i te I
Behold the wonders that the twentieth
century man is working in the metropolis
of the New World!
Chief among them is the wonder of
transportation. Certainly it is the chief
est from the "human interest" and the
dramatic points of view.
Six tunnels under the Hudson river!
Two, a pair, will give one of the coun
try's greatest railroads direct entrance
to the heart of Manhattan Island. The
others, in pairs, will connect with the
trolley systems of Jersey City, Newark,
Hoboken, and a score or more of Jer
sey suburban towns, thus permitting
thousands of commuters to get into New
York without having recourse to the
ferries that now crowd the North river
to the danger limit.
And eight tunnels under the East
river! Two will permit one to travel
underground from the upper tip of Man
hattan Island to the residential sections
of Brooklyn. These tunnels form an ex
tension of the subway, a wonder that
is now a commonplace to the tens of
thousands of New Yorkers who crowd
into it and anathematize it morning and
evening every working day of the year.
Four of these East river tunnels will
let the great railroad out of New York
and into the New England district by
Wltfr ,
The Cameron County Press.
EMPORIUM, PA., NOVEMBER *9, I9<»«-
means of a connecting bridge from Long
Island to the city's islands in the Sound,
and thence to the mainland. And the
remaining two will be the Manhattan
inlet of the united trolley systems of
the eastern end of Long Island.
"PICTORIAL.COLOR AND iAAGAZINE SECTION"
Six tunnels under the island itself;
two to connect with the North and East
river tunnels of the railroad! Two to
connect with the North river trolley tun
nels and carry the passengers frojn the
western water tront to the uptown shop
ping (Hstrict of Thirty-third street. And
from this pair of tunnels another pair
will transfer passengers to a shopping
district!a mile further down town and
some\v|at to the east, and also connect
with the present subway system.
All these tunnels are actually under
way. Two are completed, four more are
nearly complete, and four nearly half
bored.
Then the tunnels are to come in the
near future—forty-five odd miles of
them under Manhattan and Brooklyn,
giving speedy access to evbry part of
these boroughs and the Borough of the
Bronx, just to the north of Manhattan
Island and forming the only part of the
greater city which is on mainland.
These, like the subway, will be built
under municipal direction, and after a
term of years will revert unconditionally,
equipment and all, to the city. Plans for
them are now ready, and before many
months it is expected that the work of
building the first of these interborough
tunnels, which will probably be operated
in conjunction with the subway, will be
well under way.
Within the next ten years the tunnels
under the island of Manhattan will form
a veritable gridiron of electric train pas
sage ways. And there will be at least
two layers of tunnels in places. For ex
ample, at Thirty-fourth street and
Fourth avenue, the railroad tunnels will
run below the subway, and some of the
rapid transit crosstown tunnels are be
ing planned to be bored many feet be
neath the subway and the projected tun
nels that will have the same general di
rection, that is, run lengthwise of the
island.
A quarter of a billion dollars is the
enormous sum that the city expects to
spend in consummating its share of the
wonder of transportation. This includes
the fifty million dollars spent for the
subway and the thirty millions for the
East river and Brooklyn extensions. Be
tween thirty and forty million dollars
will be sperit in completing the North
river and Manhattan Island trolley tun
nels and in building the two skyscraper
terminals essential to the system, one on
the edge of the financial district, the
other in the Thirty-third street shopping
center.
Twenty million dollars has already
been spent by the railroad in question.
Forty millions more is expected to see
the improvement through to the last de
tail. In these millions is included the
cost of the great terminal station to be
built in the heart of the city. It will
be one of the largest terminals in the
world; for its site thirty city blocks were
cleared of the hotels, retail stores, man
ufactories, flats, apartment houses, priv
ate houses. Thousands of persons were
forced to find homes and places of busi
ness elsewhere in the city. The trolley
tunnels under the East river will call for
fifteen millions.
But this is not all of the wonder of
transportation.
