Goldsboro semi-weekly argus., 1909-07-21
GREAT TUNNEL TO
BE OPENED MONDAY
Considered Greatest ERgi
Deefing Feat Of the
Century.
WORK STARTED IN Iy7y
Tubes Under Hudson River Completed
By McAdOO at a Cost of $4,000, 900.
Terminals Building VIII Be Conn
pIete in Every Detail.

pIete in Every Detail.
New York, July 1.-THE south
tubes of the Hudson and Manhattan
Railroad Company, commonly known
as the McAdoo tunnels, running under
the North river from the Hudson
Terminal buildings, Manhattan, to the
Pennsylvania Railroad station, Jersey
City, will be opened to traffic Monday
The entire tunnel system, from the
Hudson Terminal buildings to the
Pennsylvania, Erie and LackaWanna
Railroad stations, will be completed
and ready for operation on that day
builders to deliver sufficient equip
ment makes it possible to operate then
only that portion of the line from the
Hudson Terminal buildings to the
l'ennsy Is anl;t Iiailroad station.
The opening of the tunnels and the
completion of the $6O,000,000 system,
which has been in course of construc-
ton intermittently since 1878, will be
signaliZed by a fitting celebration.
Jersey City will be the scene of the
principal celebration. When the first
train starts on its trip Jerseyward
Monday afternoon with the tunnel day
guests as passengers twenty dynamite
bombs will be exploded high in the air
over the Pennsylvania Railroad ferry
house. Then every locomotive and
fo oR~ h toll f11o <~f
the town will be expected to get busy
and every ferry and tug boat on the
river will join in the racket.
The opening of the south tunnels
marks the practical completion of the
McAdoo system, which has been fire.
quently adjudged to be the greatest
md most costly engineering feat of
the century, as well as the most COM
prehensive traffic arrangement ever
devised. The project for tunnels to
connect New York and New Jersey
underneath the Hudson river was first
broached in 1874. Dewitt Clinton
Haskin, civil engineer, of California,
who had been active in the construc-
ton of the Union Pacific Railroad,
drew the plans and made the surveys
at his own expense.
Starting at Fifteenth street, Jersey
City, one hundred feet inside the river
bulkhead, he began his first bore. The
work was soon stopped by an injunc-
ton obtained by the Lackawanna
Railroad. A few years later the liti-
cation was settled and Haskins' son
succeeded in pushing it on until in
1880, when some 1900 feet of the tun-
mel had been completed, the company
failed. The work was abandoned for
ten years until Pearson and Son, the
great English contracting firm, and
Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin
Baker, who built the bridge across the
Firth in Scotland, became interested
III the pI oject and took it up again.
Two years later the company again
failed.
The work was revived in a short
time, but it was not until William G.
McAdoo, a young lawyer, took hold Of
the enterprise and organized the Hud-
son and Manhattan Company that it
was successfully carried on. The Nc
Adoo system comprises four tunnels
under the Hudson. The two north
tubes were opened last year.
And while this network of tunnels
that connects New Jersey with New
Manhattan Island, is wonderful
piece of engineering the Terminal
buildings, the great structure into
which all of these tunnels terminate,
is one of the marvels of the age. The
structure consists of two buildings
situated on Church street, from Cort-
landt to Dey streets and from Dey tC
Fulton. The buildings are % stories
high above the surface and extend 7E
feet below the surface to bedrock. Be
great terminal station, where 125, ,0Ot
passengers will be discharged ever!
| morning during the rush hours, ant
where like number will take th'
tunnel trains every night to return t.
| their New Jersey homes.
Il L i
4 the largest Office structure in tn
/ world. There is space on the twenty
two floors for 1000 offices, and prob
ably it will house more varied inter
ests than any other Office building o
earth. One thousand persons min
ute will pass through it's corridors a
day long, or 1000 persons in tn
course of a day. Aside from this foa1
ing population, the buildings will hay
as permanent occupants at least 10
900 persons.
The great space beneath the buil(
ings, where the terminal station is Il
Gated, will constitute a veritable eli
!, in itself. Here will be the great COZ
course, the largest to be found an!
where, waiting rooms, retiring room
telegraph stands, telephone booth
II flower booths and newspaper kiosk
restaurants, lunch counters, bootblac
stands, and every other convenient
possible in a railroad station TIL