OPINION 
 
 JOHN JACOB ASTOR AND WILLIAM ASTOR 
 
 ON A 
 
 BROADWAY UNDERGROUND RAILWAY. 
 
 STATEMENT OF 
 ABISTER BARTLETT,Esq. 
 
 REPORT OF 
 SAMUEL McELROY, Chief Engineer. 
 
 1884. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The main arguments presented at the joint hearing before the Senate and 
 Assembly Railroad Committee, and urged upon members of the Legislature and 
 others, were based upon the statement that the Messrs. Astor and other Broad- 
 way property owners, were opposed to the construction of the Arcade Railway ; 
 also, that a Board of Commissioners, appointed by the Supreme Court, had de- 
 cided adversely to such a road. We have taken from the official records of the 
 proceedings of said Commission, and herewith submit, the statement of the Messrs. 
 Astor and their engineer ; also extracts from the report of said Commissioners. 
 
 It will be borne in mind that the persons petitioning had no charter from 
 the Legislature, but applied under the General Tunneling Act for the right only 
 of constructing a dark, deep-sunken tunnel railroad, from the post-office to 14th 
 street. The facts stated by the Commissioners, and the objections urged against 
 the Tunnel are, substantially, the same as have been repeatedly presented by the 
 promoters of the Arcade plan, and they do not, in the least, militate against the 
 practicability of an Arcade road. On the other hand, the facts which even the 
 Commissioners state " were well and sufficiently proven," meet and remove the 
 objections which are urged by those who oppose the Arcade. 
 
 We commend these authentic records to your thoughtful attention. 
 
EVIDENCE SUBMITTED BEFORE THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS 
 APPOINTED BY THE SUPREME COURT ON PETITION OF THE 
 PROPOSED "BROAD WAV UNDERGROUND CONNECTING RAILWAY 
 COMPANY," IN 1881 : 
 
 Mr. Auner Babtlktt appears and reads before the Commission the following state- 
 ment : 
 
 Mr. Bartlett : " Representing the interest of Mr. J. J. Astor and Mr. William Astor, 
 I would say that, should your honorable Board of Commissioners, after hearing the evi- 
 dence produced here in favor of and against the practicability of building in Broadway 
 an underground railroad between the points asked for in the application before you, con- 
 clude that said road can be built carrying four tracks, or four sets of tracks, and without 
 essential damage to the buildings abutting on the line of Broadway, and without seri- 
 ously interfering with the surface roadway and with the travel upon the surface or street, 
 then we should not object to such road being built. 
 
 " We do object to the building of the road as originally planned by these petitioners, 
 namely, a two-track road, with very restrtcted apartments or tunnels, as being unques- 
 tionably inadequate for the New York, both of the early and later future, and only assent 
 to the proposition, provided, as I have said, your Honorable Board find upon the inves- 
 tigation into the subject, that an underground road can be built in Broadway consistently 
 with the interests of abutting property ; and also provided it is to be a four-track road, 
 so that local and express trains can be run upon it with safety and security, and the 
 apartments or tuneels are to be made as large as the street will reasonably admit. 
 
 " We, in connection with other parties interested in Broadway property, have asked 
 Mr. Samuel MeElroy, Civil Engineer, to examine into the whole subject for us, and his re- 
 port made to us, he has in hand, and we submit its reading by him to you." 
 
 From an examination of the testimony fend plans in the Broadway Underground Rail- 
 way case, I am of the following opinion : 
 
 The structure proposed will not prevent a proper re-arrangement of the gas and 
 water mains, and it can be made to accommodate the telegraph and telephone wires. 
 
 For the sewerage of Broadway proper, a small pipe on each side will answer every pur- 
 pose, and is easily arranged. For the Canal street case it appears that the present sewer, 
 four feet in diameter, is about nine inches in grade above mean high tide, and is backed 
 up by spring tides ; west of Broadway no change will be made by this construction ; cast 
 of Broadway the sewerage can be carried toward the East river, subject to similar back- 
 
 [Seo Commissioners' Report, Vol. 2, pages 508 and o92.] 
 
 Broadway Rapid Transit. 
 
