The Columbus journal. (Columbus, Neb.) 1874-1911, 1908-06-24

Wonderful Growth of the Worlds Metropolis
i'm Population and Wealth.

DIFFERING to real estate trans
action made by one Peter Min
uit, way hack in the year 1926
Bill Nye, in his history Of the United
States, declared:
"New York was afterward sold fol
$24; the whole island. When think
of this l 60 into my family gallery,
which / also use a. swear room, and
tell those ancestors what I think OF
them. Where were they when New
York sold for $24?"
The humor of this strikes deeply
when one stops to consider what has
been the outcome of this original in
vestment. Peter Minuit, with trinkets
and q few bottles of rum, so delighted
the native Indians that they gladly
turned over to him the whole of Man.
haitian island, now the heart of Greater
New York. While the original pur'
chase price Of $24 at compound inter
est for 2SO years amounts to several
millions, the land value has exceeded
it beyond comprehension, being nearly
Z billions of dollars, or 1000 millions,
which make a larger mouthfal in the
telling. This is more than the entire
wealth of Spain.
Someone who is apt at figures has
shown that New York city today is
larger in population than sixteen diff
erent states and territories and, further
that within a radius of twenty miles
are living over 10 million people. The
improved methods of transportation,
which are fast widening the limits Of
New York's business energy, will soon
embrace a radius Of fifty miles, within
which are located 2, 1854 different towns
and cities, whose total population, with
that of Greater New York, is equal to
fully one-fifth of the population Of the
United States.
In 1908 a writer prophesied that
New York, which then had a popula.
ton of 75,O 900, would grow to be a city
of 3 or 4 millions, and we of today
realize the foresight he must have pos
sessed in predicting so large city
Railroads in that day were in their
infancy, the first steamboat had jus,
been built, and Robert Fulton was
having his own troubles to make il
run. It would be a bold man indeed
who would attempt today to set the
figures of New York's population 1OC
years hence, in the light of those mod
ern inventions that have brought the
Old World within q five days journey
of America and the farthest bounda.
ries of our country within speaking
distance.
The cost of New York's building
operations in the course of year ex.
ceeds that of all other cities in the
United States combined. To erect q
2Ostory building on city block is to
increase its area twenty times. This
accumulation of skyscrapers in the
downtown section of New York has
resulted in building not only one city
but many cities, one lying fiat upon
the other as you would pile silver dol.
lars, and it can be readily seen that
with the transportation facilities only
three layers deep Subway, surface and
elevated) the "rush hour" congestion
comes from trying to take care of the
homebound traffic of those other cities
whose population is poured into the
street by the descending elevators.
The proposed application of the prin-
ciple of the gyroscope as a one-rail
aerial railway, with its untold possibll-
tiles, may clear the way for method
Of transportation for these sky cities, or
the inventors may come to the relief
with flying machines of commercial
and practical kind. Nine-tenths of
the population of lower New York are
up in the air, and the only way to get
to their homes Is to come down to
earth again. There's the rub!
*
1t is trite and commonplace matter
to refer to the great fortunes that have
been built up through the possession of
New York city real estate. The
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