Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/899

 18G9-] Noticeable Jiangs. tOL THE NEW YORK POST-OFFICE. After a long struggle, the site at the lower end of the City Hall Park, New York, has been deemed ineligible and another part at the upper end of that little cit}' breathing space is to be chosen on behalf of the General Government, and an exchange made with the munici- pal authorities. To this end the Post- master General has appointed Messrs. A. T. Stewart, Horace Greeley, and William Orton, a commission, to effect the exchange in question. If the commissioners will be guided by the good taste and feeling of the citizens, the}' will no doubt decide on the corner of Chambers street and Broadway, as unquestionably the most fitting location for the new Post-office. The building could then extend from the former street to a point on a line with the front of the City Hall. By securing such a site there are two ad- vantages gained — First, that that paltry piece of extravagant outla}-, the County Court-house, will be kept partly out of sight, though unhappily not out of mind — Secondly, the dirt}' flank, and the brown stone rear, of the City Hall will no longer trouble the eye of the passenger on Broadway. — Now, here are two great and desirable ends to be gained, and the commissioners, if we do not greatly err in our judgment of them, cannot fail to see it in the same light. In any case, the relinquishing of the present site at the south end of the City Hall Park is a master stroke of taste and discretion on the part of the General Government, as it will protect the freedom of view which has ever pre- sented itself most pleasingly at the point in question ; and the acquirement of the site we most desire would close up, without diminishing, the park grounds, and leave a wide and very available approach for the mail-car- riages between the rear of the Cit3 r Hall and that of the New County Court- house. NEW OPERA HOUSE FOR NEW YORK. Mr. S. N. Pike, the enterprising and tasteful proprietor of two of the finest opera houses in the whole country, the one in Cincinnati, the other in New York, is about to build in that city a third and, rumor says, a still finer one than its charming predecessors. The site of the present New York one is rather inconvenient, a fault which will be admirably made amends for in the future structure, which is to be erected on Broadway near Fifth avenue, and will occupy the block in which the Young Men's Christian Association has its present quarters. There cer- tainly could not be a better position in the Empire City than that, and Archi- tecture could scarcely liQpe for a more advantageous site on which to display her charms to external admiration. The structure on Eighth avenue affords a lesson which it ma r be judicious to study in the new design. It is redun- dant in faults, lacking the very features of Architecture, wanting in taste, and in some parts positively out of propor- tion. The prominence of the new Opera House would bring such delinquencies of design into unescapable notoriety, which the backward position of the Eighth avenue building most happily withdraws it from. Let us hope then that the lesson will not be lost, and that New York may have the credit of a really worthy work of architect- uresque art. From the known liberality of Mr. Pike, it may be presumed that there will be no restraint of economj- laid on the pencil of the professional gentleman who shall have the good fortune to ex- hibit his knowledge and taste upon this acquisition to the Street Architecture, as well as the places of Public Amuse- ment, in the favored Cit}'. There will, therefore, be no excuse for want of ele- gance of design in the new edifice.