5 
 
 ing up. In this case, as in that of other lines across Broadway, I have not made any 
 elaborate examination, as it is evident on inspection that there are no impracticable diffi- 
 culties. The entire Canal street valley sewerage is more defective in arrangement, and 
 
 will need, at the proper time, adequate drainage by interception and pumping. 
 
 ***** 
 
 As to the construction of such a double tunnel in the Broadway formation, chiefly of 
 sand and gravel, without exposing the foundations of the buildings or vaults on either side 
 to any danger, I see no engineering difficulty which the usual appliances will not meet. 
 It is necessary to guard the excavations from any flow of material from the sides or front 
 and if this is done no disturbances can occur. In the very tedious, difficult and danger- 
 ous construction of much of the London underground work, where the most important 
 streets, sewers and buildings were undermined, the Thames embankment, and the river 
 itself crossed in a formation specially treacherous, far below tide level in various cases ; 
 the work was accomplished safely and effectually, and has been in constant use since its 
 
 opening, for the transportation of over 60,000,000 of passengers annually. 
 
 ***** 
 
 While this covers the question of construction under the present plan proposed, in the 
 effect on buildings and property, I may venture to carry this explanation a step further, 
 by request, in a brief discussion of the general question of rapid transit, in relation to 
 Broadway property, and to the comparative scale of the plan proposed. 
 
 Through a continuous series of years the property owners have practically prevented 
 the natural artery of New York, as to its location and as to its business and financial 
 rank, from furnishing any adequate transit accommodation to the vast numbers of peo- 
 ple drawn toward it from New Jersey, Staten Island and Long Island, from Westchester 
 and Connecticut, and the railway systems which connect with New York. 
 
 The result is, that instead of being the central highway of the Island, with its branch 
 lines radiating from Union Square, parallel lines in less favorable streets have been used 
 for street cars and steam transit, and as those systems arc gradually improved, the effect, 
 according to all ordinary laws of movement, will be to create substitutes for Broadway, 
 
 in convenience of access, and valuation of property, reacting against this avenue. 
 
 , * * * * * 
 
 The question then arises for serious discussion, whether the present is not the time for 
 Broadway to look the next fifty years in the face, and take proper measures to retain its 
 prestige, and how far this proposed plan meets this contingency. 
 
 With ten main avenues of transit we now have nine double-track street railways, and 
 four double-track elevated steam lines. In 1879 their travel was 109,755,647. 
 
 This then represents the travel which now passes around Broadway because this avenue 
 
 will not take it. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 If Broadway should be able to put the Battery within eight minutes of Union Square, 
 with a capacity of 30,000.000 to send through about eighteen miles to a center opposite 
 Yonkers, which should be done in not over forty-five minutes, it would take its proper 
 place among the avenues. This could be accomplished by a double track express line. 
 If it should also provide a double track way line of 15,000,000, its local business would 
 be supreme. This the present plan does not secure. 
 
6 
 
 Fortunately, with forty-two to forty-four foot carriage-way, it will require but a small 
 concession of vault space, on any part, to furnish this street with such a four-track under- 
 ground line. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Without any injurious encroachment on vault room, Broadway can ho made the most 
 effectual artery of rapid transit in New York, and become the terminus of all the subur- 
 ban lines, and share advantages now driven to other avenues. 
 
 " Remarkable progress! has been made in the use of naptha gas and superheated 
 Bteam. The use of compressed air has been relieved from some hindrances, and from 
 careful experiments I know that a mixture of compressed air and steam is an entire suc- 
 cess in increased power with greatly reduced expense. Rapid progress has been made in 
 electric motors ; the English engines burn coke. It is not necessary, therefore, to burn a 
 pound of common coal under Broadway, for engines, and its objectionable products may 
 thus be largely avoided, while the exhaust steam is easily condensed in the engine tanks. 
 There will be no objection then to ample street ventilators, supplementing the free use of 
 side chimneys. The maintenance of a comfortable, uniform temperature, is easily accom- 
 plished, and its advantages to track superstructure very important. 
 
