According to the common law of this country, the seashore, be tween high and low water marks, belongs to the State unless it has been conveyed away by special grant, and the public has the right to the unhindered use of all tidewater land for purposes of bathing, fishing, and navigation. The decision just referred to expressly confirms that right, except as to a small portion of the shore line of Coney Island granted by the State to Joseph Huber in 1897.

WEST SIDE IMPROVEMENT PLAN

A Controversy Which Has Become Historic

During the past year, the plan for the relocation and improvement of the New York Central Railroad Co.'s tracks on the west side of Manhattan Island in the City of New York, to which we had alluded in previous Reports under the headings of the New York Central Railroad Tracks, Fort Washington Park, Riverside Park, the West Side Parks, etc., (see our Annual Reports for 1913, pp. 174-176; 1914, pp. 172-174; 1916, pp. 161-167) has been designated popularly as the West Side improvement plan, and the problem involved has come to be called the West Side problem. During this past twelve-month, no civic question in New York City has been so constantly in the public mind or so earnestly discussed as this. So greatly has public sentiment upon the subject been stirred that civic bodies have held public meetings either to advocate or to oppose various provisions of the plan. The gatherings of the opponents have taken on the nature of indignation meetings." At the public hearings before the Board of Estimate, at mass meetings held by popular call, and in the columns of the newspapers, it has been charged on the one hand that the proposed plan presents such a preponderance of advantage to the railroad company as to do the City a great injustice, while on the other hand these charges have been emphatically denied by the advocates of the plan. The allegations of partiality on the part of the proponents of the plan made by the opponents have been characterized at times by acerbity and pointed personality, and the rejoinders by its defenders have been equally frank and direct. The controversy has become so prominent that the newspapers have published cartoons on the subject.

A cartoon in an evening paper of January 31, 1917, represented a New York Central locomotive, equipped with an enormous plough-front, ploughing through Riverside Park, being driven by a prominent city official as engineer. On February 2, appeared a cartoon depicting the shadow of a locomotive engine falling upon children at play in Riverside Park. It was accompanied by this title: "This is Ground Hog Day; and there's the shadow of a realground hog' over Riverside Park." The situation, therefore, has been and still is highly charged with frictional electricity.

A review of the causes leading to this state of affairs shows that partly on account of admitted inadvertencies in giving out official information concerning the plan, partly on account of the inherent complexity of the problem, and partly on account of the natural diversity of view-points, a strong feeling began to develop in the minds of many citizens that a deliberate attempt was being made to victimize the city in the interest of the railroad company,- a feeling which the Board of Estimate has tried to dissipate by making public statements of denial, by holding a long series of public meetings at which the opponents as well as the advocates could be heard, by taking representatives of the press and of one of the most active societies of antagonists over the ground and explaining it to them, and by inviting half a dozen leading civic bodies interested in park development to advise with them in the treatment to Riverside Park.

If the problem involved had not touched the people of New York City on a particularly sensitive spot, namely their public parks, it is highly probable that it would not have reached such an aggravated stage. Two of the greatest railroad terminals in the world, those of the New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railroads, in New York City, were built without any public agitation about their plans or locations. They were the purely private enterprises of those great corporations, carried out at their own expense, on their own property and it is to be said to their credit that both are wonderfully impressive buildings and have conduced greatly to the public convenience.

But the West Side plan involved public property and public interests in three dictinct ways: North of 72d street it involved

the integrity of public parks, of which the people of New York are justly very jealous; below 72d street it bore upon the fundamental question as to whether the city could and should provide for a unified and comprehensive plan of water-front facilities, for handling the commerce of the port, instead of carrying out the plan of a single railroad company; and both above and below 72d street, it involved the granting to the railroad of lands and easements in exchange for concessions on the part of the railroad, concerning the value of which there was a wide divergence of opinion.

It was in the first of these three aspects that the public was most conspicuously disturbed. The strictly commercial phases and the exchanges of lands and franchises might have been adjusted, not without opposition, perhaps, but probably without arousing deep popular feeling; but when it became apparent that Riverside Park, in particular, was to be affected, an entirely new realm of public sentiment was touched, and made itself manifest. Mr. Ira A. Place, Vice President of the New York Central Railroad, said very truly at the hearing before the Board of Estimate and Apportionment on March 1, 1917, that "probably there is more difference of opinion as to the manner of treating Riverside Park than any other feature of the plans."

