The selection of Congress Street for development into a broad cross avenue is urged by many considerations. First, this particular street coincides substantially with the center of the business district; and also is about equidistant from the other east-and-west streets (Twelfth and Washington, and Twenty-second and Chicago Avenue) which most readily lend themselves to development as arteries in the street system; and it is also equidistant from the two great east-and-west railroad rights-of-way at Kinzie and at Sixteenth streets. Secondly, the very fact that Congress Street now exists only in disconnected portions, and that the buildings throughout the proposed cutting are comparatively inexpensive, offers a very strong argument for its selection on the score of economy. The widening of another street would mean the destruction of two frontages in order to obtain sufficient width without encroaching on the building space on parallel streets. Thirdly, Congress Street stands in such relations to Grant Park that its use as a central axis of the city allows park and avenue to sustain reciprocal relations in the highest degree conducive both to convenience and to good order. Fourthly, the opening of Congress Street would create, in combination with Van Buren Street on the north and Harrison Street on the south, a triple set of arteries at the center of things. There are no arguments favoring the selection of another street which present such a combination of advantages as is to be found in the choice of Congress Street. The diagram showing business occupancy indicates that Congress Street is already very near the center of the great commercial activities, and also that this center has steadily moved in a southwesterly direction. [Illustration: CXXXV. VIENNA. THE RINGSTRASSE, SHOWING THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS GROUPED ABOUT SQUARES AND GARDENS ALONG ITS COURSE.] Thus far the argument for the selection of Congress Street has dealt with purely practical questions, which in themselves would seem to be conclusive. The choice of Congress Street is quite as logical from an æsthetic point of view. In a sense the Field Museum will be one of the important buildings in the city. The site selected is exactly opposite the intersection of Congress Street with Michigan Avenue. To create a great cross avenue without utilizing the element of symmetry which this noble building stands ready to furnish would be to set at defiance every law of civic order, and to perpetrate a crime against good taste that could never be atoned for. It is inconceivable that in the present state of public taste any people would permit such a barbarism. [Illustration: CXXXVI. ROME. ST. PETER’S CATHEDRAL, SHOWING THE APPROACH.] [Illustration: CXXXVII. CHICAGO. VIEW OF THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT IN THE CENTER OF THE CITY, FROM TWENTY SECOND STREET TO CHICAGO AVENUE, LOOKING TOWARDS THE EAST OVER THE CIVIC CENTER TO GRANT PARK AND LAKE MICHIGAN.