and durable, and of a fine appearance." If I may say so, in the present condition and capable of withstanding the elements, whereas any one who has eyes to see need not be told that a stone like Indiana limestone discolors sadly when exposed to the salts in our sea air. We have at hand Stony Creek and Leete's Island granites, amended and used all over the country; we have East Haven sandstone, rough, but fine in color, durable and adapted for almost all situations where cutting is not necessary; we have trap rock, neglected by our own builders, but lately used by one of the foremost firms in the country in Christ church, West Haven; and we have the marbles of New Preston and the Canaan dolomite used in the capitol building at Hartford. Our trap rock, when crushed and powdered, is unsurpassed for the body of ferro-concrete—the building material, as many think, of the future.

Brick as a material for buildings of the first importance has been too long despised. Mr. McKim's great long of brick buildings in Washington for the Army war college, is being visited by architects from all over the country. St. Paul's chapel, just finished in New York by Messrs. Howell & Stokes, is of brick and terra cotta and justly considered to be one of the finest modern structures we have.

## The New Railway Station.

But the formation of a civic center on the north side of the green is only one of the problems pressing upon New Haven for immediate attention.

The Consolidated railway has engaged the services of Mr. Cass Gilbert, one of the most distinguished of all American architects, to design a great railway station which will form, as it were, a vestibule for the city.

Mr. Gilbert, I may say, in passing, was employed by the city of St. Paul to study its problem and report a plan." Devised without any expectation on his part that its suggestions would bear much fruit in this generation, he has been happily disappointed. The citizens have taken the matter up with enthusiasm and splendid progress has been made in the last three or four years. It may not be amiss to say here that St. Paul owes its "plan" to the initiative of the women of the city.

It is the wish, as I am told, of the president and directors of the road to recognize New Haven as its home by building here a great station in every way worthy of its purpose, an ornament to the city. To meet this wish Mr. Gilbert has planned a great building or rather group of buildings which will be as substantial in construction as they will be noble in design—massive, on a great scale. Nor will his end with the station itself. The front of the new station will be made into a garden which will lead to trolley sheds of glass connected by covered walks along the main entrance to the station. I am told that a group of arcades be suggested for ultimate erect-

ion station group and the Green! This brings us to a subject of paramount importance—the subject of improved approaches from the station to the green. With Mr. Gilbert in the very midst of his creative work, it is almost a crime for him to be obliged to place his building without knowing what future provisions will be made for better approaches to the green.

The present approach through Meadow and Church streets is inadequate. The present approach through State and Chapel streets is roundabout and too accidental to be dignified by the term "approach." The "Little Orange" street way of getting from the railway station to the green has the same objections, and in its present state may be disregarded.

In a few years, with the growth of the city and the extension of trolley lines in every direction from it, a new approach from the railway station to the green will be imperatively necessary. The surface car problem is entirely unsolved. It is our transportation problem, and the longer we put off its solution the greater the cost and probably the less satisfactory the solution. The use of electric cars by all classes is constantly increasing and will increase still more as the fares are reduced, as in time they must be if present tendencies can be accepted as guides for the future.

The New Havener of the future will unquestionably insist on riding even shorter distances than the New Havener of today. People living in the entire outlying country will in the future probably pass through the center of the city on their way to and from the railway station. No possible arrangement of loops and the formation of new centers of distribution in the existing streets can, it seems to me, provide for this traffic. New streets will have to be furnished. This transportation problem is a problem by itself, and it should be studied and studied now.

## Stately New Approach to Green From Station Through Temple Street.

I believe that by some judicious cutting and re-arranging of streets between Lafayette and State streets on the south side of Chapel street that one or more new approaches to the railway station to the green might be made at a cost which would be more than offset by the resulting additions to the grand list by the appreciation of values. For instance, it seems to me to be feasible to swing Temple street eastward from the point of its intersection with George street so as to bring it out back of the Garde hotel and in front of the present railway station. Commerce street would be utilized in making this change.

Such a street, if made of suitable width, would afford a fine approach from the railway station directly to the green which it would intersect midway of its south side instead of at one corner as does Church street.

This plan would involve but little cutting and that little through a sec-

It has been the universal experience of other cities that as the result of such improvements, land values have been greatly enhanced. New buildings on this street could, without additional cost, be designed with reference to architectural harmony and dignity.

It requires but little imagination to picture a fine street leading from the new railway station to the "Green," forming a stately approach to the largest open square in the heart of any city that I recall, and in itself one of the noblest ornaments that any city in the world possesses.

The Church street approach to the green is wholly without dignity and falls altogether to take advantage of the nobility of the green itself as a feature of the city. I conceive also another new approach from the railway station to the green by way of State street, but one suggestion will answer my present purpose. An examination of a map of the city will suggest a number of ways in which an approach between the Union station group and the green might be created at no great cost compared with the advantage that would proceed from it.

It was my intention to illustrate some of the ways such an approach might be made, but the purpose of this paper is suggestive rather than definitive, and so I have decided to let the matter rest here.

## Impatience Will Not Solve Transportation Problems.

We may fret and scold as much as we choose about the Consolidated road without making any headway in the solution of our transportation problem, which is growing more and more difficult, every day, and which must sometime be solved at great cost. Impatience will not solve it. But experts can do it, and will do it, if we will be reasonable and progressive and give them a chance. They can show us how we may avoid crossing the green by surface tracks in Temple street. We must expect that will be done some day if, meanwhile we do not bestir ourselves and solve the question satisfactorily in some other way.

## Subway Under the Green Suggested.

A subway under the green has been suggested. If the New Havener of the future does not go under the green in cars, he will certainly go over it in cars. Why not begin now to plan so that when the time comes to go under it, that may be done in the best way? A subway may not be so remote after all when it is considered that the Northampton cut could readily be made available for use in conjunction with it.

## New Haven Needs a New Post Office Building.

On the basis of the amount of postal matter handled, New Haven stands about the thirty-first on the list of the postoffices in the United States. Our office is old, small and inconvenient. We need a new government building now. At best, a new building