.00 to $1.25 per cubic yard. However, the larger part of the concrete for the westerly approach and for the lining of the railroad tunnel was made with gravel hauled from the Hartford Avenue bank, so presumably that source of supply was the cheapest at that time. From a personal inspection of the Hartford Avenue bank it appeared that of a 30 to 40 foot depth of this deposit of drift material the larger part is practically clean sand ; the gravel stones being limited to a top layer from 10 to 12 feet thick. This top layer has been pretty much worked over, and I judge the gravel supply is practically exhausted. Mr. McCormick stated gravel from East Providence could be delivered on the work for $1.40 per cubic yard. I think there are well sustained reasons for believing that it will be possible to sort out enough sandstone, quartz and slate suitable for concrete from the rock excavation on the site of the work to build all the masonry. The extra cost for sorting rock would be comparatively little, and on the average certainly ought not to exceed 30 cents per cubic yard. As the quarry charge has already been covered by the allowance for rock excavation, it is fair to assume that the rock can be delivered at the crusher for not to exceed 50 cents per cubic yard, solid measure. The crushing cost for a plant to turn out 500 cubic yards of broken stone per day may be safely assumed as, 18 cents per cu. yd. crushed stone for labor and fuel etc.; 20 cents per cu. yd. for maintenance and deprecia- tion of plant for 21,000 cubic yards. 38 cents per cu yd. of crushed stone; 30 cents for cost of sorting and delivering 0.6 cu. yd. (solid measure) of rock to crusher. 69 cents per cubic yard total cost of crushed stone. For safety call this 80 cents per cubic yard and fur- ther assume that not more than one-half the stone can be obtained from the excavation, thus leaving one-half to be supplied from East Providence at say $1.40 per cubic yard, making the average cost for concrete stone for this preliminary estimate $1.10 per cubic yard. Cement. The City of Providence pays about $1.75 per barrel for Portland cement in cotton sacks. The salvage on sacks amounts to about 80% of their cost or say 30c. for the four sacks containing a barrel of cement, making net cost of cement delivered at site of work $1.45 per barrel. The N. Y.. N. H. & H. R. R. Co., is reported to have paid $1.30 to $1.40 per barrel net for cement used in the tunnel. I have assumed the cost delivered at the mixer will be $1.50 net per barrel. Proportions for Concrete. It has been assumed that varying grades of concrete would be used in different portions of the work, a mixture lean in cement for underground work where smooth faces and the action of the weather can be disregarded ; and richer mixtures for other portions of the walls where strength of concrete, and appearance and wearing quality of the surfaces are important considerations. My estimate is based on the use of the following classes of concrete, and assumes careful mixing. (a) For concrete in mass in underground work, a mixture measured by volumes of one part cement, to four parts sand and eight parts stone. (b) For concrete above ground, large masses, simple forms, little reinforcement a mixture of one part of cement to three of sand and six of stone. (c) For concrete in thin walls, arches, etc., much reinforced, and for facing of thick walls, a mixture of one part cement to two of sand and four of stone. Concrete Prices. For the railroad work, in building heavy retaining walls, bridge abutments, etc., outside of the tunnel, the contract price for concrete was $5.50 per cubic yard, the cement being furnished free by the Railroad Company and the contractor supplying everything else, including forms for the stated price. The prices used in my estimate are deduced from the following : APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. 95 ESTIMATES OF UNIT COSTS FOR CONCRETE. (a) Concrete, 1:4:8 (in foundations below ground surface) Cement, - - 0.85 bbls. @ $1.50 $1.28 per. c.y. Sand. - 0.48 cu. yd. @ .80 34 " " Stone, - - 0.96 cu. yd. @ 1.10 1.06 " " Labor, fuel, etc., mixing and placing 65 " ' ' Forms, allowance for moving .10 " " Maintenance and 50% depreciation of equipment, comprising mixer plant, derricks, locomotives and cars 60 " " $4.03 Add contractor's profit, 15% .60 Total probable cost per cu. yd. $4.63 " " To make safe estimate, say $4.85 per cubic yard. (b) Concrete, 1:3:6 (in thick walls above ground). Cement, 1.11 bbls. @ $1.50 $1.67 per c.y. Sand, 0.47 cu. yd. @ .80 38 " " Stone, 0.94 cu. yd. @ $1.10 1 . 03 Labor, fuel, etc., mixing and placing 75 " " Forms, allowance for moving, etc 15 " " Maintenance and 50% depreciation of equipment, comprising mixer plant, derricks, locomotives, and cars 60 " " $4.58 Add contractor's profit, 15% 69 Total probable cost per cubic yard $5.27 " " To make safe estimate, say $5.70 per cubic yard. (3) Concrete, 1:2:4 (in thin walls, reinforced, etc.) 'Cement, 1.57 bbls. @ $1.50 $2.36 per c.y. Sand, 0.44 cu. yd. @ $.80 35 " " Stone, 0.88 cu. yd. @ $1.10 97 Labor, fuel, etc., mixing and placing 90 " " Forms, allowance for moving, etc 35 " " Maintenance and 50% depreciation of equipment, comprising mixer plant, derricks, locomotives and cars .60 "" $5.53 Add contractor's profit, 15% 83 Total probable cost per cubic yard $6.36 To maks safe estimate, say, $7.00 per cubic yard. Note that 1 :2 :4 concrete for facing heavy walls covered in the estimate by an allowance of enough requires no forms but probably will entail some extra lumber to cover approximately one-third of the exposed work for placing, hence is also priced at $7.00 per cubic surfaces, at a price liberal enough to include cost of yard. carpenter work, bolts, nails, etc. Forms for Concrete. The material and labor for The cost of setting up and taking down the forms forms for the walls, and bridges, including a special has been included in the unit prices for the concrete, item for the centers for the Prospect Street arch, are as deduced above. 96 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. STREET SURFACING. Roadway. The pavement for Roger Williams Street is estimated as a special pavement with narrow tar-and- gravel^filled spaces between wooden blocks, laid on a thin sand cushion, over a six-inch concrete foundation. The less important side streets, like Congdon, Prospect, and Brown, are estimated as repaired and finished with Macadam surface. Sidewalks and Curbs. These are all considered as of the standard granolithic type. CHANGE OF GRADE IN POST OFFICE SQUARE. The bridge construction for the portion of Post Office Square overlying the river consists of heavy web girders for the main long spans, with cross floor beams (also web girders), supporting I beams. The spaces between the latter are closed with brick arching and leveled off with concrete. This bridge is designed to carry a uniformly distributed live load of 100 Ibs. per sq. ft. and a concentrated load of one 20-ton road roller, therefore it cannot prudently be subjected to the additional loading of one to three feet of earth nec- essary to fill up to the new grade. It is proposed to keep the load on the bridge floor within its present limits t>y raising the structure bodily to the elevation and slope required by the new conditions. The process of jacking up the beams is a simple one and it is believed these changes can be made without trouble and at small cost. The estimate includes an item for said change of bridges. THE CONGDON STREET DUMP. A study has been made as to the possibility of dis- posing of the entire quantity of excess excavation from the Roger Williams Street work on a convenient dumping ground on the west side of Congdon Street to be purchased by the City for that specific purpose, but subsequently to be used for a park. I find that on the area of 5.4 cres within the red boundary line shown on Sheet G., comprising all lots along the west side of Congdon Street between the Railroad tunnel on the East and Bowen Street on the West, and bounded between Congdon Street and a line averaging about 100 feet back Easterly from Benefit Street, it will be possible to place approximately 194,000 cu. yds. of loose material, if mounded up as shown by the cross-sections of Sheet D. This is exclusive of 12 to 18 inches in depth of selected surfacing soil. To hold this quantity of material a retaining wall averaging 10 to 12 feet higli would be required on the south and west sides of the dump. Plan A, Total waste estimated as 131,000 cubic yards. Plan B, Total waste estimated as 145.000 cubic yards. Plan C, Total waste estimated as 195,000 cubic yards. Plan C, Inclusive of deep excavation at beginning of Boston Road connecting Roger Williams St., with Congdon Street, 227,000 cubic yards. It is obvious therefore that all the waste from Plans A and B can easily tie taken care of on the area provided, and that if desired my estimate of first cost of Roger W'illiams Street might be somewhat reduced by providing a smaller area of dumping ground ; or, by what would probably be a better temporary expedient, the postponement of the construction of the retaining wall which has been included at an estimated cost of nearly $20,000. One reason for the present estimate A exceeding that prepared for your report of April 8th, is that a larger area of land for future park purposes has now been assumed occupied for dumping the refuse earth and rock from Roger Williams Street. When the time comes to proceed with the Boston Road Proposition the 32,000 and more cubic yards of waste from that work can be used for grading the remaining area between Bowen and Jenckes Streets which should eventually become a part of the park. To save expense in the future, it is presumed that attention will be paid to depositing the waste so as to conform substantially to the desired layout for .the park and on my cross-sections I have left a depression at the proposed site of the Greek Theatre. 97 .ujcsq ini LJ I H tjyutyy I c o 5 *i D O K c LHPifJJ S ^ 1*5 1 2" ij O 5-Q ^ * 3 u il \% (U3UJ3SPOU3 ajaJbuoQ* 1 *^* - - -- T* y JJ, ^ L , i/) iO 3 pJ |i i ,.' i $ ] . -I 'i ' V 1 1 .d 1 1 1 1 ' 'l i ,i ;] - i 5 :} 3 \ : J l 1 1 1 \ \ ;.'! 1 98 99 ci u u X (0 h I-' O Q Z Z < u tr : u > Q -I I (i : I I I j -" ''s. *" * "Hi > i j j | I Ijjqpaiumo 1 i'j i " ! \H fma 44 4 4 I i tr-4 4-it-u. -^ K" Ul _ Q, fe 100 ESTIMATE OF COST OF ROGER WILLIAMS STREET. 101 For Grading, Masonry, Land Damages, Etc., Complete. 4. @ lOc @ lOc @ 20c @ 40c.. . (b) (c) (d) (b) (c) (e) (f) ESTIMATE A. For Roger Williams St., only. The cuts to be left with side slopes of 1 on 1% instead of walls, wherever feasible. The Congdon St. connection graded to 10.5%, and a temporary construction road graded 20 ft. wide on the line of new Boston Road as far as Congdon St., for the purpose of hauling waste to the dump on the site. 1. Embankment. (a) Filling on streets, allowance above cost of excavation to pay for trestling, etc 26,100 c. y. (b) Filling for parks, sub-soil 200 c. y. (c) Reiill behind walls, extra for high walls 18,600 c. y. (d) Top dressing of black loam stored in spoil banks and rehandled . . .2,800 c. y 2. Excavation. (a) Earth in heavy cuttings, steam shovel work 102,200 .c. y. Solid rock heavy cuttings, steam shovel work 57,400 c. y. Foundation and sewer trenches, etc., earth excavation including refill 4,600 c. y. Foundation and sewer trenches, etc., rock excavation, includ- ing refdl 3,125 c. y. Concrete Masonry. (Exclusive of lumber and labor for forms.) (a) Underground work 1 :4 :8 2,000 c. y. Larger masses above ground with simple forms, and little rein- forcement, 1:3:6 10,400 c. y. Concrete for facing of 'thick walls, 1 :2 :4 840 c. y. Thin walls, arches, etc. much reinforced and ornamental work, 1 :2 :4 7,500 c. y. Finishing concrete faces of walls, etc 15,500 c. y. Balustrades, etc 2,400 In. ft. Steel for Beams, Reinforcing, etc. (a) Structural Shapes Fs, t's, L's '. 