an

An airplane went over this morning. I wonder if it was Lawrence Sperry slipping down to Philadelphia on errand for his wife, and if he'll be back for luncheon. The first time I went to Philadelphia I walked, and it took six days. "Direcktor" Stuyvesant stumped about the village on his wooden leg, or, at best, rode in a lumbering coach drawn by four stalwart horses. This morning our city officials are gliding to their places of business in swift and silent limousines.

My grandfather used to load his wool and grain on a rented canal boat, attach his own horses, and walk the tow-path behind his team for five days to reach the city market, sixty miles away. The produce from his farm still goes to the same market. All that is left of the canal is the ditch marking its former course, and the present owner of this farm boards

ANY years ago in England a good

householder sorely needed some bricks, so he dug his clay from the most handy spot-the street abutting his property. One dark night a fellowtownsman fell into the pit, now well filled with rain, and was drowned. When relatives of the deceased brought suit for damages, the decision rendered was against the plaintiffs, on the ground that the Court could not see where else the clay could be found! To-day that householder would be shocked at the restrictions the community places on him; not only would he be digging his clay elsewhere, but he would be told the kind of pavement to be placed in front of his house, the amount of tax he should pay for its upkeep, and exactly how near the curb he could place a fence or his house. The importance of easy, safe, and speedy communication is so undisputed that no one would consider these restrictions as hindrances, but rather enlarged opportunities for personal freedom.

THE CONTROL AND CARE OF THE
STREETS

Washington was laid out according to a definite plan, while New York, like most of our older cities, followed natural lines of development. To-day, when we are

INTRODUCTION

the train with his products in the morning, sells them in the city before noon, and returns with the cash receipts in his pocket the same evening.

When the first telephones were installed in our up-State towns, business men often talked between villages forty miles apart. It was customary, however, for the caller and the callee to exchange letters in verification of the conversation. About two years ago a dinner was given where each guest was provided with a telephone connected by wire with San Francisco, twenty-seven hundred miles away. The conversation carried on over that distance was as audible and distinct as the voice of a neighbor over a party wire. And, just recently, it is reported that the President, while sitting at his desk, has been chatting with airmen overhead without the aid of wires.

This

struggling to walk through the crowds on a congested avenue, we wonder why the cross streets are placed at such short distances, while the avenues, where the heavy traffic flows, are from two to three times farther apart. This unfortunate arrangement is the natural result of the type of travel that prevailed when the upper or numbered streets were planned. The longer distances those running north and southwere covered by travel on the expeditious river boats, not by the slower, tedious trip up the avenues. The prophets of the day never expected the city to grow northward, but rather across the Hudson River toward New Jersey. Herein is the main difficulty with our city plan of today.

Despite the handicap of a poor plan and great physical limitations due to the shape of the island, New York aims to overcome this disadvantage by excellent construction and care of its streets. When the street is first opened, its construction is authorized by the Department of Public Works of the borough in which the street is located. The cost of this work is covered by special assessment on the properties that benefited from the improvement, but the future repairs of the street are made at the expense of the city.

Some of these stories were told to a class of high school boys and girls, and then they were asked what they thought had brought about this wonderful progress in transportation and communication. Various replies were received. Some attributed it to broader education, others suggested the unquenchable genius of the few illustrious inventors whose minds have conceived and made possible the telegraph, the telephone, the wireless, the steamengine, the electric motor, the gas motor, and the airplane. Finally one quiet little fellow in horn spectacles raised his hand and said: "I think it is because there are more of us. We do more things and are scattered over more of the country than people were in the early times, and the scientists just had to invent ways of keeping us together." FRANK A. REXFORD.

Various kinds of pavements are used: macadam, costing $2 a square yard, serves well in the sparsely settled regions until a permanent pavement is required; granite blocks, costing $3.60 a square yard if laid on a concrete foundation, are used on steep grades and for streets on which trucking is very heavy; asphalt is more expensive $5 a square yard—but provides the best pavement for general use; wood blocks are the most costly ($6 per square yard), but are excellent for paving in the vicinity of hospitals, etc., where quiet is desirable. In every case pavings are chosen to suit the type of traffic that prevails in that locality. Cheaply constructed pavements are expensive, not only because they must be replaced more often and retard traffic on account of their chronic bad condition, but also because they actually menace health, as they are so difficult to keep clean.

