Proposed Improvements for the City of New York 
ton Park, on the North River, to Pelham 
Bay Park near the Sound. A parkway con¬ 
nection is also proposed along Dyckman 
Street, connecting Lafayette Boulevard and 
the Speedway and the parks on the Harlem 
River frontage. 
A bridge, known as the Hudson Memorial 
Bridge, is projected across the Harlem River 
to connect the northern part ot the island, 
where the Harlem River joins the Hudson, 
with the mainland. (See House and Garden, 
February, 1905, page 87.) The approaches 
to such bridge on both sides would be reserved 
as a park. 
It has been apparent for some time that 
Fifth Avenue is no longer wide enough to 
accommodate the large increase in travel 
due to the growth of the city. The stoop 
line on that avenue, north of Twenty-third 
Street, can be abolished and the sidewalks 
extended to the building line, and seven feet 
and a half be taken from the present side¬ 
walks on each side and thrown into the road¬ 
way, thereby adding some fifteen feet to the 
space available for vehicle traffic and largely 
relieving the congestion of that thoroughfare. 
An opinion has been given by the Corpo¬ 
ration Counsel to the effect that the Board of 
Aldermen have the right to rescind any 
rights to vaults under the sidewalks, so that 
there would seem to be no substantial legal 
impediment to adopting this plan, and the 
rapid changes now taking place in this part of 
that thoroughfare tend largely to do away with 
the necessity of the area heretofore used for 
stoops. The Commission strongly recom¬ 
mends that this work should be undertaken 
as far north as Forty-seventh Street at once 
and that, as a further relief to the congestion, 
trucks should not be allowed to use this 
avenue during certain hours of the day. 
Various suggestions have been advanced 
for the amelioration of the conditions at the 
Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street cross¬ 
ing; the plan proposed by Messrs. Carrere & 
Hastings, architects of the Public Library, 
providing that one-half of Forty-second Street 
shall pass under Fifth Avenue and the 
through traffic confined to that half, leaving 
the other half for the traffic to and from 
Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue itself, 
seems to the Commission the best so far sug¬ 
gested. This plan contemplates throwing 
part of the sidewalks of Forty-second Street 
near Fifth Avenue into the roadway, so as 
to make a circle at that point, and the Com¬ 
mission’s engineers are of opinion this can be 
done without excessive curtailment of these 
sidewalks. This plan, too, would not in any 
way interfere with the rapid transit tunnel, 
which is at some considerable depth below 
the surface at this point. 
On Fifth Avenue from Fifty-ninth Street 
to One Hundred and Tenth Street, the wall 
of Central Park could be removed; trees 
being planted on the easterly side of that part 
of Fifth Avenue and that avenue thus prac¬ 
tically added to Central Park, thereby fur¬ 
nishing an additional driveway in the park 
and reducing much of the congestion which 
now exists. North of One Hundred and 
Tenth Street to the Harlem River trees can 
be planted on each side of Fifth Avenue, and 
this roadway treated as a driveway north, 
connecting Central Park by bridge across 
the Harlem with the Grand Boulevard and 
Concourse in the Borough of the Bronx, 
thereby forming a direct connection between 
Central Park and the new parks situated in 
that Borough. Later on, if found advisable, 
a strip can be taken on the westerly side of 
Fifth Avenue from One Hundred and Tenth 
Street to Harlem River for the purpose of 
widening that avenue and making it a park¬ 
way. 
The subject of a proper approach to 
Blackwell’s Island Bridge has been considered 
by the Commission. An interior street could 
be constructed from Fifth Avenue to the 
entrance of the bridge, fifty feet wide, and 
running about midway between Fifty-ninth 
and Sixtieth Streets. The cost of such a street 
would probably be less than widening Fifty- 
ninth Street, and it could be made a much 
handsomer and more practically-beneficial 
improvement. Surface electric cars could 
be run in a tunnel commencing on Fifty- 
ninth Street at the westerly side of Fifth 
Avenue, passing under the entrance to Central 
Park and under this interior street, finally 
emerging at the entrance to the Blackwell’s 
Island Bridge. This would effect the 
removal of the crossing of the surface cars 
from the entrance of Central Park at Fifth 
Avenue as well as take such cars oft of 
Fifty-ninth Street east of Fifth Avenue, thus 
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