In order to bring its terminal facilities
not only up to date, but, if possible, put
them years ahead of the city, the railroad
that now enjoys a monopoly of direct en
trance into Manhattan is busy spending
fifty millions 011 a mammoth station and
for electrification of its lines within a
fifty miles radius of the metropolis.
The concourse of this station will be
the largest business room in the world.
Its dimensions will be seven times those
of the present lobby; it will be 470 feet
long, 160 feet in width, and 150 feet
from floor to peak of the great domed
roof. Restaurant and toilet accommo
dations are to be increased five hundred
fold, the ticket lobby seven fold, the cab
stand capacity twelve fold. There will
be two track levels, one for expresses,
the other for suburban traffic, and hence
two waiting-rooms, one above the other.
The suburban level will be the lower.
Of course the new station yard will
be two-decked. There will be sixty-five
acres of tracks on the two levels, as
against twenty-three acres in the present
yards. Everything is being done on a
scale that would have astounded the
kings of transportation no more than a
decade ago, to say nothing of the chaps
who thought they were doing big things
a quarter of a century ago.
Twenty-five millions for the station,
and a like sum will be spent for the
station yard and electrification of the
tracks for a distance of fifty miles out
of New York. That is a wonder in it
self, and the new station will be the
first railroad station in the world not to
know the coal locomotive, unless the
railroad that is coming into Manhattan
under the Hudson river gets its new
improvements done first. Each railroad
expects to be doing business, new style,
in the last year of the present decade.
And some time next year Harlemites
will be shot under the East river, through
the rapid transit tunnel, to the residen
tial sections of Brooklyn. It will be a
journey of about an hour's duration,
whereas two are now required to make
the trip.
There is still another item to the won
der of transportation. It is the bridges.
Within the next eight years the world
famed Brooklyn bridge will have three
sisters spanning the East river at vary
ing distances to the north of it. One,
the Williamsburg, a mightier monument
to the bridge builder's skill titan even
the Brooklyn, has been open a year or
so now. The suspended forty-five thou
sand tons of material, the shore piers,
the approaches and the land necessary
for the approaches, cost twenty /nillions.
A like sum is to be spent on the Man
hattan bridge, which is being erected
only a few blocks away from the Brook
lyn bridge; and the third bridge, which,
by the way, will not be of the suspension
type, an island giving foundation for the
central piers, will take only four millions
less.
Thus, to complete the wonder of trans
portation in New York an aggregate sum
of four hundred and seventy-one million
will be spent. And in this is not included
the cost of freight yards that will break
records for size and capacity, for the
electrification of the railroad system on
Long Island, and the three millions that
the city has spent to secure between
Manhattan and Staten islands the fastest
ferry service in the world. Include the
cost of these and the total overruns half
a billion dollars.
Wonderful—all wonderful! Yet the
greatest wonder in connection with this
wonder of transportation is that men can
be found who will day after day work
doggedly, will push the under-river tun
nels inch by inch to completion, all the
time knowing that the tons of water and
slime but a few feet, and often only a
matter of inches above them, is liable
to rush in 011 them at any moment. Yet
here are the men by the hundreds. Men
who bored the great Simplon tunnel un
der the Alps, men who have burrowed
under Asia and Africa as well—the
"sand hogs" of the universe—with nerves
steeled alike against the dread "bends,"
the treacherous rivers, the daily acci
dents that frequently result in death and
permanent injury to companions. To
them the bigger share of the glory for
the wonder of transportation—without
them engineers, masters of transporta
tion, kings of finance, would be impotent
to carry out the plans that call for tun
nels under river and city, here, there
everywhere.
Behold, too, the wonder of the sky
scraper!
The highest office building in the
world is now the Park Row, proudly
boasting of thirty-three stories. Work
is now under way on the Singer build
ing, which will tower some eleven stories
above the Park Row. Dr. Parkhurst's
old church is being torn down to make
way for the last section of a famous
life insurance company building. This
section, according to present plans, will
be a story or two closer to the dome of
Continued on Next Page