Beneath this pavement are placed sewers and water mains, which are city owned and built. In addition, the wiring for electric light, telephone, and telegraph is carried in conduits. The city is constantly forced to repave because of repairs to these pipes and lines; if pipe galleries could carry all these, the reduction in the cost of street repair would be enormous. The trolley wires are likewise under

ground. This, however, applies to the crowded sections only. Perhaps the future city may demand that in all sections these unsightly wirings should be removed. Private companies that wish to use the streets for their pipes or wires (i. e., telephone, telegraph, gas) must secure a franchise from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. By this system of control the city regulates the use of the streets and secures a good income from the granting of the special privilege. Streets must be maintained so that they are in safe condition for use by day or night. Pavements on busy streets are repaired by large gangs of men who accomplish the task with great rapidity through the use of the most modern machinery. When a snowstorm threatens to interfere with traffic, gangs are busy clearing the main arteries of travel even before the storm is over, while all general regulations as to street obstructions are much more strictly enforced than formerly. But probably in no detail is the improvement in the care of the street more clearly illustrated than in the remarkable advance in the efficient and artistic lighting of the streets at night.

66

Thus far the city assumes responsibility for the streets, but when it establishes regulations for sidewalks it divides the care of them with the property-owners. New York considers the use of sidewalks a matter of community action, whereas the construction and maintenance of the walk itself is the duty of each property owner. The walk must be kept safe and clean, otherwise the owner risks a suit for damages in case of an accident due to its bad condition, or perhaps the city may repair it and send the bill to the offending citizen. Years ago no one protested when a beautiful residence thrust its entrance or portico beyond the house line, nor would an official see a fine façade on an office building as it was being built over the city-owned sidewalk. When the community awoke to the extent of this abuse, it demanded the removal of these encroachments, with the result that to-day the sidewalk is gradually assuming a more uniform width. In the older sections of the city the increase of space for pedestrians is not so easily secured, and on account of the enormous height of the buildings these narrow walks have been badly congested. The only possible outlet for this was the middle of the street, so all vehicular traffic is prohibited during business hours in places where the crowds are greatest.

The responsibility for the care of the streets in use must rest ultimately on the citizen who daily passes to and fro. To induce each person to assume his share of this burden is the aim of all the city departments concerned in the problem of the street. The most obvious duty is to keep the street clean. We are provided with cans in which to deposit all refuse. A street littered with papers and similar rubbish may actually be fairly clean, yet it appears dirty. Every time a fire is lighted on the pavement it weakens the surface, thus hastening the day when a

bad hole will compel the expenditure of more city money for its repair. The personal activity of every citizen is required to preserve our streets for their pri mary purpose-our easy and safe transportation.

TRANSPORTATION OF PEOPLE

Last summer when New York lived through a street-car strike involving the elevated and subway services it had splendid opportunity to realize how inadequate surface cars are for a city of great distances. Such transit is slow at best, because of the frequent, irregular stops, while streets congested with all the obstructions of a great commercial city slow traffic still further. New bus lines are now being established which may reduce the congestion materially, but they are so newly organized that we cannot tell the final result. The street cars serve mostly for short trips, except those surface cars which cross the bridges from Manhattan into other boroughs, distributing people over a wide area. However, this is not "rapid" transit, for it fails to meet the needs of busy people who wish to reach their destination quickly.

Shortly after the Civil War New York launched its first experiment in rapid transit-an elevated steam railway. A few pessimists predicted horrible conse quences from building an elevated road, with all the accompanying ills of noise and smoke; but no sooner was the road in operation than the people themselves showed their appreciation of it by moving uptown in large numbers. Moreover, they must have enjoyed the trips, because they began to travel more frequently until the elevated was overtaxed.

When Father Knickerbocker began to investigate the causes of this congestion, he started at the business end of the island, where he found that the big sixstory office buildings were being dwarfed by the new steel structures. These huge buildings were climbing higher each year and their spacious offices provided attracand their spacious offices provided attractive quarters for new business. As the elevated service improved Father Knickerbocker saw his families move farther away from the business section. So he watched anxiously as the crowds flowed on to the narrow end of the island as if they were poured into the small end of a funnel too fast and were jammed. No one wished more elevated lines, for the noise from the trains was too unpleasant and the obstruction of the street by the elevated structure itself was an additional cause of congestion. Therefore the only solution of the transit problem seemed to lie in the development of subways. The lie in the development of subways. The story of the growth of rapid transit lines is a very human mixture of political jugglery, mad speculation, and petty bickerings between the companies, But bickerings between the companies, But added to this is a chapter of magnificent vision and splendid engineering. When the confusion finally became too great, the Public Service Commission, appointed by the Governor, took complete charge of all the transit facilities of the city, and out of this chaos evolved the "Dual

System," by which two large companies, the Interborough and the New York Municipal Railway Corporation, operate the rapid transit lines within the city limits. Although millions have been expended by the city in construction work, this has proved a good investment, as values in real estate have likewise increased, and the return in taxes has more than justified the original outlay. These lines hold franchises from the city for operating within certain limits, but the city has a direct interest in the ownership of the lines. The days have passed when franchises were handed about regardless of their financial value or their service to

the public; but the city is still struggling beneath the burden of some "perpetual franchises, such as that held by the New York City and Harlem River Railroad for the use of Tenth Avenue.

