PITTSBURGH
MAIN THOROUGHFARES AND THE
DOWN TOWN DISTRICT
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| [Illustration: East Ohio Street--a two-line thoroughfare] |
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| [Illustration: Fifth Avenue--a four-line thoroughfare] |
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| Of the 530 miles of main thoroughfares within a radius of seven |
| miles of City Hall, less than one and one-half per cent have |
| room for passage between cars and vehicles, slow-moving or |
| standing at curb. See page 31. |
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| [Illustration: Liberty Avenue--a six-line thoroughfare] |
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_PITTSBURGH CIVIC COMMISSION_
PITTSBURGH
MAIN THOROUGHFARES AND THE
DOWN TOWN DISTRICT
IMPROVEMENTS NECESSARY TO
MEET THE CITY'S PRESENT AND
FUTURE NEEDS
A Report
BY
FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED
Prepared under the direction of The Committee on City Planning
ADOPTED BY THE COMMISSION
DECEMBER, 1910
324 FOURTH AVENUE FEBRUARY, 1911
_Publication No. 8_
PITTSBURGH CIVIC COMMISSION
H. D. W. ENGLISH President
J. W. KINNEAR First Vice-President
JOHN W. BEATTY Second Vice-President
H. J. HEINZ Third Vice-President
J. J. DONNELL Treasurer
ALLEN T. BURNS General Secretary
O. H. ALLERTON
T. E. BILLQUIST
CHARLES F. CHUBB
WILLIAM L. JONES
MORRIS KNOWLES
H. L. KREUSLER
JOSEPH W. MARSH
MARCUS RAUH
GEORGE R. WALLACE
CHARLES F. WELLER
COMMITTEE ON CITY PLANNING
T. E. BILLQUIST, Chairman
CHARLES F. CHUBB
BENNO JANSSEN
H. J. HEINZ
RICHARD KIEHNEL
E. K. MORSE
Copyright, 1911
By Pittsburgh Civic Commission
Mount Pleasant Press
J. Horace McFarland Company
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Dedication
THIS BOOK AND ITS CONTENTS ARE DEDICATED TO THOSE CITIZENS OF
PITTSBURGH WHO, IMBUED WITH CIVIC PRIDE AND THE VISION OF A CITY
USEFUL, CONVENIENT, ECONOMICAL AND HEALTHFUL, AS WELL AS BEAUTIFUL,
WILL, IN THE YEARS TO COME, RESPOND TO THE CALL OF THEIR CITY TO SERVE
IT WITHOUT HOPE OF PERSONAL REWARD, AND WITH PATIENCE, FIDELITY AND
ENTHUSIASM.
PITTSBURGH CIVIC COMMISSION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
LETTER OF TRANSMISSAL xi
CITY PLANNING AND THE COST OF LIVING IN PITTSBURGH xiii
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF URGENT RECOMMENDATIONS 1
PART I. THE DOWN TOWN DISTRICT 5
The Main Arteries 5
Eastward Arteries and Their Improvement 6
A New Traffic Center 9
Sixth Avenue 9
Try Street Grade Crossing 10
Second Avenue Freight Yards 10
The Hump Cut 10
Grant Boulevard Extension 11
A Civic Center 11
Diamond Street Widening 17
Market Street Widening 17
The Market 18
The Water Front 19
The Improvement of The Point 29
PART II. MAIN THOROUGHFARES 31
Width of Thoroughfares 31
Special Types of Thoroughfares 34
Widening Old Streets 37
Unified Procedure for City, County and Borough 43
Specific Recommendations 44
Penn Avenue Artery 44
Forbes Street Artery 47
South Hills Artery 49
Outlying Thoroughfare Improvements (with special indices) 59
PART III. SURVEYS AND A CITY PLAN 93
Pittsburgh's Need for Surveys 93
Objects to be Secured 94
Technical Procedure 95
Maps 96
Management and Cost 98
Sample Maps 98
Data from New York 98
Data from Baltimore 100
PART IV. NOTES ON PARKS AND RECREATION FACILITIES 101
The Bellefield Improvement 101
Grant Boulevard 106
Steep Hillsides 109
General Discussion of Parks 113
Neighborhood Parks 113
Rural Parks 116
Special Park Opportunities 117
PART V. SPECIAL REPORTS 123
The Market 123
The Hump Cut 128
The City and the Allegheny River Bridges 133
_Letter of Transmissal_
November 26, 1910.
MR. T. E. BILLQUIST, Chairman,
Committee on City Planning.
Pittsburgh Civic Commission.
_Dear Sir_:--I have the honor to submit herewith a report upon
desirable improvements in the main thoroughfares and the down town
district of Pittsburgh, prepared in accordance with the instructions of
your Committee and in consultation with its members.
In submitting the report I wish to take the opportunity of expressing
my appreciation of the attitude of your Committee throughout the twelve
months during which the investigations and the preparation of the
report have continued, and of the part which the keen interest of its
members and their helpful criticism have had in making the report a
useful one.
The closeness of the connection between the problems discussed in this
report and those of the Traction System, which have been concurrently
studied by Mr. Bion J. Arnold, has involved frequent conferences with
Mr. Arnold and his assistant, Mr. George A. Damon, as well as with Mr.
John P. Fox, engaged by the Mayor for a study of the same problem; and
the information and suggestions furnished by them have been of great
assistance. In the preparation of the report on the Allegheny River
bridge problems, submitted jointly by Colonel T. W. Symons and myself
and printed in Part V of this report, information furnished by Colonel
H. C. Newcomer, in charge of the local office of U. S. Government
engineers, has been of the utmost value. I am also greatly indebted to
the Flood Commission, and especially to Mr. F. K. Morse, Chairman of
the Engineers' Committee of that Commission, for the use of maps and
other data gathered by them.
It would have been impossible to secure an intelligent basis for the
conclusions and suggestions presented in this report without the great
quantity of detailed information and other help furnished by the Board
of Assessors, the Departments of Public Safety, of Public Works and of
Law, especially through Mr. N. S. Sprague, Superintendent of the Bureau
of Construction, Mr. Chas. A. Finley, Superintendent of the Bureau of
City Property, and Mr. Lee C. Beatty, First Assistant City Solicitor.
Throughout the investigation and the preparation of this report I have
had the benefit of illuminating and stimulating conferences with Mayor
Magee.
