Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1908-02-27
NEARING COMPLETION.
Gigantic Tunnel System will
Mark the Completion OF
the First Section of the
Gigantic $6O,OOO,OOO
: Tunnel System, and the
Event will be SignaIized
by a Fitting Celebration.
President Roosevelt VIII Press But.
ton in The White House at Wash
inQtOH Which Will Start
The First Train Nov.
inc
Especial to The ARGUs.)


New York, Feb. 22-The north tubes
of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad
Company, commonly known as the
McAdoo tunnels, running under the
North River from Hoboken to Morton
street, Manhattan, will be opened to
the public next Tuesday. This will
mark the completion of the first Sec
ton of the gigantic $4,000, 900 tunnel
system, and the event will be signal
lied by a fitting celebration. Presi-
dent Roosevelt will press button in
the White House at Washington which
will start the first train moving, and
it is expected that Governor Fort, OF
New Jersey, and Governor Hughes, OF
New York, will take an active part in
the exercises.
The McAdoo system, which has fire.
uuentIy been adjuaged to be the great
est and most costly engineering feat OF
the century, as well as the most COM
prehensive traffic arrangement ever
devised, was first started in 1874. De
Witt Clinton Haskin, California civil
engineer, who had been active in the
construction Of the Union Pacific Rail
road, drew the plans and made the sur
veys at his own expense.
But at that time people laughed at
the project. It was the scheme of a
dreamer with q disordered mind, they
said, and even engineering experts
shook their heads. Capitalists would
have nothing to do with it. The early
promoters of the project completed
about l, 200 feet of tunnel under the
Hudson, and then tailed. Ten years
later others took hold of the scheme,
built about the same number OF feet
and again failed. From 1892 to 1902
there was nothing doing in the tunnel
line under the Hudson river, SO far as
this scheme was concerned.
Then it was that William q. McAdoo
and his associates took hold of the work
that others had failed to carry tc a sue
cesstul termination. Now the dream
of former years is about to become an
accomplished fact. Within a few
days passenger trains will be running
regularly beneath the great waterway
between the Jersey shore and Manhat-
tan.
The section now completed COM
prises about one- fourth of the entire
line of tunnels and tracks which will
be opened for passenger traffic during
the summer. The route OF this section
is from the terminal, at the foot OF
Ferry street, Hoboken, under the river
to Morton street, up Greenwich street
to Christopher, across Christopher 10 |
Sixth avenue, and up Sixth avenue to
Nineteenth street. When completed |
the system will continue to Sixth ave-
nue. to Thirty third street. There will
be tunnel also from Sixth avenue |
across Ninth street, connecting with
the present Subway just above the
Astor Place station.
The southern division of the system
runs down the Jersey side from the
Hoboken terminal and across the river
to the Dey street terminal in Manhat-
tan, with stations at the Erie and Penn
sylvania railroad terminals in Jersey
and connection with the Fulton street
station of the Subway. Another line
will be extended from the Pennsylva-
mia terminal to Newark. These Sec
tions of the system will be opened in a
few months.
The grand terminal sstation for these
tunnels will be the great Terminal
building now being erected on Church
street, which, when completed, will be
the largest Office structure in the world.
There will be space on the twenty-five
floors for 1000 offices, and probably it
will house more varied interests than
any other Office building on earth.
The station will be located under this
mammoth structure. The floor just