The New York herald., 1870-05-06
Tho broadway Arcade swind'e Exposoo-
How co Relieve tho City.

L
nor Hoffman, at Albany, on wednesday iass'
against the Broadway Arcade Dill, the out
rareous character of that scheme as swindle
upon public rights and private rights Is laid
bare In all its details. The reasons thus pre-
sented against the signing Of this bill we
hold TO be 80 conclusive that we can hardly
entertain a doubt as to the decision Of the
Governor.
| From these arguments it appears that when
the proposed excavations get fairly under way
there will be complete state of chaos and
confusion, rendering not only Broadway totally
useless and impassable, but blocking up all the
streets leading from one side of the city to the
other; that the bill also proposes to turn
over to the discretion of this Arcade Company
the public parks along the line and that there
are no safeguards to the private property
along the route. Indeed. the Arcaders are
authorized to appropriate the vaults the whole
length Of Broadway, to the house walls, with
out compensation. The vote provided for of
majority of the property owners along the
route is delusion, because the most valuable
property of the city below Union square to the
Battery may be voted away BY property holders
on the line up at Harlem river and thereabouts.
The bill, on its face, makes provision for the
sale Of the franchise, thus leaving Broadway
and the city at the mercy Of a pack of ire
sponsible and unknown spectators, without
| limit as to time. It invalidates the contracts
entered into by the State with the Pneumatic
Tunnel and Underground Railway Companies,
and grants franchises already covered by these
and other parties.
Next as to the engineering difficulties and
damages involved in this destructive scheme.
At the estimated progress Of the work it will
take over fifty years to carry it from the
| Battery to Harlem river, and some twelve
years from the Battery to Union square. An
excavation twenty-five feet deep is to be
made from the house walls on one side Of
Broadway to the house walls on the other SIDE,
clearing away carriage pavement, sidewalks,
vaults, gas pipes, Croton water pipes and
| sewers. This work will involve the danger of
unsettling the foundations and bringing down
into mass of ruins the front Of every heavy
building on the street. At the low level of
Canal street, as we have already suggested,
causeway elevatng the street and cause
ways elevating the cross streets in that region
some twenty feet will have to be built or
system of underground and underwater tun-
nelling will have to be adopted, which will pro-
badly of itself fix blockade over all that low
level of the city on and contiguous to Broad
way for ten years to come, rendering utterly
useless all the property thereabouts for these
ten years, except for the purposes of this
Arcade ring.
And yet again. In the public parks along
the line of this proposed Arcade it is left to the
discretion Of the company whether they shall
seize public property to the extent Of ten mil
lions or fifty millions The extent Of their
discretionary powers to seize and appropriate
public and private property is without q
parallel in the history of any legislation of any
| government of which we have any record, and
| the looseness of the terms in reference to what
the company are required to do is so very re-
mark able that the bill has the appearance of
daring scheme of gang of blackmailers
authorized by the Legislature, for ''a share of
the swag," to levy their forced contributions to
the extent of millions upon millions of spoils
and plunder. But in all its Infamous features
of robbery and spoliation this bill, in the
exposures of Messrs. Jaffray, Detmold, A. 7.
Stewart, Hilton, Chapman and Ogden, has
been 30 fully explained to the Governor that
we not only expect veto, but public
proclamation from him against this atrocious
| scheme of plunder which will serve as a whole
| some warning to our mercenary lawmakers at
Albany for years to come.
The question, then, recurs, cramped be-
| tween two broad and deep rivers as our city
| is, how can we be provided the ways and
| means of speedy egress and ingress for mil
| lion of people between Harlem bridge and the
| Battery? From the undulating surface of the
city, with its several and extensive depressions
to near the water level, underground railways
are impracticable, and surface steam lines are
out of the question beyond the halfway lines
now tolerated inside the island The only
alternative, then, is the elevated or aerial rail
way system adopted by some Of the London
lines. On this plan, however, we may have
| two. three or half dozen steam lines from
the lower to the upper end of the island, pass
ing over the tops of the houses between any
| two of the parallel streets from the East river
to Harlem. On this plan steam line could
be constructed in connection with the proposed
Brooklyn bridge, whereby passengers might
come down from Albany to Brooklyn Heights
without detention or change Of cars. By these
elevated roads, too, business men might leave
the lower end of the city at half-past five and
still be at home in Westchester, or in the heart
of Long Island, in time for their six o'clock
dinner.
In any event, we fully share in the opinion
Of Mr.. A. I. Stewart that Governor Hoffman,
| knowing as he knows and identified as he is