The New York herald., 1875-09-19
New YOrk-What IL Is and What Ii
Might BE.

/
of New York and many pertinent suggestions
as to what the city might be- The picture
drawn by our correspondent of the city as it
has survived the Tammany Ring is dreary
and dismal enough, nor do we think it over
| drawn. When we see what has been done
! by two administrations administra-
ton of robbery under Tweed and Connolly
and the administration of imbecIllty
under Wickham and Green-we may
well believe that the great city has been
hardly used. We have debt larger
than the aggregate debt of twenty-one English
cities. According to a recent authority, Lon
don, with a population of 3,266,9S7, has
debt about one-ffth as large as that of
New York, with a population not more
than one-third Of that of London. This
Indebtedness in five years has increased
over hundred millions of dollars. Thus
in 1870 it was $54, 436, $50, in 1875 it
is S157, 57S, 391. To show for this vast ex-
! penditure we have only the Central Park.
In all the other essentials of great metropo-
lis we are lacking. Our streets are un-
healthy, dangerous, unsightly. We have no
piers worthy of the name. We have no system
of rapid transit with the exception of little
struggling line on the west side of the island.
The journey from the Battery to Harlem in
midwinter is almost as tedious and much
more uncomfortable than journey from Cort-
landt street ferry to Philadelphia. In various
wards we have fever nests, in the shape
of undrained flats and imperfect sewage.
Our public buildings are few and shabby.
Our Court House is a monument of rapacity
and crime. At its side, in striking contrast
as if to show the difference between the city
and the general government we have the
magnificent Post Office, which we owe to
the bounty of the latter Take any one
| of our avenues or any of the cross
| streets, or any of the downtown parks, and
we find them torn up, broken and filled with
stagnant water. The streets lack repair. We
see wood and stone and asphaltum in the
same block and all running into decay.
This is because our city has been governed
not for the good of the people by men
who accept public trusts for the honor they
bestow, but by thieving vagabonds and des-
perate politicians who regard New York very
much as the pirates of the Spanish Main
were won't to regard the specie-bearing ships
of Mexico and Peru.
OF course we cannot 90 on in this way.
II is proftless to lament the past or to expect
any restitution from those who brought New
York into this condition, especially so long
as our laws are so framed that the monumen-
tai robber Of the nineteenth century has only
to pay half a million dollars stolen from
the treasury to lawyers, leeches and black
mailers to escape not only with personal i'm
punity, but with the absolute possession and
enjoyment of his stolen gains. Our concern
is the city. If we have lost hundred mill
ions of dollars in the last five years and our
debt returns show that we have increased
the burdens to that amount we must enter
upon new policy. If New York will main
tain its commercial supremacy if it will
continue to be in fact as in name the metrop-
oils of the North American continent, it
must map out new career of development
and progress. Our first duty is to make the
streets comfortable and convenient. We
have tried all manner Of experiments in the
last few years in wood, stone and various
chemical compounds. Experience shows
that we need a system of macadamized pave
ments, especially on Fifth avenue, the
main highway to the Park. The macadam-
lied system is in the long run the most
economical. Every years wear only i'm
proves it, if it is properly managed at first
A good macadamized road running
from Washington square to Central
Park would be a public convenience
the value of which cannot be too highly esti-
mated. The other streets should be paved
in the same manner or with some well
tested, durable substance. Then we should
have a system Of piers and docks and ware
houses. The commerce which We lost dur
ing the war will in time come back to us.
With as fine a harbor as any on the Atlantic
coast we have scanty accommodations
Portland, Norfolk Baltimore and Charles
ton are disputing our commercial prece-
dence. They are making every effort to
divert our trade to their own markets. Al
though the task may appear a wild one any
such effort is not to be despised, especially
when we remember that fifty years ago we
were not first in the race The position we
wrested from other cities may be taken in its
turn from US.
Above oil things we must have rapid
transit Without this New York can hardly
be habitable city for the poor man.
Rapid transit is as necessary as air and
breathing spaces. We have grown on and
on in the density of population until the
/ lower wards Of this island are packed. The
poor man must necessarily live in this con-
tracted quarter because he is denied access
to the open regions beyond. These regions,
surpassed by none in beauty and salubrity,
might with proper system of rapid transit
be reached in a few minutes and become the