A Really Greater New York 



Bv Dr. T. Kennard Thomson, Consiiltinsj Entfineer 



Dr. T. Kemiard Thomson, zvliose description of his project of a "Really 

 Greater Neiv York" is published herezmtJi, is considered an authority of note 

 on pneumatic caissons. He has designed and built pneumatic caissons for 

 important bridges over many of the great rivers of the country, in addition 

 to having been retained as a consulting engineer in the construction of over 

 twenty New York skyscrapers. During his experience he has underpinned 

 buildings as high as eighteen stories, putting in new foundations with the 

 slightest possible settlement, although sometimes the neiu foundations zvere 

 sixty feet under the old. Dr. Thomson luas one of the board of five con- 

 sulting engineers in charge of the New York Barge Canal in 1^14-15, and is 

 also the man who conceived the project of btiilding a nciv dam in the Whirl- 

 pool Rapids, near Niagara Falls, zvhich zve described in our November issue. 

 — Editor. 



AT first glance, 

 a project to 

 reclaim fifty square 

 miles of land from 

 New York Bay, to 

 add one hundred 

 miles of new wa- 

 terfront for docks, 

 to fill in the East 

 River, and to pre- 

 pare New York 

 for a population of 

 twenty million, 

 seems somewhat 

 stupendous, does it 

 not? 



One hundred 

 years ago Gouver- 

 neur Morris, Sim- 

 eon De Witt and 

 John Rutherford 

 spent four years 

 laying out New 

 York, and went on 

 record as saying 

 that "the country north of One Hun- 

 dred and Twenty-first Street would nev- 

 er be covered with houses for centuries 

 to come." Now apartment houses extend 

 to Yonkers, to White Plains and to New 

 Rochelle. New York's overflow has 

 made of Brooklyn a great city. New 

 subways are constantly being built, yet 

 are inadequate when they are com- 

 T)leted. Twenty-five years ago New 

 Yorkers felt sure that their water-front 

 would be sufficient for their purposes 

 for manv vears. Today engineers are 



Dr. Thomson is an engineer who thinks 

 in large masses, and then arranges his de- 

 tail to solve the problem he has created 



searching for some 

 method to cut the 

 Gordian knot of 

 New York's har- 

 bor conges- 

 tion problems. 



It is hard to 

 realize the e n o r - 

 mous strides o f 

 the past century, 

 and still more dif- 

 ficult to compre- 

 hend the needs of 

 the future. 



Now I propose 

 to add, by a series 

 of engineer- 

 ing projects, fifty 

 square miles to 

 Greater New 

 York's area and 

 port foothold. At 

 the same time this 

 will mean an addi- 

 tion of one hun- 

 dred miles of new water-front. New 

 York's City Hall would become the cen- 

 ter of a really greater New York, hav- 

 ing a radius of twenty-five miles, and 

 within that circle there would be ample 

 room for a population of twenty-five 

 millions, the entire project to be carried 

 out within a few years. Many have said 

 *Tt can't be done.'' The majority of en- 

 gineers, however, have acknowledged the 

 possibility, and I have received hundreds 

 of letters of encouragement. 



Although this would mean an expen- 



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