EAST RIVER TUNNEE. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM REPORT OF ALDERMEN FITSZIMMONS, 
 
 CONK LING AND STORM. 
 
 The Committee have held weekly public sessions for two months, mainly- 
 devoted to this subject, and have especially invited any citizens opposed to it 
 to present their objections. 
 
 Wo objection on public or private grounds has been offered and the public 
 and press have uniformly commended the measure. 
 
 Cities that grow unfettered by physical limitations, spreading in all directions from a 
 business centre, take, naturally, the circular form, and their areas increase so rapidly, as 
 the radius extends, that, with modern facilities of transit, no serious congestion of popu- 
 lation is possible. 
 
 Of such cities London is a conspicuous example, and as New York expects to rival 
 that city as the "World's Metropolis," the comparison of their respective conditions as to 
 room for growth is of the highest importance. 
 
 New York is peculiar among the great cities of the whole world, in that its develop- 
 ment is purely linear. Instead of the available space increasing as the square of the 
 distance from the centre, or even increasing directly as the distance, the increment of 
 area rather grows less as the distance increases. 
 
 Within a radius of nine miles New York has 17.4 and London 254.5 square miles of 
 area, a ratio of fifteen to one, London can therefore, house thirty millions of people 
 within that radius as comfortably as New York can two millions. 
 
 Under these conditions very grave evils, which have been and will continue to be 
 serious impediments to the growth of the city, have arisen in New York. The magnificent 
 harbor and water ways which have made it the great city that it is have not been wholly 
 unmixed blessings, since they have forbidden a natural mode of growth. Rents and land 
 values are very high; living expenses are high; in the sections inhabited by the poor, who 
 must constitute the vast majority of every great city, a terrific congestion of population 
 has resulted, far greater than exists on a large scale in any other civilized city. 
 
 The whole eastern third of the city beyond the Bowery and Third Avenue, a few 
 cases excepted, is one vast and squalid tenement region, crowded to suffocation with 
 human beings, and a breeding place of wretchedness and crime. 
 
 In spite of the fact that in every commercial or manufacturing establishment every 
 one, from the manager to the oflfice boy, must earn more and live worse than he would 
 anywhere else for the money. New York grows rapidly, but its growth will never be as 
 fast nor as great as if these disadvantages were remedied without sacrifice of its unique 
 and unequaled advantages as a commercial metropolis, which have made it what it is. 
 The one way to do this is to extend the residence area, which can only be done effectually 
 by the practical elimination of the East River as an obstacle to quick and cheap transit. 
 
 New York will then for the first time have a healthy, unimpeded growth. 
 
 The dispropoi-tionate expense of doing business of any kind in New York will con- 
 sequei»tly disappear, leaving the advantages of doing so unchanged. Hence manufacturing 
 especially will be ereatly stimulated, and many other kinds of business which now avoid 
 New York, if possible, will gradually centre here. 
 
 Besides the provision of room for growth, we must look also to the causes and means 
 of growth. 
 
 It caimot be doubted that the phenomenal growth of New York heretofore has been 
 due to the rapid increase of its inland communications. That increase is now suspended. 
 No more trunk lines of railway are likely to be built for many years and no canals at any 
 time. We must look therefore either to new local facilities for commerce or to the local 
 development of manufactures for any continuance of the present rate of increase in 
 business and population. 
 
 The present expenditure for moving goods on wagons in this city is stated at one 
 hundred millions of dollars per annum, a tax on living and business which, together with 
 the high cost of storage, is already beginning to drive commerce away. 
 
 As an instance. New England and Southern products are being carried around 
 New York by a single line of transportation to the amount of five millions of tons 
 annually, whereas, with cheap storage and handling a great part of these goods would be 
 received, sold and distributed here. 
 
 It is claimed that the present project will test and probably develop the practicability 
 not only of underground transit but of underground exchange and storage of goods at a 
 great saving in cost, and its advocates say that "among the natural advantages which 
 
Mayor Hewitt declares 'assure to this city its imperial destiny as the greatest in the world,' 
 one of the chief may be the rock foundation, which permits the building of another city 
 under it for its railroads and storehouses." 
 
