before a beginning is made to brighten up the downtown district. Continued migrations of home owners from Brooklyn to New Jersey and to counties outside of Greater New York may weaken the ability of the borough to preserve its entity and character. If it should once become a somewhat neglected industrial annex of Manhattan, the result would be injurious both to Brooklyn and Manhattan. No greater calamity could happen to every part of Brooklyn than to have the borough lose its civic pride.

When we add to the foregoing considerations the fact that Greater New York has nearly reached the constitutional limit of its borrowing capacity, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that persistent and long-continued demand will bring indefinite millions of dollars to Brooklyn in the near future. The vast contemplated expenditure for rapid transit railroads brings a share to Brooklyn, but even to validate the dual rapid transit contracts it was necessary to dedicate to subways $50,000,000 out of the $65,000,000 of self-supporting dock bonds exempted under the recent constitutional amendment, while we in Brooklyn know that more than $15,000,000 are needed for dock improvements in Brooklyn alone during the next ten years. In order to obtain a sufficient margin within the debt limit, assessed valuations have been placed at full value, and in some cases beyond prices that property will bring in the open market. Until the comprehensive rapid transit plan is completed in the course of four to six years, it cannot be expected that there will be a substantial increase in assessed valuations, taking the city as a whole.

With all of these considerations before us we have concluded that the strictest economy must be observed in improving the downtown district of Brooklyn, and that every dollar expended should be not only of the greatest use for the special purpose to which it is put, but also that every dollar expended should give co-ordinated results. Therefore we consider that such lands as are taken for public buildings should also contribute toward the opening up and improvement of the central business locality.

Outside of money for rapid transit lines, docks, schoolhouses and street improvements, it is not likely that the Borough of Brooklyn will within the next eight years receive any substantial sums except for the new municipal building and a new court house. If these buildings are placed in isolated locations where they have no relation to one another nor to the borough center, it will be most unfortunate. Like the Academy of Music, which is surrounded by narrow streets, they would confer only a partial benefit. Therefore the question of their location is more than finding a good spot for a court house or municipal building. The problem is to find locations that will be convenient for the public business, have a relation to each other and other public improvements, and contribute to the acquirement of more open space where it will do the most good.

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