The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-08-15

1 was proposed to ask Congress for an
 amendment to the law for the conver-
 sion of alleys into minor streets de-
 signed to meet the court ruling which
 had put the spoke in the wheel of the
 present law. It was further proposed
 that the request to Congress be broad ened, that Congress be asked to finance | a commission created to study the
 whole alley question and to make rec concentrations for converting the all 1 1eys into a system of minor streets within definite number of years. Such
 a commission would add to the vaIua- ble informat ton gathered by organiza- | tions like the Presidents Homes Com
 mission definite data on the number,
 length, width, direction, etc, of the
 alleys and plan street system which would make the greatest possible use
 of these existing passages. This would
 not only solve the alley problem, but would give Washington what 1t and every other city needs-a< system of
 minor streets affording sites for inex- penSive small houses
 1 The committee adopted this program
 and at a second meeting the chairman, William H. Baldwin, appointed a com
 mittee to take 1t up with Congress. As 8. result bills designed to solve the
 alley problem have been introduced 4n both houses.
 All this is encouraging as showing
 that the present agitation has stirred l bottom. But it carries with 1t the old
 danger that some among the agtta- tonss wearfed by their efforts, may
 persuade themselves that having start
 ed the movement they can now safely leave it to take care of itself, may fail
 to realize the great opportunity now
 before them and be satisfied with half way measures
 washington has long enjoyed the
 reputation of being the best planned i city in America, the one large city in
 the world which from the day of. it's
 foundation has been built more or less sconststently. along the lines of a. care fully thought out plan. Only recently l has it been realized that from the be- ginning this plan has been incomplete While 1t provided for great buildings
 and for dwellings of the wealthy and
 the wel1-to-do. it not only fasiled to
 provide homes for wage earners but actually offered temptations, to house | these wage earnerS in unwholesome
 manner. The magnificent, wide aye
 nues designed by Major U 'Enfant bor- dered along a great part of their dis
 tance by very deep lots. led inevitably
 to the construction of winding, branch
 ing alleys and the erection of hidden
 houses which had no place in the orig i tnaI plan.
 Modern city planning lays the ern- phasis less on public buildings and boulevards and more on providing sites
 for homes. So the original plan of Washington must be supplemented by
 a modern plan providing a system of
 minor streets to let the wholesome l light of publicity into the hidden l Esluns Of Washington and to provide econornict use for the backs of the over
 deep lots that line the avenues. They
 will do away with the present terapta- ton to keep the old shaclxs standing or to build houses fronting on the ave l nues but extending so far back that their middle rooms are dark and air less Halfway measures at this time may wipe out the alley s1uns of the l-Capital only to give in place of them a far more difficult problem. the deep, -1nIighted and unventilated multiple l dwelling.