Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-25
SETTLING ON A SITE.
Trouble in Finding a Location for the
Columbian Exposition.
ONLY TWO PLACES AVAILABLE.
Chicago's Fair Will Probably be Built in
Lake Front Park.
CONSIDERING COL. ANDREWS SCHEME
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE Drsp.r

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DsPArcH.i
CHICAGO, August 24-If Mayor Cregier
deserved the scolding which Vice President
Bryan gave him at the last meeting of the
Worlds Fair board on last Tuesday even
ing, he is bravely atoning for it now.
The Mayors Committee on Grounds and
Buildings is just now the busiest thing
about Exposition headquarters. 1t seems
that 1t is always in session. Its door is al
ways closed and the latchstring does not
hang out Within the committeeman, il
not IN session, are listening to this or that
DELEGATION OF citizens who want the Fair on
sne w est Side, the Northside or the North
west, as the case may be. Then comes
an engineer who declares to them that it is
impossible to extend the Lake Front Park
by hlllng in the lake; another assures them
that it is out OF the question to pile II.
Then came Architect Jennison. of Chicago.
and Colonel Andrews, OF Allegheny, de-
claring that piling is perfectly practicable,
and the latter insists that he has seen SINH
lar work done IN the face of greater difficult
ties.
DIFFICULT DECISION.
The task which the committee must per-
form before Tuesday night is to determine
whether 400 acres of space in the 600 acres
OF the swampy Jackson Park can be OBJ
tanned without entailing too great cost.
and, If it cannot, to determine what is the
best site Of all those offered and obtainable.
The probabilities are that the Fair will 90
to the Northside site on the lake shore, to
which attention was called in The DIS
PATCH before any prominence had been
given to itSin the Chicago papers. and before
Landscape Artist Olmstead had so strongly
recommended it. Mr.. Olmstead's argument
in its favor is a strong one. The Fair, to be
success in an Artistic point Of view, must
have q picturesque location. No site in
or about Chicago has a picturesque
location except the two on the lake shore
jackson Park on the Southside, eight miles
from the business center, and the North
Shore site, six miles distant from the busi-
ness center in the opposite direction.
Hence one of these two sits must be used if
the buildings are to be so grouped as to
secure the finest possible effect on the imag-
ination.
NORTH SHORE THE BEST.
Jackson Park, Olmstead thinks, will not
do because of the great expense of convert
ing it from morass into a meadow. The
North Shore site, he says, will do because
it Is already high and dry, part of it is
beautifully wooded, and the view of the
son Park.
Mayor Cregier's committee find that the
title to this land is in the hands of great
many people, some of them minors,
and that it will be very dificnlt to get it.
The Worlds Fair corporation, of course,
does not have the right of eminent domain,
and cannot begin condemnation proceed
ings. 1t can only negotiate, and if one
stubborn land owner gets in the way he
may make the most beautiful site unaVail-
able.
The very great difficulties which confront
the Worlds Fair people on every hand may
yet force Them to unite on the Lake Front
Park, make the best terms they can with
the Illinois Central, and patch out the land
by building out over the water.
COLONEL ANDREWS IDEA.
IN that event the scheme suggested by
Colonel Andrews, of Allegheny, VIII receive
more careful consideration at the hands of
the public than it has yet had Mayor
Cregier believes that it is entirely practical
bic, but the Allegheny engineers plan Of
building q number OF small houses instead
of several great structures will hardly strike
the average Chicagoan as Just the right
thing. He wants a great structure some
thing greater than has been seen at any pre-
vious exposition, something that will pro-
duce an impression on the visitors which
shall not be easily erased.
That is what the Chicago man strives
after most earnestly in the construction of
every new business block. He wants his
architect to contrive something unique,
something the like of which has never been
seen before. something which can be seen
nowhere else than at Chicago. Surely he
will not forget his ruling passion when it
comes to putting up the buildings of the
Columbian Fair.