Frederick Law Olmsted SUBJECT FILE City and Regional Planning New York, N.Y. 1860-78 & U.D.Frederick Law Olmsted SUBJECT FILE City and Regional Planning New York, N.Y. 1860-78 & U.D[*[V - N.Y.- 1860*] [*B 1sts*] [*2*] Chap. 201 AN ACT To appoint Commissioners for laying out that portion of the City of New York lying north of One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street; and to change the plan of Streets and Avenues in that part of said City lying between One Hundred and Twenty-fifth and One Hundred and Forty-first Streets, east of the Tenth Avenue, and west of a line fifty feet east of the old Kingsbridge Road, and running parallel with said road. [*Passed April 7th, 1860, three fifths being present.* ] WHEREAS, it is found impracticable, and ruinous to Land Owners, and injurious to the interests of the City, to grade and lay out Streets and Avenues north of One Hundred and Fifty- fifth Street, and also within the district above mentioned, upon the present plan of the City, at right angles, and in Blocks of uniform size, on account of the elevated, irregular, and rocky formation of that district; therefore, the People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows: SECTION 1. THAT James C. Willet, John A. Haven, Isaac P. Martin, Isaac Dyckman, [*Charles M. Connolly, John F. Seaman*] and Henry H. Elliott, be and they are hereby appointed Commissioners of Streets, Roads, and Avenues, in all that part of the City of New York lying north of One Hundred and Fifth-fifth Street, and between the Harlem River on the east, and Hudson River on the west, and in all that part of the City lying between One Hundred and Twenty-fifth and One Hundred and Forty-first Streets, east of the Tenth Avenue, and west of the line above mentioned, for the purpose of performing the several acts and duties hereinafter prescribed. That in case of the death, resignation, or refusal to act, of any or either of said Commissioners, it shall and may be lawful for the remaining Commissioners, or a majority of them, as often as such event of vacancy shall happen, to appoint a suitable person or persons to fill such vacancy or vacancies, and such appointees respectively shall have all the power and authority vested in a Commissioner by this Act. § 2. It shall and may be lawful for Commissioners, or a majority of them, and they shall have and possess exclusive power, to lay out Streets, Roads, Avenues, and Public Squares, of such width, extent, and direction, and of such grades, as to them shall seem most conducive to public good. Nothing in this Act shall authorize the closing up of the Tenth Avenue, or of the old or new Kingsbridge Road, or of the Bloomingdale Road; but the Commissioners, if they deem it for the public good, may, in their plan and map hereinafter mentioned, provide for straightening and widening said Roads, or either of them, or any part or parts thereof, within the boundaries aforesaid. § 3. It shall be lawful for the said Commissioners, and for all persons acting under their authority, to enter in the daytime into and upon any lands, tenements, and hereditaments which they shall deem necessary to be surveyed, used, or converted for the laying out, opening, or forming of any Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square as aforesaid. And the said Commissioners, or a majority of them, shall cause three similar maps of said Streets, Road, Avenues, and Public Squares, so to be laid out by them as aforesaid, and of the grades thereof, and of the shores bounding the lands by them surveyed, to be made upon an extensive scale, accompanied by such field notes and elucidatory remarks as the nature of the subject may require; which maps, accompanied by such field notes and remarks, shall be attested by the said Commissioners, or a majority of them, before any person authorized to take acknowledgements ofDeeds and Conveyances; and to be filed, one in the office of the Secretary of State, to remain of record; one other to be filed in the office of the Clerk of the City and County of New York, to remain of record; and the other of the said Maps to belong to the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City of New York; and that the said Commissioners shall erect proper Monuments at suitable places upon such Streets, Roads, Avenues, and Public Squares, and upon the Shores of the Hudson and Harlem Rivers, so as to denote the position and courses of the Streets, Roads, Avenues, and Public Squares, and to be noted on said Maps; and that said Commissioners shall take the elevations and depressions of the several intersections of the Streets, Roads, Avenues, and Public Squares above high-water mark, within the boundaries aforesaid, or so many of them as they may think sufficient, and shall delineate them, together with the grades, and all such hills, valleys, inlets, and water-courses, as may be necessary on said Maps, as to render the same explicit and intelligible. § 4. It shall not be lawful for either of the Commissioners, during the time he may be in office, directly or indirectly to purchase, or contract to purchase, any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, within the boundaries aforesaid. And every deed, contract, or conveyance, contrary to the intent hereof, shall be utterly void. And before the Commissioners shall enter upon their duties, they shall severally take and subscribe an oath, before the Mayor or Recorder of the City of New York, faithfully and impartially to execute the duties of their said office, and no compensation or allowance whatever, directly or indirectly, shall be made to the said Commissioners or to any or either of them, for their services, in virtue of this Act; and the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of New York shall raise, and they are hereby authorized and empowered to raise, and cause to be raised, annually, by tax, on all lands in the city and county of New York, to be collected in addition to the ordinary taxes yearly, such sum and sums of money as, in their judgment and in the judgment of a majority of said Commissioners, shall be necessary to defray the expenses necessary to carry on the work of the Commissioners contemplated by this act, during each year, until such work shall be completed; which said yearly sum or sums shall be subject to the draft, from time to time, of a majority of said Commissioners, for the monthly or other periodical payment of the expenses to be incurred by them for the services of surveyors and employees, and for monuments, maps, and other necessary things to carry on said work; but no such draft shall be paid until a true account of such expenses shall have been first rendered to the Comptroller of said city, verified by the oath of the employees or persons to whom the same is payable, and of at least three of said Commissioners, nor until such account shall have been approved in writing by said Comptroller, nor shall any such draft be paid for any greater sum than the amount of such expenses, ascertained as aforesaid. § 5. The Plans, Grades, and Surveys of the said Commissioners, or of a majority of them, in respect to the laying out and grading of Streets, Roads, Avenues, and Squares within the boundaries aforesaid, and the said Maps, shall be final and conclusive, as well to the said Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty, as in respect to the owners and occupants of lands, tenements, and hereditaments, within the boundaries aforesaid, and in respect to all persons whomsoever. And no Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square, within the said boundaries, shall, after the passage of this Act, be legally opened, graded, or worked, except in accordance with the plans as shall be laid down by said Commissioners in manner aforesaid; also, excepting such as may have already been legally opened or worked. And no Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square, within the boundaries aforesaid, shall, at any time hereafter, be opened, graded, or worked, except upon the written consent or petition, to the Common Council of said city, of the owners of a major part of the lands, in lineal feet fronting on such Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square within 2 the limits of the proposed opening; and whenever, in respect to any continuous section of any such Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square, of a mile in length, within the limits of the proposed opening, there shall not be such consent in writing of the owners of a major part of the lands, in lineal feet, fronting on such section, such section or part shall not be opened until such consent be given. § 6. The owners of any land or lands, through which the Commissioners, as aforesaid, shall lay our any Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square, may, at their own expense, at any time before the opening thereof shall have been contracted for according to law, open and work, in a proper manner, any such Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square, within the limits of their said land or lands, in accordance with the plans, grades, width, courses, elevations, and depressions laid down by the said Commissioners as aforesaid, and shall thereupon be entitled to an equitable allowance by way of deduction in any assessment for the opening and working of said Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square, in respect to the other land or lands through which said Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square may be legally opened. § 7. Whenever the said Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty shall, upon the written consent or petition as aforesaid, of the owners of the majority of the lineal feet, of lands fronting on any such Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square, so to be laid out as aforesaid, open and work such Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square, the lands, tenements, and hereditaments to be taken therefor, or devoted as provided for in the 6th section of this Act, shall be paid for, and the lands, tenements, and hereditaments intended to be benefitted thereby shall be assessed in the manner now provided for by existing laws, making such equitable deduction as aforesaid in the cases provided for in said 6th section, except, however, that the entire expense, compensation, and charge of every nature and kind, of the said Commissioners of Estimates, &c., or other persons who may be appointed, or who may act in respect to the opening of any such Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square, and of all surveyors, clerks, aids, employees, counsel, or otherwise, and including all costs, fees, and disbursements of any nature and kind whatever, shall not, in the aggregate, for the opening and estimate of assessment and award in respect to any Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square, exceed the sum of ten hundred dollars per mile in length of such Street, Road, Avenue or Square, and in that proportion for any less distance in length whihc may be opened. And upon any such Street, Road, Avenue or Public Square, or any part thereof, being legally opened as aforesaid, the fee thereof shall vest in the said Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty, for the use of the public, such as a public Street, Road, Avenue, or Public Square. § 8. That whenever any of the owners of any such lands, tenements, and hereditaments so taken, shall be infants, or otherwise legally incompetent in law to act, or absent from the City of New York, the said Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty shall pay the sums mentioned in the report or award as coming to such owners respectively, into the said Supreme Court, to be secured, disposed of, and improved, as the said Court shall direct, and such payment shall be equally valid and effectual as if such owner or owners had been present, and legally qualified to act. § 9. The Streets from and including 130th, to and including 134th Street, from the easterly side of the Tenth Avenue, to the westerly side of the new Avenue hereinafter provided for, and also so much of the Ninth Avenue as extend from the northerly side of 129th Street to the southerly side of 135th Street, are hereby closed, and the said Commissioners shall lay our a new Avenue of one hundred feet in width, to be called the New Ninth Avenue, which shall commence 3on its westerly side, at a point on the northerly side of 125th Street, as near to the northeasterly corner of the present Ninth Avenue and 125th Street, as to the said Commissioners, or a majority of them, shall be deemed advisable, and shall run thence northeasterly, until the easterly side thereof shall intersect the southeasterly corner of 126th Street and the Old Kingsbridge Road, and shall then mainly follow, as near as may be, the course of such last-mentioned road in such manner as to terminate on the westerly side of such new Avenue at the southeast corner of the Ninth Avenue and 140th Street, and on the easterly side of such new Avenue at the southeasterly corner of the Ninth Avenue and 141st Street. § 10. That all laws and parts of laws inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, or of any of them, are hereby repealed in so far as they relate to or affect any lands, tenements, and hereditaments situate within the boundaries aforesaid. [*State of New York, Office of the Secretary of State, } I have compared the preceding with the original law on file in this office, and do hereby certify that the same is a correct transcript therefrom and of the whole of said original law. Given under my hand and seal of office at the City of Albany, this tenth day of April in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty. D.R. Floyd Jones Secretary of State*] [*LO*]Copy of Law creating the Commission April 7, 1860 (commission for laying out the upper part of the Island)[*IV N.Y. B 1st*] Office of the Commissioners of Washington Heights July 20th/60 Sir, At a meeting of the Board held at this office yesterday the following resolutions were adopted. "Resolved that the architect and engineers be requested to commence their work on the premises at Fort Washington without delay and that they open their offices at the office of the commissioners forthwith." Resolved that the compensation of the associateengineers shall take date from the day of their appointment on the 7th of July inst. "Resolved that the Vice President be and he is hereby authorized to procure such supplies as may be required for the use of the architects and engineers for the working departments of the Commission." You will therefore be pleased to consider yourself duly notified of the same. Respectfully &c Carolan O.B. Bryant Secretary. Fred'k L. Olmstead Esq.C.O. B. Bryant July 20th 1860[*V NY above 135th St- B1sts*] [in margin: *[?] July IV NY [?]*] [*noted*] New York, July 22, 1860. F. L. Olmsted, Sr., to Father. (John Olmsted). The long dry weather has been severe on the park, especially as the Croten Board cut off our pipe supply, but the trees are doing tolerably well. The Commissioners are scattered, two in Europe, and we get no Board business done, am working 2000 men. Water keeps well up and clear, in the lake, to my surprise. Our annual report will be soon published and will be sent you. Back-country is already for delivery, will be published, I suppose, 1st of August. Has been favorably noticed in Post and Times. Vaux and I have been engaged to furnish a preliminary plan for "the Commissioners for laying out the upper part of Manhattan island". 1800 acres of very rugged and beautiful ground, impracticable to be brought into the square street and avenue system of the rest of the island. We have six months to do it in, two competent military engineers, Col. Astroth and Mr. Rosa to assist us, all surveying expenses to be paid, and our own compensation (clear of all expenses except traveling, etc)., to be $2500 (the firm Olmsted & Vaux) with a chance for further employment. Asboth and Rosa are to be paid $1500 a year and there is a secretary at $500. We have orders from E. K. Collins to proceed with the topographical survey of his ground, 300 acres at New Rochelle.[*500 Copy*] [*July 25, 1872*] [*THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS*] Agreement for furnishing the materials and paving the walks at Union Square. This Agreement made and concluded this twenty fifth day of July One thousand and eight hundred and seventy two, by and between the North American Neuchatel Rock Paving Company of the City of New York partiee of the first part, and the Department of Public Parks of the City of New York parties of the second part Witnesseth that the said practices of the first part have agreed with the said parties of the second part, for the consideration hereinafter mentioned and contained, that the said partiee of the first part shall and will at their own cost and expense furnish all the materials necessary to lay the pavement to the satisfaction of the Engineer and Treasurer of the Department of Public Parks of the City of New York, agreeably and conformably to the specification herein contained (over)[*2*] Specification All the excavation for and the preparation of the walk bed for the pavement to be done by the Department of Public Parks. A concrete substructure composed of cement and broken stone, is to be laid four and one half inches in thickness at the centre, and sloping to six inches at the sides of the walks. On this substructure the the surface of the pavement is to be laid with Asphalt Rock one and a half inches thick of a uniform thickness throughout. The work under this agreement is to be commenced at such time and is to be prosecuted at and from as many different points in such park or parts of the Park as the Engineer in charge may direct. The right to construct any basin or lay any pipe for drainage, to set or rest any curb, to lay water or gas pipes, to set lamp posts, or any work necessary to be done at any time prior to the laying of the pavement on the hill2 Specification All the excavation for and the preparation of the walk bed for the pavement to be done by the Department of Public Parks. A concrete substructure composed of cement and broken stone, is to be laid four and one half inches in thickness at the centre, and sloping to six inches at the sides of the walks. On this substructure the the surface of the pavement is to be laid with Asphalte Rock one and a half inches thick of a uniform thickness through out. The work under this agreement is to be commenced at such time and is to be prosecuted at and from as many different points in such park or parts of the Park as the Engineer in charge may direct. The right to construct any basin, or lay any pipe for drainage, to set or rest any curb, to lay water or gas pipe, to set lamp posts, or any work necessary to be done at any time prior to the laying of the pavement on the [?] 