Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 43, no. 1111: June 29, 1889

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June 29. 1889 Record and Guide. 907 our pavements would be checked by the citf assuming control of these street monopolies, viz., gas, electric lighte, street car lines, etc. It is clear that if we are to have sound and well-ordered streets, a plan must be devised wliich will allow fche mains, pipes and wires of but one gas, electric hght or water system to occupy a given street or district. A plan which empowers a private corpor¬ ation with the monopoly of furnishing gas, or any like convenience to the consumers of a given district, would not be tolerated for a moment. The only rational plan would be for the city to assume exclusive control itself of such lines. A single Une for the supply of such convenience is all then thafc would be necessary to each street. A great part of the mesh-work of mains, pipes and wires, which now underlie our pavements could be cleared away, and a plan for repairing these single lines, by means of fixed openings in the pavement, could easily be arranged. Municipal control of such works of a public nature as these mentioned is entirely practicable, as the experience of European local authorities and of many cities in this country sufficiently show. It would seem that the consid¬ eration of a proposition for the City of New York to assume control of these street monopolies is especially appropriate at the present time. ------------------m------------------ The Oommunipaw Station, The Central Railroad of New Jersey has lately built a terminal station at Communipaw, which is not only very extensive, as is shown by the cut, but which is also of a considerable architect¬ ural interest, as any single cut would show very imperfectly, since there is no such thing to be had as a general view of tlie building. A railroad station which is merely such, that is fco say, which is not connected with a suite of offices more extensive than is needed for fcbe mere service of fche trains, and which consists only of waiting rooms, passages and train sheds, is a diflicult problem of nave and two aisles. Its total length is something like 490 feet, and its fcofcal width 320, divided between a nave of 150 feet and aisles of 35 feet each. The arched iron trusses of the roof spring from iron posts corresponding to the pillars of a church, sepa¬ rating the nave from the aisles and forming longitudinal bays. There are sixteen of these bays, and each is accordingly about 30 feet long. Such an arrangement on such a scale must needs be impressive. It seems, however, in fche main, a piece of engineering which is only in a small measure architecturally developed. The riveted posts look workmanlike and sti-aightforward, and so do the longitudinal trusses that sustain fche clerestory, a perfectly plain series of openings, and the aisle roofs. The arched trusses that span the nave are very good and expressive taken singly, but the perspective effect is by no means what it might have been if. they had been arranged so as fco enhance it. There is nowhere, indeed, except at the exact centre, any sense of thafc lengthening and dwindling vista fchat exaggerates the apparent length of an archi¬ fcectural interior. The result is that the iuterior does not look ifcs length, aud the construction is in this respect nofc so effecfciveas fche round arches of the Grand Central station, which certainly have the force of repetition. The construction here is enfcu'ely differenfc, being of few and large parts, and more resembling an open timber roof, while the length of the bays prevents each truss from carrying on the line of the next, so that the fcofcal effect is confused and jumbled. In spite of this the shed is impressive, as has been said, and it is only the trained observer who sees how much more impressive it might have become. A much more satisfactory and more architectural piece of design —the best in the building, indeed—is the main waiting-room, which gives direct access fco the fcrain plafcforms. It is more than 70 feet wide, and longer, and very lofty. The height is divided, more tban ha'f way up the hall, by a continuous gallery carried on iron corbels. design, for a reason precisely opposite to that which makes a main difficulty of modern commercial architecture in general. In the latter case the trouble is apt to be a disproportionate height in pro¬ portion to area. In stations, on the other hand, the area is very grea^t in proportion to the height, so that the building or group of buildings, if it be planned with strict and exclusive reference to its practical requirements, is a sprawling and ineffective congeries of sheds. In order to focus it and to give it unity and importance, without which dignity is impossible, it iri necessary to supply some dominating feature, and tbis commonly takes the shape of a tower, to which a clock-face gives a sufficient pretence of utility. I This ai-chitectural necessity is supplied, in the Communipaw sta¬ tion, by the central feature of the front, and a picturesque and pretty feature it is, which forms an agreeable object almost from the New York side of the North River. What can be seen of it from the ferry-boat is an upjjer story of three triplets of plain arched openings in good common brick, crowned by a steep four- hipped roof with a crested ridge, crowned afc the centre with an open polygonal cupola in metal. At the centre a tall dormer, steeply gabled and pinnacled, and with judicious ornament in sandstone and terra cotta, is relieved against this dark roof and this gable carries a clock-face. Abreast of the upper sfcory of this central pavilion, and on each aide of it, is a range of four plain peaked dormers, and the top of the pavilion with these dormers, constitutes for architectural pur¬ poses the front of the station. What is below them is completely masked by the ferry slips and sheds, for the designers of one of fchese riparian stations has the difficulty, in addition to the difficul¬ ties that beset other designers of stafcions, thafc he cannot even make a front which can be fairly seen and seen all at once. The detail of the wall, when one arrives at it, is inoffensive and unpre¬ tentious, and the same may be said of the long flanking walls of the train shed, but neither is an object of strictly architectural interest. It is the interiors that are mainly interesting and noteworthy. The mere magnitude of a modern station, with the height to which, for light and air and abo for constructional reasons, it is necessai-y to carry it, make it an impressive object when viewed from the inside. The train-shed of fche Communipaw sfcation has cathedral dimensions, and also the germ of a cathedral arrangement in a The roof is timbered, or rather the ceiling is, in Georgia pine, the roof structure being three mefcal trusses, with a straight bottom chord. These are powerful and satisfactory features. The ends of the room are carried up to the roof in gable walls of buff glazed brick, with wrought work of Dorchester stone, with which tbe whole iuterior is lined. The openings of the lower story, below the balcony, are simple round arches filled with sashes. The upper openings are arcaded between the piers that sustain the roof trusses. In the east gable wall there is an additional gallery above, opened upon by three openings at the centre. In the west wall are three large openings at the gallery level, while above a large clock face supplies a central feature, with a group of three email arches above. The room ia very successful, the more becanse it eschews all orna¬ ment inconsistent with its utilitarian purpose, and gains its effect by careful adjustment of proportions and relation of masses. It is time an Exposition " boom" of some proportions was started in this city. The citizens of Washington have already organized and are taking energetic steps to create a pubUc opinion all over the country in favor of the National capital as the location for a Pan-American Exposition on the 400th anniversary of the land¬ ing of Columbus. The metropohs can present very weighty claims for consideration in the mafcter of selecfcing this location. The question as to the propriety of holding such an Exposition in the most populous and wealthy city on the one hand, or the capital on tbe other, has not arisen in other times and in other countries, because hitherto the two places have been identical. Now that it has arisen, it is the duty of every New Yorker to see that it is settled in his favor. That ifc would be a good thing for the property owners of this city does not admit of a doubt. It would be money in the pockets of retail and wholesale tradesmen; it would benefit the boarding houses and hotels ; it would act as a spm- for the making of improvements of which we could be proud ; and it would give the city what every American city needs, the benefit of a good advertisement. Further, it would be an acknowledgment, on the part of the country at large, of the supremacy of New York which could not fail ultimately lo bi-ing us business and population. It is not only, however, that New Yorkers should favor New York for New York's sake. Americans should favor our city for