COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO Painted for the Commercial Club by Jules Guerin.] The new Congress Street should be created with a width, from Wabash Avenue westward, of from 200 to 250 feet to Canal Street; and thence to the civic square the width should approximate 300 feet. The roadways should be divided for the various kinds of traffic, and it should furnish opportunities for the highest class of adornment known to civic art. Theaters, public and semi-public buildings, retail shops, and all the other structures which are to be found on frequented streets would come to be built along a thoroughfare which from the time of its opening would be of the first importance.[26] As it is proposed to group in Grant Park the buildings pertaining to art, literature, and science, so it is planned to create on the axis of Congress Street a composition representing the dignity and importance of the city from the administrative point of view. Where Congress Street intersects Halsted Street, a civic center should be established. At this center radiating arteries naturally converge. The population in Chicago has stretched itself along the Lake shore; but the center of density has moved steadily in a southwesterly direction. Beginning with the original Fort Dearborn reservation, the line of density of population passes through the present location of the City Hall and the Court House, thence a little to the south of the proposed civic center. Moreover, the point selected for the civic center is the center of gravity, so to speak, of all the radial arteries entering Chicago. Even now the proposed center is not far in advance of the growth of the city; while at the same time land values in the area selected are not excessive. [Illustration: CXXXVIII. BERLIN. SPREE ISLAND, IN THE HEART OF THE CITY.] The buildings comprised in the civic center naturally fall into three divisions, represented by the City of Chicago, by Cook County, and by the Federal Government; and inasmuch as a single building would be insufficient to accommodate the offices either of the city or of the general government, there should eventually be three groups. Of these three the city group would predominate, with the city hall as the central building. The city administration building should accommodate the mayor and the common council, together with the clerks and officers directly connected with the administrative and legislative departments; also the headquarters of the fire department; the offices of the board of education, including those of the superintendent of schools; the offices of the city attorney, the auditor, the board of assessors, the tax collectors, the license department, the board of local improvements, the elections bureau, and others of like character.