3 of the same is expressly received by the Department of Public Parks, and the said Department of Public Parks reserves the right of suspending the work on said pavement or any parts of said Park, at any time during the construction of the same, for the purpose above stated. All surplus material, sand, rubbish and refuse stone are to be removed from the line of the work as rapidly as the work progresses, and unless this be done to the satisfaction of the Engineer in charge the Department of Public Parks shall have the right to employ such person or persons as they may deem proper to remove them, and shall pay the expense incured out of any money due, or to become due to the party of the first part. The pavement to be measured by the said Engineer of the Department, whose certificate as to quantity shall be final. The whole work to be done in a workmanlike manner, and as herein particularly specified, and agreeably to directions from time to time of the Engineer in charge and to4 the entire satisfaction of the said Engineer in charge and the Treasurer of the Department of Public Parks. The pavement is to be maintained in good order to the satisfaction of the Department for the period of five years from its completion by the party of the first part. One year after the pavement is completed to the satisfaction of the Engineer in charge the said parties of the second part agree to pay the said parties of the first part in case the pavement shall there be found in a good condition as where first laid ten cents per superficial foot, and at the end of the second year in case the pavement shall there be found in as good condition as when first laid, ten cents per superficial foot, and so on annually until the sum of fifty cents per superficial foot of pavement shall have been paid at the end of the fifth year. In case of disturbance of the pavement included in this agreement in consequence of repairs to pipe, or the construction of or repairs to any drainage works, curbs, lamp posts or other structures, the said parties of the5 first part agree to replace and relay the pavement so injured where required so to do by said Department to the satisfaction of the Treasurer and the Engineer of said Department of Public Parks, and to place such injured pavement in entirely good condition well bordered to the adjacent pavement. And the said parties of the second part agree to pay the said parties of the first part the sum of two dollars per superficial yard for the area of the pavement so repaired; and it is also further agreed the the old material of the said pavement at the points so repaired shall belong to and be the property of said parties of the first part. Measurements of and certificate for said repairs to be made by said Engineer as provided for heretofore in this agreement. And the said parties of the first part do further agree that after the expiration of said fifth year from the time the said pavement is completed, they will, if requested so to do by said Department of Public Parks, keep the whole area of said pavement included in this agreement in as goodcondition as where first laid, for the balance of a term of sixteen years from the period of the first completion of the work for the payment of five cents per superficial yard per annum, measured once said whole area of said pavement [*Stamp: Library of Congress*] (Signed) Fred Law Olmsted President & Treasurer D.P.P. (Signed) Edwin Glaskin C.E. Genl. Manager N.A.N.R.P.Co.Copy - - Contract for paving Union Square - - - Neuchatel Rock Paving Co.[*strikethrough: or earlier*] 1860 Office of Post Office the board, CENTRAL PARK Address 31 Nassau St. "New York" Office of Construction & Superintendence. Mt. St. Vincent, 104th St., near Fifth Avenue Monday R U 7 1/4 o M Dear Oh[?] -- Olmstead & Vaux are appointed "Landscape architects & designers" to the Cau[?] both of 155 St -- -- But I [?] to be you to arrange details & compensation. I have waited as long as I can to night -- and I am on Grand Bury from 11 to 2 daily -- Can you [?] for of to my House this evening -- or tomorrow at their house? -- Tomorrow all day I shall be received[?] -- & the Commission meets for my report on Wednesday afternoon -- at 5 1/2 or [?] -- [?] H.H. Elliott F.L.Olmstead Esq.Olmstead & Vaux appointed "Landscape Architects & Designers" with letters of 61 F.L. Olmstead [*upside down: H.H. Elliott*]To H.H. Elliott c. Sept., 1860 [*Graus*] [*THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS*] My dear Sir - The Herald of today published statements, in one of its peculiar [contains an article,] playful slang along articles which doubtless misrepresents the intentions as well as the action of the Commission but which [as it] [also] contains some good suggestions as these articles generally do, and also presents certain ideas which you gave me to understand [the other day] in our conversation a few days ago more favorable considered by a majority of the Commissioners - For convenience sake, having no clearer statement than the Herald's, I must to take that as a text for some observations upon them - [The Herald's notion is that the territory given the Commission today with will be divided into three departments - The North East quarter or flat land of Harlem river is ignored by the Herald in this arrangement and for my present purpose may also be disregarded -] [three great hills or ridges] The Herald's first notion, though not directly expressed indirectly is that the high and picturesque grounds of the territory to be laid out should be made to take a peculiar character, different from the adjoining flat land and from the rest of the island - It proposes that each should constitute a department by itself, or, [that] there being three [hills] great hills, that there should be three departments, each with a departmental road - This road, to refer now to your [su] suggestions to me, as the Herald is less particular in certain respects, is to be comparatively narrow, so [as to be] it may be cheaply built [along the sides of the hills] by taking advantage of natural terraces on the flatter parts of the ground, [of thei] along the steep sides of the hills. The remaining ground [within of the hills] of each department will, says the Herald, constitute a park; [so there so there will be three parks, - a park] - a park, only the ground will be [owned] studded with [villas] private demesnes and handsome villas, and all owned by private individuals in parcels ofvarious forms & sizes (precisely as at present).-- This sounds pleasantly, and possibly, if carried out, the name of Fort Washington Park, would under the idea that [a park] it must mean something pleasant, attract some attention from those who mislied to suit themselves with a site for a villa near the city. Imagine yourself a dozen years hence a stranger to the district [who in this position], and that I am a real estate broker [who] to whom you have applied to assist you in your search for a fine villa site. As agent for the Fort Washington Park land sellers in general I drive you out [the new 40, 50, or 60 ft road]. We enter the park somewhere near the Deaf & Dumb establishment and have got up in the vicinity of what is now the Washington road. "When shall we come to the park," you ask! "Oh," I reply, "we are in the park, have been in it these ten minutes past" "Indeed! I did not observe any gateway." "No, [in fact] there is none." [then how can the park be regulated] "No gate - my? Then [there must be free admission and,] there can be no special regulations enforced by which any nuisance can be excluded." "Well no, not up in the road. You see it was necessary that there should be a [public] road in this part of the island, [act] four for all purposes of an ordinary public road." "No it only runs through it, but you see as the park lies in both sides of it, it gives you a pleasant, [strikethrough: shaded] drive to your residence, if you should have one [beyond] out here." "That certainly is an advantage, but what security [has] is there that the property on each side here will re-main in its present condition," "It is so steep that it is absolutely worthless for any purpose except to maintain a distance between the residences on the flatter ground above and those on the flatter ground below." and the road "What is the market value of [such land as this] this steep ground?" "It cannot be sold except in connection with some of the flatter ground hence it might just as well be public property for all the benefit its owners derive from it. "But [what is this] here the slope is less. What is this horrible bare spot we are coming to [now]? "This was a piece of twelve acres that was sold to Mr. Abbott, [for] who when it began to be [fresh marble here] a rage to build in the bank intended to establish a ladies' university on it. He got up a company for the purpose, and they went so far as to cut off the trees and to [cut] lay off the steep slope in terraces, [they got a large quantity of marble, and laid the foundations of the principal building] and grade [it generally] the upper ground but Mr. Abbott died, and the [stockholders] subscribers did not pay up and the hard times came on, and so the work stopped. [Then there came a heavy rain] Then in the spring there came a storm just as the frost was breaking up, and the terraces not having been sodded, there was a [regular] land slide. It tore up the road and [nearly] quite destroyed a [?] place on the lower side. When they [rebuilt] repaired the road; they had to build [it on] a regular retaining wall 40 ft high on the [?] side, as you see." "Yes, its rather an improvement to have the trees removed on that side, it opens up such a fine river view, but what is it smells so like [I should think there was] a pig-stye [below there]." I believe there are some large pig-styes down there under the wall. How is that -- in the park? The fact is there [are a lot of Irishmen settled] is an Irish settlement just down below there, but its only temporary. They expect to have them cleared out. How did they get their shanties stuck in here?Oh they are only squatters I believe. But how is it there are squatters in the park? Well they got in here when they were rebuilding the road some of them. Then there were a lot of Dutch people that got in afterwards when they built the great cellar of the [Figio?] [sons] brewery. This is it on the right. This is the outer wall of the cellar, it is eight feet thick and and fifty feet high, and there is another wall inside of it. Then there are great vaults which come under the road [below. It is] and subterranean passages to the [vau vaults] buildings below on the wharf. It is the [largest brewery in the world] greatest Lager brewery in the world; There is a [great] garden up above and on Sunday they sometimes have 15000 people there [in their pavilion and in the grounds]. [*There is an observations on the highest ground 300 ft high & its a great place for target shooting & balloon ascensions. They have an artillery target shooting, and two of the new rifled ninety eight pounders for practice.*] [Gerium?] pays a thousand dollars a year for this wall to stencil advertisements upon. [Well I don't want to get a place in this part of the park.] "This part of the park not suit me. I should think [it would] the brewery & garden would destroy the value of land for residences in the neighborhood." Indeed it does: [It will sell] Land is wasted here for nothing but Dutch boarding houses and [grogginis?] and but little for those. Its all held on speculation & will hardly sell now at any price. My and they allow such a [mar] monstrous nuisance to get into the park?" The gentleman, a rich Cuban by the name of [Todez, Donuigo] Torres, who bought this ground had agreed with Mr. Abbott that they should have a [road] private road running so as to accommodate both places. They had to buy [out] a right of way of a man who held some land in the rear in order to get a road to suit them, because the difficulty of this brewery place was, that it was not conveniently accessible from the departmental road [within itself]. They paid a great price for the right of way and [the road was] Mr. Abbott was going to remove a ridge of rock [to put in] that stood in the way of the private road to get material for his terraces, [which was in the way to this place]. After [the] his work stopped[he] Torres got disgusted with the delay and sold. [he went back to Cuba, and died there, and] the place to [a speculator] the German company. Several persons who had brought about here with the intention of building gave it up when it came out what was going to be with the place. In fact [they, there, ma] several law suits grew out of it, and that, [is] I suppose, is the reason that [if that should] that pig-stye settlement has been allowed to grow up [there"] down below there." "Here are some very common houses" "Yes; [when] after they built the brewery and those stores [back] near it, it got to be unfashionable just here and as the land would not sell for villas, the owners got tired of holding it, as dead property and put up cheap tenement houses on it. "Here is a fine old house it is sadly out of repair though." & the grounds are gone to waste. "Its no good yet to be [put] pulled down, you see, yet too near town, at least too near the brewery, to be fashionable, so it remains as it is, and is used for a boarding house." [In "Here are the woods] "Here is another [bare] dreary spot on the hill side." "Yes, this is a minor's estate, and there is some dispute about the title, and [so it] it has been neglected [and the Irishmen get in here and steal the wood"] and there's another nest of Irish folks down there at the foot of the hill [and they carve] who keep their goats out and get in at night & steal the timber. [& I see they turn their hog and keep their goats and keep their goats on the ground."] What is that drumming? I suppose it is a [target?] company going out to Conrad's. [new garden] What's Conrad's? Thats Bennett's old place you know; [I don't] my house is a little [restive?], I don't know as I can drive [?] by there. It is no matter. I do not care about goingany further. The fact is although [you call] its called a park, I don't see [what] that there is any difference between this region and any other suburb of the city. I remember very well when the Bloomingdale road [along] below [what B] Manhattanville, and Jones road was [just like this] in this way. [People had not quite given up their villas. Mayor wood.] All the old villas had not been given up. Mayor Wood, and the [Clurdurnings?] & Chestermans and Doctor Williams and a few other [respectable] people held on to their old places, but most of the good houses had got to be taverns, [*[there was] one was called the Cleremont, another Slum Park, another Burnham's, [all] but all had been fine old country places --*] and the road was lined with shanties and mean little temporary houses. [It was the same on the other side, [and] in Jones' road, [really] was as much like a park all]the old villas [were turned into first] gradually became Lager bier gardens, and then more pulled to make room for factories and boarding houses. [are such glimpses] Are such glimpses, my dear Mr. Elliott, of the possible future of Fort Washington at all more improbable, than a view of the present state of things in the [Central Part] Central Part of the island [would have appeared to the gentlemen who lived along the Hellgate road, the Bloomingdale road, and the Old Boston road] would have seemed to you, when you first visited friends on the Hellgate, Old Boston or Bloomingdale roads? How can it be prevented? By narrow or crooked or steep roads? What is to prevent a future legislature from [grant] forming a Commission to straighten, widen & re-grade the roads, to open streets through your villa grounds to accommodate the brewers & grocers and coal merchants on each side of them? There is noth-ing to attract commerce to the heights, you say; [no more is there] what attracts commerce to Jones' road? The river shores can not be docked, and they are yet grading streets far south of it thirty or forty feet deep thru solid rock. A very few years ago it contained the choicest residences [in the country] on the island, with circuitous private roads laid out as the Herald proposes they should be [at] in Washington Heights, according to the needs & tastes & whims of the individual proprietors of the [land] road. There is not a factory, nor a store or grocery on it to this day [that] so far as I know, [nor will there be for some years probably] but do gentlemen of fortune who desire a luxurious country residence within convenient reach of the [city] Exchange and the Opera House, go to Jones' road to look for it? If Jones' road had been named Jones' Park, it would have been all the same, would it not? [*If you wish further [evidence on this point] assurance of this danger, go to Staten Island. Certainly Washington Heights can claim no advantages over the heights of Clifton and New Brighton in respect of [inconvenient] inaccessibility from the city, yet where five years ago there was nothing but elegance & fashion, you now see unmistakeable signs of [the progress] the advancement of squalor, an anxiety to sell out on the part of the owners of the finest villas, no sales except for public homes, and an absolute declination in value of property. Look again at the Brooklyn suburbs. Jersey City. See the process repeated at Philadelphia & Boston.