 In such a structure the highest economy in operating expense is attainable. Trains, 
 conveniently reached by short stairway, will move on solid ground, where engines can be 
 handled, at high speed, confidently, on easy grades and curves, where derailment is se- 
 curely guarded ; signal lights, not likely to be lost in fogs; no risks to occur from wind- 
 storms, rains, snows, fogs or frost ; fires not likely to cause delay or long obstructions ; 
 residences, churches or stores not disturbed by noise, smoke, gas or other nuisances ; 
 pedestrians, cars and carriages not subject to falling cinders, oil, rust, water, tools, or other 
 damages ; while the operating expenses will be reduced to about thirty-five per cent of 
 gross earnings, or nearly half the average of the elevated lines ; and the formidable ques- 
 tions of taxation, damages to property and otherwise, reduced to a minimum." 
 
 The operating expense of the London lines, as compared with those here, is as Si to 
 57^; the number carried is about the same. 
 
 The conclusion which follows goes to show that the plan proposed is not impractic- 
 able, and may be carried out without exposing the property to serious injury, and in its 
 operation will benefit the avenue and the city ; but that Broadway is readily adapted to 
 a development of this plan to a much greater scale, which the present state of rapid 
 transit and of rival avenues makes not only advisable but urgent. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 SAMUEL McELROY, 
 
 Civil Engineer. 
 
 Note. — William W. Astor, while a State Senator in 1881, voted iu favor of the charter of the Broadway 
 Underground Railway, and personally solicited the approval of Governor Cornell. 
 
 Extract from the Report of the Board of Commissionfrs (referred to on introduc- 
 tory l'AGE.) 
 
 ''The proposed plan of construction involves seven or more openings in the side 
 streets in the immediate vicinity of Broadway, sufficient in extent to permit the expedi- 
 
7 
 
 tious removal, at the several openings, of the material excavated from Broadway, and the 
 introduction of construction materials ; it also involves erecting temporary bridges, to he 
 thrown across Broadway and supported at the curb-stones, at an elevation of two or three 
 feet above the curb, in order that travel upon that thoroughfare may not be wholly in- 
 terrupted. It also involves the necessity of having the timbers of such bridges of suffi- 
 cient strength to suspend and hold in position such water pipes and gas pipes as are to be 
 left and remain in Broadway, after such tunnel shall be completed. It also involves re- 
 building elsewhere, under the supervision of the proper departments of the city, but at 
 the petitioner's expense, of trunk sewers, and laying water mains in substitution for the 
 greater part of the service now performed by the large sewers and water mains now 
 located under Broadway; the new sewers and water mains to be completed, connected, 
 and ready for use before the old sewers and water mains are disturbed, and before the 
 construction of the tunnel shall be commenced. 
 
 " The stations are intended to occupy spaces partly beneath the sidewalks, varying 
 from six to fourteen feet in width, and about five hundred feet long; the entrances and 
 exits to and from which are to be through the ground floors and basements of buildings 
 fronting on Broadway, and the stations and the tunnel proper are intended to be ventilated 
 in part by apertures terminating in iron columns to be erected on the sidewalks at fre- 
 quent intervals. 
 
 "The proposed plan also involves the protection against injury or damage to the build- 
 ings fronting on Broadway which would result from excavating the street to the requisite 
 depth, and thereby weakening or undermining the foundations of the buildings, which 
 go to a depth of from twelve to thirty feet below the sidewalk. This protection involves 
 sheath piling, with bracing, underpinning with needles, shoring, or the building of new 
 piers beneath the present foundations, or a combination of two or more of these methods, 
 as the particular case may require. 
 
 "There is some conflict of evidence upon the subject-matters referred to in the three 
 preceding paragraphs; but it appears to be welt and sufficiently proven that the present 
 state of the science of engineering is such that a sufficient amount of time and money 
 and the use of adequate means are the only limitations to the successful performance of 
 the worli proposed. * * * * * * * * 
 
 "The proofs do not warrant the expectation, much less establish as a fact, that the 
 proposed railroad of the petitioner, if successfully completed and in operation, will of 
 itself and alone, supply, to any extent, the present needs or future requirements which it 
 is intended to meet. As a link of a completed system of similarly constrncted railroad 
 extending southerly to the Battery and northwardly from Fourteenth street to a connec- 
 tion with other established lines of railroad traversing the city th rough its entire length, 
 the proposed 1 railroad of the petitioner might be very desirable, if not necessary, xohen 
 constructed in a proper manner and under proper conditions, although at the expense of 
 public and private interests." 
 