692,600 Ibs. (b) Web Girders (erected) 296,200 libs. (c) Columns (erected) 59,500 Ibs. (d) Twisted Rods (in place) 376,600 Ibs. Street Surfacing. (a) Paving roadway (Wood Blocks) 24,500 sq. yd. (Macadam) 5,500 sq. yd. (b) Sidewalks (Granolithic) 10,700 sq. yd. (c) Curb (Concrete) 8,500 lin. ft. Sewers and Drains. (a) 6" drain tile for wall (in place) 3,600 lin. ft. (b) 15" sewer pipe (in place) 4,300 lin. ft. (c) Manholes and catch basins, 50 ea. Water and Gas Mains, etc. (a) Water main 1,200 ft. 10-inch pipe @ $1.30 per ft. (includes laying, lead and trenching) Gas Main 1,200 ft. 6-inch pipe @ 55c. per ft., (includes cost of laying and trenching) Lamp posts 43 @ $50 ea Hydrants (set) 6 @ $70 ea Miscellaneous. (a) Iron railing (in place) 420 lin. ft. @ $1.50 -. fb) Lumber for forms, etc., 200,000 ft. b. m. @ $40 (c) Seeding and sodding, 2 acres @ $150 (d) Extra work raising bridge in Post Office Square @ 35c. . @ 85c. @ 80c. @ $4.00 @ $4.75 @ 5.70 @ 7.00 @ 7.00 @ 15c. @ 1.50 . @ 2 J /2C. @ 03c. @ 03c: @ 2%c. @ $3.50 @ .70 @ 1,25 @ .30 @ 15c. @ 50c. @ $50.0U (b) (c) (d) yarn but not joints but not $2,610 20 3,720 1,120 35,770 48,790 3,680 12,500 9,500 59,280 5,880 52,500 2,325 . 3,6iOO 17,315 8,885 1,785 8,475 85,750 3,850 13,375 2,550 540 2,150 2,500 1,560 660 2,150 420 630 8,000 300 5,000 $407,190 61,080 468,270 684,600 For engineering, legal expenses, employer's liability insurance, interest, etc., add 15% Total for Construction Land damages for Roger Williams Street, including Arnold Block, etc. (as per table following) Land damages for 5.4 acres of dumping ground at site of proposed park, at 50% above Assessors' appraisal 268,000 Total cost of Estimate A. (for lands, easements.da'mages, structures and south half of Park site . . .-. $1,430,870 102 DATA FOR ESTIMATE OF LAND DAMAGES FOR ROGER WILLIAMS STREET ONLY PROJECT A. EXCLUSIVE OF ADDITIONAL GRADING FOR PARKING THE ADJACENT LANDS. The following notes and computations show the method of arriving at the amount to be paid for land damages, particularly in the cases which give rise to consequential damages, such as where parcels of land may be taken only in part or where easements must be obtained for the location of permanent masonry walls, the grading of slopes, etc., also the allowance for the occupation and disturbance of portions of the property during the period of construction. Data for Estimates. As' a basis for estimating property values where only portions are to be taken, the following values given by Mr. Burnham, Tax Assessor, were used in appraisal of neighboring properties. Land per Sq. Ft. Improvements Charles H. Jefferds $3.75 $4,000 School of Design, 1.60 60,000 Imogene Carr, Other lots 1.20 Corner lot 1.60 First Baptist Church 1.75 av. Court House, 1.50 E. F. Arnold, 1.00 35,000 S. Side Angell St. above Court House, inside lots, 80 Sally Francis .' ... 85 3,500 Lyra B. Nickerson, West property, 1.00 5,200 Lyra B. Nickerson, Center lot, 1.00 Lyra B. Nickerson (Cor. Prospect), 1.30 5,000 (East Property), Rosa Ann Grosvenor 1.00 12,000 R. A. & W. A. Grosvenor, vacant lot, 1.25 William Grosvenor, 1.10 50,000 E. A. & M. L. Corliss 1.80 50,000 Robert Knight 1.10 20,000 Louise M. Appleton 1.15 8,000 On Brown St. from Angell to Olive, 1.15 Congdon St., Angell to Meeting 41 av. Meeting to Bowen, 45 av. Bowen to Jenckes, East Side .43 West Side .27 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. 103 SHEET NOl 29. RELATIVE POSITION OF THE PROPOSED LOCATION OF ROGER WILLIAMS STREET TO THE .LOT OF THE FIRST BAPTIST MEETING HOUSE 104 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. The purpose of presenting the following figures is to permit anyone to form a judgment for himself as to whether the entire sum of $952,000 allowed for land damages for Roger Williams Street and Overlook Park, South of Bo-wen Street, is a reasonable one, and to show that the matter has been carefully considered. Estimating Basis Used for Land Damages. Where an entire property is to be taken an allowance has been made equal to 1% times the Tax Assessors value for 1909. Obviously, in applying a general rule like this the result in individual cases will sometimes be much too high and in other cases too low. Where only part of an estate is taken or where consequential damages have to 'be considered, the principal matters considered in rounding up the estimate are given in the table following. These figures rest upon personal judgment and if one will note the ratio of the sum allowed in the estimate for conse- quential damage to a part, to the Assessors' valuation for the whole property, particularly in those cases where the residence is not touched by the new structures, the conclusion can hardly be avoided that the following estimate is in some cases extravagantly large, as compared with the actual damage. The following allowances are intended to be sufficiently liberal on the average, to more than cover the actual damage and to also average enough in excess to cover the probable legal expenses. The occupancy, whether by owner, tenant, or as a boarding house has been noted as some index to the important matter of personal disturbance. . This information as to occupancy is from sources believed to be accurate but may in some cases be in error, and is of course subject to change. ESTIMATED COST OE LAND AND CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES for the Entire Length of the Proposed East Side Approach from Post Office Square 200 Feet East of Brown Street. ARNOLD BLOCK ESTATE. Occupies land from Canul Street to North Main Street. Old style, 4 story, brick blocks. Assessed valuation year 1909, $116,&10. All taken For cost of wrecking in addition to value of wreckage, allow, say BEOKVV1TH LAND CO. Located corner Canal and Linard Streets. Old style, 4 story, brick block. Assessed valuation year 1909, $14,- 280. Lowering grade of streets and inconvenience during con- struction Curtailment of light and air on Liuard Street and diver- sion of some travel, all of very little consequence, but say '- MOSES B. JENKINS ESTATE. Located on North side of friend Street. Old style, 4 story brick block; 2y 2 story old frame shop; old 4 story brick block. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire prop- erty, $44,580. Lowering of grade of streets and disturbance to business during construction Reduction of light and air on Friend Street, and diver- sion of travel and business from the two corners, say JOSEPH BANIGAN ESTATE. Located corner North Main and Linard Streets. Old 2'/2 story frame store. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $9,540. Reduction of light and air on Linard Street and diver- sion of travel and business and some disturbance of business due to construction... Consequential Damages and Costs. CHAS. H. JEFFERDS. (Total area approximately 8,500 sq. ft.) Located corner North Main and Waterman Streets. Cheap 2 story wood and brick store. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $34,640. Land, Build- ings and Legal Expenses. Total Esti- mated Cost to the City. $4,000 00 1,500 00 1,000 00 2,500 00 2,000 00 2,000 00 4.000 00 1,500 00 $175,000 00 No land taken $179,000 00 2,500 00 No land taken 4.000 00 1.500 00 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF USTI MATES. 105 uousequenuai Damages and Costs. .ijana, rsuna- rotai r.s ings and Legal mated Cos Expenses. the Cit; Land taken equals 1.4UO sq. ft. or about J /e of whole parcel. At assessors' valuation this is rated at say $3.75 pel Building, assessed valuation equals $4,000 of which y 4 equals $1,000, allow double this or say Possible Consequential Damages: Reduction in size of lot 10,000 00 Diversion of some traffic and trade, say $200 per year, worth @ 5 per cent \ nnn no Disturbance of business and inconvenience during con- struction - i nod on RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OI' 1 DESIGN. Located on Waterman Street. Modern brick buildings. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $79,ti4U. 5,000 00 15,000 70 sq. land taken at N. W. Cor. of Lot, @ $3.00 per sq. ft. Possiblc additional damages: Curtailment of light in basement Changes of area ways and entrances Inconvenience during construction 5,000 00 1.000 00 1,500 00 Building may be raised, so allow instead. IMOGENE CAKB. Located corner Benefit and Waterman Streets. 1 modern 3'/2 story brick-front residence, 1 modern S'/i story stone and brick residence. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $39,540. 75 sq. ft. land taken at N. E. corner, @ $3 Cutting off light from basement of brick house Cutting oil' light from basement corner house Inconvenience during construction 7,500 00 10,000 00 CHARITABLE BAPTIST SOCIETY. Located from North Main Street to Benefit Street. Wooden church, stone foundation. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $112,820. Total area, approximately 50,000 sq. ft., 9,900 sq ft. (in 50 ft. strip) land taken @ $1.75 assessed value (not taxed) +.90 3,500 00 2,000 00 2,000 00 7,500 UO $2.65, say $3.00 Reduction in area of lot, impairs value of remaining % area say 1-10 or Destruction of 5 or 6 large elms, say Reduce space around church and shut-in effect, say Occupation of land and inconvenience during construction Less convenient access to side door..l CHARITABLE BAPTIST SOCIETY PARSONAGE. Property located on North side Angell Street 3 story mod- ern frame residence in medium condition. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $15,000. Parsonage still has entrance available from Olive Street and building could be moved but probably better for City to take outright or utilize in Grosvenor negotia- tions (Now occupied as a college fraternity house.) Cost of wrecking building (if not moved) 7,000 00 1,200 00 5,000 00 2,300 00 1.000 00 16,500 00 200 00 210 00 10,210 00 22500 29,700 00 7,725 00 46,200 00 Assumed all taken 22,500 00 22,700 00 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. 107 Consequential Land, Build- : Total Estl- Damages and ings and Legal ; mated Cost to Costs. Expenses. the City. STATE OP RHODE ISLAND. Court House situated on Benefit Street corner Angell Street, 3 story brick and granite building. Its assessed valuation year 1909 was $54,480. All land is to be taken but building is to be moved to new site to be furnished by City For inconvenience and loss of use during moving and re- pairs . -. Cost of moving building SARAH C. DURFEE. Located on South side of Angell Street 80 ft. lot, with fine, 3 story brick residence. Its assessed valuation year 1909 was $21,040. (Occupied by owner.) The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building HOWARD I. GARDNER. Located on South side of Angell Street 80 tt. lot, medium, V/2 story frame residence. Assessed valuation year 1909 lor entire property was $12,460. (Occupied by owner.) The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building ANNA M. MILLER. Property located South side of Angell Street 2y 2 story frame residence in medium condition, on a 40 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property $7,740. (Occupied by tenants and rooms let.) The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking bunding R. J. WHIPPLE & M. A. FALES. Property located on South side of Angell Street 3 ! / 2 story frame residence in medium condition, on a 40 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property $3.720. (Not now occupied by owners.) The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building JAMES R. MURPHY. Property located on South side of Angell Street, old, 4 story brick residence, on a 40 ft. lot. Assessed valua- tion year 1909 for entire property, $8,240. (Called "The Hope," a large rooming house.) The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building MART L. WARREN. Property located on South side of Angell Street, 2-'/ 2 story frame residence, in medium condition, on a 60 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property $10,000. (Occupied by owner.) The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building ISABEL A. GRAHAM. Property located on Southwest corner Angell Street and DeFoe Place. 