The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-30
THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS.


The property holders in the neighbor ood of
Washington and Independence Squares are
determined, notwithstanding the expressed
wishes of the people, that the new public
buildings shall not be put up on Penn Squares
if it can possibly be prevented, and they are
leaving no stone unturned to accomplish
their object of having them placed in an
utterly unsuitable location in order that a
comparatively few buildings on Walnut,
Chestnut, Fifth, Sixth, and other streets
may be made to yield in the
future, as they have in the past, enor-
nous profits from the rental of rooms as
offices. 1t was thought by our citizens
generally that an expression of opinion at
the polls would settle the whole controversy
forever and the wording of the law, as we'll
as the discussions that took place pre-
vious to the election, allowed no
voter pretext for not expressing his
preference between the rival sites in an in
telligent manner. The law expressly gave
the commission power to locate the buildings
upon the intersection of Broad and Market
streets, if they thought proper to
do SO; and that this would be
the result in case the Penn Square
site was chosen was considered by the oppo-
nents of that site as one of their strongest
arguments, and was urged with persistence
that intimated clearly that they fully under
stood the wording of the law. Now that the
choice of the people has been definitely made
it is claimed that the law gave the commits
sion no such power, and the announcement
of their intention of placing the buildings on
hn f1la uh will ,,alra
ditable architectural display, or fulfil in a
proper manner the purposes for which they
are intended, is made pre-
text for causing further delays, and,
if possible, of preventing the erection of
the buildings anywhere but upon the two
squares that the voters of the city refused to
recognize as proper sites for them. The anti
Penn Squareites have, as last resort, obtained
from the Supreme Court a preliminary in
junction restraining the commissioners from
prosecuting the work, upon a petition pur-
porting to emanate from a number of promi-
nent property holders in the neighborhood of
Penn Squares. We are authorized to state
that one of these so-called petitioners,
Richard Peterson, Esq, did not authorize
this use of his name, but on the
contrary refused positively to sign the petit
ton, for the good and sufficient reason that
he is warmly in favor of having the public
buildings placed just where the commits
sioners design to place them-at the intersec-
ton of Broad and Market streets. In all pro-
liability it will be found, upon investig alton,
that others of the names that appear upon
the petition are used in the same fraudulent
manner; and the court, before it attempts to
hear an agument on the injunction, would do
well to inquire into the matter, and fiud out
whether it has not been imposed upon by
gross and disgraceful fraud.
With regard to the arguments against the
plans of the petitioners, they can only be
characterized as the weakest kind of twaddle.
is the only proper place for an imposing pile
of buildings such as the commissioners pro-
pose to erect, and it is the sheerest nonsense
to suppose that with a street 13O feet wide
around them, they will in any sense be OBJ
structions either to Broad or Market street.
On the contrary, they will break up the uni
formity that is, to all strangers, one of
the most unpleasant characteristics
of Philadelphia, they will be
seen to advantage from a number of points
of view, and they will do more to ornament
and improve both of our great thoroughfares
than dozens of handsome edifces scattered
along the lines of the streets. ALI of the
clamor against the plans of the commission
ers comes from interested parties, whose
motives should be considered we'll by the
court in rendering its decision, and it will
be an outrage upon the present citizens of
,Inln nl,ohs H.
generations, if the wishes of the people, ex-
pressed in clear, emphatic, and unmistak-
able manner at the polls last October, are de-
feated by any of the mean tricks to which
the Washington and Independence Square
property holders are now restoring.
TIE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS OF ENGLAND which