The actual gathering of necessary information from the above and other
sources, the field studies and the preparation of nearly all of the
drawings accompanying the report, were carried on under the direction
of my personal assistant, Mr. Edward C. Whiting, with the active help
of Mr. Allen T. Burns and Mr. Sherrard Ewing, General Secretary and
Assistant Secretary of the Commission, to all of whom my hearty thanks
are due.
My friend and colleague in the study of several city problems
elsewhere, Mr. Arnold W. Brunner, of New York, has given me valued
counsel in regard to the possible architectural treatment of the
proposed Civic Center, and has been good enough to contribute to the
report the interesting sketches on pages 13 and 14 for a possible
municipal building framing the east side of the proposed square.
As explained at length in the body of the report, the work has been
greatly handicapped and limited in its scope and effectiveness by the
entire lack of accurate detailed maps of the city and surrounding
country. This lack would have rendered the report almost wholly
impossible had it not been for the very useful topographical map
of this part of Pennsylvania prepared and published by the United
States Geological Survey. Not only have my studies of the outlying
thoroughfares been based almost wholly upon this map, but the Survey
has courteously permitted the use of transfer sheets from their
original plates for the thoroughfare map published in this report.
Respectfully submitted,
(Signed) FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED.
_City Planning and the Cost of Living in Pittsburgh_
PURPOSE AND PREPARATION OF THE REPORT
A factor in the cost of living in Pittsburgh is stated graphically in
the frontispiece of this report. These drawings also suggest, from
Pittsburgh's own provision for some of her needs, a method to decrease
this cost. All delays and congestion of traffic, such as illustrated on
Fifth Avenue and East Ohio Street in the frontispiece and as shown by
illustrations in this preface and the introduction, add to the expenses
of manufacturers, the costs borne by wholesale merchants, and the
prices charged consumers by retail dealers; in short inadequate traffic
facilities in Pittsburgh, as in other cities, add to the cost of doing
business and of living.
The map at the end of this preface portrays a second factor influencing
the cost of living. This map shows how much land Pittsburgh has, both
used and still unused, for business, manufacturing and residence
districts and for means of communication, i. e., streets between these
districts. A glance also indicates the almost unparalleled problems
of this city because of the large amount of territory 25 per cent or
over in grade. For land of this grade is not only unused for buildings
and streets, but also often erects barriers to the natural growth and
spread of business, manufacturing and residence sections. Consequently,
Pittsburgh must exercise greater ingenuity and foresight than other
cities to prevent such congestion of all these activities as would
increase rents of all kinds abnormally. This would mean again an added
burden to the ultimate consumer for all life's necessities.
In addition, tax rates are chronically assailed as a charge on the cost
of living. But taxes are spent largely for improvements to furnish
adequate streets, to provide for the city's spread and growth and to
carry out other improvements which alone can make life livable and
desirable in a modern city. In fact, "taxes may actually diminish
the cost of living, if the city's money is spent economically in the
performance of necessary co-operative service." But taxes are often
wasted because the improvements are made piecemeal, by patchwork, with
no reference to future needs. Taxes for such improvements should be
made only as a part of a far-sighted and comprehensive plan. Then,
without waste, work done at the present will fit into the work to be
done in the future.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM SHOWING MOVEMENT OF TRAFFIC AT IMPORTANT STREET
INTERSECTIONS IN PITTSBURGH--WIDTH OF BAND REPRESENTS NUMBER OF CARS
AND VEHICLES PER RUSH HOUR.
Note: Vehicle traffic on Market Street, between Fifth and Liberty
Avenues, now discontinued]
By offering solutions for the above and many other similar problems
this report demonstrates that practical city planning--or better,
replanning--is part of the world-wide conservation movement. City
planning is municipal conservation. Pittsburgh, like other cities and
to a greater extent than most of them, faces the problem of using her
financial and territorial resources to the utmost. The "utmost" means
making these resources go the furthest in securing ample streets for
transportation and traffic, and easy communication between all parts
of the city; in providing for the cheap distribution of food, fuel
and clothing; in making all residence districts as nearly as possible
equally healthful, un-congested, and provided with trees and yards; in
establishing for all residents public accommodations for recreation
and leisure; and in maintaining and developing adequate districts for
retail and wholesale trade, manufacture and commerce.
The Pittsburgh Civic Commission has conducted its city planning with
the above ends in view, and purposes by this report to contribute
to the economy, convenience, practicability and attractiveness of
Pittsburgh's development and growth. The Commission began this work by
retaining Bion J. Arnold, John R. Freeman and Frederick Law Olmsted
to make a report on the outline and procedure of city planning for
Pittsburgh. This report stated the scope and methods for investigations
on the following subjects:
Steam Railroads
Water Transportation
Electric Railroads
Street Systems
Public Lands and Buildings
Water System
Sewerage System
Control over Developments on Private Property
Smoke Abatement
Building Code
Provision has been made by which several sections of this program
are already under way. The city administration has been foremost in
appreciating the necessity for just such investigations as the report
recommended. Expert advice at this period in our civic advance is
imperative if this city is to take its proper rank among American
cities. Upon completion of the preliminary report Mayor Magee undertook
to have studies made upon the electric and steam railroads, and
requested that the Commission release to the city Mr. Bion J. Arnold
for this purpose. This the Commission gladly did, and since then Mr.
Arnold has conducted these investigations for the city along the lines
laid down in this preliminary report. The preparation of a building
code as suggested in this report was authorized by the city councils
at the request of the Mayor, and the latter appointed a competent
building code commission, and an appropriation has been made for the
carrying out of this part of the City Plan. Mayor Magee also secured
the retention of Mr. Allen Hazen of New York, who is making such a
comprehensive study of an adequate sewerage system as was suggested in
this report. Likewise, the Mayor has planned to carry out the studies
for the water system.
The Commission itself continued the retention of Mr. Frederick Law
Olmsted to make a study of a comprehensive main thoroughfare system for
the center of the city and to the principal residence and manufacturing
districts and the surrounding boroughs. Mr. Olmsted was also asked to
report upon the locations of the main public buildings and grounds
of the down town district. This report was to cover both immediately
necessary improvements and a comprehensive improvement program for
the next twenty-five years. Thus could present improvements be made
economically because planned with reference to those of the future.
The Commission presents herewith Mr. Olmsted's report on these
subjects, made under the supervision of the Committee on City Planning.
The members of this Committee have given months of time from their
private business to the consideration of every detail of this report;
and this committee, with Mr. Olmsted, has given to the report its value
as a contribution to the movement for the Greater and Better Pittsburgh.
PITTSBURGH CIVIC COMMISSION.