3 story brick residence, in medium con- dition. Assessed valuation year 1909 f or entire pro- perty, $13,400. (Not now occupied by owner.) The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building New and better site furnished 5,000 00 30,000 00 500 00 31,500 00 35,000 00 32,000 00 200 00 18,700 00 200 00 11,600 00 300 00 18,900 00 11,800 00 5,600 00 5,900 00 700 00 12,400 00 200 00 15,100 00 15,300 00 500 00 20,200 00 20,700 00 108 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. Consequential Land, Build- Total Esti- Damages and ings and Legal mated Cost to Costs. Expenses. the City. ALBERT E. HAM. Property located corner Angell and Benefit Streets. 4 story brick residence, in fine condition, on a 120 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $18,200. None of this property will be taken. It will be bene- fltted by parking of area now included in Angell Street. (Now occupied as a boarding house.) JOSEPH P. CORY. Property located on North side of Angell Street. Mod- ern 2'/ 2 story frame residence, on a 40 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $12,340. None of this property will be taken. The parking of part on border of Angell Street should compensate for In- creased distance to new street. ELIZA AND LAURA COLLINS. Located N. W. corner Angell and Congdon Streets, old style, 2V4 story, frame residence in good repair, on 80 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909, $7,920. The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R. CO. Property located on West side of Congdon Street. 2V4 story frame residence in poor condition, on 60 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $5,940. The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R. CO. Property located N. E. corner Angell and Congdon Streets, 3 story frame residence in medium condition, on 40 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909, $11,320. The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building RICHARD C. SANDERS. Property located on North side of Angell Street. 2 l / 2 story frame residence in poor condition, on a 45 ft. lot. As- sessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $4,600. (Occupied by owners. Some rooms let.) The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building N. Y, N. H. & H. R. R. CO. Property located on North side of Angell Street. Big 4 story frame residence in medium condition, on 75-f ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire prop erty, $15,060. ("The Oaks" a rooming house.) The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building EDWARD F. CHILD. Property located on North side of Angell Street 2 ] / 2 story frame residence in medium condition, on 45 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property $6,520. (Occupied by owner.) The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building LYRA B. NICKERSON. Property located on Northwest corner Angell Street and DeFoe Place. 2'/ 2 story frame residence in medium con- dition, on a 37+ ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $6,500. (Not occupied by owner.) The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building 11,900 00 300 00 12,200 00 8,900 00 300 00 9,200 00 17.000 00 300 00 17,300 00 6.900 00 200 00 7.100 00 22,600 00 400 00 23,000 00 9.800 00 200 00 10,000 00 9,700 00 200 00 9.900 00 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. 109 SALLY FRANCIS. Property located on Southeast corner Angell Street and DeFoe Place. 3. story frame residence in medium con- dition, on 80 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909, $11.420. (Not occupied by owner.) Total area approximately 9,400 sq. ft. Land taken in front 2,900 sq. ft., in rear 400 sq. ft. equals 3,300 sq. ft., as- sessed value 80c, say $1.25 Area of lot reduced % impairs value of remainder say %, or , House reduced % in size. (Small ell cut off) Moving house back to new location, incidental repairs, etc. Impairment of use of house and inconvenience during construction of Roger Williams Street Poorer access .. (Note that this allowance exceeds the assessed valuation but leaves the residence in good condition and pro- vides broader access in rear. It would probably be better to take entire property.) LYRA B. NICKERSON. (Occupied by owner.) Property located on Southwest corner Angell Street and Prospect Street. One 2Vi story frame residence in medium condition. One 2% story frame residence in fine condition, on 120 ft. lot. Assessed valuation, $25,380. Total area approximately 14,400 sq. ft. Land taken in front 3,000 sq. ft., in rear 1,300 sq. ft., equals 4,300 sq. ft., assessed value, $1.10, say, $1.65, equals Moving houses to new locations, incidental repairs, etc.. Loss of use of houses and inconvenience during work Poorer access Prospect Street house $500 Poorer access other house 1,500 Area of lots reduced % impairs value of remainder, say % equals Consequential I Land, Build- Total Esti- Damages and ings and Legal mated Cost to Costs. Expenses. the City. Total allowance, $19,700. (Note that this allowance amounts to nearly % of the assessed value but leaves the two) residences in good condition and that improved ac- cess is given in rear by widening alley.) ROSA A. GROSVENOB. Property located on Northeast corner Angell and DeFoe Place. Old style, 2 story frame residence in medium condition. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $29,920. (Occupied by owner.) Total area approximately 17,400 sq. ft. Area of land taken 1,800 sq. ft., assessed value $1.00, say $1.50 equals . Area of lot reduced 1-10 impairs value of remainder say 0.0. Present access to stable destroyed and no other provided Access to house and land rendered extremely inconvenient, except over adjoining lot Making frontage on Roger Williams Street and DeFoe Place practically useless, reducing value of remaining land Va or Temporary use of ground and inconvenience to construc- tion and easement for wall, 2,460 sq. ft (Note this entire property is now taxed on an assessed value of $29.920, and the house would not be touched by the new structures or street.) The allowance is 61 per cent, of the tax assessors' value. 1,300 00 500 00 2,000 00 2,200 00 1,500 00 7,500 00 4,100 00 2,800 00 5.000 00 2,000 00 2.800 00 7,100 00 12,600 00 2,000 00 4,000 00 6,000 00 3,500 00 15,500 00 2,700 00 11.600 00 19.700 00 18,200 00 110 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. Consequential Laud, Build- Total Estl- Damages and ings and Legal mated Cost to Costs. Expenses. the City. WILLIAM AND ROSA A. GROSVENOK. Nearly vacant land between Prospect Street and property listed above, 55 foot lot. Property located on Northwest corner Angell and Pros- pect Streets. Assessed valuation year 1909, $9,640. Total area approximately 7,200 sq. It. Area of land taken 1,300 sq. ft., assessed value $1.25 sq. ft., say $2.00 Frontage on Roger Williams Street made inaccessible Area of lot reduced % impairs value of remainder, say 1-10 Poorer access to Roger Williams Street, say worth $100 per annum @ 5 per cent, equals Temporary disturbance and use of grounds and casement for wall Total allowance by City: $7,900, which is 82 per cent of the present tax assessors' valuation for the entire lot, of $9,640. Note this vacant land lying between the Rosa Grosvenor House and Prospect Street could be utilized to provide an excellent entrance at grade from Prospect Street to the Rosa Grovesnor residence. Considering these two properties combined the total val- uation by assessors is $39,560, and the estimated allow- ance is $26,100. and the buildings untouched. WILLIAM GROSVENOR ESTATE. Property located on Northeast corner Angell and Pros- pect Streets, 3 story brick residence in fine condition, on 170 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $71,300. (Occupied by owner.) Total area approximately 19,800 sq. ft. Area of land taken 3.700 sq. ft. Assessed value $1.10 per sq. ft., or say (5> $2.50 . Easement for wall 1,100 sq. ft. (o> $1.00 Impaired access to Roger Williams Street @ $200 per annum, 5 per cent. Rights below surface for archway 3,000 sq. ft @ -$1.00 88 ft. or nearly one-half the frontage of Roger Williams Street is made useless, impairing the value of that part of the lot 6.000 sq. ft., say one-half Temporary disturbances due to construction House untouched, main entrance not affected, outlook im- proved, noisy street car turn done away with. Total allowance about 40 per cent, of assessed value EMILY A. AND M. L. CORLISS. Property located on Southeast corner Angell and Prospect Streets. 3 story brick residence in fine condition, on 160 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire prop- erty, $73.380. (Occupied bv owner.) Total area approximately 19,200 sq. ft. Aren of land taken 50 sq. ft., assessed value $1.20 sq. ft., say $4.00 Nearly V 2 or 80 sq. ft. of frontage on Roger Williams Street is made unavailable. Impairing the value of that part of the lot say %, or Poor access to Roger Williams Street, say worth $200 per annum (5) 5 per cent Rights below surface for archway, 1.600 sq. ft. @ $1.00 equals Temporary disturbance due to construction, say Easement for wall__. Building not touched, outlook improved, noisy street car curve done away with. Total allowance about 27 per cent, on assessors' valuation. 1,000 00 800 00 2,000 00 1,500 00 2,600 00 3,600 00 4,300 00 9,200 00 1,100 00 4,000 00 3.000 00 3,700 00 7,000 00 18,500 00 5,800 00 1.000 00 1.600 00 7,000 00 1,200 00 28,000 00 200 00 19,600 00 19,800 00 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. Ill Consequential Damages and Costs. Laud, Build- ings and Legal Expenses. Total Esti- mated Cost to the City. GRACE A. GREENE. Property located on South side of Angell Street. 2'/ 2 story frame residence in medium condition, on 40 foot lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property $7,120. Total area approximately 4,700 sq. ft Assessed value of land $1.10 sq. ft. None taken. Easement for wall and steps 600 sq. ft. @ $1.00 Inferior access to Roger Williams Street at $200 per annum (This provides for impaired land which will be left 25 feet above Roger Williams Street.) Temporary disturbance due to construction ^ _ Note that this allowance for impaired access exceeds as- sessors' valuation. (Better for City to acquire entire property or include in Corliss negotiations.) ROBERT KNIGHT. (House formerly occupied by Rev. E. S. Rousmaniere. now vacant and for sale.) Property located on South side of Angell Street. 3 storv brick residence in good condition on 80 ft. lot. As- sessed vauation year 1909 for entire property $30,260. Total area approximately 9,400 sq. ft. Assessed value of land per sq. ft. $1.10. Easement for wall and steps. 1.100 sq. ft. @ $1.00 Inferior access to Roger Williams Street at $200 per an- num Temporary disturbances due to construction Value of land is impaired by being left 21 feet above Roger Williams Street-. (House not touched, allowance for impaired access, 37 per cent. Good rear access at grade untouched.) Allowance about 37 per cent, of tax assessors' valuation. LOUISE M. APPLETON. Property located on Southwest corner Angell and Brown Streets. 