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THE ATLANT1AN
FOR A CENTRAL BOULE
VARD.
Plan of Providence Municipal
Commission To Run From
City’s Centre to Brown Univer
sity—Is the Only One of 52
Projects Favored—The Cost Is
Estimated at About $1,350,000
Providence, R. I.—In a report made
public . today by a special municipal
commission appointed for the purpose,
Providence’s most troublesome engl
neering problem that has vexed the
souls of the city fathers for the past
half century, namely, a commodious
and convenient thoroughfare from the
centre of business interests to the
East Side residential section, seems
in a fair way of meeting an adequate
solution. The engineering member of
the commission is John R. Freeman,
a consulting engineer of wide renown,
who was one of the board to inspect
the Panama Canal at the invitatior,
of the United States Government. Un
der bis supervision plans and esti
mates have been prepared, which pro
vide for the construction of an eas.
grade street with a maximum width
of 100 feet, intended for all classes of
travel, to reach from the new Feder
al Building and postofllce, at the foot
of the city’s civic centre, to the top
of College Hill, and to cost in the
neighborhood of $1,350,000.
The commission’s report, which is
essentially that of Mr. Freeman, will
be submitted to the city council at its
next meeting, and it is expected that
it will be made the subject of public
hearings. In the history of the pro
ject something like fifty-one plans in
tended to provide a solution of the
problem at hand have been prepared,
the Freeman plan being the fifty-sec
ond. It embodies some of the fea
tures of some of its predecessors, but
is in the main in a class of its own.
Among the subsidiary improvements
planned to make way for the new
highway, is the removal of the present
Supreme Court House, at the junction
of Benefit and Waterman and Angell
streets, the plan being to place the
building, which is of brick and stone
construction, on rollers or skids and
bodily carry it to a Bite something like
300 feet distant. In studying out the
plans for the proposed easy grade
street, which is named Roger Williams
Boulevard, Mr. Freeman spent consid
erable time In Minneapolis, Seattle,
San Francisco and Boston, in the lat
ter city viewing Commonwealth ave
nue, Beacon street and other broad
thoroughfares, such as Columbus ave
nue and Huntington avenue, and Mas
sachusetts avenue in Cambridge.
The plan, in brief, is to construct
a viaduct beginning at Post Office
Square, north of the Federal Building,
carry it over Canal and North Main
streets, following the line of lower
Waterman street, past the First Bap
tist Meeting House on the left and the
Rhode Island School of Design on the
right; cut Benefit street at grade,
sweep aside the present home of the
Supreme Court, and continue eastward
OUR GREAT
JUNE BARGAIN SALE
IS NOW IN
FULL SWING
Offering-
Many Opportunities for
Substantial Savings
IN'
ALL DEPARTMENTS
up the line of Angell street to Brown
street, opposite the Brown University
campus. For about half the distance
the street would be 100 feet in width,
and it would then narrow to 90 feet
its minimum width. The street would
have a uniform grade of 6.24.
Concrete, plain or reinforced, with
steel, would be the material out of
which the viaduct portion would be
constructed, with a concrete archway
whereby Prospect street would be car
ried over the new street on its present
line. At this point the cut would be
nearly the depth of a two and a half-
story house.
“It is the belief of your engineer,”
declares Mr. Freeman, “that Provi
dence presents more undeveloped re
sources than any other city in New
England. With its climate, which is
certainly more agreeable than that of
the cities of the north, its proximity
to the most beautiful and most safe
sheet of water for pleasure boating
that can be found on the Atlantic
coast; with its great university, its
School of Design, it should become
second to no city in the country in
its attractiveness to home-seekers and
a home for high-grade artisans.”
MORE THAN A HORSE
COULD HANDLE.
When engineers were first becoming
familiar with the methods of measur
ing mechanical power, they frequent
ly speculated on where the breed of
horses could be found which would
keep at work raising 33,000 pounds
one foot per minute, or the equiva
lent familiar to men accustomed to
pile-driving by horse-power of rais
ing 330 pounds 100 feet per minute.
Since 33,000 pounds raised one foot
per minute was called one horse-power
it was natural for people to suppose
that the engineers who established
that unit of measurement based it
upon the actual work performed by
horses. But that was not the case.
The method of fixing the unit is a
testimony to the shrewd business
methods of James Watt. Toward the
end of the eighteenth century, Boulton"
& Watt were the principal engine
builders in Great Britain, and it be
came necessary to establish a unit of
power. Watt, in his usual careful
manner, proceeded to find out the av
erage work which the horses in his
district could perform. After careful
investigation he found that the rais
ing of 22,000 pounds one foot per min
ute was about an actual horse-power.
Business was dull at the time and
customers bard to find, so he decided
that artificial encouragement was nec
essary to induce power users to buy
steam engines. As a method of en
couraging business, Watt offered to
sell engines reckoning 33,000 pounds
to the horse-power. This was intend
ed as a temporary arrangement, but
that kind of horse-power became popu
lar with power users, and the engine
builders had to abide by the false
unit.—Railway and Locomotive Engi
neering.