[Illustration: GENERAL MAP OF THE PITTSBURGH DISTRICT]
PITTSBURGH
MAIN THOROUGHFARES AND
THE DOWN TOWN DISTRICT
_Introduction_
There are two main divisions of City Planning. One looks to the
rearrangement and improvement of what has already been unwisely
done through lack of proper planning or through force of adverse
circumstances of any sort. The other looks to the wise and economical
layout of what still remains to be done, especially at the outskirts of
the city where the major part of the city's growth is bound to occur,
and where the city plan is daily taking shape out of nothing, whether
it is intelligently designed or not.
Prevention is cheaper than cure, and a moderate expenditure of effort
and money will accomplish far greater results in the long run if
applied to the wise control of the growing suburban districts, where
new streets are constantly coming into existence, than if applied to
costly remodeling of the older parts of the city; but the latter is
sometimes of the utmost importance, and is of direct interest to a
much larger number of citizens than the prosaic work of controlling
scattered suburban development. In accordance with the instructions of
the Commission this report deals primarily with certain problems of
remodeling in the down town district, and with the improvement of the
main thoroughfares between this, the heart of the city, and the more
important outlying districts.
To carry out at once all the recommendations of this report would,
even if it were possible, impose an altogether unreasonable financial
burden upon the City and the contiguous boroughs. Such procedure is
unnecessary and indeed impossible. But in many cases there is a crying
need for the improvement already, or it is of such a nature that any
delay is apt to involve a considerable increase in the cost and the
difficulty of carrying it out.
[Illustration: Suggestive treatment of street junctions in outlying
districts, Stuttgart]
The most urgent general improvement of this sort is the establishment
of new building lines on all main thoroughfares which it is proposed
to widen; this in order to anticipate, as far as possible, the
construction of new and costly buildings on the present street lines.
Of the specific recommendations made in this report it seems advisable
to give the earliest attention to the following:
=In the Down Town District= Page
The cutting of the Hump and the widening of certain streets in the
Hump District as recommended 10
The extension of Grant Boulevard to Webster Avenue 11
The acquisition of land required for the proposed Civic Center 11
The widening of Diamond Street 17
The widening of Market Street 17
The relocation of the Market 18
The new connection between Penn and Liberty Avenues at Eleventh
Street 7
The elimination of the Try Street grade crossing 10
The proposed bridge and tunnel to the South Hills 49
=Along Outlying Thoroughfares= Section
Sixteenth Street bridge 1 56
Twenty-eighth Street grade crossings 2 57
Thirty-third Street improvement 3 57
Forty-third Street bridge 6 59
[1]Haights Run bridge 9 59
Hazelwood grade crossing 18 64
[1]Baum Street improvement 20 65
Center Avenue improvement 21 65
[1]Hamilton Avenue extension and connection with Kelly Street 22 65
Larimer Avenue extension 24 66
Batavia Street 33 71
Wilkinsburg grade crossings 34 71
Wilkinsburg-Edgewood connection 35 71
Rankin improvement 38 72
Duquesne bridge 51 75
California Avenue and Brighton Road extension 52 75
Lowry's Lane 56 77
East Ohio Street paving 57 77
Sycamore Street grade crossing and Bridge Street improvement
in Etna 60 78
Allegheny River Boulevard as far as Main Street connection 61 79
Main Street grade crossing in Sharpsburg 62 79
Carson Street 64_b_ 80
Chartiers Avenue grade crossing 65 80
Crafton-Carnegie connection 69 81
Washington Avenue improvement 72_a_ 82
Thoroughfare to Beechview 73_a_ 83
Carrick connection from South Hills tunnel, probably Climax
Street route 75 84
Twenty-second Street bridge approach--South Side 80 86
In the following cases the actual improvements are not so urgent,
but the new street locations should be established before expensive
developments, which are apt to occur at any time, shall interpose
serious new difficulties in the way of the proposed improvements:
Section Page
Penn-Liberty connection at Howley Street 5 58
Fifth Avenue--Center Avenue connection at Soho 12 61
Ellsworth Avenue extension 13 62
Forbes Street extension 39 72
Etna improvement 59 78
For other specific thoroughfare improvements recommended in this
report there appear to be no very urgent demands at present. Generally
speaking they should be carried out only as some special opportunity
offers, or in anticipation of some obstructing development which cannot
now be foreseen, or as a growing traffic shall demand.
But a thing of greater consequence than any one of these specific
improvements, a thing of vital import to every taxpaying citizen of the
present and future City, is the making of comprehensive and accurate
topographical maps. It is only on the basis of such maps that all
municipal engineering, and indeed much other work, directly managed
by the City, can be planned and carried out with proper economy and
efficiency. It is only on the basis of such maps that improvements
in the city--details of city replanning--can be most economically
determined. And in the outlying districts, where the future city is
being built, such maps are absolutely essential to an intelligent
planning or control which will avoid the heavy penalties that follow
haphazard city growth, especially in such a hilly region.
[Illustration: Comparative diagram showing the volume and the estimated
gross tonnage of traffic on the thoroughfares leading into the Down
Town District]
[Illustration: GENERAL PLAN
OF THE
DOWN TOWN DISTRICT]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Already provided for, wholly or in part, in the current bond issue.
PART I
_The Down Town District_
[Sidenote:
The Main Arteries]
The down town district is substantially that part of the city
known as the Point District. It is bounded by the two rivers and
by the steep hills to the eastward, and within this section of
the city, as elsewhere, the basic problem is that of the means of
transportation--specifically the problem of the street plan. There
is a daily circulation of inward and outward travel to be borne by a
limited number of main arteries, of which those leading to most of the
tributary districts are bridges. It is clear that the bridges can be
enlarged or increased in number at any time when the volume of travel
justifies the expense of reconstruction.
[Illustration: A one-span bridge across the Danube at Budapest]
Considering the fact that Pittsburgh is a world capital in the steel
bridge industry, that its busiest quarters are sundered by three of
the world's big rivers, and that it is traversed in every direction
by ravines which demand the construction of mighty viaducts, it is a
striking and rather shameful thing that it does not possess a single
bridge over its rivers that is notable among the bridges of the
world either for its beauty, for its perfect engineering adaptation
to its purpose, for its size, strength or amplitude. In fact the
bridges of Pittsburgh, compared with those of other great cities, are
rather unusually limited in capacity and lacking in the qualities of
impressiveness and beauty.
