Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-09
IN A HUNDRED YEARS.
What New York Will Be Like When a
Century Has Rolled BY.

From the New York Mail.
Controller CIRCUITS scheme for city on
the Jamaica bay islands and flats is APP
parently prompted by commercial consd-
erations Mr.. Grout never has shown any
of the marks of a dreamer But to get the
scheme completely in his head as It
seems to be he must have seen both Ven
ice and the White City of 1893.
We can imagine the salt water city IN
Jamaica bay, with real palaces standing
on the shores of grand canals electric gon-
dolas plying gaily up and down. and beau
tiful arched bridges, not of signs, but of,
smiles, spanning. the watery thoroughfares.
But our constructive imagination should
not get stuck In the mud between Rock
away and Canarsie. Why not cast the eye
full century into the future and conceive
what Greater New York will be when fl
has settled down to its really distinctive
state. as the cities of Europe have done?
New York is as new and Informed today
as almost any city of the great west. Any
one who IS able to recall how Broadway
looked. or how the city as a whole looked.
ten years ago, remembers a New York of
a totally different aspect from the one that
We see today.
Changes as great are in store. The COM
pletion of the new rapid transit system will
bring about many Establishments. 1t Will
create new concentrations of traffic, and
call for great structures In new places. II
Will begin TO reflect itself in the skyline
very soon after its completion.
Year by year this line will become less
ragged. The gaps will climb up toward the
level of the tops of the high scrapers Lon
don and Paris are fairly uniform because
economic considerations have made them
so. Any new city is ragged because II has
uncompteted gaps. When We COM
pleted the ~hggledy-pggledy- era will be
over. If nothing else will correct defects
and want of balance, towers will be design
edly erected to correct them.
In a hundred years the line of tall build
ings in Manhattan. dominated by sky
piercing, gracefully crowned city hall, will
be like the range of the Apennnes IN Italy.
The water fronts of the Hudson and the
East river will be a steady line of ware
houses and terminals commanded at regu-
lar intervals by lofty recreation buildings
on the piers. each one of which will have
beauty quite independent OF and yet har-
monious with the beauty of all the rest.
Farther up town great apartment houses
will overlook the water. Here and there
along the shore will nestle little parks and
upon both rivers stately steamers the de-
velopment Of our ferryboats, will glide,
carrying up and down such of the teeming
millions who live in newly created resi-
dence quarters as prefer that means of
transportation to the whirling cars beneath
the ground.
In the city itself the elevated structures
will long since have disappeared and so
will surface tracks of iron. Powerful dou-
ble-decked automobile coaches, which will
have taken the place Of trolley cars, Will
glide over smooth vitreous pavements.
By a natural process of evolution all
squalid. mean and disfguring buildings will
have disappeared from our streets. All
points of vantage, like the intersections OF
streets and avenues, will have been occu-
pied by structures of character and dignity.
The wealth of the city will have found all
appropriate outlet in fountains and statues
at all such points.
Splendid clubs will have multiplied.
Learned societies Of which we have not yet
dreamed will all have their houses. The
since have been completed, creating. with
it's dependent structures, architectural
effect upon Morningside Hill that will rival
the beauty and grandeur of the Acropolis
at Athens in its glory. Here and there all
over the city the places of assembly or
philosophical and ethical societies OF vari-
Gus sorts will rival the splendor of the
churches
Massive and imposing model tenements.
or great phalansteries occupied by people
living according to a cooperative plan. will
have taken the place OF the structures or
the slums. Meantime it Is fair to suppose
that the palaces of the rich will have null
tiplied in number and greatly improved IN
architectural character.
The parks will have become beautiful in
way thatwe can hardly imagine I'M
possible and unadapted growths will long
since have disappeared, while trees now
tanned their perfection All the parks VIII
have been adorned with statues. pergoias
and fountains. AT intervals stadia. coll
seums. theaters and other places OF recrea-
ton and amusement Will have been reared
Only a beginning is this of the things
that are to be In this town in a hundrel
years. But perhaps 1t Is enough TO set