2% story brick residence in medium condition, on 120 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $24,140. (Now or recently occupied as boarding house.) Total area approximately 14,200 sq. ft. Area of land taken 1.200 sq. ft., assessed value $1.15 per sq. ft., say @ $2.00 Easement for wall and steps 800 sq. ft. @ $1.00 Impaired access to Roger Williams Street @ $1.50 per an- num, 5 per cent., say Temporary disturbance due to construction Value of land affected by being left 11 ft. higher than Roger Williams Street and 4 ft. higher than Brown Street, also by reducing size of lot about 1-7, say House not touched and access still fairly good, outlook greatly improved. Allowance about 40 per cent, of tax assessors' valuation. JOHN H. APPLETON. Tenant property located on North side of Angell Street. 2 story brick residence in medium condition, on 60 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property $11,080. The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building 600 00 4.000 00 3.000 00 No land taken 7,600 00 1,100 00 4,000 00 4,000 Of 2,000 00 7.600 00 No land taken 11,100 00 800 00 3.000 00 2,000 00 1,500 00 2,400 00 11,100 00 7,300 00 300 00 9,700 00 16,60000 16,900 00 112 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. Consequential Damages and Costs. Land, Build- ings and Legal Expenses. Total Esti- mated Cost to the City. ELIZA A. H. GAMMELL. Tenant property located on North side Angell Street. 2V4 story brick and frame residence in medium condition, on 60 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 lor entire property, $9,140. The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building APARTMENT HOUSE CORPORATION. Property located on Northwest corner Angell Street and Brown Street. New, 2 story, frame residence, on 50 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $8,600. The whole of this property to be taken Cost of wrecking building CARRIQUE LAND CO. Property located on Southeast corner Angell and Brown Streets. 2% story frame residence in medium condition, on 77+ ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property $9.900. Total area approximately 8,900 sq. ft. Area of land taken 800 sq. ft., assessed value $1.15 per sq. ft. or say @ $1.75 Street surface is depressed an average of 2'+ by this prop- erty on both Angell and Brown Streets. Tlfe damage will be slight, but allow HANNAH M. CAPRON. Property located on Northeast corner Angell and Brown Streets. 2% story frame residence, in fine condition, on 110 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $22,400. (Occupied by owner.) No land taken but street will be lowered an average of 2' on Angell and 3.5' to 4' on Brown, probably necessitat- ing a low wall on property line on Brown Street and some regrading on Angell and Olive Streets, say . . This property would receive betterment in improved out- look. SULLIVAN INVESTMENT CO. Property located on Northwest corner Brown and Water- man Streets. Residence on 88+ ft. lot. Assessed valua- tion year 1909 for entire property, $27,720. Total area approximately 9,000 sq. ft. Land taken 1,450 sq. ft., assessed value $1.15 per sq. ft. or say @ $1.75 Street slightly depressed but no material damage done... ESTHER D. HAMMOND. Property located on Northeast corner Brown nnd Water- man Streets. Residence on 76+ ft. lot. Assessed valua- tion year 1909 for entire property, $27,860. Total area 10,300 sq. ft. Land taken 1.020 sq. ft. assessed value $1.15 per sq. ft. or say @ $1.75 Street slightly depressed but no material damage done_-_ 200 00 13,700 00 100 00 1,500 00 13,900 00 12,900 00 13,000 00 1,400 00 2,000 00 2.900 00 2,000 00 2,500 00 500 00 1.800 00 500 00 3,000 00 2,300 00 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. 113 Consequential Damages and Costs. Land, Build- ings and Legal Expenses. Total Esti- mated Cost to the Citv. SHELTER FOR COLORED CHILDREN. Property located on Northwest corner Brown and Olive Streets. 2y 2 story frame residence in medium condi- tion. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property. $13,600. Total area 11,100 sq. ft. No land taken, but Brown Street will be lowered an average of 3 feet and Olive Street an average of 3 feet. The house now stands about 7 feet higher than present grade of Brown Street. Some grading or a wall on property line will be necessary, say Also some damage because property will be left higher above grade M. M. HOPPIN. Property located on West side of Brown Street. 2'/ 2 story frame residence in medium condition, on 40 ft. lot. As- sessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $9,900. Due to lowering Brown Street 3 feet, extra work Impaired value of property which is already 4 feet higher than sidewalks... H. S. LISLE. Property located on West side Brown Street. (Corner Meeting Street.) 2% story frame residence in medium condition, on 60 ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 for entire property, $13.200. Walls, etc., due to lowering Brown Street 3 feet Walls, etc., due to lowering Meeting Street 3 feet Impaired value of property which is already 4 feet higher than sidewalk M. O. WEEDEN. Property located in East side of Brown Street. (Corner Olive Street.) 3 story frame residence in good condi- tion, on 98+ ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909. $10.380. This lot is now lower than the CL grade of Brown Street, so that a cut of 3 ft. on Brown Street will not materi- ally damage it, allow, however H. E. COLE. Property located on East side of Brown Street. 2V 2 story frame residence in good condition, on 43 J - ft. lot. As- sessed valuation year 1909 for entire property. $9.280. This lot is now lower than the CL grade of Brown Street, so that a cut of 3 ft. on Brown Street will not materi- ally damage It. allow, however L. W. WILLIAMS. Property located on East side of Brown Street. (Corner Meeting Street.) 2V-> story frame residence in good con- dition, on 57+ ft. lot. Assessed valuation year 1909 $9.780. This lot Is now lower than the CL erade of Brown Street. so that a cut of 3 ft. on Brown Street will not materi- ally damage It, allow, however NORTH O"P MEETING STREET. 3 parcels on East side Brown Street. 2 parcels on West side Brown Street, private residences. Assessed valua- tion year 1909 for entire property, $33.360. Very little real damage, but allow No land taken 1,000 00 1,000 00 2,000 00 500 00 500 00 2,000 00 No land taken 1,000 00 500 00 500 00 700 00 No land taken 1.000 00 1,700 00 1,500 00 500 00 1,000 00 2,500 00 1,700 00 No land taken 1.500 00 No land taken 500 00 No land taken No land taken 1,000 00 2.500 00 114 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. Consequential Damages and Costs. Land, Build- ings and Legal Expenses. Total Esti- mated Cost to the City. E. E. ARNOLD. Located on Waterman Street, near curve. Lot averages 185 feet on Waterman Street. 2M> story brick residence in tine condition. Assessed valuation year 1909 for en- tire property, $29,000. (Occupied by owner.) 2,500+ sq. ft. of land will be taken for new Court House. 5000 00 5000 00 (Property would be benefltted by abatement of present automobile nuisance, due noise of open exhausts u] the steep grade.) Total allowance for land taken and consequential dam- ages and expenses along Roger Williams and Browu Streets, including Arnold Block _ $211,300 00 $521,735 00 $733,035 00 Exclusive of land for dump and Overlook Park, but including the whole of the Durfee, Gardner, Miller, Whipple, Murphy, Warren, Graham, Collins, Parsonage, Gammell, Froebel School, North Appleton, North Nickerson, Child, Collins and various Railroad lots. Note the large number of instances in which the entire lot has been taken, much of which is outside the street limits and could either be used for parking or reserved for future municipal purposes, or could be re-sold, if fee title to whole has been acquired. If sold, the salvage on land may be reckoned as follows: Surplus sold from Whipple & Tales land " " Murphy land " Warren land " Graham land " " Collins land " N. T., N. H. & H. R. R. land " Sanders land " Child land " Baptist parsonage land " Appleton land " " " Gammell land " " Apartment House Corporation. Which would reduce above estimate to... $1,000 00 1,000 00 2,000 00 3.000 00 3,000 00 14,000 00 2.000 OU 1,500 00 aooo oo 3,000 00 3,000 00 2,000 00 $38,500 00 $694,535 00 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS OF ESTIMATES. 115 LAND TAKINGS FOR DUMP AND FUTURE OVERLOOK PARK ON WEST SIDE OF CONG- DON ST., SOUTH OF BOWEN ST. The following includes all property assessed on West side of Congdon Street south of Bowen Street and easterly from a line averaging about 100 feet westerly from Benefit Street and Southerly to the Railroad Tunnel location, South of Meeting Street, also land at Southerly end and East side of Congdon Street (DeFoe Place to Congdon St.), for beginning of future Boston Road. Assessed Values. Estimated Cost to City 150 Per Cent. Consequential Damages. Land for passage way to dump and for the South end of the future Boston Road along DeFoe Place and to Congdon Street - - -- $24 100 000 $36 150 00 Land between Bowen Street and Meeting Street as follows: Bowen Street to North line of Prospect Terrace, 1 East of Wheaton Street 47080 00 70620 00 2 West of Wheaton Street - - 9560 00 14 340 00 $6000 00 North line Prospert Terrace to South Court Street, 1 East of Wheaton Street 21 720 00 32580 00 2 West of Wheaton Street 12 260 00 18390 00 6000 00 South Court Street to Meeting Street 35900 00 53850 00 3000 00 Meeting Street to R R. T of w. . - 16 000 00 24000 00 3000 00 Total estimated cost of land and damages for a dumping ground and conversion into that portion of Overlook $166,620 00 $249,930 00 $18,000 00 estimate of Roger Williams Street p 69 18000 00 $267,930 00 NOTE: The above does not include any items for lands or damages upon the East side of Congdon Street, Northward from Meeting Street, since these would receive betterment rather than injury, but is in- tended to include everything required on West side of Congdon Street. ADDITIONAL LAND TO BE ACQUIRED NOW OR IN FUTURE FOR COMPLETION OF OVER- LOOK PARK, ON WEST SIDE OF CONGDON ST. NORTHERLY TO JENCKES ST. JENCKES STREET TO BOWEN STREET. Values. to City 150 Per Cent. Damages. Jenckes Street to property line 110 feet North of center line of Lloyd Avenue. 1 East of Pratt Street $40 620 00 $60930 00 2 West of Pratt Street 14,750 00 22,130 00 $5,000 00 From 110 feet North of center line of Lloyd Avenue to North side of Bowen Street. 1 East of Pratt Street 34,180 00 51,270 00 2. West of Pratt Street 7,060 00 10,590 00 8,000 00 $96,610 00 $144,920 00 13 000 00 $13,000 00 $157.920 00 Assessed .Estimated Cost Consequential 116 APPENDIX No. i. DETAILS ov ESTIMATES. ESTIMATE OF COST OF LAND AND ROAD BUILDING. OVERLOOK PARK COMPLETED TO JENCKES STREET. BOSTON ROAD COMPLETED TO HOPE STREET. Land- Additional land for Overlook Park extension fr >m Bowen northerly to Jenckes street, and for widening Congdon street (not including land necessary for widening Lloyd avenue, as shown on Sheet No. 20.) Cost estimated as per previous page $157,920 Additional land for Boston Road northerly from Overlook Park to Hope street . . 37,260 Consequential damages chargeable Boston Road 25.000 $220.180 Some 192,000 cu. yds. of material needed for completion of Overlook Park could be obtained by maintaining site as a public dump, superintendence for which would cost, say 5.000 $225,180 Construction. Excavation for Boston Road southerly end : Earth 20,000 cu. yds. @ 35c $7,000 Rock, 8.000 cu. yds. @ 85c , 6.800 Concrete retaining walls for Overlook Park addition, 2,000 cu yds. @ $6.50 13.000 Sub-soil 12" deep on 480,000 sq. ft.