Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

10 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.