*] You ask me if there are not cases abroad where roads have been laid out in the suburbs of a town, as a landscape gardener would lay them out [in the] if the adjoining [park] ground were a park, [and] if at St. George's Park in Liverpool for instance, [--- Park Manchester] and where the ground has this account because [a] rapidly occupied by villas, [the value of which is a guarantee against its being sold for has added so much to the value of the land for] and gained a value for villa residencies too great to leave any danger that it will be encroached upon by shops etc.? St. George's Park is [a real park with gates at each I believe] a [picturesque?] road, with gates at each end with a real park, or space of common [ornamental] pleasure ground beautifully laid out & kept [an] on one side while the ground on the other [has been sold] side is held in parcels of considerable breath and depth [to and and] each built upon & occupied by an individual proprietor. The park terrain is [con] & permanently common to all, is controlled no more than the road by any individual, and lies between all of the villas and the nearest public road or street. There are other similar instances - I [know of none where the only common ground consists of a mere road - Many where a small park. In my judgment, or bit of pleasure ground] It is frequently to be seen [happens however] that a comparatively small bit of planted [pleasure] ground - or an attractive promenade in any form, [gives] which serves an appearance of elegant seclusion to its vicinity [a ch] has served to [give a] permanently establish a neighborhood or quarter of so handsome private residencies. [and to [exclude] prevent by their reputation [occupation] value they have given the vicinity [all other buildings] any building therein for other purposes. A The essential point in preserving a [piece ground] [otherwise] villa district [to] from the invasion of the desolation which advances before a city [as at along the Blooming] seems to me to be [security] [that no road to prevent] to keep [noisy] busy, [noisy] [dusty] roads with their outcries and bad smells, their rattle and dust, at a distance [from the residencies] [and] not only from the villas, or houses themselves, but from their grounds. [It is no longer the delightful] [rus in urbe when while walking with ladies or playing] [with your children you are liable.] This is not to be done by materially impeding [commerce] [with] or trafic with inconvenient roads, for whatever is inconvenient to the cart is inconvenient to the carriage & will withdraw from the essential value of your villas. It is not simply the rus you wish to provide, it is the rus in urbe -- [which means] and that really [is] consists much in the convenient ways, the convenient water & light, & the convenient butcher & baker, [as well] and [a] piano-tuner and [stove grate setter as well] stove-pipe setter, as well. This [with] [close] pleasant vicinity of city supplies with freedom from the [noise] disagreeable vicinity of the streets and neighbors is the essential requirement of [the] suburban luxury.] This may be obtained by cul-de sacs by short roads parallel to long thoroughfares by [streets interrupted] by squares or cross streets as [at] Mad. avenue [approximately] between Gramercy & 14th St - the essential thing is to maintain [seclusion] a secluded [healthy] open residence in or [side by side with the home] remember, secluded.The [most common] expedient most commonly [resorted] used abroad to secure seclusion [for this purpose] for residencies in or near a town is that of building in what are called crescents. [That is to say] A crescent is a series of detached villas, or a range or block of buildings, the front or front of which [are in the form of are curved] form a curved line, concave toward the public road. IN front of them is a bow-shaped piece of ground and the wood of the bow [represents] will represent a private road, by which each front door is approached; the bow-string, the public road or street, and the space between the bow and string a piece of [ornamentally] planted ground which screens the houses from the street [and is at each end of the private road there [is a gate] may be a gate]. A large proportion of the recently erected houses in the most fashionable part of London are thus [arranged] planned. Another method used in London is to build houses pointing upon a cul [de lack] sac, or a street [opening up] entered from a great thorough fare, but [mill?] closed at the other end and with no other opening. The essential point aimed at by the Herald and probably by the Commissioners, is to establish an elegant rural character for [the] these districts or departments, and to offer some assurance to those who wish to build villas that these districts shall not be by and bye invaded by the desolation which thus far has invariably advanced before the progress of the town. [Invariably, I say: look in any direction Jersey [Cit] City ward, Brooklyn ward, look at Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore. Any rapidly growing town, and see what has become of the suburb where it was the fashion to establish the finest villas twenty years ago.] [[Can this assurance be given] [This is not be done] [But this plainly is not to be done] [as the Herald] The departmental road plan of the Herald, neglecting all considerations of future sub-divisions, and [calling] adding the word park to [a] the name of the different districts. [It will [?]] [I see not the slightest reason to suppose so.]]Is this possible? [I think it is [to a] in a great degree. Plainly the Herald's plan will not [accomplish] do it] Notably the Herald's plan of [a departmental road, leaving neglecting the consideration of future subdivisions and] adding the word park to the name of a locality, running a [country] rural road through or around it, and [leaving neglecting] leaving all [considerations] difficulties of convenient subdivisions and closer occupancy to be solved by necessity. Nothing would be more certain than such a lazy and temporizing plan to accomplish the contrary purpose, namely to make sure that numerous local necessities should arise, which would [finally] after a time be compromised and combined upon new plans which would introduce new elements into the district [and] entirely at discord with those upon which its occupants had previously built. It is possible to have it otherwise -- Only by making all the ground in the first place of more value for villa residencies than for anything else [in the first place] and in the second place by securing such [a] solid special advantages [to it] for this purpose that a class of residencies shall be planted on it, too good even to be given up to any other possible use and too good to be super- ceded [in any?] fashion [in the second place]. [Is this possible] How can this be done? This we can assume [only] by considering first what gives to make ground essentially valuable for villa purposes, and whether [the highest value can in any way be given to our southern heights] our heights possess or can in any feasible way be given this primarily essential [gold standard] value -- and [secondly] second whether special substantial advantages can be given to these heights which can not be [given to] had elsewhere, so that for villa [purposes] residencies they will [stand perma] permanently stand absolutely beyond competition? [It is unnecessary to say that] To begin with, the heights offer the essential [requirements of] rural requirements for [a] villa residencies. But there are other things a [man] rich & cultivated family want [about] near their residence, they want the advantages of society, of compact society, [Can it be in any way be effected? will assume nothing of this, as I have shown.of the use of that professional talent in teachers, and artists and physicians and mechanics, which can only be adequately [man] paid for and maintained in the midst of a compact society. They want to be served in a regular, exact, punctual and timely manner with [the] superior [food] [consumables?] and whatever else it is desirable to have supplied to [no] a family freshly, [and] frequently [and] or quickly on demand. [?] The [sou?thern] heights of the island possess those advantages perhaps more than any other ground which can be put in competition with them at present. Yet by no means in as great a degree as is desirable and as may be secured. What else is [desirable] essential [for] in a villa residence. The ground [essential between difference] advantage of the villa [and] over the town mansion is that [in] the villa possesses tranquility and seclusion - freedom from the turmoil of the streets, and means and opportunities for [healthy] amusements and exercise which can not be had in a town mansion, [with] certainty not without the liability of observation from neighbors or the public in their streets. [and] It is when this tranquility and seclusion can no longer be had in a villa residence that it becomes irksome, to its owner & unattractive to any [new] one else when it can no longer be had in [becomes poor property] what has been a fashionable villa road or district that [it] the character of this road or district changes to that at present possessed by the Bloomingdale road or the Jones road district [or Clifton Avenue] and which Clifton Avenue Staten Island, is just beginning to unmistakably take on. No body will think now [of building [on] a villa on either] of buying land on either for a villa because they [is] no longer possess an aspect of tranquility or seclusion. Yet [the town] there are many essential advantages [of] for the residencies of [a] cultivated & luxurious families on the Bloomingdale road which were [?ing] when [th] it was a fashionable villa quarter. Every advantage of compact society is far more accessible than formerly. Churches, operas, balls, may be enjoyed, for instance with for greater frequency & for greater convenience, by reason of closer vicinity and of [better roads] paved & gas lighted roads; butchers & bakers will call more frequently & regularly & serve better, [the best] doctors and teachers, piano tuners and stove pipe setters are nearer at hand when wanted. Water is better & more abundant. All these are undoubted advantages. Yet [the rich] its old inhabitants flee from it, and those who demand luxury in their residence shun it. [Why? [*Not because of these neehopolitan advantages, but because*] because it no longer has tranquility & seclusion, no longer [appear possible] exist in its homes.] [Are these possible in - Is Are tranquility & seclusion possible in any road or district [near] within or close beside a town.] [What has overcome them?] [Passage to & fro of [business] in the street - need of public houses & shops.] Why? Not because of these metropolitan advantages surely but because [tranquility and seclusion are no longer possible] the road on which these villas face, by which they must be approached, [over which if their view is ] and which passes close beside their walks and lawns, has become [of] a common business thoroughfare, [because ground pointing upon this road has become valuable for shops and public houses] and [as] inasmuch as butchers and bakers and tinkers and dram sellers and [doctors and lawyers need] the followers of other bustling callings need to expose their wares and advertize themselves by signs and place themselves [conveniently] so they may be conveniently called upon [by] without requiring their customers to go out of the way, [these ground all of] the ground not actually occupied by villas [has] pointing upon this thoroughfare has been exclusively built upon for these purposes, and this has given employment to numerous mechanics & laborers and so occasioned a demand for cheap tenement & boarding houses along the road and so gradually from a quiet & secluded neighborhood [it gains] it is growing to be a noisy, dusty, smoking, shouting, rattling and stinking [character now] one. What helps a road or street and what borders [a neighborhood from road or street from acquiring] it from becoming such a thoroughfare? Steep grades do not, as any one knows who has been in Boston, Liverpool, London, or Edinburg. Neither does narrowness of road way, it only [crowds and] impedes the passage of vehicles which would otherwise pass thru the road so as to make it more crowded, more noisy more distinctive of quiet and privacy to the neighborhood. Moreover steep grades are bad for the carriage as well as for the cart, and if purposely established detract [somewhat] from the essential advantages of the neighborhood of the road for villas as well as for any thing else. [The following rules will, I think, commend themselves to you for insuring that a road shall become a thoroughfare] In [proportional?] the following rules apply to a road on the outskirts of a town, [ensures] I think you will perceive that it is sure to become a business thoroughfare. First [that] it shall lead directly toward the business part of the town, second that [it shall] many streets or roads [occupied either by dwellings or shops] not themselves business thoroughfares shall open upon it, third [that] these tributary roads shall [[?]] approach it upon an angle [acutely] leading toward the town. (If [the] any of these tributary roads have other & more distant roads opening upon them the effect will be greater.) Further [that] there [are] shall be no roads [running parallel or] or few roads running toward [and directly] the town from the same quarter. [A fifth rule may be added for New York that the road shall be feasible for a town rail road.] To prevent a road from becoming a thoroughfare, these rules must be reversed; [the last being first] 1st It shall not lead with special directness toward the town 2d It shall have few if any public streets or roads opening into it, and such as do lead into it shall be short, [as if] [long and] 3d [Inbound?] roads shall not approach it from [of] a direction opposite the town [3d] 4th There shall be at no greater distance from it [a more direct] road or roads running approximately parallel to it but more directly toward the town. If the 11th Avenue is extended as far North as practicable and the 10th Avenue is extended through the island in a straight or nearly straight line, and if cross roads can be arranged to enter these avenues at frequent intervals, especially if they can be arranged to lead from all other parts of the territory toward these, and with an inclination toward the town these avenues will answer all the requirements of the first series of rules. If then a road is laid out in either of the heights [in] on courses at all adapted to the contours of the natural surface, that is to say [in] circuitously or indirectly between any two distant points, and if its [cross] the public roads opening upon it instead of being tributaries to it shall be [channels] rather outlets from it leading toward the straight avenues that is to say, toward the town, then such a road will answer all the requirements of the last series of rules, for long roads can not lead into it from the [stu] side [from the avenues] opposite the avenues on account of the nearness of the rivers. [It is very necessary] Thus it will not be difficulty at the outset to give a peculiar character to the [district] heights, favorable to their occupation by villas, and giving a certain degree of [The Bloomingdale road does not answer [to the] the above [des] conditions, although [it is somewhat curved] its course was originally adapted to the natural features of the ground, and the same avenues run for some distance parallel to its general course, because it was constructed and had acquired the tendency to the state in which I have described it, before the avenues were [made] opened, at least before they had become good roads toward the town, and also & chiefly because it is itself a road equally direct to town, more direct to a large part of the town than the [eighth] avenues it crosses which therefore] assurance that this occupation [will] may be permanent. That is to say, business will be perfectly accommodated without using the heights roads for any other purpose there to supply the wants of the residents, even for this purpose the principal road would be very little usedfor supporting a tradesman's cart mere going to a house some distance from the south end of the heights road, it would be quicker & easier [for him to drive] to drive up the 11th Avenue [and] until the diagonal tributary road were reached then the other end of which upon the heights road was nearest to the house. If however the tradesman and others [having] whose business led them or their waggons often to the heights should [?] remain in considerable numbers [at a distance from] at a considerable distance [in] townward, there would be danger that more direct access would be demanded for them, and that the property holders of the south part of the district [of] would be tempted, by the prospect of [ste] selling small lots at high prices for stores to move for an extension of the 12th Avenue, or that other projects would get a foot for more direct roads leading into the district for business purposes. It is also certain that [as soon as the district acquired much reputation was] the road if laid out as I have supposed especially if lived with [fine] well kept grounds [and fine villas occupied by fashionable people it would become a] will soon be much resorted to for pleasure driving. This is not to be objected to, for pleasure driving, so long as its road is not crowded, is not open other some objections with the ordinary business street traffic, and nothing is more likely to enhance the value of the property for residencies and thus withhold it from other occupation than its being voluntarilly visited by great numbers of people of leisure or passing thru necessary means for pleasure driving, and its becoming associated in the [run?] as of these [people] with their pleasure & with their frequent recognition of friends of their own class. This very circumstance of its becoming resorted to for pleasure driving [will] would undoubtedly bring many persons to it who would not be desirable, and would suggest to marry the establishment of taverns and shops and stores upon the road, and at any rate the quality of seclusion would diminish. As the land grew more valuable it would be divided into smaller lots for sale, and if you consider the character of the ground, you will see that even if sold no pieces of not less than five acres and a frontage of five hundred feet upon the road, it would in many cases [seem] be quite impossible to have a private carriage entrance from the public road, as it would be necessary in order to get easily up or down the declivity to a comfortable distance for the house to be situated from the road to turn [this so frequently] the approach road so frequently as to entirely destroy any [beau] landscape beauty of the grounds. This could only be avoided by [cl] the clubbing of neighbors, that is to say by the terrance arrangement on a large scale. In this case the ground outside of the terrace road would be virtually commons ground, and if fenced off from the terrace road, [would] might for all practical purposes just as well be public ground. Otherwise. [*stamp: The Library of Congress*]Draft of a Letter to H.H. Elliott Esq. one of the Commissioners for laying out the upper part of New York island objecting to certain views favorably regarded by a part of the Commission