 The cost of storage chambers in the rock is estimated at less than one third that of 
 equal space in buildings above ground. 
 
 In the development of manufactures, which has already taken great strides, it only 
 needs cheap homes and cheap food added to the present advantages of New York to make 
 this the manufacturing as fully as it is the commercial centre of the country — and these 
 can both be found in abundance on the other side of the East River. 
 
 It is admitted by common consent that tunneling is preferable to bridging : ist, in 
 economy of construction and maintenance, permitting lower rates of fare ; 2d. in the ab- 
 sence of obstructive approaches ; 3d, in making better connections with freight and 
 passenger lines on either side of the river. 
 
 Residents over the Bergen tunnel have no knowledge of the passage of trains beneath 
 them at a depth corresponding to that of the proposed railroad here. 
 
 The popular interest in this improvement is shown by the multitude of petitioners in 
 its favor, some twenty thousand in all, and the presence of representatives of many 
 organized societies for its advocacy before this Committee. 
 
 The suggestion that the interests of the "Annexed District" are opposed to any 
 improvement in its transit across the East River is derided by citizens of that district 
 themselves who maintain tliat their higher interests are in the growth and welfare of the 
 city as a whole, and therefore in ihe free and natural expansion necessary to that growth 
 and welfare. 
 
 Upon the subject of cheap food~~w\\en we see the coarsest products of Long Island 
 farms hauled on wagons a distance of twenty-live to thirty miles to this market (a thing 
 unparalleled anywhere in this country) and involving a cost greater than the first cost of 
 raising these products or that of transporting them across the Atlantic, and see the fertil- 
 izing material that should go to enrich those farms and cheapen their products carried out 
 to pollute the waters and shores of our seaside resorts, no other argument is needed to 
 show the importance of a direct railway connection between those farms and our markets. 
 
 With such connection every foot of Long Island would soon be a garden for New York. 
 The produce would be delivered on cars in markets throughout the city and sold from 
 those cars, thus reducing its cost to the consumer, improving its condition, and relieving 
 the overcrowded streets of the market wagons. 
 
 With such connection moreover, quick transit from New York to the seaside will be 
 secured and the resorts on the Long Island coast built up in preference to those of 
 New Jersey ; the whole Island will prosper and since it is entirely tributary to New York 
 its prosperity is our prosperity. This construction will be especially valuable as an experi- 
 ment in underground transit, and not the slightest obstacle to the proposed north and south 
 lines of underground roads, since all lines east of Tenth Avenue will easily pass over it 
 and a Tenth Avenue line would readily pass under it. 
 
 Reviewing the whole subject and considering the great and immediate 
 benefit to come from the expenditure of millions of dollars for labor in our 
 midst, and the deflnate financial advantages secured to the city, only the 
 most substantial objection would justify this Board in refusing its consent to 
 the undertaking, and since every consideration of justice and humanity toward 
 those who deserve the highest consideration at our hands, the classes by 
 whose unceasing toil the city lives and grows, combines with every dictate 
 of business prudence and foresight, in demanding this measure of relief it is 
 clear that no greater opportunity of benefieient action was ever offered to 
 this Board. 
 
 Its favorable verdict will "mark out a wise, broad and liberal policy for the 
 future, and inaugurate a new era of growth and prosperity. With cheap homes 
 and cheap food for the toilers and cheap handling and storage for the products 
 of toil, we shall so supplement our natural advantages that our children, if not 
 ourselves, may see IKTew York indeed the 'metropolis of the world.' 
 
 April 6th, 1888. 
 
 GEN. ROY STONE, 
 
 My Dear Sir : — The Chancel of our church is, I brieve, built directly over the Erie 
 Railway Tunnel and we are not in the slightest degree disturbed by the passage of trains. 
 In fact I have never detected from noise or any other cause, while in church, that trains 
 did pass through the tunnel, and yet it must be that they have, during the time of service, 
 lor our services', particularly during Lent, are held with great frequency. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 GEORGE P. HEBBARD, 
 Holy Trinity Church, /■Sector. 
 Jersey City Heights. 
 
 This statement is confirmed by letters from U. S. Senator McPherson and Judges 
 Beach and Aldrich of Jersey City. The tunnel tracks are 75 feet below the surface.