REBIRTH OF THE CITIES

IN Detroit this week, an eleven-year-old dream of a beautiful and functional downtown civic center (see above) was approaching reality. On a 76-acre site along the Detroit River, the first buildings of the $100 million project, a 20-story City-County Building and a Veterans Memorial Building, were open to the public. A 2,800-seat auditorium named for Henry and Edsel Ford and a 700-car underground garage were almost finished, and a convention hall and exhibits building, seating 14.000 people, was about to be started.

Across the nation, the sound of jackhammers and heavy earth movers told of similar large-scale building projects under way in the hearts of scores of other U.S. cities. Whole blocks of old buildings, acres of overcrowded downtown areas, were being ripped out. In the gaps, new buildings were beginning to rise, units of planned medical, residential and civic centers, set among broad avenues and spacious parks. Examples: P: In New York, a $40 million Columbus Circle project, almost finished, will include a 10,000-seat Coliseum, 528 apartments and a 20-story office building. Also under construction: ten giant residential groups, replacing older parts of the city at a total cost of more than $400 million.

P: In Philadelphia, 35 acres of tawdry, crowded business blocks are giving way to a series of landscaped malls facing Independence Hall. Half a mile to the west, a $75 million-$100 million Penn Center development of modern office buildings, transportation center and hotel will rise on and around the site of old Broad Street Station.

P: In Chicago, a $200 million West Side Medical Center, expansion of Northwestern University Medical Center, a new $45 million Illinois Tech campus, a $100 million Congress Street Expressway and numerous big apartment and land-clearance projects are remaking old, crowded parts of the city.

The $400 million Fort Dearborn Project calls for the complete rebuilding of 150 acres near the downtown Loop district with apartments, government buildings, a branch of the University of Illinois and large parking facilities.

P: In Dallas, a new $7,000,000 air-conditioned exposition hall and civic center, including a 10,000-seat domed arena, a theater and meeting rooms, will be finished next summer. P: In New Orleans, a new eleven-acre civic center will include a $8.3 million city hall, to be completed next August, a state office building, a library and possibly a court building.

Behind this rebuilding and beautifying of U.S. city centers is more than an aesthetic urge. Projects such as Detroit's civic center, Kansas City's $16.5 million rehabilitation of its Quality Hill region, and Pittsburgh's Golden Triangle development are

PITTSBURGH: Rebuilt Golden Triangle, at junction of Allegheny (below) and Monongahela Rivers, replaced slum site of old shacks and railroad yards with park and airy buildings. part of an answer to a problem that has plagued most American cities with increasing insistency since the end of World War II. While suburbs have boomed, the business and residential hearts of cities have choked and decayed. Downtown areas, crowded with traffic, have withered and become blighted, cost more in municipal services (while returning less in taxes) and threatened cities with economic strangulation.

Multiblock building developments in the hearts of cities may give municipalities new leases on life, start them off on wider slum clearance and rehabilitation projects. Detroit's new civic center, sparking hopes for the revitalization of 800 acres of the city, has already resulted in plans for a $12 million bank building and a new bus terminal. St. Louis will follow the razing of 8-2 downtown blocks for a new Plaza-area park and apartment development with a ten-year, $127 million municipal rebuilding program. Washington, D.C. has plans to replace 550 acres of slums in its Southwest district with a $500 million residential and cultural center that will include a national opera and symphony hall. And in Philadelphia, city planners look on Penn Center as only the start of a vast "rebirth"' of the city that will see the rebuilding of 18 separate areas totaling u square miles.

Piers (right) are for new Fort Pitt Bridge, which will carry expressway into city past new State Office Building (center) and Equitable's 20-story, all-metal office skyscrapers (left).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.