The building should be taken down as soon as possible. Having inspected several sites available for building purposes, the Committee has arrived at the conclusion that there are none more desirable than that on which the Office now stands, for the following reasons:
If sold, the present site would only realize, with the building on it, about Ten or Twelve Thousand Dollars ($10,000 or $12,000), while the cost of resuming lots that would have been suitable, it was found, was much in excess of that sum.
It would have been equally difficult and expensive to construct a foundation on any of the available sites as on the present one. In no case did the sites offer a more convenient position than the present one for the Harbor Master's Office, and in some cases they were very inconveniently situated.
It having been decided to recommend the erection of the building on the present site, the Surveyor General was requested to furnish the...