=17,800 cu. yds. @ 40c 7,120 Black loam 6" deep on 480,000 sq. ft.=8,900 cu.yds. @ 60c 5,340 Walks (gravel), 6" deep, say 4,300 sq. yds. @ 15c 645 Seeding, planting trees, bushes, etc., say 7,500 Boston Koad. Macadam, 26,600 sq. yds. @ $1.00 26.600 Walks (granolithic) , 6,360 sq. yds. @ $1.25 7,950 Grass strips, 3,990 sq. yds. @ 15c 600 Manholes, catch basins (moving same and new) 2,000 Curbing, 7,210 lin. ft. @ 30c 2.160 Fill to raise grade of streets at Hope Reservoir 15,000 cu. yds. @ 15c 2,250 Retaining wall concrete (at Hope Reservoir) 1 ,200 cu. yds. @ $7.50 9,000 Retaining wall reinforcement, 6,000 1'bs. @ 2% 165 98,130 Add for Engineering, Employer's Liability, etc. 15% $14,700 Total cost of extending Overlook Park from Bowen to Jenckes streets and completion of Boston Road to Hope street $340,000 Ari'K.vnix No. 2. 117 NOTKS ON THE PROBABLK GF.OLOGIC STRUCTURE AND NATURK OF THE BED ROCK IN COLLEGE HILL. By Charles W. Brown. fr^ lypotheMca; Geologic StrutTure. Col*y K.H fc n* See'"* Rirtr PROFILE -FONES AU-EI-MEDWAY 5T Verr,tal ^crtlf l.n.-loU PROBABLE GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS ALONG PROPOSED STREET RAILWAY TUNNCL AND SUBWAY. SKETCH NOTES OF GEOLOGY b, C W Blo.r May 9th, 1911. The hill is made up of varying mixtures of carbon with shales, which results in the formation, after folding from great pressures, of carbonaceous or graphitic shales and schists in more contorted layers between more massive ones made up of mud-stones or shales and sandstones, that have suffered less. The entire hill is masked just above 'the bed-rock with from five to eight feet of till or boulder-clay, which must be picked. Above this till or hard-pan more or less well-stratified sands and gravels are found. These latter deposits increase in 'thickness toward the Seekonk River where they make up the terraces there. The difficulties to be met with in driving a tunnel through College Hill are two in number. The first one is the structure of the rock. So few outcrops occur on the surface of the hill, Cypress Street in the Butler Asylum grounds, and at East George St., that it is indeed very difficult to prognosticate what attitude the rocks will assume underground. It was only during the construction of the New Haven tunnel that a correct idea of the structure was gained. Even then the knowledge is not of great service to areas away from that particular locality, for this tunnel proved that the rock was seriously disturbed ; fractured, folded and altered, and that changes in the attitude and nature of the rock were liable to occur within a few feet. In general a tunnel easterly through 'the hill, would follow roughly the major strike of the rock cutting across minor plications which would change the dip from north to south to east or west in six feet. (See section on profile map.) In general the rock slopes gently from 15-40 northerly to near Gano Street, where the dip changes to a gentle southerly one. The cause of so much disturbance in the rock may be found in its nature. A large content of carbon from decaying vegetation in Carboniferous times causes the rock to be weakly resistant to pressure and it yields readily and becomes highly contorted, even when only a foot thick between stronger, more arenaceous and less carbonaceous sandstones which have been folded but slightly. The tendency to slip where the graphitic layers occurred was noted in the construction of the New Haven Tunnel. If a tunnel be driven through the Fones Alley region, it would cross just over the old tunnel where the rocks were very weak and where frequent timbering was absolutely necessary to keep the roof in place. At Prospect Street, although where the roof would be the thickest, unusual care would have to be taken. At certain other places, indicated on the profile map, there are increasing percentages of graphite, which makes the rock correspondingly weak and also allow ground- water to enter. From Hope St. to Governor St., the rock would be probably quite a bit harder and it would be less difficulty to handle. In the Narragansett Basin, as one goes upward stratigraphically, the sediments become coarser, so that we might reasonably expect the rock to the north of the old line of the tunnel to be slightly less carbonaceous and more firm. The increase of growth of the population also will be greater to the north. A tunnel through the foregoing type of rock is not an easy proposition at 'best, as it was proven in the case of the New Haven tunnel. The glacial trough down through Brook Street makes rock excavation less, but the rock on either side is consequently more rotten and the till is not easy to handle. The hill-drainage there may also be a difficulty. It is probably true that as one goes north from Manning Street, this trough will become less pronounced and shallower. From Ives Street eastwardly, the bed-rock probably slopes steeply down to the river, but accurate observa- tions and estimates are impossible on account of the thick layer of stratified glaciofluvial material. 118 SHEET NO. 31. ^-i SECTION ON C J^*! iim^V JlTC CLevATION Or STECU CROSS SECTION SECTIONAL ELEVATION ON b-B TWO-TRACK STREET CAR SUBWAY OF STflUCTUKXl. STCE.L- A.NO CONCRCTC LLOW UCAVATlONft IN EARTH AND MINIMUM TuiCKNtM OT COV1R U5ECJ IN y*OI VUH-T BY BOSTOH TRANSIT COMMIMtON l**s) SHCET NO. 33 ANQEUL ST 1 *>:> HALF SECTION ON B-B WATERMAN ST PLAN Stale hn .50 fr SECTION ON A-A Looking Cast icale h -IflfT- SECTION ON . OF MAIN SUBWAY - TON^S ALLEY ^nrw^ct SUBWAY CONNECTKJN WITH SURFACE STREETS APPENDIX No. 3. 119 ESTIMATK OF COST OF SUBWAY FROM THAYER STREET TO RED BRIDGE. (In extension of proposed tunnel.) As per plan Sheet No. 30. A Rough Preliminary Estimate of Cost of Subway and Surface Connections. As will be noted by the plan connections for car, to and from the Subway to Surface tracks are pro vided a't Thayer street and at Elmgrove avenue. Subway stations provided at Thayer street and at Gano street. Additional Work West of Thayer St., for connection to College Hill Tunnel. Removal of some of proposed tunnel already assumed as built (not including removal in rock section where would be included with ledge), say $10,000 Main Tunnel. In rock, 225 lin. ft. @ $210 47,250 (Some excavation already done.) In earth, shallow cover, 225 lin. ft. @ $152 30,400 Ramps. Branch inclines, 520 lin. ft. @ $100 $52,000 Extra work under Churchill House 5,000 Thayer St., special structure at portal for branches 25,000 $173,650 Subway in Sliallow Cover, along Fones Alley. Thayer St. Transfer Station in subway $38,000 Thayer to Brook St., 365 lin. ft. @ $141 51,470 Brook to Hope St., 590 lin. ft. @ $152 89,680 Including re-surfacing streets and pipe changes 179,150 ^ Tunnel, under private property. Hope to Ives Street, "Tunnel B" in earth, 1,170 lin. ft. @ $260 $304,200 304,200 Subway in Sh-allow Cover, along Medway Street. Ives to Gano St. in earth and rock including re-surfacing street and pipe changes, 610 lin. ft. @ $197 $120,170 Gano St. transfer station 25,000 Gano St. to Butler Avenue, including re-surfacing street and pipe changes, 1,080 lin. ft. @ $151 163,000 Portal, ramps, depressing tunnels, etc 207,000 515,170 Amount forwarded $1,172,170 Amount forwarded $1,172,170 Water-proofing top and sides of subway with 4-ply felt and tar, 46,000 sq. yds. @ $1.50, $69,000 '. 69,000 Open Cut. 1390 lin ft. Butler Avenue Portal, Cor. Butler Ave. and Medway St., to Waterman St. (See plan.) Excavation earth in open cut, 5,780 cu. yds. @ 50c $2,890 Concrete -walls, 150 cu. yds. @ $7.00 1,050 3,940 Waterman Street Widening. 10-foot additional width necessary from River St. to 650 ft. west of same for change from single to double tracks for electric cars. Re-setting curb, 650 lin. ft. @ 25c $160 Re-surfacing street, repairing gutter and catch basin changes due widening Water- man Street ' $1,500 1.660 $1,246,770 Add for Engineering, Employer's Liability, Insurance, Interest and Contingencies, 20% 249,350 120 APPENDIX No. 3 ESTIMATE OF*COST OF SUBWAY. Land Damages. Land and houses purchased $56,250 Easements and consequential damages 228,500 (Estimated on the lowest reasonable basis) $284,750 Examination of titles, court expenses, 2% (excluding counsel fees) 5.695 290,445 Total exclusive of rock, ballast, car tracks, poles, wires, etc. $1.786,565 With contingencies, legal expenses and engineer ing the cost would probably reach at least $2,000.000 For it is to be remembered that the contingencies on tunnel and subway work are vastly greater than in surface work. The total length of subway, including the new construction from 450 feet west of Thayer St. to the East side of Butler Avenue is 4,265 feet. The length of open approach from Butler Avenue to River Street at Red Bridge is 2,040 feet, making a total of 6,305 feet or 1.2 miles. The average cost of above total length would be, at $2,000,000 for whole cost of this subway for street cars only. Exclusive of land and damages, Thayer St. to Red Bridge $238 per linear foot Inclusive 317 By the estimate upon the following page it will be seen that at a cost of about half a mil- lion dollars less than is estimated above for a subway for street cars only, there could be built a broad boulevard covering the greater distance from Brown Street to the Red Bridge along Angell Street, which would serve for street cars, carriages, automobiles, pedestrians, etc., and with its broad strips of grass, shrubbery and trees between the roadway and the sidewalks would add to the permanent embellishment of the city. SHEET NO. M. SECTION ON tOF MAN 8UBWY- ME D WAY 3T *r-.t.l Soil In . 0f Hor.XOnW ^ < SOC SCCTION ON C-C SUBWAY CONNECTION WITH SURfACE STREETS. APPKNUIX No. 4. 121 ESTIMATE OF COST OF A BROAD BOULEVARD. FOR THE MAIN LINE OF TRAVEL TO EAST PROVI DENCE AND CITIES NORTH AND EAST. As per Sheet No. 30 of the Drawing. Note that the following plan also provides for the possible gradual acquisition of the negro settlement between Meeting street and Olive street and for opening out a proper vista from the Wonians College and that it contemplates the ultimate use of part or all of the Dexter Asylum grounds for a public park. Extension of Roger Williams Street to Red Bridge. Rough preliminary, estimate of cost of extension from Brown Street by Boulevard generally 160 feet wide, as per plan No. 30. It is assumed that the total width of 160 feet would toe distributed as follows: One 24-foot car reserve in center, 24 ft. Two 24-if oot roadways, 48 ft. Two 32-foot grass strips for trees, etc 64 ft. Two 13-foot sidewalks, 24 ft. Making a total width of, 160 ft. The total length is about 6,500 feet, or 1.2 miles. Boulevard Brown Street to Red Bridge. Construction Work. (Note that the change of grade is slight the work being mainly due to increasing width of present street.) Earth excavation and disposal, 51,000 cu. yds. @ $1.00 $51,000 Street surfacing, 61,000 sq. yds. @ 1.00 61.000 Concrete sidewalk, 15,500 sq. yds. @ $1.50 23,250 Grass strips, 41,300 sq. yds. @ 15c 6,200 Re-laying some water pipes and building manholes, 6.000 Re-setting curbing, 11,000 lin. ft. @ 25c 2,750 New curbing, 11,300 lin. ft. @ 65c 7,345 $157,545 For engineering and contingencies add 15% 23,600 $181,145 Land Damages. Land and Houses purchased @ 50% above ass essed value $1,054,300* Consequential damages 51,900 (Note that in most cases the whole of each property is taken.) $1,106,200 Add for examination of titles court expenses, 2%, excluding counsel fees, .... 