U. S. Portal Plans

A problem often pondered by U. S. architects is that of making Manhattan's Battery Park truly "The Gateway to the Nation." Foremost designers and designs in the past: 1) Arthur Ware--A triumphal arch, axised on Broadway with an esplanade enclosed by a peristyle, flanked by two buildings, one dedicated to the Army, one to the Navy. 2) Christopher Grant La Farge--An ornamental arrangement of pylons and railings framing a reception plaza, a fountain playing in a great reflecting pool, the whole scaled low, designed simply, keeping the Broadway vista open. 3) Eric Gugler--A granite shaft 800 ft. high flanked by two large armillary spheres, one symbolic of the celestial globe, one of the planets; semicircular steps 400 ft. wide from the water to an esplanade.

More utilitarian, no less impressive, but at present more nebulous, was a project announced last week by a New York Board of Trade committee chairmanned by William T. Donnelly, consulting engineer. Chairman Donnelly's proposal not only envisions Manhattan as the gateway to the nation, but, richer in concept than previous plans, seeks to symbolize the U. S. as a great interfusion of races, nations, peoples, whose civilization has been and is based on commerce. His plan proposes as an appropriate* national monument a great vaulted hall, largest in the world, with an esplanade on the Battery water's edge and buttressed by two ten story office buildings. A nation-wide contest among architects of all races will be held, a popular subscription to raise $25,000,000 set into motion. Ideal way of raising the money, declared Chairman Donnelly last week, would be to collect 25-c- from every U. S. citizen. "Then each person would feel he owned as much in this national monument as the next one. But all this about plans and designs is just my idea of what it should be like--to give the nation and the nation's architects something to work on."

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