File:The problem of greater New York and its solution (1914) (14581903168).jpg

Identifier: problemofgreater00brea (find matches)
Title: The problem of greater New York and its solution
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Brearley, Harry Chase, 1870-1940 Corthell, E. L. (Elmer Lawrence), 1840-1916 Durst, Seymour B., 1913-, former owner. NNC Real Estate Board of New York. Library, former owner. NNC
Subjects: Harbors
Publisher: New York City, Published under the auspices of the Committee on Industrial Advancement of the Brooklyn League by the Search-light Book Corp.
Contributing Library: Columbia University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: The Durst Organization

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that this has been ftdly occtipied.It has not learned to think in any other terms. It is the victimof its own good fortune. Xew York has generally met the in-creasing pressure of commerce with spasmodic, inco-ordinated,hit-or-miss measures of temporary relief, forgetting that reliefsoon calls for more relief, becoming in the end more expensivethan the ctire. This will become evident from a brief stirvey. The City of Xew York has expended $115,000,000 upon itswharves and piers since 1870, principally upon ManhattanIsland which has but seven and one-half per cent of the totalwaterfront. In general the plan has been to remove old piersand to replace them with longer ones upon the same sites.This adds some feet of wharfage btit leaves the total lengthof improved waterfront exactly as it was before. It is likethe farmer who increases his ctiltivation by plowing one fielda little deeper and leaving his other fields in weed; then hewonders at his troubles. 32 P A R T - A Y M E A S 1 R E S J
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Drawing by Brigden THE COSTLY SACRIFICE ^VHEX COMPLETEDUltimate plans call for eight of these enormously expensive structures. A conspicuous example of this intensive method is nowin progress on the North River front near 44th Street. AYhenthe ^Yar Department finally said, Thus far and no farther tothe policy of extending piers there seemed to the authoritiesno recourse but that of gaining longer piers by pushing inland—of course, on Manhattan. This meant the purchase of immenselyvaluable real estate; it meant the excavation of solid rockinvolving the construction of a 8500,000 cofferdam; it meantin short, an expenditure of about 83,000,000 for each 1,000-footpier. This amount, elsewhere applied in this City, would, ashereafter will be shown, go far toward solving permanentlythe whole harbor problem but, unfortunately, it would be—elsewhere. Three million dollars seems a costly sacrifice to lay uponthe altar of the Manhattan Tradition, but when did true wor-ship ever count the cos

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