 Dated New York, February 19, 1883. 
 
 JOSEPH S. BOSWORTH. 
 JNO. O'BRIEN, 
 ARTEMAS H. HOLMES, 
 
 Commissioners. 
 
s 
 
 The objections tlie commissioners found to & tunnel road (contrasted with the advant- 
 ages of the arcade) are : 
 
 That a tunnel would obviously lack capacity to accommodate the travel. 
 
 The four-track Arcade road, on the other ha id, can accommodate 100,000 passengers 
 an hour. 
 
 That a tunnel road would be a tremendous obstruction — would require an excava- 
 tion of thirty feet in depth — more than forty cubic yards of earth to every running foot — 
 the removal of all this earth, and the storage in the lateral streets of the enormous quan- 
 tity necessary to refill Broadway above the completed tunnel, and the relaying on this pile 
 of loose dirt, the pavement of this magnificent thoroughfare. 
 
 The shallow excavations required for the Arcade would create no obstruction what- 
 ever, and the roadbed when completed would be as perfect as science coidd devise. 
 
 That a tunnel road would be dark, ill-ventilated and unwholesome. 
 
 The Arcade would be well ventilated, light and pure. 
 
 That a tunnel road (from Park Place to Fourteenth street) would connect no great 
 systems of travel ; would begin nowhere and lead nowhere. 
 
 The Arcade road would begin somewhere and lead everywhere ; it would furnish 
 just exactly the swift passage which the narrow island now imperatively demands and 
 form a continuous connection with the railway system of the entire country. 
 
 That a tunnel road would not accommodate way travel, and would bring to the trade 
 of Broadway no advantages to compensate for the tearing up of the street. 
 
 The Arcade Railway, on the contrary, would duplicate Broadway, with a sub-sur- 
 face street well lighted and ventilated; would change the dark cellars into basement stores, 
 fronting on pleasant sidewalks ; would provide vaults ample and accessible for all pipes 
 and wires, thus avoiding the necessity of tearing up the street; would, having four tracks, 
 furnish real rapid transit, provide the cheapest and most complete accommodation possible 
 for way travel, and for transportation of freight and express, aud by thus removing all 
 obstructive vehicles from the upper street, systematizing the travel, and by the applica- 
 tion of a motive power, vastly more effective than can be used on the surface street, 
 would not only more than treble the capacity of Broadway in all the essential elements 
 which make a street useful and adjacent property valuable, but restore to Broadway 
 more than its former prestige, and by the magnificence of the design and utility of its 
 arrangement would surpass any street in the world. 
 
 lion. Melville C. Smith, 
 
 President '■'■The Broadway Underground Railway Cb." 
 
 170 Broadway, ) 
 New York City, March 2J 1884. j 
 Dear Siii — From an intimate professional and personal acquaintance with public 
 works on Long Island and New York Island since 1852, I am of the following opinion, as 
 to the proposed Broadway Arcade Railway. 
 
 First. As the most direct avenue to be selected for connecting the Battery with its 
 ferries; the Long Island and New Jersey passenger and freight railroads and ferries; the 
 business center of the city ; the railroads above 42d street, upper New York and the 
 suburb district across the Harlem river, any experienced engineer would select Broadway, 
 
9 
 
 after a proper examination of its line, location, levels, subsoil, sewers, water, gas and 
 other pipe systems, and its structures. 
 
 Second. The railway system for such an avenue must have four tracks, and the width 
 between curbs is ample for their safe and efficient use, the outside tracks being used for 
 way travel, with cars of the width and character, with some modifications for ingress and 
 egress, of the present eleveated railways; the central tracks being used for express 
 business; and all tracks used for freight at convenient hours. This will require about 
 forty-two feet, which is the width between curbs, at the narrowest point on a street eighty 
 feet wide. It is not necessary to take time here to show the value of four tracks for 
 adequate accommodation, and the propriety of restricting fast trains to distinct inner 
 tracks; or the defects of the elevated system, in speed restricted to about twelve miles 
 per hour, or its limit of transit nearly reached. 
 