The controversy is at its height at the present writing. However it may terminate, it has already become one of the most notable of its kind in the history of the city.

The West Side Problem Stated

The problem involved may briefly be stated as follows:

The New York Central Railroad comes down to New York from Albany along the left or east bank of the Hudson river. When it reaches Spuyten Duyvil creek, which, with the Harlem Ship Canal and Harlem river, separates Manhattan Island from the mainland, the tracks divide. One set of tracks turns eastward to the Harlem river, runs down the east side of that river, crosses it at 135th street, and goes down Park avenue to the Grand Central Station at 42d street. The other set of tracks, which is of present concern, crosses the mouth of Spuyten Duyvil creek on a low draw-bridge, runs down along the shore of the Hudson river, cuts through Fort Washington Park, and continuing along the

shore parallel with Riverside Drive, passes through Riverside Park for a distance of nearly three miles from 130th street to 72d street. Between 72d street and 60th street, the tracks spread out fan-wise in a large freight yard. From 60th street the tracks continue down 11th avenue to 33d street, thence to 10th avenue at 30th street, down 10th avenue to the river front on West street at 12th street, thence down West street to Canal street, through Canal street to Hudson street, and down the latter to the freight house which stands on the site of old St. John's Park in the block bounded by Varick, Hudson, Laight and Beach streets.

For many years, the removal of the tracks from 11th avenue has been a subject of agitation on account of the number of accidents to citizens which gave to that thoroughfare the nickname of Death avenue. In 1906, the Legislature passed a bill introduced by Senator Martin Saxe which gave the railroad company a year in which to negotiate a settlement with the old Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners, in default of which the city was to begin condemnation proceedings; but nothing came of it. Later, the city brought proceedings against the company, with the result that in 1910 the Court of Appeals rendered a decision holding that the city had no right to interfere with the company, but that, as it had succeeded in showing that the presence of the New York Central in 11th avenue was a danger to the citizens and a detriment to the neighborhood, the State could, under its general police power, take steps to force the company to find a new site for its tracks at its own expense. Thereupon the Legislature of 1911, by chapter 777, directed the company to file before October 1 of that year plans to show how it would remove its tracks, and authorized the Board of Estimate and Apportionment to enter into negotiations with the railroad to effect this. It is under this law that the Board of Estimate and Apportionment is now acting. The situation then, in short, is this: The City is trying to get the railroad out of its public streets; and the railroad company is trying to improve its freight terminal facilities. The question is, how can these two ends be attained and the interests of each conserved in fairness to those of the other.

In order to work out a solution of this complex problem, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment appointed a committee called the Committee on Port and Terminal Facilities.

The Revised Plan

On March 27, 1913, the Port and Terminals Committee presented to the Board of Estimate its first report, based on the plans which the railroad company had filed on September 28, 1911. A number of public hearings were held thereon, at which the plans were strongly criticised. They were therefore referred back to the committee for further consideration. With the organization of the present Board of Estimate and Apportionment, the plans were referred to the present Port and Terminals Committee, consisting of Hon. William Prendergast, Comptroller of the city, who is Chairman of the committee; Hon. Marcus M. Marks, President of the Borough of Manhattan; Hon. Lewis H. Pounds, President of the Borough of Brooklyn; and Hon. R. A. C. Smith, Commissioner of Docks and Ferries.

Section 2 of chapter 777 of the laws of 1911 provides that at any time after the filing of the original plans of the railroad, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment "may make and submit to said railroad company plans and profiles showing such changes as said Board may see fit to propose in the railroad or railroad structures, yards, stations, or terminal facilities of said railroad."

On April 7, 1916, therefore, a new set of plans, dated April 6, 1916, was filed with the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. The title of these plans, in part, is as follows: "The New York Central Railroad Company, successor, by consolidation, to the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company. Plans and Profiles showing the things required to be shown on plans and profiles which the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company was directed by chapter 777 of the laws of 1911 to submit, in duplicate, on or before the first day of October, 1911 (and which were so submitted on the 28th day of September, 1911) to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of the City of New York, as amended and modified in accordance with amendments and modifications which have been agreed to by the said New York Central Railroad Company and approved by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of the City of New York, consisting of 43 sheets, numbered from No. 2 to No. 44, both inclusive, each sheet being dated the 6th day of April, 1916," etc.