We think that the Borough Hall locality should be preserved and improved as the borough's municipal center. Some say that we should look to Eastern Parkway, some to Flatbush Avenue Extension. But Borough Hall Park is the old-time and long settled center. The large office and financial buildings are there. It is convenient of access from every part of the borough. Every new rapid transit line will be directly connected with it. It is opposite the district of corresponding use in Manhattan. It is separate from the congested shopping district and will undoubtedly remain so. Some advocate Flatbush Avenue Extension as the best place for new buildings. The future value of the Extension even for public buildings cannot be denied. Canal Street, Manhattan Bridge, the Extension and Flatbush Avenue furnish a continuous broad thoroughfare from the North River to Jamaica Bay. When Greater New York becomes a city of 10,000,000 people, it may become the axis for magnificent public buildings both in Manhattan and Brooklyn. But Canal Street today is a locality of small business and it is premature to try to force its Brooklyn continuation into prominence as a civic center. Although Manhattan's new court house will be built on Center Street, yet the front door of Manhattan's civic center will be the City Hall Park for the next thirty or forty years, and Canal Street at its best will be only the back door. When the big business of Manhattan reaches Canal Street it will be time enough to use city money for great public buildings on the Extension. If Brooklyn were an independent and self-contained city like Boston and Chicago it might experiment without fear in building up a new civic center, but Brooklyn today must look well to hold her own against the constant draft that Manhattan makes on her financial and office center.
Brooklyn Bridge is today and for a long time will be the main entrance to Brooklyn. The district between the bridge and Borough Hall has become depressed and unsightly, mainly because the retail shopping business left it, and Brooklyn, unlike independent cities, had no wholesale mercantile business to take its place. No city can hope to improve and brighten itself and still neglect its front door. The Clark Street subway will have a station near lower Fulton Street. The federal government has appropriated money to enlarge the Post Office. The bridge terminal has ceased to be a terminal and has become a way station, so that now the structures that deface the entrance to Brooklyn can be taken down, as Bridge Commissioner O'Keeffe proposes, and a solid, simple, low-lying structure substituted for the sheds and aerial monstrosities. Surely now is the time to link such an improvement with the clearing up of the whole district.
The borough must within a few months either grasp or lose its chance to start this work. As part of the dual rapid transit system the city has issued to the Municipal Railway Company, controlled by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, a certificate to third track its Fulton Street elevated line from the East River to East New York. The complications in perfecting the dual contracts, and the need of haste, were so great that the problem of freeing Borough Hall Park and lower Fulton Street of the elevated railroad was not solved and inserted in the contracts, but immediately after the signing of the dual plan, Mayor Gaynor, Borough President Steers, the Public Service Commission and the Board of Estimate took action resulting in the preparation and passage by the Legislature of an amendment to the Rapid Transit Act providing for the re-location of the tracks and the making of a contract for that purpose between the Public Service Commission and the company. Thus the way is paved for the removal of the elevated tracks to Adams Street, taking them entirely out of lower Fulton Street and Borough Hall Park. Orders for the fabrication of steel for the third track construction will soon be placed, and if the contract for re-location is not made, the steel will be ordered for reconstructing the elevated railroad in its present location. It would be unfortunate indeed if additional outlays should serve to perpetuate the railroad in Borough Hall Park. At the same time that the tracks are removed, it is desirable that the city should do as much as possible in opening and improving the unsightly locality between Fulton and Washington Streets. As an independent proposition the taking of so much land has not appealed to some of the members of the Board of Estimate, but an entirely different question is presented if this area can be used in part for one of the new public buildings. [Plan 6] shows the locality as it would appear after the tracks are re-located and the plaza opened. Washington Street should be widened to correspond to the width of the open space now opposite the Mechanics' Bank Building. Some say, why not widen Washington Street taking forty or fifty feet of private land along its westerly side and do nothing to disarrange the rest of the property between Washington Street and Fulton Street? The answer to this is that the taking of parts of the buildings would in many cases be almost, if not quite, equivalent to a total destruction of the entire properties. If the city should acquire for public purposes the three blocks lying between Fulton Street and Liberty Street on the west and Washington Street on the east, it could widen Washington Street to the required width of 110 feet, use the space opposite the Post Office for one of the new buildings, and design the open space near the bridge as a dignified and fitting approach to Brooklyn Bridge, corresponding to some extent to the open space partly covered by the Manhattan municipal building at the other end. This should be done in connection with Commissioner O'Keeffe's plan of reconstructing the bridge terminal. The new public building located here would not act as a stopper in the bridge plaza, because the space now between the Mechanics' Bank Building and Myrtle Avenue is of a fixed width and acts as a fixed limitation. If Washington Street is widened to the same width, the approach to the bridge plaza proper would be better than if the bridge plaza should extend all of the distance to Borough Hall Park. In the latter case the plaza would be too large and not pleasing in form. A considerable part of this real estate is already owned by the city.
By chapter 390 of the laws of 1909 the Supreme Court justices of this department were empowered to select a site for a new court house and recommend it to the Board of Estimate. In 1910 they selected the two blocks bounded by Court, Clinton, State and Livingston Streets, and on December 20th, 1911, the report was made by the Board of Sinking Fund Commissioners to the Board of Estimate. The Board of Estimate has taken no action thereon.
In July, 1911, the Board of Estimate determined upon the southeast corner of Court and Joralemon streets as a site for the new municipal building, taking in both the corner and the land covered by the present municipal building. The land has been acquired, plans for the building have been prepared, and when the Board of Estimate makes an appropriation for building, actual construction can begin. If, however, the recommendations of this report should meet with favor, the municipal building would be erected in another place.
The committee has endeavored to deal with these four factors, viz., court house, municipal building, bridge plaza and re-location of tracks, so that the money expended should not only bring the best result for each factor, but at the same time bring the additional benefit of relating the four factors so that all will unite to improve the downtown center. We shall now compare the cost and advantages of the four factors as presented in the Clinton Street court house site, and as presented in the other plans that reasonably meet the needs of the situation.
FIRST PLAN
Clinton Street Court House Site
(See diagram marked [Plan 1])
| 1. Cost of bridge changes and re-location of tracks as estimated by the Department of Bridges, and assessed value of additional property required for same | $4,012,095.00 |
| 2. Assessed valuation of land and buildings between Washington and Fulton streets | 1,249,100.00 |
| 3. Assessed valuation land and buildings, Clinton Street site for court house | 1,527,700.00 |
| 4. Municipal Building site at south-west corner of Court and Joralemon streets (title now vested in the city) | |
| Total | $6,788,895.00 |