 Third. This system should be underground. I think no engineer familiar with the 
 cost and contingencies of operation and maintenance of the elevated roads would advise 
 their repetition on Broadway. Such a structure on such an avenue would be a serious 
 injury to its appearance and use for business purposes" and avenue travel, although it 
 would carry a large number of passengers. Yet it is quite obvious that Broadway, to 
 retain its standing, must choose between an elevated or underground railway. 
 
 Such a system, with well-arranged walks on each side, practically gives the business 
 another tirst-class story for display and sale of 'goods, immediately fronting on a city car 
 line. And in such a formation as exists here, anywhere above tide-level, this can be 
 secured without depriving them of the vault space for storage, which is a prominent use 
 of the street below the sidewalks, and can be made as useful and kept quite as dry below 
 the proposed walk for the width it appropriates. 
 
 Fourth. Broadway has had most significant warnings that its property-owners and 
 business men must not maintain the opposition made for more than twenty years against 
 railway accommodation along this avenue. The result is and must be to create other ave- 
 nues of travel, to divert the public and its business away from it, and depreciate the 
 value and income of its property. Statistics in some cases show, as between 1S72 and 
 1879, a serious depression in rents, and the laws of public accommodation show the con- 
 nection between such an effect and its cause. In 1879 nine double-track street railways 
 and four double-track elevated lines carried around Broadway, up and down town, 169,- 
 755,617 passengers; in 1883 the railway travel was 268,718,877. 
 
 In October, 1881, at the request of A. Bartlett, Esq., agent of Messrs. John J 
 and William Astor, I prepared for him and submitted to the Commission then in ses 
 sion on the Broadway Underground Railway matter, an opinion on the feasibility of con- 
 struction of a four-track railwaj 7 , under this avenue, as to its effect below Union square, 
 as to the various objections which had been raised, and I came to the following conclu- 
 sions : 
 
 That its summit position relieved the sewerage system from embarrassment, since 
 the water flowed both ways from the avenue as a rule, and that the Canal street exception 
 did not involve anv serious difficultv. 
 
 That as to the water, gas and other pipe and wire systems, the construction of such 
 a work was highly opportune, since it enabled the city authorities, once for all, to adop. 
 a compact and convenient arrangement for the present and future, which, like the trunk 
 
10 
 
 sewer lines of Paris, would provide ample accommodation, free access, and cheap main- 
 tenance, for what is now a complicated, vexatious and totally inadequate system. The 
 corrosion of these pipes is now an expensive and dangerous condition of their location 
 which this structure would greatly benefit. 
 
 That as to the risk of damage to foundations of buildings, no avenue could be 
 selected in a more advantageous condition, since the formation is the well known coarse 
 brown sand which makes a stable foundation for any building, which does not retain any 
 soil or rain water except at a level very near that of tide, and therefore is not exposed to 
 quicksand runs; which has a slope of repose of about one and a third to one, so that as 
 long as this slope is maintained, no sliding nor settling can occur; while protection 
 sheathing is easily made in case any portion of this slope is to be disturbed for construction. 
 
 The buildings, as a rule, have the very prominent advantage and protection of the 
 permanent vaults, built under the sidewalks, in some cases over twenty feet dee]), and in 
 all cases with strong partitions which form most admirable counter-forts at right angles 
 to the line of thrust in case there is any disturbance of the sub-soil. 
 
 With all the improvements in methods of sub-soil and sub-marine foundations, now 
 at our service, and especially with the remarkable success and stability of the under- 
 ground railway work, in London and other European cities, in Baltimore, St. Louis, and 
 other cities here, no experienced engineer can have any serious question as to the entire 
 feasibility of this construction, on Broadway, and at Canal street, or Whitehall, 
 or for branch lines down town, likely to be built in connection with this work, no 
 risk can occur, at all comparable with many of those in the cases cited. 
 