It is a case of the cobbler's children going barefoot: when a man
sells shoes at wholesale in every quarter of the globe, it is time for
his own family to be well shod. Pittsburgh can afford to have, and owes
it to herself to have, the very best of bridges. No time or pains or
reasonable expense should be spared in planning future bridges, whether
they be on new locations or to replace existing structures, to get
the best designs that the highest engineering skill combined with the
highest artistic ability can produce. Bridge-builders everywhere should
be enabled to think of Pittsburgh not merely as a source of cheap raw
material for bridges, but as an all-round leader in the bridge-building
art.
[Illustration: Bridge of distinctive character at Budapest]
To the eastward, where the most active growth of the city has been
taking place, the arteries consist not of bridges over open rivers,
but of streets, very limited in number by reason of the form of the
land, and so situated that the cost of securing greater capacity will
increase by leaps and bounds with the rise of land values and the
erection of new structures. The first step in planning improvements for
the heart of the city must therefore be to consider the possibilities
for improvement in the eastward arteries.
[Sidenote:
Eastward Arteries and Their Improvement]
There are only three places where such arteries could ever have been
laid out, even if the wisest foresight had been exercised in the early
planning of the city when all was free and open. These three places
are around the north edge of the hills along the Allegheny, around the
south edge of the hills along the Monongahela, and through the gap in
the hills followed by Fifth Avenue and Forbes Street.
The northerly route is followed by Penn and Liberty Avenues, by the
Pennsylvania Railroad, and by Grant Boulevard clinging to the hillside
above the railroad. The space between Penn Avenue and the river is
largely occupied by railroads and by business dependent upon the
railroads, and there seems to be no possibility of opening any new
line for relief, except in so far as a subway might reduce the number
of people inconvenienced by delays on the surface. On account of its
gradients and of the districts toward which it leads at both ends, the
usefulness of Grant Boulevard seems likely to remain confined to light
passenger traffic, chiefly automobiles. In any case all the teaming
and surface traffic of a very large region must be carried through
the throat on the lower level. It is important also to note that the
only street which passes through the down town district with more than
village dimensions--eighty-foot Liberty Avenue--leads directly to this
throat and then chokes down to a fifty-foot street.
It may safely be said that increased capacity for east and west general
traffic north of the hills can be secured only by a radical widening of
Liberty Avenue or Penn Avenue. Upon the whole the latter seems the more
advantageous route. On the score of cost there seems to be but little
choice; on the score of value in the result Penn Avenue is the better.
To have one side of such an important avenue flanked by a railroad to
the exclusion of general business frontage would make it less agreeable
as a thoroughfare and less productive as a real estate proposition. On
the other hand if Penn Avenue is widened the narrow portion of Liberty,
above Eleventh Street and next the railroad, will be important almost
solely for local purposes; warehouses or factories could be erected
extending through from the principal, or Penn Avenue, frontage to
Liberty Avenue, and could be provided with sidings from the railroad
passing over Liberty.
Further details as to this suggested widening of Penn Avenue and its
connections eastward are given, along with other highway improvements,
in Part II of this report. But considering here only its relation to
the down town district, this widening will undoubtedly throw increased
emphasis upon Penn and Liberty Avenues as traffic lines within this
district; and it is obvious that a good cross-connection should be
provided so that eastbound traffic coming from Liberty Avenue and
from Grant Street, as well as from Penn Avenue, can freely reach
the widened portion of the latter. A traffic square at the angle in
front of the Union Station, where the broad part of Liberty Avenue
ends and the narrow part begins, would furnish the desired connection.
Fortunately such a square can now be formed with the destruction of but
few buildings and those of relatively little cost.[2]
[Illustration: Second Avenue between Try Street and the Tenth Street
Bridge]
The street along the Monongahela--Second Avenue--although it might
have been made of great importance and value by proper planning at the
start, cannot at the present time be greatly widened without the most
serious difficulties. For much of its length it is pinched between
railroads and industrial plants. It does not lead eastward into any
district comparable in population or importance with those tapped by
Penn and Liberty Avenues, and its connection westward through the Point
District is narrow, difficult to widen, and relatively unimportant. For
these reasons Second Avenue, although it must be recognized as a main
thoroughfare and should be improved as much as practicable, especially
as far east as the Tenth Street bridge, is not of such first-class
importance as to demand radical enlargement in spite of all obstacles.
The only remaining natural outlet to the east is that occupied by Fifth
Avenue and Forbes Street and the block between them. Neither street is
wide enough for the traffic it will be called upon to bear, but the
widening of Fifth Avenue would be so costly as to be almost out of
the question. For many reasons, discussed in detail in Part II, the
widening of Forbes Street into an ample main thoroughfare seems to be
the best solution of the problem here presented.
The importance of this route and of its future traffic burden will be
better realized when it is understood that at Soho a direct extension
can be made, on easy gradients, from the widened Forbes Street to
Fifth Avenue, the street which can more easily be widened beyond that
point; and further, that, a little to the east, a new and greatly
needed street might branch off to the right from Forbes Street where
the latter turns inland. This new street would continue along the side
hill above the river, and would provide the only possible convenient
outlet from the down town district to all the upland regions south and
southwest of Squirrel Hill. Thus the western portion of Forbes Street,
when widened, would carry the great bulk of all future street traffic
between the down town district and the whole district from East Liberty
to the Monongahela River as well as all the country east and southeast
of that triangle.
[Sidenote:
A New Traffic Center]
The intersection of Forbes Street, widened, with Sixth Avenue,
extended, is likely to become a traffic center of the utmost
consequence to Pittsburgh. The importance of the Forbes Street route
to the eastward has been indicated above; Sixth Avenue, crossing Fifth
Avenue and Grant Street, leads toward the Union Station and toward all
the northeast part of the business district, and to the North Side
bridges; a new bridge and tunnel are quite likely to lead from this
very intersection to the South Side and the South Hills; from this
center a good connection is readily obtainable with Fourth, Third, and
Second Avenues and with the southern water front; and Diamond Street
can be widened at moderate expense so as to continue Forbes Street
right through the heart of the business district.
[Sidenote:
Sixth Avenue]
The importance of Sixth Avenue between Forbes and Grant Streets has
been pointed out. It is the natural route from the Union Station and
the adjacent freight yards and from all the Allegheny bridges to the
districts fed by Fifth Avenue, Forbes Street, the proposed South Hills
bridge, and Second Avenue. It ought to be widened to the dimensions of
a main thoroughfare, and its grade ought to be lessened. Its stream
of travel splits at Grant Street, a portion turning to the left into
the other part of Sixth Avenue, and a portion turning to the right
along Grant Street to Liberty Avenue and the freight yards. The latter
obviously is a very important line, and the off-set which makes at
Seventh Avenue is so serious that the corner ought to be cut.