22,100 1,128,300 TOTAL $1,309,445 Change of grade between Diman Place and Gano Street as per profile, Sheet No. 30, would add to this: 13,000 yds. excavation (used as fill) @ 75c $9,750 Re-surfacing side streets and necessary changes due accommodation to new grade 2.800 Consequential damages, 29,000 41.550 Total estimate cost for land, damages, structures and street rebuilding $1,350,995 The land damages and costs for both subway and boulevard, which are given above for each in a single item have been estimated in detail, lot by lot, in a manner similar to the land damage estimates pre- sented on pages 104 to 113. but with briefer study and less precision. 122 APPENDIX No. 5. Concerning the Feasibility of Transforming the Dexter Asylum Grounds into a Public Park. On sheet No. 30 of the drawings the suggestion is noted that these grounds may at some future time become a park and in the studies for selecting the best location for the main East Side Approach and planning it so that it would be in line for successive steps of municipal development taken from time to time, per- haps many years apart, one of the considerations was that a proper park development should follow the crea- tion of main arteries of travel. It is obvious to everybody that the .perpetual maintenance of a poor farm, whose area is chiefiy devoted to a municipally-conducted vegetable garden, by hired labor, with its products from rent-free land sold in the market in competition with products of tax-paying farmers, is an anomaly and that in the course of about ninety years, conditions and surrounding have come to pass which are different from any that the generous philanthropist could have foreseen when he donated his farm, located far beyond the thickly settled limits of the town, "for the use and accommodation of the poor of said town." In the early New England days a "poor-farm'' was an adjunct of each thrifty town. The writer has often discussed the possibility of putting this property to a higher use, and has found a wide-spread popular notion that a change of use would be impossible and might cause the property to revert to the heirs of the donor. It is one of the maxims of the common law that a way can be found to do almost anything which is fundamentally right, and skilled professional assistance was invoked, as per the following letters. It must -be obvious to all, that the objects of the testator in providing farm life for the unfortunate could be better accomplished on some new site farther afield and more ample in acreage, and that the "un- earned increment" in the value of this real estate could perhaps be applied better than at present, in the form if interest received from an investment in productive securities, of a part of this increase in the value of the land. If one reckons interest -on value of plant in the cost of maintenance of those who dwell in the Dexter Asylum, a great waste becomes apparent. Double or treble the present number could be even better cared for from Mr. Dexter's bounty, by a change in the form of its application. Before deciding on the removal of all of the present buildings, careful consideration should be given to Mr. Charles E. Gorman's suggestion that in the great charities of the Catholic Church, it is often found best to maintain the buildings in the midst of populous communities, lest being out of sight they be out of mind, to the average man. The barns and piggeries and great market garden surely may well be removed. One-fourth of the present area would suffice for housing all, but then they would not have the interests of farm life, nor do they have them to-day in the fullest sense. By changing the use of this plot of ground from that of a poor-farm to a public park, comparable with Boston Common, it would still "ameliorate the condition of the poor" and other citizens as well, and by giving it the name of "Eben Dexter Park," the kinsmen of the donor would be assured that the kindly memories of Mr. Dexter would not suffer by the change. Meanwhile, whatever the City expended would be simply changed from one pocket to the other, and the number of beneficiaries greatly increased in the poor- farm at its new location. J. R. F. OPINION OF CHARLES E. GORMAN Esq. PROVIDENCE, March 29, 1912. in manner hereinafter mentioned, and for no other use D j7 p . or purpose whatsoever. Provided, however, and this devise is upon condition, that said town shall, within PROVIDENCE, R. I. nve years after my decease, erect a building or build- My DEAR SIR:- The question of whether the lands >f>8? on /aid farm ' suitable for the use and accommo- and buildings of the Dexter Donation, known as the constitute a permanent fund for the benefit of the poor of said town, and to be preserved entire for ever; and until the said town shall have erected a building or buildings on said Neck Farm in the manner and for the purpose as is hereinbefore mentioned, the rents, profits and income of all the property and estate herein given and devised to said town, including the rents, profits and income of said Neck Farm to be added to said per- manent fund and to constitute a part thereof; and when said town shall have so erected such building or buildings, and placed the same in suitable condition and under proper regulations to receive the poor of said town, then and from that time, all the rents, profits and income of all the property and estate herein given and devised to said town including the rents, profits and income of said Neck Farm to be applied by said town to the support and maintenance of the poor of said town, in such way and manner as said town from time to time, at any meeting legally holden, shall in their discretion direct, and for no other use or purpose whatever; provided, however, that no vote of any town meeting in relation to any part or portion of the prop- erty or estate herein devised and bequeathed to said town, or in relation to the management of the same, or of the rents, profits, or income thereof shall be of any force or effect, unless forty freemen, at least be present at the time of passing such vote." The nature extent and purpose of the gift of the Neck Farm now the Dexter Asylum Farm, is deter- minable by a construction of clause seventeen. The devise therein is to trustees for a public, charitable use, subject, however, to two conditions subsequent the per- formance of which vests the farm in trustees in perpet- uity. These conditions, the building of a home and a wall, were performed, and the legal title to the farm in now vested in the trustees. Legally speaking, the subject of the devise is in the custody of a court in equity, which can remove and appoint trustees and direct the care and management of the corpus of the charitable devise and permit its sale, and ever direct its sale, upon the information of the Attorney-General, under some circumstances. There is no language in the seventeenth clause or in any part of the will, expressing a prohibition as to the sale of the "Neck Farm," or from which an intention of that kind can be inferred. If resort is had to the eighteenth clause, which may properly be done, there is a clearly expressed intention that the testator did not anticipate or desire that the Neck Farm should forever wholly be occupied for a home for the poor, as in that clause, he provides that the rentals of the Neck Farm shall constitute a part of a permanent fund with the income from the estate devised by the eighteenth clause ; the income of which is applicable to the support of the poor of the town, without restriction as to place. Apart from a construction of these clauses, it is clear that the estates devised by them constitute public charitable estates and are subject to the control of courts of equity and also to legislative control. The Supreme Court of the state as well as that of the United States, have both defined the extent of the power a court of equity and a state have in respect to such estates. In Brown et al vs. Meeting Street Baptist Society, 9 R. I. 177, being a bill in equity by trustees for leave to sell land deeded for a meeting house and to re-invest the proceeds. In granting the prayer the court speak- ing through Durfee, c. j., said: "The correct doctrine is, we suppose, that the trus- tees have the power when the interest of the charity manifestly requires, to alienate the charity estate, and that the court is called upon to sanction the alienation, not because without such sanction the alienation may not be valid, but because without such sanction it is open to impeachment, and also perhaps, that the trus- tees may have the benefit of the advice the court, enlightened by its inquiries, can so properly afford.'' This view is entirely consistent with the remarks of Lord Brougbman in. the case of the Attorney-Gen- eral vs. Hungerford, 8 Bligh. 437, to the effect that he could not conceive a case where the trustees would not do their duty to the charity, if they did not alienate a part of the land and where an information might on principle, well be maintained against them to do that which is for the benefit of the charity. That a state legislature can authorize the sale of lands devised for a charity with a restriction that they shall not be sold, was approved by the Supreme Court of the United States in Stanley vs. Colt, 5 Wall. 119. Van Home, Petitioner, 18 R. I., was a proceeding in which the constitutionality of an act of legislature authorizing trustees of a will to sell land devised in perpetuity for a parsonage. The court upheld the act, saying : "The primary object which the testator had in view in the devise of his mansion house and lot to the church and society was to provide a suitable abode for the minister, who might for the time being be settled over the church. We cannot forsee that with the lapse of time and changes incidental to human affairs the prop- erty might cease to be useful for the purpose intended, and therefore, he did not insert in his will a power to the church and society to sell and convey the property so held in trust, and to re-invest the proceeds in another house and lot better adapted to the use." "The legislative action deprives no one of his property, but merely divests the trusts affecting one parcel of land, and transfers them to another parcel, better adapted to the purpose of the primary trust." In addition, Section 11 of Chapter 259, of the General Laws provides for the sale of real estate held in trust, for re-investment, as shall "best effect the objects of the trust." Sec. 28, R. I. 542. so that whenever a court shall determine that the gen- eral and primary purposes of a public charitable trust can be made more efficient by a sale, it can authorize a sale, providing the proceeds shall be re-invested in other lands or securities as "will best effect the object of the trust." I am of the opinion, First, that the Neck Farm can be condemned for a park or other public purposes ; Second, that the trustees of the Dexter Donation can be authorized either by a court in equity or by an act of the General Assembly, to sell said farm freed from the trusts for which it was devised. Yours truly, (Signed) CHARLES E. GORMAN. 