and suggesting the proper principles of a plan for a sub urban district [*V - NY]V NY City Planning "Ring" subversions of old Central Park Comm's policy in public improvements upper N.Y. stated in "Public improvements in the City of New York" Communication from Andrew H. Green to Wm. A. Boothe, Esq. and others. Sept. 28, 1874 NY From Miss Bullard 23&24th wards Department of Public Parks, 36 Union Square (East), New York, 5 November 1875 F.L. Olmsted Esq Landscape Architect Dear Sir The following resolutions were adopted at the meeting of the Board held today: "Resolved, that the Landscape Architect is hereby requested to prepare a plan for laying out the annexed district of the 23rd and 24th Wards," "Resolved that he is hereby authorized to Employ as his assistant an engineer to act directly under his orders, to be approved by the Board and at such rate of pay as the Board May determine for the time he is actually Employed on such work." "Resolved that all maps plans and other documents belonging to the Department relating to this work shall be placed 2 Department of Public Parks 36 Union Square (East) New York,...........18 "at his service and that the corps of the Civil and Topographical Engineer shall render him such assistance and consultation as he may require" Respectfully Wm Irwin Secretary D.P.P.President 7 July 1876 By a resolution of the Board of the [4]3rd ult I am [instructed] instructed [to report in the best] to report a route for carrying the elevated rail road through the Battery - The terms of the resolution [assumes that] fix [a] the point of entrance on the north side and [limits any] [duty consideration of the subject] [to the required report to a consideration of the effect [of the route] of extending the road thence to Whitehall street upon the value of the Battery for the purposes for which it is now held.] [the question] to require the route to be determined [the choice of route to a question of] by a consideration of the effect which will be produced on the value of the Battery for its present uses. The chief use of the Battery at present is [that of a place of] [that of giving a refreshing relief to the conditions of the city] found in the [relief] refreshing relief it offers to those who come to it from the confinement [of] and the artificial conditions of the city. The elements of this [riel] relief are 1st those which it possesses in common with other public parks in trees, turf, birds the other natural objects within itself, and 2d. those which are peculiar to it in the fine open view it presents [of] over the bay & in the sea breeze which flows directly upon it - [It has been so managed that only a small part of the Battery will after a few years be of any use in the latter respect but the city [may] holds the possibilityWhat has been so misarranged [managed] as to restrict the use of the Battery in the latter report almost wholly to a narrow strip on a little more than half its sea-front. This is therefore its more valuable land [and clearly the railroad] [[should] it should be defended] [as much as possible from] [the railroad.] and clearly no encroachment should be allowed upon [of] it such as the first plan of the Railroad Company contemplated.of such [in permits as] revision of its plan The last plan submitted by the company proposes a contract as far from the shore as possible [but] except for a short distance within the angle of State Street and Battery Place, [and here] where all the ground was proposed to be crossed will be cut off from the view of the bay by the proposed government building and is for other reasons [the least] less valuable than any other equal area. [This] [route] The adoption of this route will however place a double or triple track railroad directly on the headsof the people [walking by the] taking on must direct and frequented [way between] walk between them and Broadway and the four Whitehall ferries, the government landing and the Boat basin. This whether this is desirable is a question that may I think be assumed conclusively If the public were allowed free use of all of the Battery with out restriction to the made walks, and a railroad were carried over as it by any route in the manner proposed, there can be little doubt that the open one of the ground which would be least resorted to for pleasure that immediately under the tracksof nearly all the built aThere is certainly nothing in common between the proper influence of the Battery, that is losing of turf, trees, birds, the sea breeze & the broad seaward prospect, and that [?] which a man would be most [be] affected [strolling] while walking between four quivering piers, [the ground trembling under his foot, the timber craking in his head.]While trains of cars were passing over him. These considerations lead to the conclusion that the best route for the rail road will be that which avoiding those parts looking directly on the [which may be laid open to the] bay will carry it as little as possible over the walks, will make the necessary crossings over the walks as short and direct as practicable, [and] will the least injure valuable trees and will [give] allow the public the essential advantages for transportation, [which induced the] which it is the object of their [law under which] charter to secure the Company [bias any rights in the premises to secure This route [differs] varies would differ from that last proposed by the Company only]Such a route is defined on the map herewith presented presented. The All the advantages for [the] transportation of the route last proposed by the company are retained and but the lines are modified from that so as to avoid crossing following [in the lin] any existing walk and to cause do less injury to trees. Certain changes are also proposed in the walks entering the Battery from State Street in order to reduce to a minimum the necessary passages under the road and to bring the piers supporting the road avoid the disjointed and disorderly appearance which the disposition of the piers supporting the road would otherwise have. As the proposed station near the corner of the State Street and Battery Place and the piers [which which] which must occupy ground in the narrow as part of Battery Place will increase the liabilityto blocks, collisions and the obstruction of important lines of conversation in that vicinity. I recommend that a passage for carriages be opened on the West side of the proposed [railroad] station and that provision for the free passage of people on foot to and from the station be provided as in the manner indicated on the map. [In] If [Battery] Whitehall Place is to be excluded from consideration in determining how the present purposes of the Battery are to be least interfered with by the railroad the route would be [var] varied from that shown on the maps [la] as indicated on the [rider attached] accompanying rider. But in view of the much greater inconvenience [?] would [request?] to the public in the whole from such an ar-If by the term Butting rangement I do not recommend it. Nevertheless, if then the Department concedes the important advantages proposed by the preferred arrangement, it is but just that the Company should be required to take all reasonable precautions and use all practicable means to limit as much as possible the great injury to the Battery which the passage of the road over it will at the least necessarily occasion.In any agreement to be made with the company [and in] or in any license granted to it for the purposes in view it will be prudent to [define the concession granted against too a too loose definition] guard against such a [definition] construction of the concession made to it as would allow in unlimited extension of the superstructure of the railroad. [So much [?] should be granted [?] is not also- if any thing is who granted it should be so much as is absolutely] necessary to the [public commerce on the road] proper accommodation of the public in the road. [The be punitive]It will be necessary in any agreement made with the Company or in any license granted to it that the rights conceded to it should beshould be well advised what is necessary to this purpose and should not lean the many from for the company to subsequently add features not contemplated in the original [?], for with every such addition the injury to the Battery will be greater. I have therefore indicated on the map not where [strikethrough: the] a line [strikethrough: of write but the service] for the [placing] position of the supporting piers of the wood but [lines] other lines [beyond] within the space indicated by which, I am of the opinion, after prolonged [conferences] date with the President of the company that it will be practicable fo confine all the infrastructures necessary to the business which is now contemplated and permission for which is [?] in question with the department. If the Board is disposed to adopt the suggestions thus far [indicated] made I recommend that the [spaces indicated defined by two red [blue] lines be] space tinted red in the map be adopted as representing that within which alone any piers, [shall be erected by the company] stairways or other constructions of the Rail Road shall be planted and this space together with the additional space tinted yellow as that within which alone the Railroad company shall be permitted to erect, maintain,[in] or possess [or permit] any infrastructures. I recommend further that any rights or privlidges granted by the Department to the company shall be held with the [conditions] following conditions and shall be forfeited whenever these conditions are disregarded. 1st that [there shall be allowed] within a vertical distance of ten feet from the ground no part of the railroad [structure] its appliances or appertainings shall be allowed except only the necessary supporting piers and the necessary stairways of the passenger stations. + A insert 2nd that the piers and all other constructions of the rail road shall be designed and constructed with a view to the avoidance of any greater conspicuousness or injury in any respect to the Battery as a pleasure ground than is abso-1st. That no superstructure shall be lutely necessary and that they shall be of tasteful design [tastefully] and made in all respects to the satisfaction of the Department. 3d That wherever required by the Department, [sutal attice] substantial lattice or trellis work shall be placed by the company [upon its pier] attached to its piers, stringers [slupers?] or other constructions and that the agents of the Department shall so far as consistent with safety, be allowed to fix ladders and enter upon and occupy the premises of the Company for the purpose of training vinesas for other duties required for the improvement or maintenance of [the] means of public gratification appropriate to the Battery as a pleasure ground. 4. [3] That all practicable means and diligence shall be used by the company and its agents to avoid injury to the public property of all kinds in the Battery and [interference with or obstruction to its] injury to its value as a public pleasure ground 5. That [no] the company shall prevent the exhibition[ or other or in other works] and duties or distribution upon or from its road or any of its constructions within the Battery if any [advertisements] signs, posters, handbills or other forms of advertising except within [its station] or on the walls of its station house and then [any] only if such signs [and placards] timetables and posters as are necessary to [the due information of those using] give information of the [rules and] orders and regulations' for the use of the road.I submit also the suggestion that the masonry expense of any allocations or improve- ments of the Building which in consequence of the introduc- tion of the Rail Road [?] [?] please think fit to [?] should [be refunded to the city by] be made at the expense of the Rail Road Company.Elevated RR on Battery 7 Jany 1876[*V*] [*PR.*] DOCUMENT NO. 72. BOARD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC PARKS. DECEMBER 20, 1876. 1. Preliminary Report of the Landscape Architect and the Civil and Topographical Engineer, upon the laying out of the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Wards. 2. Report of the Landscape Architect and the Civil and Topographical Engineer, accompanying a plan for laying out that part of the Twenty-fourth Ward, lying west of the Riverdale Road. Ordered printed as a document of the Board. WM. IRWIN, Secretary D.P.P.I. PRELIMINARY REPORT OF THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT AND THE CIVIL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEER, UPON THE LAYING OUT OF THE TWENTY-THIRD AND TWENTY-FOURTH WARDS. CITY OF NEW YORK. } DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC PARKS. 15th November, 1876. The Hon. WILLIAM R. MARTIN, President of the Board: SIR:-- The undersigned have the honor to present a report introductory to a series of plans for laying out the new wards of the city. The first of these plans can, if desired, be laid before the Board at its next meeting; a second and third are in preparation, and the whole series is in progress of study. The great advance northward in the building of New York, since 1807, has been strictly according to the street plan which a commission of its citizens then laid down for it. The objections at first hotly urged against this plan (chiefly by property holders whose lands it would divide inconveniently, whose lawns and gardens it would destroy and whose houses it would leave in awkward positions), have long since been generally forgotten, and so far as streets have been opened and houses built upon them, the system has apparently met all popular requirements. Habits and customs accommodated to it have become fixed upon the people of the city. Property divisions have 3 been generally adjusted to it, and innumerable transfers and pledges of real estate have been made under it with a degree of ease and simplicity probably without parallel. All the enormous changes in the modes of commerce, of means of communication, and of the styles of domestic life which the century has seen, have made but one slight local variation from it necessary. These facts, taken by themselves, may seem to leave little room for doubt that the system was admirably contrived for its purpose, and that, as far as can be reasonably expected of any product of human skill, it remains perfect. There are probably but few men in the community who, in the course of a busy life, have given any slight attention, and but slight attention, to the subject, who are not in the habit of taking this view of it, and in whom, consequently, a pre-judgement is not in some degree deeply rooted in favor of the system. That it should be extended, whenever practicable, over that part of the city not yet laid out, and where this is forbidden by extraordinary difficulties of topography, that no greater variation should be made from it than is necessary to bring the cost of preparing streets within reasonable limits of expense, seems, to all such persons, a matter of course. All the work of the undersigned will, nevertheless, have been done under the influence of a quite different conviction and its results can only be fairly judged, after a candid and patient balancing of the advantages to be gained, and the advantages to be lost by the adoption of a variety of proposed arrangements always differing, and often differing widely from those with which commissioners and the community are familiar under the regular system. They, therefore, wish to submit, in advance of any plans, a few general considerations adapted, as they think, to give a different impression of the merits of the system from that which appears to be ordinarily accepted, and by which the Commission has hitherto, to some extent, almost necessarily been influenced. 