[Sidenote:
Try Street Grade Crossing]
The elimination of the grade crossing of Second Avenue with the
Panhandle Road at Try Street is a pressing improvement. The avenue now
descends toward the railroad from both directions, and the best plan
appears to be to carry it over the tracks. In this way Second Avenue
would connect directly (through the west side of the Civic Center) with
Forbes Street; with Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Avenues, and so with the
Union Station and the Allegheny Valley; with the main or upper deck of
the South Hills bridge rising across the river to the proposed tunnel;
and with the suggested lower deck of that bridge leading to the South
Side. In order to secure a good gradient, the westerly approach of
Second Avenue should start from Grant Street, rising on an incline
or viaduct through the so-called park and the street on one side of
it, in order to pass over Ross Street. In this way there would be no
interference with the teaming through Ross Street to the Baltimore and
Ohio freight yards.
[Sidenote:
Second Avenue Freight Yards]
Mention should here be made of a plan, which it is understood is
already being considered, to develop the area between Second Avenue
and the river, from Try Street to the Tenth Street bridge, for freight
purposes. Even now the connections from this region to the Tenth Street
and Smithfield Street bridges, and, via First and Second Avenues, to
the whole Point District, are good. But the street changes proposed
in connection with the traffic center at Sixth Avenue and Forbes
Street will provide greatly improved connections directly to the Point
District, the East End and the South Hills. First Avenue and Water
Street would enter the freight yard underneath the Panhandle and the
proposed Baltimore and Ohio local tracks; and if Second Avenue is
raised to go over the Panhandle tracks, as recommended above, direct
entrances can be secured to the second or third floor of a freight
house with car elevators such as those at St. Louis. On the whole this
seems like a good place for a large distributing freight station.
[Sidenote:
The "Hump Cut"]
The Sixth Avenue improvement, and others in the vicinity, are bound
up with the question of the "Hump Cut." Pushing to one side all
differences of opinion as to the _local_ effect of the proposed
cut,--its influence on land values, and the share of the cost which
ought to be borne by abutters,--the fact stands out that the City as
a whole needs the improvement in order to clear an obstruction from
some of its most important general highways. Another fact, seen clearly
from this larger point of view, is that the essential matter is to
secure a radical reduction of the maximum gradients on the three great
thoroughfare lines, Sixth Avenue, Fifth Avenue, and Diamond Street,
even though the minor streets on the margins of the Hump be skimped.
Detailed recommendations, as to gradients, etc., are discussed in Part
V and are embodied in the accompanying plans and profiles.
[Sidenote:
Grant Boulevard Extension]
[Illustration: Diagram showing the distribution of automobiles coming
in town on Grant Boulevard]
Only one other thoroughfare problem is involved with the "Hump Cut,"
that of Grant Boulevard extension. Since the grade of Webster Avenue
will be considerably lowered in connection with the "Hump Cut," and
the buildings along its lower end greatly damaged in any case, by far
the best plan for Grant Boulevard is to carry it straight through to
Webster Avenue and to widen the lower end of the latter to 60 feet, as
far as Grant Street. The widening of Oliver Avenue to 50 feet between
Grant and Smithfield Streets, and the possible widening of Strawberry
Way, would, together with existing streets, provide adequate means of
distribution for the large number of automobiles using the boulevard,
and would at the same time create a decided local improvement.
[Sidenote:
A Civic Center]
The location of a Civic Center, where the city offices can be grouped
in a convenient and dignified manner, ought to connect with the main
transportation lines. It ought, if possible, to embrace the county
buildings. It ought, if possible, to occupy land which is not of such
high cost as to preclude the setting apart of the open space which is
requisite to the highest dignity and beauty of public buildings. All
these advantages are embraced to a high degree in a locality now so
unpromising and unattractive that it is hard not to feel an unfair
prejudice against it.
[Illustration: County Buildings--the northwest side of the proposed
Civic Center]
[Illustration: Present appearance of the Civic Center site from the
rear of the County Buildings]
[Illustration: Princes Street in Edinburgh--an interesting example of a
public garden built over a railroad]
[Illustration: Suggestion for the Municipal Building in the Civic
Center]
The locality in question lies to the east and southeast of the present
county buildings. It embraces a bit of low ground occupied by the
little Panhandle station and local freight yard, surrounded, except
for the county buildings, by vacant lands and cheap buildings at
various higher levels, mounting on the east to the commanding ridge
that dominates all this part of the city. Through this locality the
Forbes and Diamond Street thoroughfare and the South Hills and Sixth
Avenue thoroughfare will pass. Fifth Avenue borders it on the north,
and Second Avenue on the south. It is flanked on the northwest by
the noble and distinguished architecture of the court house and the
jail--masterpieces of Richardson, priceless examples of the work of one
of the few great artists America has yet produced. To the west a new
county building is about to be erected. It is proposed that the central
area of low ground, occupied by the railroad, be decked over at about
the level of Fifth Avenue, and that a great public square with gardens
be laid out thereon somewhat after the manner of the celebrated public
gardens built over the railroad at Princes Street, Edinburgh, or, in
a much smaller way, at Park Avenue, New York. Below the structure
would simply be a first class station and freight sheds of permanent
construction, with skylights and ventilators, at suitable locations,
piercing a flat roof of adequate strength. The cost of construction
would be less than the cost of an equal area of land independently
acquired for an open space in connection with a Civic Center in any
other locality that could reasonably be considered.
[Illustration: Sketch of the proposed Civic Center for Pittsburgh,
looking south. The crossing of tracks in center of foreground is at the
present corner of Sixth Avenue and Forbes Street]
[Illustration: Retaining wall supporting a local park at Lyons--a
suggestion for the bluff between Second Avenue and the new City Hall.]
