The Architectural Annual

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...would make it what the court of honor was to the World's Fair. So far as I know there is no other city which has so grand an approach as this might be made. In New York the problem we have endeavored to solve in placing the new public buildings is much more complex, for it has involved the reconstruction of the city street plan and become part of the need of new broad avenues to give access to the entrance to one or more proposed new bridges across the East River and one across the Hudson. The narrowness of the average New York street in the lower part of the city is the despair of that problem, and the ubiquitous trolley now demands such space that the only hope for man on earth seems to require it buried out of sight. Then comes the disposal of the arrogant, reckless, irrepressible bicyclist. What can we do with him? Bad as all this is for the New York problem, it is simple straightforward work if there is enough civic pride to work with. The average New Yorker does not care a little bit about improving the city. It is to him only a place in which to make money. He knows he is burdened to death with civic taxes already, and when you talk about opening new streets through property the ground value of which alone he computes by the square foot, he knows you are clear stark mad. Now, in closing, I want to say a word for the commercial value of art or the investment value of artistic improvements. The interest on the national debt of Italy is $90,000,000 in round numbers. The travelling English leave them $30,000,000, the travelling Americans $30,000,000, and the travellers of other countries $30,000,000. And why do they go there? Almost entirely because of the arts of Italy, for there is little else to attract so many people as to pay the interest on the nat...