4 New York, when the system in question was adopted, though vaguely anticipating something of the greatness that has since been thrust upon her, viewed all questions of her own civic equipment, very nearly from the position which a small, poor, remote provincial village would now be expected to take. The city had no gas, water or sewer system. The privies of the best houses were placed, for good reasons, as far away from them as possible, in a back yard, over a loose-bottomed cesspool. If the house stood in a closely built block, the contents of the cesspool, when necessary to be removed, were taken to the street in buckets carried through the house; the garbage of the house was often thrown, with its sweepings and soiled water into the street before the front door, to be there devoured by swine, droves of which were allowed to run at large for the purpose. Under these circumstances, it was not to be expected that, if the utmost human wisdom had been used in the preparation of the plan, means would be aptly devised for all such ends as a commission charged with a similar duty at the present day must necessarily have before it. So far as the plan of New York remains to be formed, it would be inexcusable that it should not be the plan of a Metropolis; adapted to serve, and serve well, every legitimate interest of the wide world; not of ordinary commerce only, but of humanity, religion, art, science and scholarship. If a house to be used for many different purposes must have many rooms and passages of various dimensions and variously lighted and furnished, not less must such a metropolis be specially adapted at different points to different ends. This it may chance to be if laid out by the old cow-path method, or more surely if laid out in greater or less part with carefully directed intention to the purpose, such as is now being used for instance in London, Paris, Vienna, Florence, and Rome. There seems to be good authority for the story that the system of 1807 was hit upon by the chance occurrence of a mason's 5 sieve near the map of the ground to be laid out. It was taken up and placed upon the map, and the question being asked "what do you want better than that?" no one was able to answer. This may not be the whole story of the plan, but the result is the same as if it were. That is to say, some two thousand blocks were provided, each theoretically 200 feet wide, no more, no less; and ever since, if a building site is wanted, whether with a view to a church or a blast furnace, an opera house or a toy shop, there is, of intention, no better a place in one of these blocks than in another. If a proposed cathedral, military depot, great manufacturing enterprise, house of religious seclusion or seat of learning needs a space of ground more than sixty-six yards in extent from north to south, the system forbids that it shall be built in New York. On the other hand, it equally forbids a museum, library, theater, exchange, post office or hotel, unless of great breadth, to be lighted or to open upon streets from opposite sides. There are numerous structures, both public and private, in London and Paris, and most other large towns of Europe, which could not be built in New York, for want of a site of suitable extent and proportions. The Trustees of Columbia College sought for years to obtain the privilege of consolidating two of the uniform blocks of the system, into which their own property had been divided, in order to erect sufficient buildings for their purpose, in one unbroken group, but it was denied them. There is no place under the system in New York where a stately building can be looked up to from base to turret, none where it can even be seen full in the face and all at once taken in by the eye; none where it can be viewed in advantageous perspective. The few tolerable sites for noble buildings north of Grace Church and within the built part of the city remain, because Broadway, laid out curvilinearly, in free adaptation to natural circumstances, had already become too important a thoroughfare to be obliterated for the system. Such distinctive advantage of position as Rome gives St. Peter's, Paris the Madeleine, London St. Paul's, New York, under her system, gives to nothing.6 But, if New York is poor in opportunities of this class, there is another of even greater importance in which she is notoriously still poorer. Decent, wholesome, tidy dwellings for people who are struggling to maintain an honorable independence are more to be desired in a city than great churches, convents or colleges. They are sadly wanting in New York, and why? It is commonly said because the situation of the city, cramped between two rivers, makes land too valuable to be occupied by small houses. This is properly a reason why land, at least in the lower part of the island, should be economized, and buildings arranged compactly. The rigid uniformity of the system of 1807 requires that no building lot shall be more than 100 feet in depth, none less. The clerk or mechanic and his young family, wishing to live modestly in a house by themselves, without servants, is provided for in this respect no otherwise than the wealthy merchant, who, with a large family and numerous servants, wishes to display works of art, to form a large library, and to enjoy the company of many guests. in New York, lots of 100 feet in depth cannot be afforded for small, cheap houses. The ground-rent would be in too large proportion to that of the betterments. In no prosperous old city are families of moderate means found living, except temporarily in the outskirts, in separate houses on undivided blocks measuring 200 feet from thoroughfare to thoroughfare. It is hardly to be hoped that they ever will be in New York under the plan of 1807.* The inflexibility of the New York plan, and the nature of the disadvantages which grow out of it, may be better recognized upon an examination of certain peculiarities with which Commissioners must be familiar as distinguishing the city. These are to be found, for instance, in the position usually _______________ *Various attempts have been made on a small scale to get the better of this difficulty, the most successful being the introduction of an alley by which a tier of 100 feet lots is divided into two of 42 feet each, one tier facing upon the back of the other. A philanthropic scheme is now under discussion for cutting up a whole block into short lots for poor men's houses by 16-feet alleys. 7 occupied by the kitchen and menial offices of even the better class of houses; in the manner in which supplies are conveyed to them, and dust, ashes, rubbish and garbage removed. This class of peculiarities grows out of the absence from the New York system of the alley, or court, by which in all other great towns large private dwelling houses are usually made accessible in the rear.* It is true, that in other cities, as they become dense and land valuable, the alleys and courts come to be much used as streets, that is to say, small houses and shops, as well as stables are built facing upon them, and the dwellings only of people of considerable wealth are carried through to them from the streets proper. But this practice does not do away with the general custom of a yard accessible from the alley by an independent passage, and of placing the kitchen and offices of all large houses in a semi-detached building. Out of this custom come the greater ease and economy with which streets are elsewhere kept in decent order, and the bad reputation which New York has always had in this respect; and again, the fact that New York houses of the better class, much more than those of other cities, are apt to be pervaded with kitchen odors. Another peculiarity of New York, is to be found in the much less breadth and greater depth of most of the modern dwellings of the better sort. There are many houses not much wider than the hovels of other cities, which yet have sixty or seventy feet of depth, and fifty to sixty feet of height, with sculptured stone fronts and elaborately wrought doors. This incongruity results from the circumstance that a yard at the back of ________________________________ *THE SANITARIAN, for January, 1877, received as this is printing, contains the following professional notes on Boston, by Doctor E. H. Janes: "The streets of Boston present quite a contrast with those of New York in point of cleanliness." "Their system of alleys, by which access is obtained to the rear yards, renders it unnecessary to disfigure the sidewalks, or defile the gutters and pavements with every variety of house refuse and filth. At the appointed time the cartman rings the bell at the rear gate, receives from the housemaid the garbage, deposits it in a water-tight cart. * * * * The garbage is taken to the country and used for feeding swine. The ashes are collected in a similar way, and, being entirely separate from garbage, or any putrescent matter, can be used for filling low ground." * * * * "I wish some such system could be adopted with us, as I am confident it would reduce the rate of mortality among our tenement house population." 8 the house, when no longer needed for a privy and where there is no alley to communicate with it, has little value; consequently, to economize ground-rent, two house lots of the size originally contemplated are divided into three or four, and houses stretched out upon them so as to occupy as much of the space as the Board of Health, guarding against manifest peril of public pestilence, will allow. The same cubic space is now obtained in a lot of 1,700 square feet, or even 1,300, as formerly on one of 2,500, and the depth between the front and rear windows of houses of corresponding area has nearly been doubled. That this change has been forced also by the street system, and is not a matter of fashion, nor the result of a caprice in popular tastes, is evident from the fact that no corresponding method has been obtained in other cities, new or old, nor however situated; none, for example, in London, Liverpool, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, or San Francisco. The practice is one that defies the architect to produce habitable rooms of pleasing or dignified proportions, but this is the least of its evils, for in the middle parts of all these deep, narrow cubes, there must be a large amount of ill-ventilated space, which can only be imperfectly lighted through distant sky- lights, or by an unwholesome combustion of gas. This space being consequently the least valuable for other purposes, is generally assigned to water-closets, for which the position is in other respects the worst that could be adopted. Still other, and perhaps even graver, misfortunes to the city might be named which could have been avoided by a different arrangement of its streets. The main object of this report will, however, have been secured, if the conviction has been shown to be justified that an attempt to make all parts of a great city equally convenient for all uses, is far from being prescribed by any soundly economical policy. "Equally convenient," in this case, implies equally inconvenient. "As far as practicable," means within reasonable limits of expense. But there are no reasonable limits of expense for such an undertaking. Even on a flat alluvial site, like that of Chicago, 9 it is essentially wasteful and extravagant. In proportion as a site is rugged and rocky it is only more decidedly so; not simply because in this case it involves greater unnecessary cost, but because variety of surface offers variety of opportunity, and such an undertaking often deliberately throws away forever what might otherwise be distinctive properties of great value. The important question in dealing with a site of greatly varied topography is, whether, and in what manner, advantage can be so taken of the different topographical conditions it offers, that all classes of legitimate enterprises can be favored, each in due proportion to the interest which all citizens have in its economical and successful prosecution. It would be easy, of course, to attempt too much in the respect, but the range of practicability is more limited than at first thought may be supposed. The value of a particular situation for a certain purpose may be determined as far as the depth which is left available for building is concerned, by the distance apart of two adjoining streets, and as far as aspect, accessibility to the public, and the cost of transportation to and fro, are concerned, by their courses and grades; but as to the breadth of ground that shall be available for any particular purpose, as to the manner in which it shall be graded and otherwise dealt with; whether it shall be cut down or filled up, terraced, or used in a more natural form--these are question which the street system must necessarily leave to be settled by private judgment under the stimulus of competition. Hence, while it is held that the capability of the ground should be studied for purposes more or less distinctly to be classes apart, and that, as topographical conditions vary, it should be laid out with reference to one class or another, an extended, exact, and dogmatic classification for this purpose is not to be apprehended. A judicious laying out of the annexed territory requires a certain effort of forecast as to what the city is to be in the 210 future. In this respect, there is a great danger in attempting too much as in attempting too little. Before New York can have doubled its present population, new motive powers and means of transit, new methods of building, new professions and trades, and new departures in sanitary science, if not in political science, are likely to have appeared. If half its present territory should then be built up and occupied as closely as its seven more populous wards now are, the other half would need to lodge but one-seventh of its total population. Assuming that in this other half there should be but a moderate degree of urban density along the river side and near the railway stations, there would still remain several square miles of land which could only be occupied by scattered buildings. It is, then, premature, to say the least, to attempt to overcome any topographical difficulty that may be presented to a perfectly compact and urban occupation of every acre of the ground to be laid out. Respectfully, FRED. LAW OLMSTED, Landscape Architect. J. JAMES R. CROES, Civil and Topographical Engineer II. REPORT OF THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT AND THE CIVIL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEER, ACCOMPANYING A PLAN FOR LAYING OUT THAT PART OF THE TWENTY-FOURTH WARD LYING WEST OF THE RIVERDALE ROAD. CITY OF NEW YORK, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC PARKS, 21st November, 1876. The Hon. WILLIAM R. MARTIN, President of the Board: SIR :-The undersigned have now the honor to submit, as the first of a series, a plan for a primary road system for that part of the new wards lying west of the Riverdale Road. _____ The Commission has had the problem of laying out this district under debate since 1872. It has heretofore at various times called four engineers into its counsels upon it, and has considered five separate plans covering the ground wholly or in part. Much difference of opinion and something of partizanship with regard to these plans has appeared, and conflicting private interests concerned in the issues developed have been urged with warmth. These, with other circumstances, the force of which the Commission will recognize, made it desirable that the purely professional and official character of the duty given the undersigned should be strictly guarded, and that for the time being, they should keep out of view any private ends to be affected.12 For this reason, and also because it would be impracticable to give a fair hearing to every one concerned, they have, since they took the matter in hand, declined conversation upon it, have denied all requests for an examination of their study plans, and have neither expressed opinions nor accepted advice upon the subject. They are now, consequently, under obligations to explain more fully than might otherwise be thought necessary, the grounds upon which the judgements have been formed which are embodied in the plan herewith presented. In a previous report the objections have been indicated which prevail with them against one of the ruling motives upon which New York, so far as built during the present century, has been laid out and upon which most American cities are now building; the motive, that is to say, of securing in all quarters as nearly as practicable without excessive expense, an equality of advantages for all purposes. They proceed, on the contrary, with the conviction that the principle of a division of labor may, with advantage, be measurably applied to the plan of a city; one part of it being laid out with a view to the development of one class of utilities, another to a different class, according as natural circumstances favor. Under the first method, the great variety of topographical conditions found in the site of New York is regarded as a misfortune to be overcome, under the latter, as an advantage to be made available. Having in view all the territory to be occupied before laying out any part of it, according to the preferred method, the topography of that part is to be questioned as for what class of private undertakings it is comparatively unsuitable, and as for what it is comparatively suitable. I. THE DISTRICT TO BE LAID OUT. The district lies within and forms the larger part of the great promontory, the shank of which is crossed by the line dividing 13 Yonkers from New York, and which terminates three miles to the southward in the abrupt headland of Spuyten Duyvil. Its ridge line seldom drops much below an elevation of 200 feet, and its highest point, which is also the highest in the city, is 282 feet above tide. Its surface is much broken by ledges, and there are numerous steep declivities on its hillsides which can rarely be directly ascended without encountering a grade of from 15 to 25 in a hundred. Its ruggedness has prevented its being occupied for agricultural purposes, except very sparsely, and it is largely wooded and wild. The only noticeable improvements have been made in connections with a number of private villas, and with a large convent and seminary, the grounds of which were also first prepared for a private pleasure ground. That the district is not more generally occupied in this manner, is due first, to the uncertainty which exists as to how it is to be laid out and generally built over; second, to the fact that it is affected by malaria, of a mild type, however, and resulting entirely from superficial conditions easily to be removed; third, to its lack of suitable roads. The local scenery is everywhere pleasing, except as it is marred artificially. Generally, it is highly picturesque, with aspects of grandeur, and from nearly all parts, broad, distant prospects are commanded of an extended, interesting, and even very impressive character. II. THE UNSUITABILITY OF THE DISTRICT FOR THE MORE COMMON PURPOSES OF THE CITY. To what needs of the city is such ground as has been described, well adapted? The authors of the five plans for laying it out, of which transcripts upon a uniform scale are herewith exhibited, all knew well, from much experience, the convenience of the14 ordinary city division of real estate, and each plan represents an amount of patient and ingenious study in fitting streets of rectilinear or nearly rectilinear courses, to the highly curvilinear contours of the topography, that can be fully appreciated only by those who have had some experience in similar tasks. Under neither of these plans could any considerable part of the ground to which it applies be subdivided into building sites of the usual form and dimensions of city real estate, or be built upon advantageously in compact ranges. This may be considered as conclusive testimony that the attempt to lay it out with such a purpose in view, would be impracticable. The ascent of the slopes will be nowhere easy, and two horses, on an average, will be required within it to accomplish the work, which, in most other parts of the city, could be done by one. There will be no thoroughfares adapted either to heavy teaming or to rapid driving, and in none of the plans heretofore prepared, is a single short-cut proposed across the district. On these grounds, it may be concluded that factories, (at least of heavy goods,) shops, warehouses, or stores for general trade, except possibly to a limited extent at the foot of the slopes, can be brought here only by some forced and costly process. The city holds much better ground for them in large quantity elsewhere. The nearest part of the district is ten miles away from the present centre of population, and within that distance, there is but little other ground in which the call for houses of low rent for families of small means, could not be more economically met. The cost of preparing each site for such a house, and rendering it accessible, would be excessive, and the average space which would be appropriated for each, would be much larger than would be elsewhere required. 