Frederick Law Olmsted SUBJECT FILE Community Design Buffalo, N.Y. 1892V 1/2 Land - [Suls?] - 1886 Oct. FLO stopped at Buffalo in consultation with Villa Park Land Co.[*V. "Depew" A*] P. 789 F.L.O. & Co. to J. J. Albright, 31st May, 1892. J. J. Albright, Esq., President of the Depew Land Co., Buffalo, N.Y. Dear Sir:- You have requested us to make you a defenite proposition for our professional services in preparing a general plan for the proposed town site near Buffalo to be known as "Depew"; and also to obtain and transmit to you a proposition from Col. George E. Waring, Jr., the eminent Sanitary Engineer, for his professional services. We have made general plans for a score or more of town sites and suburban neighborhoods in various parts of the country. For these general plans our usual practice has been to charge at the rate of five dollars an acre, plus traveling expenses. For your company we will make one or more (within reasonable limits) preliminary plans showing roads, business and residence quarters and other main features, on a scale not greater than 300 feet to an inch, for the purpose of discussion and to bring out the principal elements of the problem. We will then prepare a general plan on a scale of 100 feet to an inch, showing avenues and streets, with sidewalks and rows of trees; lanes, reservations for pleasure grounds, with outlines or masses of planting and ponds; plots for manufactories, lots for trade and other business purposes, and lots for residences. This will be the show plan, rendered in ink suitably for reproduction on a smaller scale by photolithography. We will also furnish you, for the use of your engineer, a tracing, in two or more sheets, showing street and lot lines. We will make occasional visits, as may seem desirable, from time to time, for consultations with the executive of your Company and with your engineer, sanitary engineer, architect and superintendent, until January 1st, 1894, and we will, during that period, be open to consultation with the above mentioned officers and professional advisors, at our 31st. May, 1892. F. L. O. & Co. to J. J. A. - 2 - office or by correspondence, in regard to any detail connected with our plan, without extra charge for our personal services. For the above mentioned plans and consulting services, our charge for 1,000 acres or more will be at the rate of $5.00 per acre, one-half to be payable 1st. January, 1893, provided we shall, by that time, have presented at least one fairly comprehensive preliminary plan; the remainder to be payable 1st. January 1894, provided we shall then have presented the general plan. In case we shall not, for lack of sufficient surveys or other data, have been able to advance the plans to the above mentioned points at the times stated, we shall expect only a reasonable payment on account. To the above-mentioned payments for our personal professional services are to be added and repaid to us all traveling expenses incurred by ourselves or our assistants in visiting the property, or in going elswwhere on the business of the company, also the sundry expenses of telegrams, expressive, printing or copying plans and maps, fraughting cross- sections, profiles and other working drawings showing details, which may be called for by your engineer, superintendent or architect, or which we may find it advantageous to send to them; also for the time of our planting assistants in case they are employed in planning, selecting, ordering and supervising the planting of street trees or ornamental plantations. The above expenses are not likely to total more than a few hundred dollars in any one year. In case we furnish working drawings for landscape gardening designs, such as laying out walks or grading and planting ornamental or pleasure grounds, we reserve the right to make an extra charge for our personal services in designing and supervising such work. This does not refer to street tree planting, for which we will make no extra charge for our personal services, during the period covered by our proposition. The usual order of business would be about as follows: 1st. Appointment of a resident engineer, who with a corps of assistants, would proceed to31st, May 1982. F.L.O. & CO. to J.J.A. -3- 2nd, Prepare, as quickly as possible, a preliminary topographical survey by triangulation and sketching, or by planetable or some other speedy method, and by means of a comparatively small number of levels. This map should be on a scale of 300 feet to the inch, and should show property lines, fence lines, railroads, public roads, houses, masses of woods, outlines and levels of swamps, courses (with occasional figures of elevation) or creeks, brooks, ditches and other waterways, and roughly approximate 10 foot contours. Occasional notes should be made as to the character of the soil, (whether light and naturally well-drained or heavy and needing elaborate drainage. A tracing should be made of this may and sent to us. 3rd, Having been informed