To-day the Dual System operates over six hundred and twenty miles of track. But even with this added service the subways (with the express trains running in "rush hours on a headway of less than two minutes) are unbelievably crowded. With the opening of the subways came the construction of whole new sections of the city; for example, the population of the Bronx increased one hundred and ten per cent in ten years. In 1917 the traffic for the year was 1,900,000,000, while in 1870 it was only 115,000,000; in other words, while the population is four times what it was in 1870, traffic has increased sixteen times for the corresponding period. In 1870 each average person took one hundred rides per year, and now he takes more than three times as many. If everybody in Banger, Maine, Lincoln, Nebraska, Evanston, Illinois, and New Haven, Connecticut, or all the inhabitants of Wyoming and Nevada, visited New York in one day, they would only equal in number those passing through the Equitable Building every twenty-four hours. When we try to picture the numbers who fill the other great structures, it gives us some idea of the magnitude of the problem.

SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION

New Yorkers have always proved their great appreciation of improved transportation by increasing their business at the lower end of Manhattan and moving their families farther uptown, thus taxing the new accommodations to the limit. Each achievement in transportation has added greater problems, but no real progress is possible until the public controls its instinctive distrust of the operating companies (a state of mind carefully kept alive by some politicians) and the companies realize that transportation is a matter of prime public concern. Entire public ownership and operation is still an unsettled question.

Various regulative plans are now in operation in an effort to distribute business over convenient areas-such as zoning laws, regulations of heights of buildings. During the influenza epidemic the opening hours of business were fixed so as

to spread the rush-hour traffic over a longer period.

TRANSPORTATION TO OUTSIDE POINTS Besides those resident in New York who reach business by subways and elevated, there is a vast army of commuters who arrive in Manhattan through six different railway terminals. As only two of these are on Manhattan Island, it means the transfer from trains to ferries or the

Hudson River tubes. New York is less fortunate than its English cousin, for where old York needed only to construct a few extra gateways in its wall in order to relieve traffic, New York was faced on all sides by an uncompromising mass of water. So the city undertook the herculean task of providing tubes under and bridges over the obstruction. Still more tunnels are to be constructed whereby the business section of Manhattan, which by nature is at the small end of a funnel, may soon become the hub of the wheel with numerous radiating lines of rapid passenger traffic. The latest addition to speedy passenger transportation is the Aerial Limited Express,' now advertised in the large hotels. Will this be the next step in solving the problem? It is no more revolutionary than many of the other changes we have witnessed in a generation.

TRANSPORTATION OF GOODS

If some speedy method of transporting people is important, the same is doubly true of freight. Express is expensive and not used for the great bulk of goods produced or transferred through New York. The use of the parcel post in New York has enormously increased, and with its low rates it has made possible a large delivery of smaller packages; if it will increase the size of the parcels, its usefulness may be much enhanced. But these two deliveries leave the mass of freight to be moved in some other way.

With the advent of the motor truck an entirely new problem as to the use of the street arises. As these trucks are commercial and virtually freight cars without tracks, subjecting any kind of pavement to unusual wear and tear, should these trucks be specially licensed so as to help pay for the upkeep of the streets? Moreover, the ordinary pedestrian must be most wary of these monsters in the congested areas. All kinds of schemes are devised for relief of traffic so as to insure safer and quicker movement-one-way streets, large traffic signs, school streets, separate streets for heavy traffic and for light traffic, no cruising" cabs, etc. Besides this there are suggestions for freight subways, viaducts, and tunnels. Engineers are now planning a tunnel to connect Manhattan with New Jersey.

The city is continually devising new methods for successful management of traffic, and is aided by many of the volunteer associations, such as the Merchants' Association or the Chamber of Commerce, which are keenly interested in these problems. The war has proved a setback to radical changes, but as the interest in

the problem is intense, new improvements are constantly suggested.