124 Ai'Pi-Nurx No. 5 TRANSFORMING DI-XTKR ASYLUM GROUNDS INTO A PUBLIC PARK. OPINION OF EDWARDS & ANGELL April 10, 1912. Mr. John R. Freeman, 815 Grosvenor Building, Providence, Rhode Island. Dear Sir : You have asked our opinion as to whether the land now occupied by the Dexter Asylum can be made available to the citizens of Providence as a public park (.1), either by virtue of a sale authorized by a court of equity, or (2), by condemnation proceedings on the part of the City or State. This land is now held by the City of Providence under the trusts created by the seventeenth and eigh- teenth clauses of the will of Ebenezer Knight Dexter which was probated August 30, 1824. The seven- teenth clause provides as follows : "Seventeenth. Feeling a stronge attachment to my native town, and an ardent desire to ameliorate the condition of the poor, and to contribute to their com- fort and relief, i give, grant and devise to the aforesaid town of Providence, in fee simple for ever, my Neck Farm, in said Providence, lying southerly of the Friends' Yearly Meeting School estate, together with all the buildings thereon, to be appropriated to the accommodation and support of the poor of said town, in manner hereinafter mentioned, and for no other use or purpose whatever. Provided, however, and this devise is upon condition, that said town shall, within tive years alter my decease, erect a building or buildings on said farm, suitable for the use and accommodation of the poor of said town, and shall, under their own management and direction, keep and maintain the same for that sole use and purpose forever; and provided, also, and this devise is upon this further condition, that said town shall within twenty years after my decease, erect all around upon the exterior lines of said farm, leaving, however, suitable passage ways into the same, a good permanent stone wall, at least three feet thick at the bottom, and at least eight feet high, and to be placed upon a foundation made of small stones, and as thick as the bottom of the wall and sunk two feet deep in the ground. I hereby authorize said town, however, to exchange at any time before the building of said wall, such parts of said farm as they may think best, for other lands adjoining, for the purpose of straightening the lines of said farm, or throwing it into better shape, but for no other purpose." In the eighteenth clause the testator devised the residue of his estate both real and personal to the Town of Providence "for the use of the poor of said town," directing that "the whole of said property and estate herein devised and bequeathed be kept together to constitute a permanent fund for the beneiit of the poor of said town, and (to) be preserved entire forever." The testator also provided that "until the said town shall have erected a building or buildings on said Neck Farm in the manner and for the purpose as hereinbefore mentioned," the rents, profits, and income of all the estate devised should be added to the permanent fund, but that thereafter "all the rents, profits and income of all the property and estate herein given and devised to said town, including the rents, profits and income of said Neck Farm (should) be applied by said town to the support and maintenance of the poor of said town, in such way and manner as said town from time to time, at any meeting legally holden, shall in their discretion direct, and for no other use or purpose whatever." The town is also given authority "to sell, if they judge it best, the whole, or any part of the real estate herein devised to them, except the said Neck Farm" and another parcel of ground devised for a training field. The town accepted the trust conferred by the will, erected the building upon, and the stone wall on the exterior lines of Neck Farm, and has since been and is now using the land for the active accommodation and housing of the poor of the town. At the time of the devise Neck Farm was surrounded by farming land; now it lies in the midst of the residential district of the East side of Providence. The stipulations in the 17th clause of this will, made conditions of the grant of Neck Farm, that the town shall erect a building suitable for the use and accom- modation of the poor "on said farm" and shall "keep and maintain the same for that sole use and purpose forever,'' and that ithall erect a formidable "permanent stone wall all around upon the exterior lines of said farm'' coupled with the limited power of "exchange " given the trustee with regard to portions of Neck Farm, and the provisions in the eighteenth clause by which Neck Farm and one other parcel of land also devised on' trust, are expressly excepted from the operation of an otherwise general power of sale conferred upon the trustee, force us to the conclusion that the testator intended, as an integral part of his scheme, that the particular parcel of land known as Neck Farm was to be permanently and actively appropriated to the accom- modation and housing of the poor of the town, and "for no other use or purpose whatever." Such being the declared intention of the testator with regard to the use of Neck Farm it follows that a court of equity is powerless to decree either that the land shall be sold and the proceeds devoted to the terms of the trust, or that the land itself shall be thenceforward used as a public park, unless it shall first be established that, owing to changed conditions surrounding the gift, the original intention of the testator has become highly impracticable or impossible of fulfillment. Gen. Laws (1909) Ch. 259, Section 9. Pell v. Mercer, 14 R. I. 412 (1884.) Jackson v. Phillips, et al, 14 Allen, 539. Cary Library v. Bliss, ct al., 151 Mass. 364 (1890) 25 N. E. 92. 6 Cyc. 961. Thus, Gen. Laws (1909) Ch. 259, Section 9, provides that, "In all cases of charitable gifts of real or personal estate, whether by deed or will, where the purpose of the donor cannot be literally carried into effect, a bill in equity may be filed for a cypres application of the trust property; and thereupon all such proceedings, orders and decrees shall be had and taken in said suit, to carry out the intent of the donor as near as may be, that such charity may not fail " This statute is little if anything more than a legisla- tive statement of the rule laid down by the Rhode Island court in Pell T. Mercer, 14 R. I. 412 (1884). where Mr. Chief Justice Durfee said, page 436, APPENDIX No. 5 TRANSFORMING DEXTER ASYLUM GROUNDS INTO A PUBLIC PARK. 125 "And again in the case of a trust which has been long in existence, if, by change of circumstances, tV ceases to be useful according to its original intent, it will be reapplied either wholly or in part to some new purpose, as nearly like to the old as possible. This is what is known as the cypres jurisdiction." So. also in Jjckson v. Phillips, et al. 14 Allen, 539, (1867), Mr. Justice Gray, in the course of a most able opinion, says, page 591, "The intention of the testator is the guide, or, in the phrase of Lord Coke, the lodestone, of the court; and therefore, whenever a charitable gift can be admin- istered according to his express directions, this court, like the court of chancery in England, is not at liberty to modify it upon considerations of policy or conven- ience." Under the facts as we know them we apprehend grave difficulty in proving that the continued use of Neck Farm is inimical to the life of the charity, or that the intention of the testator with regard to its use as an abode for the poor of the town, "cannot be literally carried into effect." Tt is possible to show by an abundance of testimony that buildings and land fully as suitable as Neck Farm for the use and accom- modation of the poor of the town, and of much less value in the market may be obtained away from the residential district of trie city, and that the sale of Neck Farm at its present market value and a reinvest- ment of the proceeds partly in endowment and partly in a less valuable but equally efficient plant would be beneficial to the trust. This is not in our opinion sufficient. Such evidence shows that a scheme wiser than that inaugurated by the testator may now be devised. It does not show that his scheme has failed nor that "the purposes of the donor cannot be literally carried into effect." If this objection be successfully surmounted, it seems to us that a court of equity might properly, under the cypres doctrine, decree the sale of the land now occupied by the Asylum for its present value, and apply the proceeds to the purposes named in the trust created by the will on the ground that such a reappli- cation would "carry out the intent of the donor as near as may be." Gen. Laws (1909) Ch. 259, Section 9. Weeks v. Hobson, et al. 150 Mass.. 377 (1890.) Because, however, of the difficulty in showing that the declared purpose of the testator cannot be literally carried into effect, we are of the opinion that a resort to the court of equity and the ' cypres doctrine for authority to sell Neck Farm holds out slight promise of success. We might also note in passing, that a decree of the court even though in favor of the sale would be binding only upon the parties to the suit, thus necessitating the locating and service of all of the heirs of the testator: a task which, on account of the time which has elaosed since his death, mieht prove of no little difficulty. We are of the opinion, however, that the State Legis- lature may, in the exercise of its sovereign power of eminent domain, condemn the Dexter Asylum grounds for park purposes, and that it may provide that just compensation therefor may be paid either by the State or by the City of Providence. As was said in Shoemaker v. United States, 147 U. S. 282 (1893), page 297, "The validity of the legislative acts erecting sucli parks, and providing for their cost, has been uniformly upheld, (citing). In these and many other cases it was, either directly or in effect, held that land taken in a city, for public parks and squares, by authority of law, Avhether advantageous to the public for recreation, health or business is taken for a public use." And the recent decision in this State sustaining the constitutionality of the metropolitan park law neces- sarily finds that the condemnation of land for public parks is a taking for a public use. In the present case the land 'to be taken for park purposes is already dedicated to a public use. This, however, does not deprive the Legislature of its power (Lewis Eminent Domain, 3d eel. Section 416), and lands held under charitable trusts may be condemned for a public purpose. (Trustees of Belfast Academy v. Salmond, 11 Me. 109.) Although it is possible for the State to delegate this nower of condemnation to the City of Providence, we have suggested the State as the moving party to obviate anv embarrassment that might arise due to the fact that the City of Providence is Trustee : and also to remove any opportunity for any claim on the part of the heirs at law of the testator that the Trustee had forfeited the estate by voluntarily breaching its agreement. Assuming that the land formerly known as Neck Farm is condemned for park purposes, in the manner suggested above, it is obvious that the Trustee will be unable to continue the maintenance of the building on that land for the use of the poor as directed in the seventeenth clause of the will, and the question immed- iately arises as to whether this impossibility to comply with the terms of the devise could work a forfeiture in favor of any of the testator's heirs at law. . So far as this question involves any right on the part of the heirs to re-enter on the land, itself, there is no difficulty in answering in the negative, since the power of eminent domain is as efficacious in extinguish- ing any right of possession on the part of the heirs, as on the part of the trustee. Would such a deviation from the stipulations in the seventeenth clause permit the heirs to claim the pro- ceeds arising from the condemnation of the land on the theory that the land had become subject to for- feiture by breach of trust, and that the proceeds of the condemnation should therefore be paid to them? We think not. The failure on the part of the trustee to keep and maintain the building at the place specified in the devise would have arisen, .not from any fault on its part but because a change in the circumstances surrounding the trust had made a literal execution of the testator's particular purpose impossible. And as heretofore stated in this opinion, a Court of Equity has ample power under such circumstances to make a cypres application of the trust property for the pur- pose of preventing its failure or forfeiture, and will upon bill filed, revise the terms of the original trust to the end that the general purpose of the donor to ameliorate the condition of the poor of the town, may be legally continued under these new circumstances [Gen. Laws (1909) Ch. 259. Section 9: Brown. Trustee r. Meeting Street Baptist Society, 9 R. I. 177 (1869) ; Weeks 7'.' Hobson. et al. 150 Mass. 377 (1S90.) 