RECORD OF TESTIMONY AND STATEMENTS IN RELATION TO 127 



NECESSITY FOR DISTRICTING PLAN 



could house another three-quarter million. There is no reason at all for 

 Manhattan's falling off in population from a congestion point of view. The 

 only thing is proper distribution by not focusing all the residences in one 

 part of the island, the business section in another part, and the manufactur- 

 ing in still another part. Distribute it more uniformly all through the island 

 and vou will conserve conditions and it will certainly reduce the congestion 

 in the streets. 



Statement by Madison Grant, Chairman of the Executive Committee, 



New York Zoological Society, May 5, 1916 

 Protection of park areas 



I feel reasonably certain that the courts will sustain restrictions 

 designed to maintain the character of parks or parkways. Where the city 

 has spent huge sums for the purpose of acquiring land for parks and park- 

 way purposes, it seems hardly reasonable to suppose that the courts will 

 regard as unreasonable any limitations imposed upon the borders designed 

 to maintain them as recreation or park centres. The general value and use 

 of parks and parkways are to the city as a whole rather than to their 

 immediate boundaries and the local interests therein. It would be a very 

 serious matter for your commission not to do everything possible to pre- 

 serve the parkway character wherever it can be justified. 



Statement by Julius Harder, Architect, May 5, 1916 

 Lot and block unit 



To begin at the beginning, a commission with as broad functions as 

 has this one, may properly formulate general and fundamental recommenda- 

 tions which would be preventive of at least some of the ills which this 

 commission seeks so far as possible to prevent in future. As a first propo- 

 sition I would advise the general adoption of 20 feet as the unit of lot width 

 instead of 25 feet, and as a second, the adoption of 240 feet as the standard 

 block width in place of 200 feet. The advantage is not susceptible of 

 mathematical demonstration. It is a fact, however, that architects generally 

 in planning buildings upon lot areas have found the 20-foot width much 

 more mobile — the 150-foot depth too great as against an insufficiency in the 

 100-foot depth dimension. While elusive of exact analysis it appears never- 

 theless true that there exists a relation of the " human scale " to lot area, 

 which is much more in harmonv with a 20 bv 120-foot unit than the 25 by 

 100 feet. 



Such a recommendation might still be productive of good results in 

 Queens and Richmond. There is a notion abroad that the City Tono- 

 graphical Departments design the street plan. Such is not the case. The 

 city only "' accepts " the new streets after the first " possessors " have dis- 

 placed the stakes planted by the half-paid surveyors in the employ of the 

 early real estate speculators, when it is already too late to correct the 

 general street plan without moving all the buildings. What the situation 

 may be at the moment as to Richmond in this regard I do not know, but 

 as to Queens, I do know that hundreds of land tracts just in process of 

 transition from farm land to building lots have laid down the unfortunate 

 200-foot block width, and if nothing occurs to alter the usual course of 

 events, these must all in course of time be " accepted " by the City. This 

 situation might still be saved by appropriate action. 