15 III. THE QUESTION OF A PERMANENT SUBURBAN QUARTER. There remains to be considered the question of its further general and permanent occupation by that class of citizens to whom the confinement, noise, and purely artificial conditions of the compact city are oppressive, and who are able to indulge in the luxury of a villa or suburban cottage residence. What are the chances of its being occupied in this manner advantageously? IV. THE POSSIBILITY OF A PERMANENT SUBURBAN QUARTER. Of course, although manufactories and commercial buildings on a large scale are not to be apprehended, a perfectly uninterrupted succession of private villas and cottages is not to be hoped for. Here and there a shop or a range of shops will be necessary, but being adapted only for local custom, they are not likely to be lofty or excessively obtrusive. Now and again buildings for other purposes would probably occur; a school with its play grounds, a church set in a proper churchyard; a higher institution of learning with its green quadrangle, academic grove or campus; a public hall, library or museum; a convent with its courts and gardens; a suburban inn or boarding-house with its terrace, commanding grand prospects over the Hudson. All who have lived abroad know how buildings of these classes and many others may come into a villa suburb (their sites being chosen so as to gain an advantage from appropriate natural circumstances), in such a manner as not to disturb but to give point and emphasis to its proper aspect. The nearest approach to urban building likely to be frequent, if once the general character proposed is obtained for the district, would be what the English call a terrace, a range of dwellings set back from the public street and reached by a loop-road, the crescent-shaped intermediate space being either a quiet slope of turf, a parterre of flowers, a play ground for children, or, if the topography favors, a picturesque rocky de-16 clivity treated perhaps as a fernery or Alpine garden. There will be, whatever the plan of roads, a great number of situations well adapted to such an arrangement, and which could be made suitable for no other except at much greater cost. Old neighborhoods, more or less of the character indicated, are to be found near almost every great city of Europe, and there are towns like Bath, Leamington, and Brighton, and scores on the continent, noteable parts of which have had something of it for generations past, and hold it still. But in none of these cases, except perhaps that of one of the suburban quarters of Edinburgh, were the natural conditions nearly as unfavorable for the more common manner of town building, and at the same time as favorable for a permanent, highly picturesque neighborhood, combining the conveniences of the town with the charms and healthfulness of the country. It is not to be doubted that the promontory may, throughout its whole extent, be so laid out and occupied as to have an interest and attractiveness for excelling in its kind that of any other locality in America; nor that, if this result can be secured, it will hold great numbers of wealthy people within the city who would otherwise go away from it to find homes to suit them, and will draw many to it from without the city. Its effect will, in this respect, be similar to that which has been experienced from the Central Park, but with this difference, that the gain to the city will be in conditions the cost of which will have been mainly defrayed by the voluntary and self-directed contributions of the private owners of the land, not from the public treasury. It may be questioned whether, even in a locality as yet so remote from dense building and so rugged in its topography, the demand for land for various other purposes will not, in time, crowd out all rural and picturesque elements, and whether, for this reason, it would be prudent to lay it out with exclusive reference to suburban uses? All that can be said in reply, is 17 that thus far in the history of other great cities there is nothing to sustain such a doubt. After a certain degree of density has been attained, the proportion of people who are disposed and able to live under suburban conditions, relatively to those who may be content or obliged to live under rigidly urban conditions, becomes larger the larger the town, but there is yet no city in the world so large that it has not luxurious suburban quarters much nearer to its centre than is the promontory, even to the outer part of New York as now densely built. London has fairly grown around and stretched beyond some clusters of fine old suburban residences without seriously disturbing them. There are private gardens in which the town is almost lost sight of at not many minutes walk from Hyde Park. Within a range from the heart of Old London of less than one-third the distance of Riverdale from the City Hall, there are hundreds of acres of gardens and villa and cottage grounds; and, with a city adding much more annually to her population than New York, costly villas are every year built, and villa neighborhoods are steadily enlarged without becoming less distinctly suburban in character. Districts of villas exist and others are forming also but a little way from dense parts of Paris. Under Haussmann, roads were laid out expressly for villas closely adjoining the grand route between the Champs Elysées and the Bois de Boulogne, every site upon which is now occupied by a semi-rural residence. Other and extensive districts of the same class have been laid out since with confident reference to permanence as an integral element of the attractions of the city. V. THE ADVANTAGES OFFERED BY THE PROPOSITION TO THE CITY. It is reasonable to infer that New York will have such quarters. It remains a question whether they shall be formed by a co-operation of public and private work, or by private enterprise in making the best of unsuitable public arrangements. 318 The importance of the question will be recognized if it is considered what a difference there would now be in the attractiveness, and consequently in the wealth of the city, if twenty-five years ago, when it was quite practicable, Fifth avenue from Madison Square to the Central Park had been laid out fifty feet wider than it is, with slightly better grades, a pad for riding horses, broad sidewalks and an avenue of trees. It will cost much less to lay out and prepare the promontory admirably as a permanent suburb than to prepare it tolerably for any other use. A given sum expended upon it for the purpose will have important results much sooner than if expended for any other. All other purposes which the city needs to have in view can be provided for at much less cost and much more conveniently in other parts of its present territory. Treated as a suburb, the district is likely to make larger contributions to the city treasury, and to begin to contribute to it in important amount sooner than if treated in any other way. What is meant by treating the district as a suburb is, that the development of a distinctly suburban and picturesque character should everywhere be kept frankly in view as a source of wealth, and that the roads should be adapted to a population living less densely, and with which pleasure driving and walking are to be, relatively to heavy teaming, more important than in the streets of the compact city. If the policy which has been indicated does not, upon reflection, fully commend itself to the Commission, the plan now submitted is not entitled to further examination. It is professionally adapted to no other. If, however, the soundness of the policy is accepted, the manner in which the district should be laid out, in order to its success, remains to be considered. 19 VI. THE QUESTION OF LAYING OUT A SPECIALLY PICTURESQUE AND CONVENIENT SUBURB. The custom of laying out roads in the outskirts of cities only upon right lines, under any circumstances which leave it possible to do so, is so strongly fixed in our country that the Commission cannot entertain the idea of abandoning it before carefully weighing what is to be gained and lost by doing so. It should remember, however, that the custom is largely due to the disposition of land owners, to act on the imagination, by showing lots which, as represented on paper, differ in no respect from the most valuable in the city, and thus to feed the pernicious propensity which prevails among the ignorant for gambling on small means under the name of speculation in real estate. Again, it is to be remembered that it is not customary to think of the laying out of any part of a city as a matter in the smallest degree of esthetic design; but, if the policy of carrying on a series of constructions in a manner sympathetic with picturesque landscape effects has any claims to adoption by the Commission, it necessarily involves a serious application, in however humble a way, of the laws and the spirit of art. The more tangible and weighty advantage to be urged in favor of keeping as nearly as practicable to straight lines of road, is one commonly expressed under one of the following specifications: 1st. That of the comparative ease and simplicity of the business of laying out the roads. 2d. That of the comparative rapidity and convenience with which surveyors' measurements and calculations are made when dealing with straight lines. 3d. That of the greater convenience of a straight front when land is to be divided or described with a view to sale or mortgage.20 It is not questioned that these advantages should be waived in the case of very difficult topography, such as must often occur on the promontory. (It will be observed that each of the six plans before the Commission proposes a considerable extent of curved line). It apparently follows that whether the straight street should yield to the winding road at any point, when it otherwise desirable, it, at the worst, a question of employing surveyors competent to deal with curved lines. No plan has been proposed to the Commission for laying out the promontory, under which a local surveyor to whom curved lines were a serious matter, could honestly earn his living. The whole amount of the class of expenses in question, under the most difficult circumstances, would be relatively inconsiderable, and if any essential, permanent advantage to the community is at stake, regard for them should not be allowed to obstruct the very best arrangement that can be devised. The third specification above refers to the facility which straightness in a street gives for laying off properties in lots the dimensions of which may be expressed in two numbers, and to the convenience of the custom, to which this advantage is essential, of dividing property for sale in a series of parallelograms of uniform length of frontage, as in the case of city lots. As to this custom, it is to be remembered that if it should be generally adhered to on the promontory it would not affect the desired result favorably, but otherwise, for this reason. In broken and rolling ground, and especially in rocky ground, sites for houses can be well chosen only with an intelligent consideration of local circumstances. If a hundred lots are to be laid off, each one hundred feet wise, and with the dividing lines all at right angles with the street line, in many parts of the promontory the dividing lines will so occur, that on not half the lots will an entirely satisfactory site for a building be found, and, on several, building will be impracticable until after much labor has been given to transform the natural surface. Let the same property, on the other hand, be laid out with a judicious adjustment of lines to the local conditions, and an equal 21 number of lots may be made of it, each offering an admirable and conveniently approached site. Of course, however, they will vary in size. As to the general attractiveness of the region, and as to the total or average value of all its real estate, there are certain well established principles by which men of taste throughout the civilized world, when living among rural or even rus-urban conditions are almost invariably guided when laying out the private carriage approaches to their houses.* The motives growing out of well established experience which enforce this practice, apply equally in the case of a common approach to two houses as to one, as if to two, equally to twenty or to two hundred. Though the propriety may be questioned of advancing toward a house indirectly when it is situated on a plain, there is no question that in a hilly country the principles referred to always lead to the use in roads of winding courses in greater or less degree of correspondence with the natural surface. VII. THE ECONOMICAL ADVANTAGES OF THE PROPOSITION. The comparative economy of straight and winding roads is partly a question of what is desirable under given circumstances as to grades. The shortest line between two points is not always that which can be passed over at the least cost of time or in wear and tear. A carriage load that requires two horses and a given strength of harness to be drawn over a road with grades by which one foot in elevation is overcome in ten feet of distance, as in the case of some of the present roads of the promontory, can be as easily as safely drawn by one horse and with a harness one-half lighter on a road in which twenty-four feet is allowed for overcoming the same elevation. If a man in haste at a given point wishes to drive a horse of ordinary quality with a *Exceptions occur when the approach is short, crosses flat ground, and can be seen from end to end in one symmetrical composition with the house; conditions to which there will be none corresponding in the roads of the promontory.22 light wagon to another point 180 feet higher on a hillside, he can do so in shorter time upon a curved road 800 yards in length than upon a straight road of 600 yards. If the hillsides of the promontory are to be occupied chiefly by families in comfortable circumstances it is evident that for the great majority of occasions a road carried between two points, one at a great elevation than another, upon a curve regulated by the curve of the hillside along which it will be passing, though longer horizontally will be passed over in shorter time, and with less wear and tear, than a straight road between the same points. The straight road might, because it was the shortest, cost less for construction. The probabilities are, that ploughing straight through whatever was in the way, it would cost more. But, whether so or not, in running along an alternately swelling and retreating surface, the more unswerving the course the more it would be necessary in grading the road to cut through the protuberances and to fill across the depressions. From this consideration it follows, that unless a level can be kept, which in this district* it rarely can for any distance, access will be had from a road laid on natural lines to adjoining building sites with much less violence and at less cost, on an average, than it can from a straight road, and, again, that the amount of walling, sloping, turfing or other operations necessary to a tidy road-side, or the attractive presentation of the adjoining properties will be less with the winding than the straight road. VIII. THE IMMEDIATE CONVENIENCE OF THE PROPOSITION. One advantage to be gained by adopting winding and picturesque roads, as far as conveniently practicable, rather than straight and formal streets remains to be suggested. Formal streets, especially when far extended on a straight line at an even grade, their every line of curb, sidewalk and lamp-posts, being truly set, and when bounded by continuous walls of stately houses, have an imposing effect, and satisfy 23 good taste. But in streets which, by alternate cuttings and embankments, are carried, here through woods, there across open fields, here are flanked by the ragged face of blasted ledges or raw banks of earth, there by a varied prospect, even when fine houses are occasionally built fronting upon them, straightness gives no dignity and expresses little but incongruity and imperfection. To make such a street tolerable to the eye it needs from the beginning as perfect lines and as perfect surfaces in its curbs, gutters and lamp-posts, pavement and flagging, as the densely occupied street of the city. If a cheap temporary wheel-way is made in it, or temporary sidewalks, any deviation from a straight line, or even any short flexions of grade in them are unsatisfactory. If trees are set between the walks and the wheel-way they seem out of place, and add to a general expression of untidiness, incompleteness, disorder and shiftlessness, unless they are evenly spaced in continuous lines parallel with all the other features. The slightest disarrangement of such a road, scattered patches of grass and weeds, a sucker growth of trees and bushes on the bordering banks, even the general heaving outward and inward of the fences that form it outlines, all claim attention as defects and shortcomings from what is attempted. Nothing of this is true of roads laid out with a natural motive. The wheel-way may have a somewhat variable width, as economy shall require; its grade may dip and rise within a hundred yards; the courses of the walks may vary a little form that of the wheel-way, may rise a little in a cutting or fall a little on an embankment, may rise on one side and fall on the other; wild plants may spring up, here and there, in random tufts, or again, the roadsides be all filled out (as some in the district now are), with a thick growth of low brambles, ferns, asters, gentians, golden-rods; roadside trees may be irregularly spaced and of various sizes and species, great opposite small, ash over against maple, elm bending to oak; fine old trees may be left standing, and, to save them, the wheel-way carried a little to the right or left, or slightly raised or lowered. It may be desirable, simply for convenience sake, to go to the expense of avoiding such con-24 ditions, but, as a matter of taste, they are far from blemishes; they add to other charms of picturesqueness, and they are a concession to nature, tending to an effect not of incongruity and incompleteness, but of consistent and happy landscape composition. Hence, roads on natural lines, which may be so far worked, at moderate cost as to meet the ordinary requirements of convenience of a considerable community, will much sooner and more uninterruptedly give results of a presentable, comely and attractive character. In this manner, indeed, the most agreeable roads in the world have been made. IX. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS. Adopting the general conclusion which has thus been sustained, there is still much room for difference of judgement as to the location of roads, their breadth and grades. The existing divisions of land, the positions of houses, of fences, of roads, have been determined without regard to such an occupation of the district as is now to be prepared for. Individual interests, based on existing arrangements, must necessarily be, in greater or less degree, at issue with those general and lasting interests of the public of which the Commission is the guardian. There must be limits within which the latter are so far paramount that not the least compromise between the two is admissible. To keep on the safe side of those limits, it has appeared to the undersigned best to perfect a conclusion, in the first place, as to what roads are necessary as routes, or links in routes, of extended, general and unquestionably desirable, in distinction from local and limited, communication. This they have done in the plan now presented, except that they have adopted the judgment of the Board, as heretofore indicated, on three points not materially affecting the general design. 25 X. BY-ROADS. If the Commission should substantially adopt the system, and afterwards think proper to consult the judgment and wishes of each land-owner as to cross roads or by-roads, it can do so with confidence, that no conclusions to which it may then be led can be seriously detrimental to the general interests. Any one of the divisions left by the plan might even be subdivided, for example, by rectilinear roads without destroying the consistency and harmony or lessening the convenience, of the main system. If, on the other hand, such minor roads within any division should, in order not to mar a series of natural building sites, be made very indirect and circuitous, the worst result would be a slight inconvenience to a few residents within the division and those calling upon them, which, to these, would be compensated by the greater beauty and local convenience of the buildings. The public in general, keeping to the primary roads, would suffer no inconvenience. It is believed, too, that the proprietors will be much better able to form a sound judgment as to the requirements of their own interests in the minor roads if they are allowed to become familiar with the proposed general system, and with the theory which it represents of the interest of the district as a whole. XI. REQUIREMENTS OF DETAIL. PLANTING ARRANGEMENTS. It should be recognized that to carry out a natural or informal system judiciously, so that a good share of its possible advantages may be surely realized, much study of detail is required. Both for economy and for beauty local circumstances must be diligently consulted, and the treatment of the road adapted to them. Variety in this respect should be sought, not avoided. Every turn should bring something of fresh interest into view within the road as well as beyond it.26 In this detail very well-considered provisions should be made for road-side planting. Ordinarily in the suburbs of rapidly growing American towns, trees are planted most injudiciously and wastefully, ill-chosen as to species for the locality, ill-placed, ill-planted, and with not suitable provision for a continuous, healthy growth. Science is yearly placing a higher estimate on the sanitary value of street trees. Paris now maintains a great nursery with a view to the systematic supply of all the city with this means of dissipating malaria and infection. London is just entering upon a similar duty. The matter of supplying New York streets with trees has been much debated by her sanitarians. The difficulty lies in the fact, that the street arrangements of the city being all designed with no reference to the purpose, the introduction of trees, with the conditions necessary to success, would be very costly and inconvenient. In laying out a new system, especially for a quarter designed to offer a beautiful and healthful relief to the more general conditions of city life, this requirement should be thoroughly well attended to. The tracing submitted represents the outline of a general plan, the adoption of which is recommended subject to such slight adjustments, immaterial to the essential design, as may be found desirable. A drawing is also exhibited which will serve to indicate more fully the purposes in view. Respectfully, FRED. LAW OLMSTED, Landscape Architect. J. JAMES R. CROES, Civil and Topographical Engineer.V NY CP Riverside Ave D.P.P. 1876 Contract form for improvement and construction of Riverside Ave in Central Park Pa[?] Box - Front Office N.Y. 23'd & 24th wards 1876-77 Turned over by Miss Bullard to T.K. Dec. 21, 1920 Letter JCO to FLO telling part taken by FLO in design in coop. with Mr. Croes & reasons for its not being carried out Very interesting[V PR] DOCUMENT No. 75 BOARD OF THE Department of Public Parks March 21, 1877. Report of the Civil and Topographical Engineer and the Landscape Architect, accompanying a plan for local steam transit routes in the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Wards. Ordered printed as a document of the Board. WM. IRWIN. Secretary D.P.P.3 CITY OF NEW YORK } DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC PARKS 20th March, 1877. The Hon. WILLIAM R. MARTIN, President of the Board: SIR -- In compliance with your request, the undersigned have the honor herewith to present a map, showing proposed routes for local steam transit through the Twenty-third and Twenty- fourth Wards, and connections of the same with lines, or proposed lines extending to the south end of the city. I. The speed which is maintained on our railways in passing through rural districts is generally checked the moment a dense population is reached, and within our large towns the chief advantage of this great improvement upon older methods of traveling is in a great degree lost. Where, as is the case with New York, the distance between the business centre and the residence centre is great, the deprivation is a serious one, and the demand that it should be obviated has long been pressing. The reason for the diminution of speed on entering a town lies in the fact that the long-established plan of laying out towns is not adapted to the conditions essential to rapid movement, having been devised before the necessity for it was felt, and indeed before the means of accomplishing it had been invented. Now that its accomplishment has been proved to be mechanically practicable and its necessity is recognized, it would be unpardonable, in devising plans for laying out a large territory for the accommodation of a more or less dense population, not to provide for it in advance. II. In the existing condition of the mechanical appliances for travel at high speed it can only be accomplished by the use of4 heavy trains of vehicles moving on rigid lines with light gradients. For safety such lines must be so located that pedestrians and vehicles adapted to use on ordinary roads can by no possibility encounter the trains. The routes selected must, therefore, at all points of contact with common roads, be either above or below their grades. Any plan which involves adherence throughout the entire route to an invariable type of construction, whether elevated or depressed, is inconsistent with economy in any region like new wards, the topography of which is very uneven. The conditions to be fulfilled are best found in a road running either along a hillside, in a narrow valley, or on a narrow ridge, in such a manner that intersecting streets may be carried either over or under it, as local convenience may dictate, with moderate expense. III. It has hitherto been customary in laying out routes for railways to disregard the requirements of ordinary travel and the existing and future division of property. It has, on the other hand, been usual, in dividing property by common streets, to pay no attention to the possible introduction of railway transit. As a result of these customs, difficulty is now encountered on New York Island in arranging rapid transit routes, and in the suburban wards in obtaining safe and convenient roads adjoining and crossing existing railroads. Inasmuch as steam roads admit of less flexibility of line and grade than common roads, the determination of their location should in a plan aiming to combine the two systems satisfactorily, precede the establishment of the complete subdivision of the property, but the practicability of a proper subdivision must always be kept in view. The construction of a system devised to combine the two undoubtedly involves more expense for each, considered by itself, than if the combination could be avoided, but not so great expense or injury as the adjusting of one to the cheapest location of the other. 5 IV. The experience of the last twenty-five years has demonstrated that the chief obstacle to the accomplishment of speedy communication between distant points in New York City, is the difficulty of obtaining the right of way for steam roads. There are three methods possible for acquiring the land needed: 1st. It may be purchased by the corporation which is to furnish the means of transportation. 2d. The right of way over a highway already devoted to public uses may be granted to such corporation. 3d. A new route to be used exclusively for the purpose may be provided at the public expense. Where the transporting corporation purchases the land, the whole burden falls on the travelers, who are forced to pay in fares the interest on the purchase money, as well as on the cost of construction. Capitalists object to this method, from a conviction that it will oblige the imposition of so high a rate of fare as to repel, rather than invite travel; or if low fares are established by legislation, that the result will be a loss to the management. Where a street is taken which has been already acquired by the public for ordinary traffic and for access to the property fronting on it, the burden falls partly on the travelers, who pay the interest on the cost of construction, receiving an equivalent however for their money, and partly on the owners of such property as is injured, who receive no equivalent. This method is objected to be owners of property, on the ground that it imposes the cost of the right of way on them, not indeed directly as an actual pecuniary disbursement, but indirectly, through the depreciation of the value of their property, and the diminution of their business resulting from the presence in the street of an obstruction to ordinary traffic. Where a new route is furnished by the public, part of the burden is borne by the travelers, as in the other cases, and the6 rest by the property which is benefited by the facilities for travel, which includes alike the business centres and the remote residence districts. By this method, the injury to property is reduced to a minimum, and the burden is distributed equitably among the persons who are benefited. V. In accordance with the considerations thus presented, the plan now submitted contemplates the laying out of a system of roads on such routes and with such grades that their use can be restricted to steam travel, that they will afford moderately direct communication between the desired points, will be easily accessible from all points which they do not directly touch, will nowhere cross ordinary high ways at the same level, and will not as a rule interfere with satisfactory divisions of property. In the arrangement of the routes the following principles have been kept in view. (1.) The crossings of the Harlem River must be as few as possible. (This is alike desirable whether such crossings are by bridge or by tunnel; if by the former it is important that navigation should be as unobstructed as practicable, if by the latter the expense of many crossings would be too great.) (2.) All crossings of the river must be at such points that connection can be easily had with lines on New York Island. (3.) Lines must be so laid out that trains passing from the city through one district may return by a loop or circuit through another. (This not only gives to the residents of each of the districts the advantage of communication between the two, but also gives them, with the same number of trains, more frequent opportunities to reach the business centre than they would have with single lines.) (4.) While every opportunity must be afforded to existing lines of trunk freight and passenger railroads to co-operate in the local passenger traffic, routes and river crossings must be provided which will be independent of their control. 7 VI. With reference to the crossing of the Harlem River, the following considerations are presented: There are but two existing railroad crossings of the river. The New York Central & Hudson River Railroad enters on New York island by a bridge at Spuyten Duyvil, and the extension of the same road by the Spuyten Duyvil & Port Morris branch crosses at Fourth Avenue by the bridge of the Harlem Railroad, which is also used by the New Haven Railroad. The Rapid Transit Commissioners, in 1875, authorized a crossing of the river at First Avenue, to connect with the Portchester branch of the New Haven Railroad, and another near the High Bridge, to connect with the partially constructed New York & Boston Railroad. Both of these lines are so situated as to render it very unlikely that any crossing will be constructed upon them for many years to come, if at all. As regards the first, a bridge would cause too great obstruction to navigation at a point which is now the centre of a considerable water traffic, and a tunnel is not likely to be built upon it as long as it is possible, within a mile, to construct, at one-tenth of the cost, a bridge which will not very seriously interfere with the interests of commerce. As regards a crossing near the High Bridge, the authorized approach on the Manhattan shore passes for more than a mile along the base of a precipitous hill, which can never have a sufficient population to support a local road, and from the crossing, when made, extensions of the road can be made with advantage in only one direction. A bridge from One hundred and forty-fifth Street, on the south side of the river, connecting with the loop line authorized by the Rapid Transit Commission, along the exterior street, and crossing to One hundred and forty-ninth Street, on the north side, will be open to neither of these objections. It will afford all the facilities for crossing which will be needed, for several years at least, and will be at such a distance from any other bridge that little inconvenience will occur to navigation, even after the projected improvement of the Harlem River is made.8 VII. In determining the arrangements which should be provided for steam transit after crossing the river, existing railroads must be taken into consideration. Along the Hudson River the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad affords facilities for travel; along the Harlem River runs the Spuyten Duyvil & Port Morris Railroad; in the Mill Brook Valley the Harlem River Railroad furnishes accommodation; and further to the eastward the Portchester Branch Railroad has an opportunity for building up a large local travel as far north as West Farms Village. Of these the Spuyten Duyvil & Port Morris branch, in connection with the Hudson River Railroad, is the only one which at all supplies the desideratum of a circuit or loop line. It is defective, in that its termini lie on opposite sides of the city, and too far north. The other lines mentioned must always remain pre-eminently routes of through travel, and as such their managers can not be expected to give the attention to local convenience which the interests of the city will demand. Being, nevertheless, too important to be overlooked in any comprehensive scheme, they may be considered available as links of a system as yet incomplete, and opportunity must be given them for combining with other lines. The three main divisions of the territory which are as yet wholly unprovided with facilities for access to old New York, are the valley lying east of the Spuyten Duyvil Promontory and extending to Yonkers, the Jerome Avenue Valley, and the Southern Boulevard district. During most of the year, the pleasure and comfort of water travel over the route by steamboat from Harlem to the eastern lower portion of the city will always attract a large passenger traffic. It is essential, therefore, that provision should be made for the delivery of passengers from local railroads at the point now occupied by the terminus of the Portchester road, situated at the head of unobstructed navigation. 9 VIII. The plans submitted herewith exhibit the following main features: (a.) A central crossing of the Harlem River between Fifth and Sixth avenues at a point about equidistant from the two authorized routes on New York Island, running parallel to its axis. (b.) A main circuit line up the Jerome Avenue Valley to Jerome Park, thence crossing to the Harlem Railroad, by the route of the Jerome Park Branch Railroad, and following a route generally parallel to that of the Southern Boulevard to the Boston Road, thence down the Bound Brook Valley to the Westchester Road, thence to the Port Morris branch, at St. Mary's Park, and thence, crossing North New York, between One hundred and forty-fourth and One hundred and forty-fifth Streets, over the Harlem Railroad, and through Buena Ridge to the bridge at One hundred and forty-ninth Street. (c.) A loop line, connecting with the main circuit and with the Port Morris Branch Railroad at St. Mary's Park and passing through the Notch at One hundred and forty-first Street, and southerly between St. Ann's and Brook Avenues, to a connection with the Portchester Depot, and thence, along the river, to the crossing at One hundred and forty-ninth Street. (d.) A loop line, connecting with the main circuit at Mount Eden and following the Valley of the Ice Pond Brook, passing under the Harlem Railroad at One hundred and fifty-fourth Street, and thence, between Morris and College Avenues, to line (c) near the Portchester Depot. (e.) A line, connecting the main circuit and the Portchester Railroad, near Fox's Corners. (f.) A loop line via the Port Morris Branch Railroad. (g.) A line from Kingsbridge to Ludlow's Dock and Yonkers, by way of the Broadway Valley. (h.) A route from High Bridge to Yonkers, up the valley of Tibbett's Brook, being an amendment of the route of the partly-built New York, Boston & Montreal Railroad.10 All of the above described routes are so located as to be intermediate between streets intended for ordinary travel, and all such streets will cross them, either over or under the grade. The maximum gradient will be 80 feet to a mile, and the minimum radius of curvature 521 feet. These extremes are closely approached but in a few instances. Respectfully, J. JAMES R. CROES, Civil and Topographical Engineer. FREDERICK LAW OLMSTEAD, Landscape Architect. Map of 23rd WardMap of 24th WardMap MORRISANIA 23rd Ward Map To accompany report to the Commissioners of the Department of Public Parks (Document No. 75) dated 20th March 1877. J. JAMES R. CROES, Civil & Topographical Engineer FREDERICK LAW OLMSTEAD, Landscape ArchitectRoutes for Local Steam Transit in the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Wards of New York City scale Photo Lith. by J. Bien N.Y. Existing Railroads for through travel, which are also available as links in the local system, are indicated thus: Proposed routes for local travel thus: The routes and river crossings of the Gilbert and New York Elevated Railroads, as authorized by the Rapid Transit Commissioners, thus:[*502 V - N.Y. 1877*] Dear Sir: I was at the office in Central Park on Saturday and carefully examined the Map of the laying out of the part of the City between Riverdale Avenue and Broadway. That portion that is on the hill is I am satisfied with as in conformity [of] with your plan as advocated before the Commissioners but on careful reflection I consider the laying out of the portion on the low grounds subject to their serious objections. 