apparently no increase of transportation facilities can keep up with the
growth of the city. The population of a great commercial city must be
congested near the business center. This is a necessary condition of its
existence. All that can be done to meet this condition is to provide
all possible facilities for moving the people into and out of the
business districts and within its limits.

During recent years the business population of the lower part of the
Borough of Manhattan has become greatly congested. Very high buildings,
providing business accommodations for large numbers of people, have been
constructed, and these people must move to and from their working places
at about the same times, that is, at the "rush hours" in the morning and
afternoon, at the beginning and ending of the working day. Every effort
has been made to provide for this immense and rapidly increasing local
passenger traffic, by the construction of surface, elevated, and
subterranean railways; but the demand for transportation has increased
much faster than the facilities can be provided, and it is evident that
the limit of down-town passenger traffic facilities has been very nearly
reached.

Apparently, the only remedy for these conditions is the movement of
business and the people transacting it up-town or to the Boroughs of
Brooklyn and Queens, which are now readily accessible by tunnels and
subways. This movement, of course, is resisted by the great real estate
and money interests centered in the lower part of the city, but,
notwithstanding this resistance, the improvement has commenced and has
rapidly advanced. The great retail houses are being established above
23d Street; the banks and brokers' offices are rapidly appearing around
the new business center of the city. The facilities afforded by the
telephone and the subway for communication with the money center have