[Illustration: Hillside site of the proposed City Hall]
Along the east side of this square or garden, in the form of a
gradually rising terrace, would run the approach to the new South Hills
bridge ascending gently from Forbes Street; and on the east side of
this again, as though terraced on the hillside, would be the principal
municipal building culminating in a tower which would spring from the
highest level at Bluff Street, where the playground of the Holy Ghost
College could be utilized as a park. The group enclosing the square
would be completed by another building at the north with frontage on
Forbes Street, Fifth Avenue, and Sixth Avenue, and by a low building
on the south serving to screen the factories and freight yards south
of Second Avenue but leaving open the view of the opposite hills. The
plan and the sketch perspectives indicate in a general way the sort of
architectural development for which the situation appears to call. The
pronounced and unsymmetrical differences in elevation, the slanting
grade of the approach to the great South Hills bridge, the irregular
and picturesque form of the site and of the existing county buildings,
all seem to demand a certain informality and picturesqueness of design.
These peculiarities of the site ought to be welcomed because they are
eminently characteristic of the city and of the mountainous region
in which it is set. Throughout the city and its surroundings the one
preëminent quality of an agreeable sort is the bold picturesqueness
of the landscape--the deep ravines, the lofty hills, the precipitous
declivities, the plunging prospects from hilltops into the river
valleys--and a similar quality of forcefulness, activity, and bold,
irregular adaptation of means to ends, is to be felt in all the more
dominant and impressive works of man in the city--the steel works, the
bridges and viaducts, the jagged sky-line of office buildings. To build
a City Hall and Civic Center of scholastic formality, appropriate in
the placid surroundings of Paris, would be to lose a great esthetic
opportunity.
[Illustration: The Cathedral Terrace at Bern; a suggestion for
utilizing a high situation for public buildings and grounds]
[Illustration: The hillside of Ofen at Budapest, an interesting
treatment of the slope crowned by a public building]
[Sidenote:
Diamond Street Widening]
It would be difficult to overestimate the value, to the future
convenience prosperity and business efficiency of the city, of carrying
the Forbes Street improvement straight through to a junction with
Liberty Avenue on the line of Diamond Street; and it is deemed a
peculiarly fortunate thing that this is the only east and west line in
the midst of the business district where a wide street can still be put
through without destroying any considerable number of costly modern
buildings.
When Diamond Alley was widened, in part, from 20 feet to 50 feet, not
long ago, the improvement was of much importance because it added one
more street large enough for general business in a locality where there
was a great demand for business frontage, and where the original lots
were of very excessive depth. But the improvement was a distinctly
local one and contributed little or nothing to the solution of the
general traffic problem. But the peculiar relation of Diamond Street to
the general system of main traffic lines demands a much more courageous
action for the benefit of the whole city. In connection with the
widening of Forbes Street, it should be converted into a thoroughfare
at least equal in width to Liberty Avenue. A glance at the map shows
the convenient and equitable location of Diamond Street, and its
importance as a thoroughfare to supplement Liberty Avenue in handling
the traffic of the Point District.
[Sidenote:
Market Street Widening]
Coming, as it does, directly opposite the Sixth Street bridge, Market
Street ought to be a very important cross-town connection; and because
the buildings are generally small and old, and most of the lots are
so deep as not to be seriously injured by curtailment, a widening is
suggested throughout its length.
The widening of Diamond and Market Streets makes clear that the
Diamond Square Market site should not be occupied in any way that
would perpetuate the obstruction offered by the present use of the
square to through travel. The need is not for a mere mitigation or
slight improvement of the present conditions by opening little archways
through a new building on the Market site, but for a radical and
effective clearance. The space was originally set apart as an open
public square, and the complete occupation of it by revenue-producing
buildings was a diversion of the square from its original purpose--an
act in general accordance with the unfortunately short-sighted policy
which has done much to bring about the notably congested conditions
prevailing in the city today.
[Sidenote:
The Market]
[Illustration: A bridge and water front at Pittsburgh--Monongahela
River]
It may be necessary to provide elsewhere for the Market, and a site
is suggested in the block between Third and Fourth Streets on Liberty
Avenue, having the great advantage of rail connections. On account
of the character of the surrounding country, an exceptionally large
proportion of market supplies comes to Pittsburgh by rail and must
continue to do so. It is highly uneconomical, and adds needlessly and
considerably to the congestion of the streets, to unload the market
supplies from the railroad a full mile away (as is now done) and to
then haul them by team through the heart of the retail district.[3]
Within the interior of the Point District, Diamond and Market Streets
widened, supplemented by the existing Liberty Avenue, appear to be the
only thoroughfares of Metropolitan dimensions which it is reasonable to
provide for. But around the borders of the district there is much that
ought to be done.
[Sidenote:
The Water Front]
In its water front Pittsburgh has a great public asset which now lies
undeveloped both from the point of view of transportation and from that
of recreation and civic beauty.
[Illustration: Primitive commercial quay at Pittsburgh--Allegheny River]
As a transportation factor, its primary use is for the transshipment of
water-born commodities. As discussed elsewhere,[4] the actual amount
of river freight is at present relatively small; but it is potentially
important, and one of the reasons for its lack of growth is the
neglect of Pittsburgh and other river ports to provide for the quick,
convenient, and economical handling of river-born traffic at the public
wharf.
[Illustration: Berlin water front, both useful and attractive]
At river ports throughout the world, the first primitive step, beyond
the mere dumping of stuff and passengers on the natural shelving
bank or river bed of mud or gravel, is the paving of the slope, as
at Pittsburgh, still leaving the goods to be dragged up and down the
bank by main force. But among the live modern river cities of Europe,
wherever a real water competition with rail service has been desired,
even though such competition be limited in its range, the day of the
primitive or mud-bank type of shore has long gone by; and the public
wharf has been reconstructed into one of the many well-recognized types
of commercial embankment providing an up-to-date equipment for handling
freight, and decent, attractive conditions for passengers. This
development of the public wharf properties in Europe has kept pace with
the activities of the railroads, making for the steady and intelligent
improvement of terminal facilities. Indeed in many European river ports
the improvement of the water terminals has rather forced the pace for
the railroads.
[Illustration: Frankfurt's double use of its river front, for business
and for pleasure]
In contrast to this active aggressive spirit, Pittsburgh, like most
American river towns, where she has not actually turned her water
front over bodily to the railroads, has left it in a most inefficient
primitive condition.
[Illustration: Shaded promenade upon the embankment that protects Lyons
from the floods of the Rhone]
But the value of Pittsburgh's water front lies not merely in its use
as a wharf, however much improved. Another use, shown by the varied
experiences of other river cities, is that, in a commercial water
front on modern lines, there is generally opportunity for a wide
marginal thoroughfare for the relief of traffic congestion in the
adjacent streets. Sometimes such a water-front thoroughfare becomes a
busy avenue of retail trade and general travel; but more usually its
peculiar value lies in diverting some of the main streams of heavy
teaming from the older interior streets where the retail trade and
office business tend to concentrate, and where the passenger travel is
most dense. Especially with an isolated and limited business district
like that of Pittsburgh, made up almost wholly of narrow streets and
connected with the rest of the city by a series of bridges and of
bridge-like gaps in the hills which wall it in, it becomes of the
utmost importance to secure the formation of a wide circuit street
connecting these outlets together, so that not all the travel is forced
to filter slowly through the midst of the business district.
