Year: 1870




Oar Docks-The Ncod Of Improvement.
New York is lamentably behind other great
cities in the right kind Of city improvements
and in no special department whore improve
ment is possible is it so far behind as in that
Of docks. To say that our docks, as they at
present stand, are disgrace to us is to say
but little. These rickety, rotten, dangerous
structures would be contemplate in city Of
far less commercial glory than ours; and
indeed it is inconoeivable that city whose
trade is in the hands OF merchants of the most
LIBERAL enterprising and energetic spirit
whose people take pride in their progressive
character-should so long have remained con-
tented with the water front that it found
satisfactory in the long ago years when 1t was
one Of the inconsiderable points in the map OF
traffic. Our system of wharves and piers is
now the same as it was when the commerce
of the port was in its infancy. The wharves
behind with the dumpings from excavations
and other sources, and the piers that extend
from the general wharf line are open timber
frames. in some cases filed in with broken
stone in others not filled in, aud simply
aoored over like bridges. Although the first
cost of wharves aud piers built on such plan
may be cheap nothing more extravagant in
the end could be contrived; for the expense for
repairs alone would in few years suffice to
build the most magnificent docks in the world.
Constant traffic wears away the flooring very
rapidly, and often great openings are left for
months without attention. It is an occurrence
not 80 uncommon as it should be for the street
children playing on the piers to be drowned by
falling through those places into the river.
Then where strong tideway bears directly
on a pier some of its supporting piles are car
ried away, and the pier remains with its back
broken for years Occasionally pier remain
ing thus for long while is at last, In some
violent storm, carried away, to the injury of the
shipping near it and piers have even been
carried away with merchandise upon them,
for which the city has had to pay damages.
All this indicates the very great expense to
be finally paid out of the city trade, in one
way or another, for the worst piers and





wharves that can be had, and may even help
to show how much the worst cost more than
the best. But there is now promise that we
shall soon begin to establish better system.
The main point is to begin right, and to give
the city, in the matter Of these improvements,
all that it has to pay for. The law creating
the Department of Docks authorizes fair
yearly expenditure, and evidently contem-
plates great progressive labor. If the men
charged with the duties that relate to this
expenditure will determine beforehand upon
some definite plan, not for the Improvement
of the present docks, but for the building of
entirely new structures of masonry, and will
apply the money allotted from year to year to
the carrying out of such plan, we may con-
template the possibility Of having the city
some day as well supplied with dockase as
some of its great commercial rivals. With the
labor once fairly begun we should be satisfied
with nothing less than the best docks engi-
neering skill can contrive