1 Moreover, it should be borne in mind that, while the use of the words "Provided" and "on condition" 126 APPENDIX No. 5 TRANSFORMING DEXTER ASYLUM GROUNDS INTO A PUBLIC PARK. are words often employed when the creation of a condition subsequent is intended, nevertheless in grants and devises of property for charitable uses, every intendment is against such a construction. (Brown, Trustee v. Meeting Street Baptist Society, 9 R. I. 177 (1869) ; Stanley v. Colt, 5 Wall (U. S.) 119, (1866) ; Sohier v. Trinity Church, 109 Mass. 1 (1871) ; Neely v. Hoskins, 84 Me. 386 (1892), 24 Atl. 882.) The matter is solely one of the testator's intention as it appears from the whole devise. Did he intend that the negligence or refusal on the part of the trustee to maintain the building on Neck Farm should operate to withdraw his entire gift from the service of the poor in favor of his heirs at law, or did he make that provision to the end merely that a Court of Equity might compel the trustee to so maintain the building in the absence of legal excuse for its failure so to do? It seems to us that the significant omission from this devise of the customary forfeiture clause in favor of the heirs at law, and the strongly avowed desire of the testator to permanently devote his property includ- ing the residue thereof in aid of the poor of his native town, are sufficient indications of an intention that the perpetual continuance of the building on Neck Farm was not a condition subsequent, the breach of which would withdraw the entire devise from the accom- plishment of a purpose so earnestly desired by the testator. We are of the opinion, therefore, that with the aid of the State Legislature in the exercise of its power of eminent domain, it is possible to make the land now occupied by Dexter Asylum available to the Citizens of Providence as a public park and that in no event would the condemnation of the land involve any forfeiture either of it or of the compensation received therefor to the testator's heirs at law. Very truly yours, EDWARDS & ANGELL. APPENDIX. 127 Jan. 19, 1913. D. F. Sherman, Esq., Vice President Rhode Island Company, Providence, R. I. Dear Sir: Early in October last the City Council, taking action on plans for a tunnel for street cars only from North Main street to Thayer street, as presented, according to its instructions, by the Commission on East Side Approach, officially approved the same, and directed the said Commission "as soon as may be to consider the best steps to be taken to secure the build- ing of such tunnel and approaches and 'the track changes incident thereto, and the operation thereof, and to report its recommendations as to the same in print or otherwise to either branch of the City Council." Pursuant to the above instructions, the said Com- mission has authorized and directed me to present for the consideration of your company a proposition, herewith enclosed, involving the construction and oper- ation of such a tunnel, according to the said plans approved by the City Council. The proposition herewith made to your company is in substance along the lines of a draft act, a printed copy of which is herewith submitted, which was previously considered by your company and the legal representa- tives of the City, with certain revisions, as indicated in the accompanying typewritten enclosure. I am directed by the Commission to report that the matter be taken up immmediately by your company, and that you report in writing thereon to the Com- mission at the earliest possible moment, in order to facilitate any Legislative action during the present Assembly session which may be necessary in the premises. Very respectfully yours, HENRY FLETCHER, Chairman Commission on East Side Approach. Present plan of East Side tunnel to be built at expense of the Company, or of its lessee, The Rhode Island Company, with the right of City to purchase same at cost, in which event such Company, or its successors in interest, to lease the same, and the track changes and incidental terms substantially as formerly agreed upon with reference to the previous tunnel plan ; except the work to be begun within one year from the date of the franchise and to be finished and the tunnel operated as soon as practicable, but not later than three years from the date of the franchise ; and except the term of any such lease to be for twenty years, but not exceeding or continuing beyond the end of the term of any then existing exclusive franchise of the Union Railroad Company, The Rhode Island Company lessee, its successors or assigns, in the streets of the City adjoining the ends or approaches of the tunnel ; and except the matter of paying or distributing the cost of the approach from Canal street to North Main street be left for further consideration. APPENDIX. PROPOSAL OF THE RHODE ISLAND COMPANY SUBMITTED TO THE MAYOR AND TO THE COMMITTEE ON EAST SIDE APPROACH AT ITS SESSION AT MAYOR'S OFFICE, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 19, 9 :30 A. M. Hon. Henry Fletcher, Chairman Commission East Side Approach, Dgar Sir: "We acknowledge yours of the 19th ult. concerning the matter of providing a more safe and rapid railway transit between the center and the east side of .the city of Providence, and in reply thereto and in connection with the recent conference with your committee relative to an early consummation of this . much needed improvement, would say: "The Rhode Island Company will build and pay the entire cost of the proposed East Side tunnel and its approaches between the easterly line of North Main street and the westerly line of Thayer street, to be constructed substantially as planned and designed for the city by City Engineer Otis F. Clapp, such cost to include the roadways beside the location in Fones alley, near and to Thayer street, as shown in said plans, but not to include the expense of the extension of Water- man street from North Main street to Canal -street. "In order, however, that such a large capital expendi- ture may be warranted, it is conditioned that the exclusive rights of this company and of its lessor companies to operate their street railways in Provi- dence shall be manifested through a mutually accepta- ble 20-year agreement (concerning which tentative proposals from the city are now under consideration) with the understanding that the company and its lessor companies shall remain undisturbed in the conduct of their business under their present rights, pending such an agreement. "The company will commence the work within any reasonable time desired and complete it at as early date as practicable, the tunnel when completed to be the property of the company, the city, however, to have the right at any time upon one year's previous notice in writing, to purchase said tunnel, with the tracks and appurtenances, upon paying said entire cost thereof, and in case of such purchase the city forthwith shall lease the said property purchased to this company, its lessors and successors in interest at an annual rental to 'be agreed upon 'between the parties for the exclu- sive use by this company, its lessors and successors in interest for so long as it and they have the exclu- ive right to maintain, use and operate their railways as now or hereafter located and constructed in the city of Providence; and upon the termination of such lease in such manner, this company, its lessors and successors in interest shall have the privilege to use such tunnel upon terms to be agreed upon for so long as it and they have any right to operate street rail- ways in the city. "The Rhode Island Company, by its above proposal, will co-operate with the city in the construction of a tunnel, and, while the company will abide by the decis- ion of the city in the matter, its management has a' strong preference for an open, easy grade street up the hill, feeling that the East Side district, particularly on the crest of the hill, would thus be better served, and the crossing at grade on North Main and Canal streets would be avoided. Assistance to other vehicles than street cars would be offered, and, as a whole, the prob- 128 APPENDIX. lem would be more completely solved. Therefore, the following alternative propositions are offered for con- sideration. "If the city will construct an East Side approach, so- called, substantially in accordance with the plans and designs prepared for the city by John R. Freeman: "(a) The Rhode Island Company, its lessors and successors in interest, will make an annual rental pay- ment of $30,000 to the city for the exclusive right to lay tracks with necessary appurtenences and to operate a railway upon such approach for so long as it and they have the exclusive right to maintain, use and operate their railways as now or hereafter located and con- structed in the city of Providence, and upon the ter- mination in any way of such exclusive rights, the company, its lessors and successors in interest, to have the privilege to use such approach upon terms to be agreed upon for so long as it and they have any right to operate street railways in the city of Providence or "(b) The Rhode Island Company will pay the city the flat sum of $750,000 in cash toward the cost of such approach and the park development connected there- with, provided this company and its lessors and succes- sors in interest are given, without the payment of other rental thereafor, the right to use such approach as above outlined ; but the large capital expenditure must be safeguarded as generally provided in the foregoing proposition for building a tunnel. "If so desired this company will perform the work of constructing such approach, and the appurtenant -work of rearrangement and demolition of adjacent buildings and depositing surplus excavated 'material in form for a future park, for the city at the net cost and without any gain or profit whatsoever to itself; the construc- tion to be under the direction and supervision of the designer of the approach, Mr. John R. Freeman, or any other competent civil engineer selected by the city as chief engineer in charge of the work for the city. "The foregoing propositions shall remain open and shall constitute the offers of this company for any reasonable time. "Viewed from a practical operative standpoint, we believe one company should operate the street cars in the city streets, hence appears to us the propriety of exclusive rights, but in order that outside lines may have access to the city, this company during the period of its exclusive rights will, for a fair and reasonable compensation, transport by its own power from the termini of its lines at or outside the city boundaries into and in the city and through the tunnel or on the East Side approach as it may be, to a point at or near the centre of its railway system, all passengers and cars of any other street railway lines connecting with this company's lines at such termini which may be delivered by such other lines." Respectfully, (Signed) D. F. SHERMAN, Vice-President. YF 01 151