Word has been passed around that Broadway will be cleared of subway debris within the next three weeks. This is a consummation devoutly to be wished. But will the average New Yorker recognize his most famous thoroughfare again after such a sudden transformation by elimination of the mining-camp excavations, the derricks and littered side-walks? Years have now elapsed since the city's streets have been in anything like normal condition, although originally we were assured that the "cut-and-cover" method of excavation would leave scarcely a scar on their fair surface. We have grown accustomed to chaos, to climbing up temporary stairways, winding through improvised galleries, or hurdling over a zone of desolation like that in France. If the change proposed be made too suddenly, average New Yorkers will need a pocket guide to find their way around town with. But nothing so radical is really intended. "Of course," says the messenger of hope, "this clearing of the streets does not mean that the smooth pavement will go down by that time, because the pavement cannot be laid until several months after the temporary pavement has been laid----" In short, the change will be gradual. Nobody need fear a heart-stroke on waking some morning and finding New York finished.  --New York Evening Post