1st The Canal keeping as far as practicable to the deep channel which the tide has worn and to fill which would cost more than the present and any prospective value of the land through which it passes should terminate in any event at the natural outlet of the creek. Because the Hudson River RR has by moving its track over a navigable stream without a draw placed itself in a position where it can be compelled when necessary to open the navigation while a canal crossing it at any other point would meet with an almost insuperable objection from that Corporation, which has proved itself able to control legislation and to impede law. To compel them to raise their bridge so that drop masted vessels could pass under it or to establish a draw at the natural outlet seems to me the only practicable way. To this Mr Cross has given his attention and considers my argument has force. 2d There are five roads (including Broadway) and the canal or drain running north & south in the valley in the area of the Survey which would far more than confiscate the property leftwhich would mainly be left in lots only one hundred feet in depth between these streets and therefore subject to assessments from both sides (or a double assessment) for the immense labor involved in laying the roads through (mainly) wet and marshy land, which would be worse than the gridiron principle in the rest of the city where few blocks are less than two hundred feet deep. Gen Green's plan devoted one hundred feet on each side to the canal besides to its use to be taken by the city when it was made on the ground that it could not stand the assessment and would be valuable as a portion of the canal, they having the benefits of its improvement by that work. This it seems to me would be much fairer than to subject the small amount of lands remaining to the assessments for the canal and four roads or streets running north and south beside them [were] one. As your plan lays out my own roads in the valley I consider the expense involved in perfecting it would be at least five times any fair prospective value of what would remain, and should it be adopted I should be compelled to abandon what could only become a source of expense to carry it on & pay taxes on it to the time when when it was confiscated by these assessments. It seems to me it would be far better to adopt Gen Green's idea important as to the canal than to add to it [*I [entrust?]whether one more road parallel with Broadway & the road at the foot of this Hill is not all that this area of land & people coming would otherwise justify whether that is not all you should place them as petitions of all the interests*]this oppressive matter of assessments or at least to have either the lots along the canal at least 200 feet deep where practicable even if there were no roads or streets along its border, for assuming the possibility of its use hereafter for business purposes, coal, lime, lumber and other heavy articles which might there find a market (& possibly cattle also) would require more room than even 100 feet lots allow in the old part of the city. Here is an opportunity to lay out this property at the outset on a scale proportionate to its future use, with a full oportunity to the owners to subdivide & cut additional streets when required. If streets are laid down on the map (although not needed for many years) it settles [?] they are altered the destiny of the property as to possible sales, and you pay taxes for years on their beds knowing that it is devoted to a use in the future which must make it an encumbrance and no longer property. I have maturely reflected on this and these are positive connections as to the plan for the low loads. When it moves one step further north it will be on a large entailed estate of several hundred acres with no mesas for its protection and improvement which will be the same hardship I complain of (in my 12 acres) only vastly increased and as Mr Van Cortlandt is my old neighbor and life long friend I beg you will consider me as actuated by his interests as well as my own & other old neighbors inforcibly keeping these honest convictions based on thirty five years ownership of these barren heritage and long residence upon it I am sorry to be an objector but it is not without careful study and the strongest conviction. Yours truly J Bailey Meyers No 4 West 34' st. March 26' 1877. Fred Law Olmstead Engr Engineer in Chief Dept Pub Parks The question of the use of basins along this canal for boats to lie in I do not enter into although much of the land worn out by the bends of the creek would probably be more valuable as lakes than lots. in this immediate Section and not attended with much more expense in their construction (in a region where good stone is convenient) than filling. At all events a relief from superfluous roads unnecessarily dedicated would leave that open for the future in using the land left in blocks as large as practicable. [*J.B. Meyers - 26 Mch. 1877*]502 N.Y. Croes 23d & 24th New York, 24th March, 1878 My dear Mr. Olmsted: After much tribulation and great "searchings of spirit," our remarkable Board yesterday took action on the Central District and Hunt's Point District Plans. The first named was agreed upon, with certain modifications to be enumerated hereafter, the modified map to be adopted as soon as ready. The last named was swallowed whole, without a change of line. The successive steps leading to these results will probably interest you. At the first meeting of the Board after Mr. Martin's displacement, I called attention, under his advice, to the Rapid Transit Plans, and they were adopted, ordered to be designated on the Fordham Heights Plan and filed with it, as far as they were in that District, & were so filed the next day. The other portions of the R. T. Routes were of course not filed then. The new President expressed a great desire to get rid of the Central District Plan, & said that as far as he was concerned he would adopt it at once, but that Mr. Wetmore was not quite ready, on account of the Tremont opposition to the change in R.R. Ave. Thereupon the Harlem R.R. by some means began to take an interest in the matter, their Engineer was sent to examine the plans & Mr. W. was informed that the Co. desired their adoption, and he promised to have it done. At the next meeting however, Judge Tappen, owning a little place at Fordham, sent in a personal ap--peal to Mr. W to reduce the width(?) of the main road from Kingsridge to Fordham through the ravine South of the station, from 80 to 60 ft. -- He also complained that too many roads were laid out, and asked for an opportunity to explain his views to the Board. So the matter was again laid over. Judge T. by the way had had everything granted that he asked except this reduction of street from 80 to 60. Two or three weeks were passed in fruitless endeavors to get the Judge and the Board together. In the mean time a fresh complication had arisen. The two elevated roads began fighting for a foothold in the 23d & 24th wards. Both the Gilbert and the N.Y. Elevated RR began circulating petitions for Rapid Transit Commissioners to locate routes for them. They found our routes established and began to pick them to pieces, because they did not give the iron companies a chance to put up their bridges on already graded streets. Their Mr. Cauldwell who had been advocating our plans discovered that the R.T. routes cut two or three small pieces of property belonging to him. Irwin fostered the idea that we had no right to designate steam routes & got Cauldwell nearly wild over the injury to property & by the existence of lines for roads which we could not compel R.T. commissioners to adopt & which therefore might be left on the map, unused & a burden to the property through which they ran. So Cauldwell went to Un. Sq. one Wednesday morning & asked to have the map again laid over. Unfortunately I was not there to explain to him that the adoption of that map would not affect the matter at all. The request was that another delay occurred. The Pres't told me that W. would have voted for the map that day, if it had not been for C. (This may be true). The following Wednesday arrived, and brought with it the Tremont malcontents who had reviewed their opposition to R.R. Ave change & made a vigorous onslaught. -- I alone appeared favoring our plan. It was then agreed that the Commissioners should go up with Judge Tapper on Friday last to look at his grievance & that on Saturday they should meet to decide on the map. I should say here that I reported to the Board six weeks ago that I could recommend no more changes & asked for definite instructions. Well, on Friday Wetmore & Lane alone appeared at Fordham. W. said he knew all the county & went home, so Lane & I rode around a little with the Judge. --At night I received a note from Mr. Filley saying that he had found that an intense feeling had been manufactured against the R.R. Ave plan as being made in the interest of the Harlem R.R. and that it could be changed unless action could be delayed. But it was too late. They met Saturday (yesterday) morning, & with the plan on the wall before them, I received instructions to prepare a plan which should differ from that in the following aspects. On each side of the Harlem Rail Road & adjoining it, a street 50 feet wide to be laid out, at the grade of the RR. - All crossings to be at grade. Two longitudinal streets and two transverse streets -- whichwere 80 ft wide, to be made 60 ft. The parks on the Hill at Fordham, above Jerome Park Station, and on Zbronski's(?) place, to be left off. -- that is, simply not colored green: the surrounding streets not to be changed. The streets across Fleetwood Park to be obliterated, so as to admit of making that a Parade ground, as soon as authority could be obtained. I think this is doing pretty well. - Exhausted by their topographical labors, the Board then adopted the Hunt's Park plan, River Esplanade & all. This was brought about by straightening some roads for Faile & Dickey, as we agreed, by having the Tiffanys drum away at the two W.s and by having a meeting at Morrisania, engineered by Filley & Cauldwell at which I explained the map & our friends did the heft of the talking & the map was approved by a unanimous vote. My appropriation is getting low, but I shall make a vigorous effort to get these maps filed before a reaction sets in. Aldrich you know has been driven off by Decker at last. Franklin, an utter incompetent, whose weakness is in his elbow, takes his place, with Hufnagel as his chief assistant & Penfield & Meinell as chairmen. This relieves me of my four incapables. -- Yesterday they transferred Odell also. I shall miss him & he will not be in a congenial mood, for he is thoroughly honest. It is impossible to look a week ahead. Our masters are sly stubborn & tricky, and our friends timid -- By the way, Foster of the Gilbert Elevated has recently declared his intention to extend his road through the Central Park, as affording better grades, & cites as a precedent the crossing of the Battery. I trust that you will soon return with renewed health, with the hope that this long screed will not weary you, I am my dear sir, very truly your friend and obedient servant, J.J.R. CroesAn act to preserve and increase the number of shade trees in the streets avenues and public places of the City of New York. The people of the State of New York represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows Section 1. It shall be the duty of the Department of Public Parks of the City of New York to establish and maintain living trees upon all the streets + avenues + public places of said City north of Thirteenth Street which are of greater width than sixty feet wherever in the judgment of [such trees] the said Department shall deem it for the advantage of the public health and comfort and without causing a degree of public inconvenience that in the judgment of 2 of said Department shall outweigh such advantage. [and it should also be the duty of the] Section 2. All trees now standing or which may hereafter be planted in any of the streets avenues or public places of the said City [are hereby] shall be under the exclusive care management and control of the said Department of Public Parks, and the said Department of Public Parks shall also be authorized to establish & maintain such trees at such [any] points in any of the streets and avenues of said City [at which] as the Health Department of said City may from time to time indicate and require [by]3 by resolution [of the [?] there of] [Section 3.] Section 3. The Expense of procuring planting & Establishing all such trees as provided in Sec 1 of this act & of protecting the same with tree grounds shall be assessed upon the owners of the lands & premises benefitted thereby but no more than the sum of seven dollars should be so assessed for each tree to established & protected except that with the consent of the owner of any land & promises in front of which such tree may be established [prevented in this act] trees and tree grounds of special character & greater cost may be furnished and special care & greater expense maybe used in planting the same and the excess of the cost thereof over seven dollars shall be likewise assessed upon the owner of the said land & premises. Such assessments shall become a lien upon [its] such lands and premises [aforesaid] and be levied and enforced in like manner as now [enforced] provided by law in relation to assessments for otherwise improving streets & avenues [& public places] in the City of New York. Section H. There shall be a charge of One dollar [50 cts] per annum for each tree which now stands or which may hereafter be established [as provided in] in pursuance of this act for the cultivation and5 and maintenance of the same upon the land & premises before which each of said trees shall so stand or be established. The said charge shall be a lien upon & shall be levied and collected together with and in the same manner as provided by law for the collection of taxes in the City of New York. Section 5 For the purpose of the carrying out the provisions of this act the Comptroller of the City of New York is hereby authorized and directed [to borrow from time to time in the [?] ] whenever the Dept of Public Parks shall by resolution so order, to borrow from time to time6 in the name of the Mayor Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of New York by the issue of assessment bonds, bearing such rate of interest as he may deem proper not exceeding seven per cent per annum such sums as shall be necessary to pay an the expenses incurred or to be incurred as aforesaid; Sec 6. This act shall take effect immediately.Dpt act date? street trees for new yorkN.Y.[Parks] File 1 Oct '13 Dear Rick Replying to your query as to 23rd & 24th wards of NY plans. I did a lot of work on street plans under father's direction at that time '76 & '77. Croes evolved the rapid transit lines and most of the straight streets system F.L.O. being in constant and close consultation, but F.L.O. evolved (I worked as his draughtsman) almost exclusively the tracts having curvilinear streets, Croes being2 in close consultation. We drew these sheets, and many rough pencil studies, in our office on 46th St and then turned them over to Croes & the park dept. draughtsman to copy in official plans. Father's idea was that certain sections having rough topography should remain forever residence districts, including retail trade, and that under such condition curvilinear streets were preferable for reasons with which you are familiar. We had many consultations with real estate owners interested and with real estate agents. My impression is that many assented in an easy going 3 spirit and because that style of thing was at the time more or less of a fashion. As to why the plans were overturned I have no facts of record. I have no doubt however that the reasons were in the main very similar to the reasons why many of them comprehensive city plans have been overturned-namely, private interests demanded it and public servants are politicians and [no?] what such interests [??m] and if they are political friends and subscribers to their political friends and if complaisance will not lose them their jobs or get them into prison. I have no doubt that in most cases such a plan cannot be carried out at once because owners must be compensated for damages which they usually are shrewd enough to make4 very much bigger than benefits and as a huge sum is required and as there is not enough pressure to put through a big loan the plan can only be executed in small bits as and when and where certain private interests are powerful enough to get it done. Each small bit, however, is violently opposed by landowners who see some other way of doing it that will pay them better or that happens to please them more - in such cases public interest is apt to be approved. I think [Orves'?] part of it was in a general way of far greater value than fathers' and the community has now got to pay for subways in rock at 5 times what his rapid transit system would have cost besides having to endure for all time a bad system of main streets. It is a fine example of the shocking waste of our poor human civilization! Affectionately - John.