The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1870-05-19
From the Missouri Democrat
The Arcade Railway.

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Governor Hoffman has vetoed the
New York Arcade Railway bill. Per-
haps none of the extraordinary acts
passed by that most extraordinary
body, the New York Legislature, has
caused so wide diversity of feeling
as this. Some good citizens thought
it the grandest plan ever devised to
make New York the greatest city
on earth; others thought it certain to
ruin Broadway, destroy the business
of the city, break up its parks. and
put property valued at hundreds of
millions absolutely at the mercy of a
set of spectators.
The necessity for some increase of
facilities for transportation and travel,
between the upper and lower parts of
the city, is acknowledged by every
one, and the Arcade bill, it must be
admitted, proposed a more thorough
remedy for this difficulty than any
other yet devised. The plan was to
excavate under Broadway through its
whole length. and create a second
street under the present one; to give
up the lower street to railroad tracks,
of which four shonld run side by side,
one each way for passengers, and one
for freight to create along this under
ground street miles of new stores
fronting on the railway for wholesale
business, occupying the Easements
and cellars of the present stores :;
and at the same time. by a solid
pavement and sidewalks supported
by iron columns, to leave the present
travel and use of the present Broad
way wholly undisturbed. At every
corner, stairways run TO lead from the
upper to the lower street, and the
covered sidewalks below ground
would form In wet weather a dry and
clean promenade. The water and
drainage from the upper street would
be conveyed away In the hollow iron
pillars on which it was to be support
ed. This conception as a whole, it
will be conceded, was one of the
grandest ever formed. It would have
made a new street seven miles long,
devoted to railway use alone, and
would give value and great useful
ness to an additional story below
ground of all buildings fronting on
its whole length would have been
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railway trains would carry through
passengers from the upper to the
lower end of town without frequent
stoppages, while slower and more
numerous trains, stopping at every
corner if signaled. would give transit
to waystraVel. The street would not
only have been the wonder of the
world it would not only have vastly
increased the value of property on
Broadway, but it would have render
ed living and the transaction of busi-
ness in New York much cheaper.
Like most other grand schemes for
public Advancement, this Arcade rail-
way had large swindle in it. The
men who put the bill through the
Legislature meant to be able to pay
for their franchise-and such fran
chise from such a Legislature must
cost money. But they were not con-
tent with the extraordinary profits
which the bill In its most unobiec-
tionable form would have secured.
They put into the bill clauses which
nobody could defend, giving them the
right to take without pay, fer sta
tons and other purposes, such of the
public parks as they might need;
giving them the right to take prop
erty, from one end of the street to
the other, upon an assessment of ben
e6ts and damages to the owners to be
made by board over which the cor
porators had complete control, and
providing that all legal proceedings
in question or stay of their per-
formances in any particular, should
be had before the Judge of
one specified district. It was
not unreasonably supposed that the
Judge and the Board were I'm the
ring" Newspapers not interested de-
nounced the scheme as the biggest
sWindle of the age, and property own
ers, representing hundreds of mil
lions, went before the Governor to
protest against the bill.
So the Arcade railroad scheme was
defeated, like many other magnificent
plans, by the boundless greed of the
schemers. It's great merits. however,
have been recognized by the people,
and will probably cause new efforts
to secure the franchise on more rea-
sonable terms, and with men as COR
porators whose standing and charac-
ter will be regarded as pledge that
the vast powers necessarily granted
will not be used to the public detri- 1
ment