[Illustration: View of the same water front at Lyons, showing the
commercial quay]
A third undeveloped asset of the Pittsburgh water front is its value
for recreation and as an element of civic comeliness and self-respect.
One of the deplorable consequences of the short-sighted and wasteful
commercialism of the later nineteenth century lay in its disregard of
what might have been the esthetic by-products of economic improvement;
in the false impression spread abroad that economical and useful things
were normally ugly; and in the vicious idea which followed, that beauty
and the higher pleasures of civilized life were to be sought only in
things otherwise useless. Thus the pursuit of beauty was confounded
with extravagance.
Among the most significant illustrations of the fallacy of such ideas
are the comeliness and the incidental recreation value which attach to
many of the commercial water fronts of European river ports, and it is
along such lines that Pittsburgh still has opportunity for redeeming
the sordid aspect of its business center.
[Illustration: How Paris appreciates the value of its river frontage]
[Illustration: The outlook from The Point, Pittsburgh]
Wherever in the world, as an incident of the highways and wharves along
its riverbanks, a city has provided opportunity for the people to walk
and sit under pleasant conditions where they can watch the water and
the life upon it, where they can enjoy the breadth of outlook and the
sight of the open sky and the opposite bank and the reflections in the
stream, the result has added to the comeliness of the city itself, the
health and happiness of the people and their loyalty and local pride.
This has been true in the case of a bare, paved promenade, running
along like an elevated railroad over the sheds and tracks and derricks
of a busy ocean port, as at Antwerp; in the case of a tree-shaded
sidewalk along a commercial street with the river quays below it, as
at Paris and Lyons and hundreds of lesser cities; and in the case of a
broad embankment garden won from the mud-banks by dredging and filling,
as at London. Pittsburgh has an unusual opportunity to secure this
incidental value for recreation in the treatment of its river front.
Immediately across the Monongahela are the high and rugged hillsides of
Mt. Washington and Duquesne Heights, and below these are the lesser but
still striking hills along the Ohio River from the West End to McKees
Rocks. The outlook over the river with its varied activities to these
hills immediately beyond, would be notable in any part of the world.
Furthermore, the rivers and the hills are the two big fundamental
natural elements characteristic of the Pittsburgh District. Thus, any
provision close to the heart of the city, whereby the people can have
the enjoyment of these mighty landscapes, is of peculiar importance.
[Illustration: Mt. Washington hillside from the Monongahela water front]
It does not diminish the essential grandeur of the situation that
the river swarms with barges and steamers; that it is spanned by
busy bridges; that the flat lands along the rivers are crowded with
railroads, buildings and smoking factories; and that the hillsides are
crowned with houses. It is a spacious and impressive landscape in any
case. But for the people to get the good of it two things are needful.
A locally agreeable place must be provided from which the scene can
be enjoyed; and the landscape must be treated with the respect which
it deserves, by the elimination of certain features which are merely
indicative of neglect, waste, and abuse, and which have no economic
justification. Especially is it desirable that the precipitous hillside
rising to Mt. Washington, now largely an unfruitful waste, a place of
raw gulleys and slides mingled with some painful advertising signs,
should be treated with respect as a vital part of the great landscape
of the city. It should be protected from defacement and its earthy
portions should be reclothed with the beauty of foliage.
The accompanying illustrations are suggestive of the sort of thing
which might be done by Pittsburgh with its remaining public water
front, and in time, let us hope, with portions of the water front
which have passed into private hands. But the actual details of the
treatment to be adopted can be properly worked out only in connection
with the comprehensive plans for flood protection with which the Flood
Commission is now grappling.
[Illustration: Water front and hillside at Lyons]
The great majority of river cities which have undertaken modern
improvements on their water fronts have had to deal with more or less
serious flood problems, and the complex and varying conditions of each
river have had an important influence on the design of the embankment.
The technical problems involved in the control of rivers are among
the most complex and baffling with which the engineering profession
has to deal, and any attempt to forestall the investigations of the
Flood Commission, by definite plans for permanent improvements on the
water front, would be folly. Nevertheless, the experience of hundreds
of cities and the work of thousands of engineers have developed
certain types of treatment, one or more of which, with suitable local
modifications, will pretty surely appear in the final solution of the
Pittsburgh problem. Subject, therefore, to the conclusions of the Flood
Commission, a satisfactory development of the Pittsburgh wharf may be
expected to include the following features.
First, there should be an amply wide water-front street, presumably
formed by extending Water Street and Duquesne Way over the upper part
of the present sloping bank. Second, the outer sidewalk of this street
should become at most points a tree-shaded promenade, of such width and
with such equipment of benches and other features for public recreation
as the circumstances permit, so arranged that the people using it will
neither be in the way of the transportation activities nor be annoyed
or endangered by them, and so designed that the people can enjoy to the
full the natural beauty of the river valley and the always interesting
activities of which it is the stage. Third, there should be next the
water a commercial quay, substantially level, of adequate but not
unnecessary width, and accessible from the streets by inclined roads of
reasonable gradient, parallel with the river, in place of the present
excessive slopes.
In the first typical section here given is shown one such arrangement.
Here, the level of the promenade is such that its solid parapet rises
above the maximum flood level. This is of a type adopted for rivers
that are subject to occasional excessive floods, as at Pittsburgh. It
assumes the embankment to be made water-tight; the sewers and drains
to be provided with proper back-pressure gates, and the openings from
the streets, through the promenade and its parapet to the commercial
quay, to be arranged for prompt damming on the rise of the water above
the danger level. Thus would the entire business district be protected
from floods, not only on the surface but also in the basements. The
quay shown on this section is supposed to be at a level just above
ordinary navigable stages, and to be equipped with power cranes for
direct loading and unloading between steamers or barges, tied up at the
quay, and wagons upon it. Provision could also be made for a freight
track running in alongside the cranes for transfer between cars and
vessels (if thought desirable), in addition to the facilities provided
on railroad property. Alongside the quay, floating landing-stages for
packets and so forth, reached by gang-planks or bridges, would be
provided as at present, but in a more decent and commodious style.
