Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/90

62 of a great deal more than the sum involved in the construction of the Panama Canal, the returns would quickly pay off the debt incurred, and then would commence to swell the city's money bags, until New York would be the richest city in the world.

By carrying out this vast project in stages, each complete in itself, the returns would pour into the city treasury even while the engineers were working, and thus save much money to the tax-payers.

The first step would be to build parallel coffer dams, about half a mile apart, extending from the Battery to within about one mile from Staten Island, and then connect the ends of these coffer dams by another coffer dam. The box-like space formerly these three coffer dams and the Battery would then be filled with sand up to about the low water level.

A clear, vertical space of at least fifteen feet should be left above this level, and below the street level, for sets of real rapid transit subways, conduits for electric power service, trunk sewers and all of those underground pipes which are an important part of the city's welfare, so that it will never be necessary to tear up the street to get at these necessary arteries of our city life.

Imagine the value of this new land for docks, warehouses and business blocks! The tax assessments alone would make a fortune!

From the new Battery, I would build a set of tubes and tunnels to Staten Island, bringing that land almost as close to New York as Jersey City is at the present time. Today the assessed value of Staten Island is about $50,000,000. With the completion of the land reclamation, the property value would not fall short of $500,000,000. This would help pay the expenses of the project.

The next stage would be the construction of a large island flanking the tip of Sandy Hook. Next I would make upon Old Orchard Shoal the first of two extensive areas which, when joined to Staten Island, would form a large enclosed basin, and in addition to this would afford protected dock frontage on several sides. The shallows just within and contiguous to Sandy Hook would be filled in, making a large new area.

The projects I have just mentioned would reclaim some forty miles of new land, which would be a maritime Pittsburgh, the greatest export manufacturing center in the world. In this new harbor, protected from the ocean by the new island off Sandy Hook, there would be docking facilities for the world's largest ships. There would be dock yards, dry docks, ship yards, coaling stations, which would make all of Staten Island a great industrial beehive.

Naval authorities agree that the East River is no place for the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In Newark Bay, after the completion of the operation, would be a great, protected Navy Yard, with ship yards and dry docks enough for the dreadnoughts of the future. A new river, cut straight through to Newark Bay, would form an ample entrance to the new Navy Yard.

My next step would make still greater changes in the topography of New York. I would construct a new East River, forty feet deep and one thousand feet wide, from Jamaica to Flushing Bay. While this is under construction, I would lay tunnels and rapid transit tubes beneath it. There would be no bridges over the new river. On the same plan I would cut a new Harlem River from Hell Gate to the Hudson. By means of these straight and wide rivers, our entire fleet of battleships could proceed from the new Navy Yard into Long Island Sound within a short space of time. At present they have to steam all the way around Long Island, as they cannot go through Hell Gate safely.

I would build a dam at Hell Gate and another just above the Bush Terminals. Heavy concrete coffer dams would prevent the land from slipping when the water was pumped out. Where rock is within a reasonable distance from the surface, and the bed of the river has been laid bare, I would not fill it with earth, but from the basic rock of the river bottom I would make concrete pillars carry highways and business blocks much after the fashion of the Grand Central Terminal.

In the space below the street level I would leave ample space for subways, for sewers and pipe lines. No digging