 Looking at this work as a close student of the difficult problem of terminal facilities 
 for the proper reception of the enormous and rapidly increasing trunk line traffic of the 
 west, and its return freight from the business center of New York, in a case where it 
 costs as much, sometimes, to "put a load into a car here as it does to carry it to 
 Chicago ; having in mind also the tendency of shipping business to work southward, on 
 both sides of New York bay, and the vital uses of a united railway system for Long 
 Island, New Jersey and New York, for passengers and freight, in addition to the advan- 
 tage of putting the Battery within eight minutes of Union Square and forty-five minutes 
 of Yonkers and its belt ; it seems to me that the propriety and the necessity of a short, 
 direct, low-grade railway acting like this, to Broadway, tending towards decline, to New 
 York as a city, to the environs of New York bay, and to upper New York, are so plain 
 as to raise this question far above any mere avenue improvement, while its effect on the 
 avenue proper must be direct and conclusive. 
 
 In my opinion then, from long familiarity with the conditions of the harbor, of the 
 cities built on it, and their traffic, this plan is of vital consequence to them all, and 
 specially so, to New York city, and local or personal objections, even where well founded, 
 ought to give way to the general welfare. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 SAMUEL McELROY, 
 
 Civil Engineer 
 
ll 
 
 We add the following complete and unqualified endorsement of the Arcade plan by 
 the eminent engineers whose names are appended : 
 
 "1. It provides a pleasant, rapid transit for through passengers between the lower and 
 upper ends of the island, and a slower but still speedy movement for the local passengers. 
 
 " 2. It provides a cheap and convenient channel for the conveyance of freight between 
 the termini of the steam railways and a large portion of the business houses in the city. 
 
 "3. It classifies the travel and trade and removes from the present street so many of 
 its vehicles as to render it more useful and pleasant for carriages. 
 
 '''4. It furnishes an arcade avenue and promenade convenient for pedestrians at all 
 times, and with special advantages in warm, cold or stormy weather. ^ 
 
 " 5. The sub-way will be well ventilated and lighted, so that its use will be pleasant and 
 healthy. 
 
 " C. It can be constructed without interruption, either to the travel on the street or the 
 convenient use of the buildings adjacent, and without occupying the street for the haul- 
 ing of the materials required from or to the work ; and it can be built without endanger- 
 ing any of the structures along the street, and with arrangements for a better location of 
 the water and gas-pipes and sewers, and without any interruption of the present connec- 
 tions. 
 
 " 7. The route selected, namely, that along Broadway, is determined by the topogra- 
 phy of the island. 
 
 " 8. It in no case occupies or injures any private property, but in nearly all cases 
 greatly enhances the value of the property along its route. 
 
 " 9. There are no difficulties attending the construction of the work which cannot be 
 overcome with engineering skill, and at a comparatively moderate cost. 
 
 l< Finally, it meets a necessity in the most complete and unobjectionable manner." 
 
 George B. McClellan, Sylvanus A. Sweet, Charles H. Haswell, 
 
 William J. MoAlpine, I. F. Quinby, H. G. Wright, 
 
 Egbert L. Vikle, John B. Jarvis, John Newton, 
 
 Julius W. Adams, Silas W. Seymour, J. N. Greene. 
 
 To these may be added the names of many other prominent engineers and architects in- 
 cluding the strong endorsement of W. P. Trowbridge, Professor of Engineering ot 
 Columbia College, in Harpers Weekly of March 29th ; of his brother, Chas. A. Trow- 
 bridge in a letter to the Daily Graphic of April 7th, also of George B. Post before the 
 recent joint meeting of the Railroad Committee of the Senate and Assembly. 
 
 The press and public of New York city have with remarkable unanimity urged the 
 adoption of the arcade road, and the already large and rapidly increasing number of own- 
 ers and occupants on Broadway, favoring this plan, bear evidence of how completely it 
 meets an imperitive need of the city and how greatly it would benefit the property along 
 its route. 
 
 Office of 
 
 "The Broadway I'ndergrouud Railway Co.," 
 
 115 Broadway, New York City, 1884 
 
sew 
 
 Ex idtbrtfi 
 
 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
 'Tort nteuw ^imjitrthm ojr Je Mtrnhatans 
 
 IVben you leave, please leave this book 
 
 Because it has been said 
 " Ever'thing comes t' him who waits 
 
 Except a loaned book." 
 
 ?~7 
 
 Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library