Morning journal and courier., 1888-01-30
LIVE QUESTION.
Some Interesting Remarks Upon n Subject of Much Importance to our CffV.

A LIVE QUESTION. Some Interesting Remarks Upon n 1
 Subject of Much Importance to our
 City. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 Will the JOURNAL AND COURIER please ad- monish our city authorities not to repeat the blunder made by them at the time the Con- solidated railroad removed from the old depot.
 It is matter of record that, when it became in consequence of increased busi ness for the Consolidated road to move from its old depot Chapel street to location where it could have larger accommodations for the travelling public and greater facility for doing it's business, the officers of the Consolidated road sought long and hard to have the city authorities unite with them in securing advantages that should enable them to locate the future depot as near the center of the city as possible.
 Their original purpose was to locate the new depot between Wooster and Water streets, and 10 this end they tried every pos sible means to secure land accommodations.
 They had frequent conferences with the city authorities then in power and presented to them the great advantages accruing to the
 
 doing they could drop the trade people of the vast surrounding country right at the door of trade. Our city authorities not only did not cooperate with the directors of the Consolidated road in trying to secure to them land advantageous for their depot, but it is asserted that some of them high in authority went to some of the land owners whose prop erty it was necessary to secure and advised them to place high figure on the property, as the road would have to purchase it at any price. As matter of fact the price of land on Union street, betW cen Wooster and Wa ter, did go up, during the agitation of the removal of the depot, to almost as high figure as was asked for it on Chapel street.
 The directors of the Consolidated finally becoming disgusted with the spirit manifes ted LJ- the city authorities, and finding that they could not secure what land they re- quired except at great expense, the president of the road at that time is reported to have said that he would place the depot as far from the center of the city and as near Bridgeport as he could, and sometime the city would wake up to realizing sense of what it had lost.
 2 Who does not believe to-day that if the city had purchased all the land that the Con- solidated road needed for grand union de- pot between Wooster and Water streets, closed up Fair street, built the depot after plans submitted by the Consolidated, and presented it as free gift to it's directors it would have been one of the grandest invest ments the city ever made?
 Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, at least, in loss of profits in trade, is lost to New Haven by the transfer of the location of the depot.
 la other large cities millions have been ex- pended in tunneling through and underneath to locate the depots in the centers. New Haven is pierced in all directions by railroads subjected to'the annoyances of bridges and passing trains, and yet our authorities com pei the directors of these railroads to place their depots on the outskirts of the city, mile beyond the center.
 The location of another depot is the sub ject of supreme consideration before our city authorities at the present tiEae.
 The New York and New England have most generously and frankly told the city of New Haven what it purposes and wishes to do for its interests.
 It's officers have mapped out the bounda- ries for it's proposed extensive depot accom- modations, and have purchased largely of lands at generous prices for this purpose; and they have given their personal pledges that all they have promised shall be exc cuted.
 In all their dealings with the city up to the present they have acted the part of hon. orable men.
 By the contract with the city in the pur- chase of the Derby, the New England is pledged to wipe out forever the death-trap crossings from Water street on the west to the Consolidated track on the east. It has also pledged itself to remove it's passenger and freight depot and machine shop to the north side of Water street.
 future wants, it now simply asks of the city permission to carry out it's pledges.
 Having decided to build it's passenger de- pot facing on Commerce street, and by their proposed plan, the passenger coaches to enter the depot the idea of keeping open Hill street in the rear as public highway would be absurd in the extreme.
 Grade crossings must go. To bridge Lafay- cite and Liberty streets it must be apparent to any disinterested party that it would be g greater damage to property than to close them and parallel the railroad on either side from Cedar to Commerce streets. 2 Had thsrDsfby road remained as it was it is serious question whether the present plan would not have been the wiser one, and thus settled the grade crossing of these streets; 6 subject which our authorities have been wrestling with for years.
 But the New England in pledging itself to move the passenger and freight depots and all of the machine shops to the north side of Water street represents it's needs as such; that it wants all of the space bounded by Commerce, Silver and Cedar streets.
 The question for the city to decide now is, having forced the New England to move all of the buildings belonging to the Derby road from their present locality, shall the New England be allowed to place them where it has purchased property to place them and where it will be of the greatest advantage to have them, or shall it be forced for want of land convenience to locate it's buildings on the banks of the West river? Shall it receive the co. operation of the city in accomplish ing what it proposes to do-in building @ depot with all of it's equipments in the center of the city-or by throwing ob- stacles in it's way defeat it's grand purposes and destroy the city's greatest interests and 
 To tell the Nex England that it can thread the above tract of land with its rails, and then to say that Liberty, Lafayette and Hill streets must either be bridged or left open, is to say you can and you cannot If the New England should not cover all the terri tory named with buildings, the frequent moving of trains, as would be the case across these streets, would make it impossible to have these streets open at grade and imprac- tieal with several tracks to have them bridged.
 Should the city use the two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars which the New England has just paid into it's treasury in paying for damages to property, and other wise aiding it in carrying out this grand rail- road scheme rather than have it defeated or in any way crippled, who would not say that it was the best use the city could make of iti City of New Haven, please don't repeat the blunder. P. c. s.