THE HARBOR OF NEW YORK

It is the easiest thing in the world to state staggering figures as to the size, commerce, and traffic of the Port of New York. The shore line alone is equal to the natural facilities provided by the ports of London, Liverpool, Rotterdam, Bremen, Hamburg, Antwerp, and Amsterdam. Before the war the foreign commerce of New York was about the same as that of London or Hamburg, but, in addition to this no small trade, through the harbor passes domestic commerce equal to four times its foreign commerce! A bird's-eye view of the harbor will explain this extraordinary harbor will explain this extraordinary figure. The Lower Bay is only partly figure. The Lower Bay is only partly protected from the sea by Sandy Hook, where the United States Government has established one of its great forts to guard the harbor. Through the splendid new Ambrose Channel the great ships from other lands find a safe lane for travel to the Narrows, where Staten Island cuts the harbor in two, acting as a breakwater for the Upper Bay. As a ship passes through the Narrows it enters a bay almost landlocked, with various other exits the Hudson, the East River leading to Long Island Sound, and Kill von Kull connecting with Newark Bay. Through these thoroughfares come all manner of floating craft with freight from manner of floating craft with freight from the Great Lakes through the Erie Canal, the Southern ports, and New England.

New York City itself has not the control of this wonderful natural equipment. It belongs to the whole people of the United States according to the Federal laws. If the city wishes to build longer piers, the consent of the Government is required; if the city be ever so anxious to deepen a channel or provide new facilities for traffic on the water, the acquiescence of the Government must be secured first. All regulation of the harbor is in the hands of the Federal Government, as, for example, location of anchorage grounds, lighting, health (quarantine), traffic rules, etc. For years the city has tried to persuade the Federal Government that the East River at Hell Gate was dangerously narrow and shallow, but it made no impression. During the war, however, it became evident that the dredging of this channel was not so much a matter of local interest as it was a subject of National importance. Probably the good Representative from "Sometown thought that New York was a selfish, self-centered city asking millions for local improvement. Why not improve "Sometown's" river? The Representative from "Sometown" is now realizing that the harbor is a great National asset. New York Harbor may be magnificent by nature, but the Port of New York is great only as we make it efficient.

DOMESTIC COMMERCE

It is no mean task to provide food for over six million people, especially when the majority of them have not much more

than a window-box in which to "grow anything. Besides this one item there must be added the tons of raw material to be provided for the city's manufac tures, and as the city produces about onetenth of the manufactures of the whole United States, the total amount is impressively great. Thus about ninety per cent of the domestic commerce concerns the city itself, and the rest is handled in the port for reshipment to other parts of the United States. Most of this enters New York by car floats. When the raw material has passed through the factories, it is again distributed as a manufactured product throughout the country. Trace a ton of package freight from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to the New York merchant's door. It is properly billed to the merchant in New York by the shipper, and to deliver it by rail to the yards in Jersey City would cost the shipper $1.40 -a very small charge; but to get that same shipment out of the yard to the pier, place it on a lighter, tow it across the river, unload it on the pier, replace on a truck to deliver to the warehouse, willcost $2.25! To carry a ton of freight ninety miles by rail costs 27 cents, but to handle the same ton at the two terminals costs fourteen times as much.' The ton of raw material costs too much in transit after it leaves the freight terminal, therefore this charge added to the cost of manufacturing makes a higher cost to a merchant when he buys the finished product, for example, in Omaha; moreover, the merchant in Omaha must pay a similarly large charge for handling when the manufactured article he has bought is shipped to him from New York via the same route. Naturally the one who pays this heavy toll in the end is the consumer, either in New York City or in Omaha. Right here is the problem that is being solved now-poor handling in the port. At present both New Jersey and New York have buried their trade rivalry and have voted this year to construct a tunnel beneath the Hudson so that large trucks may load at the New Jersey piers or yards for direct delivery to the New York warehouse. It will free the Hudson River piers for maritime commerce and relieve congestion below Fourteenth Street. This tunnel will open in New York about Canal Street and will mean a saving of several days in freight transit, much time in trucking, and much expense. It is the dawn of a new day for the port when the two States adjoining this harbor are ready to cease their commercial jealousy, dating back to the days of the Confederation, and realize that they may by law be separate States, but both are joined by nature to constitute the Port of New York.

A second reform suggested during the war to expedite delivery was the socalled store-door delivery. This system, used in England, provides for the delivery by the railway or shipping company directly to the warehouse. Such a scheme would eliminate the delays incident to

1 Statisties from "Ports and Terminal Facilities," by R. S. MacElwee. McGraw & Hill, 1918.