[Illustration: Typical section for the water front. The parapet along
the promenade would be above extreme flood height; the commercial quay
would be at a lower level, flooded at very high water, but above all
ordinary river stages.]
[Illustration: Alternative section for the water front, suggesting
a floating commercial quay that would rise and fall with the river.
Large cranes could transfer freight directly from the boats to trucks
at the street level. At certain places roadways would cut through the
promenade to provide access to ramps leading down to the quays and
to provide places for freight trucks to stand while being loaded and
unloaded.]
This section is of a type tested by practical experience and is clearly
a great improvement upon the present primitive conditions. But it is
open to two objections: first, that the quay is flooded at intervals,
although so designed as to suffer no injury and to be put out of
commission only when the river is practically closed to navigation by
the height of the flood; and, second, that at low water, that is to say
"pool full," it is not at the most convenient height.
An alternative section is therefore suggested, which has less precedent
behind it, but which might prove better adapted to the Pittsburgh
conditions. In this the fixed level of the commercial quay is replaced
by a continuous landing stage formed of long floats or barges, of
permanent construction, moored against the wall and free to rise and
fall with the changing level of the river. The approaches to the
floating quay for wagons would be, as in the case of the fixed quay,
by descending inclines parallel with the river just outside the main
wall; but in this case the roadway would be formed by a line of barges
which would rest on a fixed incline during low water. The rising water
would lift the barges off the incline successively, beginning with
the lowest, so that at all stages of the water they would maintain an
uninterrupted roadway to the quay on a proper gradient. Successful
precedents for such use of permanent floating quays, and of alternately
floating and grounded driveways to the landing stage, are to be found
in Italy and in the recent harbor developments at Manaos, Brazil.
A great advantage of the floating quay is that in this type of
construction the bed of the river may be excavated to its full depth
back to the face of the flood wall itself, and that the space necessary
for the commercial quay is secured on the floating structure outside
of this line without materially reducing the prism, or section, of the
flood discharge. It would therefore be possible, with this design, to
secure more ample width for street, for promenade, and for commercial
quay, and at the same time have more space in the river for the passage
of the floods.
Whatever may prove to be the best details of the river-front treatment,
it is clear that it can and should provide an ample thoroughfare, a
clean, pleasant, tree-shaded promenade, and a convenient, up-to-date
wharf with easy access to and from the streets. There is no serious
difficulty in providing for such an improvement from the junction of
the two bridges at The Point to Ninth Street, on the Allegheny, and to
Smithfield Street, on the Monongahela.
East of Smithfield Street the passenger station of the Baltimore &
Ohio now blocks the way. But it is not unreasonable to expect that
the main Baltimore & Ohio station will, before long, be moved to some
point in Junction Hollow in order to avoid the long delay, to all
through trains, caused by the run down to Smithfield Street and back
again. The suburban business of the Baltimore & Ohio could then be
turned in, parallel with the Panhandle tracks, to a new joint suburban
station in connection with the important future center of traffic near
the junction of Forbes and Diamond Streets with Sixth Avenue and the
proposed South Hill bridge.
When the Baltimore & Ohio passenger station is removed from Smithfield
Street it would be possible to continue the new water-front street and
promenade east of Smithfield on a viaduct just outside of the present
Water Street; this viaduct would rise over the Baltimore & Ohio freight
yard and the grade entrances thereto at Grant and Ross Streets, and so
connect along the line of the Panhandle (Try Street) with the proposed
Second Avenue bridge over the railroad, and thence with Forbes Street
and Sixth Avenue.
Any better connection than now exists from Ninth Street and Duquesne
Way to Liberty Avenue would be so costly as to seem hardly worth while,
although it would be a much-desired link in the circuit thoroughfare.
It is probably impossible for Pittsburghers, who are familiar with
the present neglected aspect of the water front and are not familiar
with the finer European quays, to form any conception of how fine a
situation will be created for public or private buildings, especially
on the southern water front when thus improved. If it were not so much
to one side of the main streams of passenger travel, the river frontage
between Smithfield and Ferry Streets would offer a most admirable site
for public buildings in the down town district.
[Sidenote:
The Improvement of The Point]
At the opposite end of the business district from the proposed Civic
Center is another spot where the civic pride of Pittsburgh should lead
the City to make liberal expenditures for other than the economic ends
which justify those Street improvements which are the main burden of
this report.
[Illustration: Water front park and an interesting bridge at Bonn,
Germany]
At the end of The Point, where the two lines of water-front improvement
would join, is a considerable area of public open space. Here is the
spot where the Ohio River has its birth: here was built the fort
which broke the peace of Europe and around which turned the frontier
struggles of the war that gave America to the English speaking race.
It is here that all the most inspiring associations of the city are
chiefly concentrated. Poetically, this spot, at the meeting of the
rivers, stands for Pittsburgh.
Because the eastward drift of the business center has followed the
eastward drift of residences, and the growth of business has not
yet expanded back to fill the void; and because The Point is left
pocketed beyond the freight yards, and is visited only by the throngs
who use the old Point bridge, it seems to be rather forgotten and
disregarded by most Pittsburghers. But its historical and topographical
significance can never be altered, and it is to be hoped that the City
will rise to its opportunity and nobly form The Point into a great
monument.
The North Point bridge is about to be rebuilt; the South Point bridge
is very narrow and some day must be rebuilt in its own turn. In the
placing of these bridges, in every feature of their design and of the
design and decoration of their approaches, the monumental element ought
always to control. The plan shown herewith in outline is an attempt
to solve, in a dignified and monumental way, the obvious problems
presented by the bridges and the means of approach to them. Whether
just this plan or some better one be adopted, it is essential that
the whole Point be regarded as one single monument, that no pains be
spared in bringing the best artistic skill to bear in working out the
details of the plan, and that the general plan, when thus worked out,
shall really determine the construction of all the parts. At any time
conditions may arise, as in regard to one of the bridges, for which the
general plan does not exactly provide; but, if so, the plan should be
adapted as a _whole_ to meet the new conditions, so that work may still
proceed in accordance with a complete plan. Never can a single feature
of The Point safely be designed independent of the rest, if worthy
results are to be obtained. And what is true of this great monumental
feature is true in large measure of all public improvements in relation
to a comprehensive city plan.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] See Plan of the Down Town District.
[3] A general discussion of the Market problem is included in Part V.
[4] The City and the Allegheny River Bridges, Part V.