Omaha daily bee., 1902-02-07
ROUND ABOUT NEW york.
nipples in the Current of Ldfs in the
Metrop0Iis.

RippIes in the Current of Ldfe I'm the
Metropolis.
A writer In Worlds Work enumerates
the many public and semi-public improve
ments now under way in the greater city.
When completed they will largely trans
form the metropolis and they are to be
followed by other improvements Of equal
magnitude, The writer asserts that the
city is being rebuilt on a scale SURPRISING
the dreahs of progressive Knickerbockers.
Brick and timber and stone filled the
streets, along with the big steel Rirders for
the new constructions. This went on up-
town and downtown till there is wide
line Of desolation and destruction from the
Battery to the Bronx. But rising out Of the
devastation here and there IL the ugly
framework which preeages the newer city.
Monstrous once buildings with thirty
stories above ground and with Ave stories
beneath the street level, each accommodate
ing more busy people than all the main
streets of many an inland tow I'LL the
lower end OF the island. Uptown vast
apartment structures spread out over acres
of ground and. rising fifteen or twenty
stories, house individual cities Of people.
Down through the city from end to end.
digging and blasting and drilling. thou
uands of men are building the greatest sub
way in the world, which will cost more
than $50, 0O0. 900, cutting through rock. min
ing underground and throwing havoc to right
and to left all along its course. Stretch
ing out across the East river LIS the new
b~rldge-larger than the older Brooklyn
b~ridge-which will cost SIS. 0o0. 900. 1t is
only one Of several which are projected.
Up at Jerome park a new reservoir which
will cost SIS. 900. 900 is being hurried to com
pletion, and farther out Is the growing
Cornell dam. New piers are being built
all along the water front for the foreign
trade, which is only Just beginning and Of
which New York will be the central port.
Small parks are being made to give the con-
centrated population Of the lower districts
breathing space. A speedway and boule-
Yards are furnishing open roadways to re-
place the truck-crowded main thorough
fares.
From the center Of Brooklyn electric
cars will shoot at fifteen miles an hour or
more under the East river and up Manhat-
tan island. Meanwhile, up and down the
stem Of the Y, through the busiest part of
Manhattan. will fly expresses as fast as
thirty-hve miles an hour. BY 1904 a worker
at the crowded lower end OF Manhattan
island will be able to reach a distant home
"@@A oAo OAAAOAN AhC . "
will no longer have its former terrors.
The new bridge" so-called, o~ficially
known as No. 2. ranks with the subway as
a spectacular feature In the city's incom-
pleteness. Ferry passengers crane their
necks at the spidery structure. and from
the old bridge BrookIynites gaze. morning
and evening, over to the %scrambling figures
at work on 1t. Completed, It will be to
most bridges of it's length as the fat side
Of a plank to the edge--Its claim to dis
tinction Is its width. There are bridges
longer, though from anchorage to anchor
age 1t measures nearly $500 feet; there are
bridges higher, though it rises 1875 feet, and
a mast 1874 feet high could clear its main
span by a foot; there are longer spans,
though 1t springs 1000 feet from tower to
tower, but there is no other long bridge 90
wide-11S feet. Across a double-decked
structure will pass on the upper deck two
streams Of foot passengers and two files OF
bicycle riders, and on the lower two pro-