of the general scope and purposes to be accomplished, such as the approximate number of acres to be devoted to manufacturing purposes, probably number of operatives to be provided with homes, and so on, we are to prepare a preliminary plan of streets and main subdivisions of land. 4th, Our preliminary plan, or some revision of it, having been discussed and provisionally adOpted by your Committee, there should be conferences with your engineer, your sanitary engineer, your real estate advisers, your architect and persons con- trolling neighboring territory who might wish to co- operate. There will have to be discussed questions of construction; of cost; of financial expediency; of public health; of sewage disposal and water supply; of adaptability of certain lands to sewage disposal (should subsoil or surface irrigation be advisable); to playgrounds; to pleasure grounds ; to brick-making; to market gardening; to economical residences, or to those of a more liberal class; of sizes of lots; of probable needs as to street railways, bridges over railroads and creeks; of floods to be disposed of without inconvenience; of restrictions to be imposed on lots sold. All these and other questions should be discussed, and so far as may be, determined with the aid of the preliminary survey, and before the final general plan is adopted. The discussion and wise determination of all these preliminary questions and the preparation of the various preliminary plans which may be needed to make them clear and easily determined takes more time than is generally supposed. 5th, Your engineers and his corps should be pushing forward the full topographical survey needed for the preparation of all working drawings, 31st May, 1892, F.L.O. & Co. to J.J.A. - 4 - for construction purposes, and for reliable estimates of cost of construction. By the time our preliminary plan has been thoroughly discussed revised and adopted, a topographical map should be furnished us on a scale of 100 feet to the inch. 6th, We should then prepare our general plan. 7th, On the basis of our final preliminary plan, or a copy of our general plan your sanitary engineer should (with the aid of special surveys) if needed, prepare a report and plan for a system of sewers and storm water drains, and for the proper disposal of sewage. 8th, On the basis of our general plan, and under our general supervision, your engineer should prepare working drawings for all required constructions, including roads, gutters, walks, planting strips, storm water drains, catch-basins, ditches, ponds, culverts, bridges, fences, location of gas mains and water mains, lamp-posts, hydrants and other details. While the steps in preparation for actual work would be best taken in the above order, it is not essential that each step should be absolutely completed before the next is entered upon. We enclose Col. Waring's offer, which is a dual one; the first being for his own services in advising upon a general scheme of sewerage and sewage disposal, and the second being for undertaking either the topographical map or all the engineering work. We recommend the acceptance of his first offer at the proper time: namely, when we have made our preliminary plan of streets. Our opinion is that his second offer would be an advantageous one, if you are willing to have the whole of the engineering and construction work completed under the direction of his firm. We understand that Col. Waring has a first rate superintending engineer who is just completing a similar work, and who is, therefore, available for this work. The required topographical map would be well and properly done and the subsequent "setting out" and supervision of construction would be done by the same assistant engineer who had made the topographical survey, thus avoiding conflicting data and opinions. You would thus secure the services31st May, 1892. F. L. O. & C. to J. J. A. -5- of engineers already familiar with this class of work, and you would not pay more than the value of the services. If, however, you prefer to appoint as resident engineer some gentleman with whom you are already acquainted, and in whom you have confidence, our experience is that it would be better to have him, rather than Col Waring's assistant, make the topographical map, as well as to continue the subsequent staking out and superintendence of all construction work; but he should do so in regular consultation with Col. Waring and with us, in order that the work may benefit by his and our more general experience. Yours very respectfully, F. L. Olmsted & Co.[*V 1/2*] 14 Dec. 1894 [*File JW*] To the Editor of the Transcript Dear Sir, The statemt in the trnspt of yesterday that we have prep[ed]ig plans for the immdate subdvisn of the estates of Brookline belngig to J.L. Groudin, [Igntius?] Engret & the Schlesger & Wintrop Estates is incorrect. We have made no [such plans nor have] plans for the purpose alluded nor have we been asked to - Olmsted Olmsted & [Eliot?]