FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED SUBJECT FILE Parks New York, N. Y. (Esp. Central Park) 1864-67 IV - N.Y. CP. Herald June 9 64 (C 64 - Jan 27 Verdict of $8625 for [Genl Vide?] on claim that he worked 5 yrs on plan for C. P. x it was then set aside in favor of O & V plan wh. was no more than an imitation of his with a few changes to disguise plagiarism -- --------------------------------------------- Independent Mch 31.64 Authorship of Design of park not involved at all Jury decided merely that 1st plf. made prel. surv & prep. a map for laying out same 2d C.P. Cours adoted same 9 June 56 3d Dfdts - because thereby liable in sum of $5000 9 June 56 - [w. interest][*Mrs.*] Calvert Vaux [*Mrs Vaux*] ~ 24th Street [*[1864]*] May 14th 1861 Dear Mrs Olmsted Your delightful letter telling me of your San Francisco experience reached here a week or two since and I am now taking advantage of a few quiet moments (great rarities) to tell you in reply of some of our interests and doings Calvert and Bowyer went up to Rondout yesterday on the Powell and are enjoying this balmy spring day - the beautiful blossoms tender greens and the distant Catskills. Calvertneeded the change and I feared there were signs of a return of chills and fever but I hope the good sniffs of mountain air will ward off the enemy and give him new strength. Gertrude and Jervis are there too having left town last week very glad to go to their dear little home after the winters experience of boarding. They have been in 36th Street this winter but we have seen them very often - Gertrude coming in almost every day. I believe she lunched at her boarding place twice during the winter. Our sister Lucy was married in February and you know a wedding always makes so many consultations necessary Lucy is now with her husband Capt Andrews of the 8th U.S. infantry in Baltimore where the regiment is stationed and enjoying her life in Barracks very much She finds plenty of friends among the officers wives and rides on horseback every day. She writes there is some talk of the regiment being ordered to California We are enjoying just now the new Academy of Design building which has just been completed and opened. The opening was a very brilliant affair where every one was in their happiest mood and the ladies in grand toilette. It is certainly a very agreeable place to go to and we find ourselves there very frequently. The rooms are always full and in the evening when we have been there quite crowded. Boughton has some charming pictures there and Hunt's designs for the Central Park Gateways have quite a conspicuous place. You will have heard of Calvert'sletter and what a commotion it caused among the dry bones of the commission - Mary Perkins called not long since looking so pert and pretty told me of her going abroad which will be a pleasant experience for her I hope. Mr Elkin has a little girl baby much to their delight I suppose and is doing very well - I hope it will be as great a delight and treasure as our little Marion is to us and so you say of your little on e- Mr. Blow who is now in town seemed very much surprised to see our little one so much of a beauty and really seemed to wonder very much where she got it. You know his irony By the way he seems to have a great admiration for you and quite boasts of getting letters from you - We are hoping to spend August in the Adirondacks for from letters of your wife makes us very [?ame] and we hear of a comfortable place to transport our family to - all the children are well and thriving Boyerstill goes to school to Miss Sedgwick and improves steadily He is quite a great boy and full of interests never at a loss for occupation We went with his father for company being no more a care but quite companionable and of service to him in this capacity - Grand Pa's is the Eden to the children - [Downy?] goes to his Uncle Jervis' as soon as they are settled and he is as happy there as the day long making garden watching every move of his Uncle with the greatest interest and following him about like a little dog - He and Julieare out of school. Miss Russell having given up her Kindergarten in the first of May. Julie is quite a girl now large and very robust and so full of interest in her little baby sister. The children often recall incidents of their life at Mt. St. Vincent with your children and of the fun (as they say) they had there. Charles Elliott has lost their oldest child Willy with scarlet fever. They are living at Washington Heights in a very nice home hear the railroad and like it there very much. So many we hear of are going abroad this Spring and I wish we could manage a trip to England for the summer. It would refresh Calvert so much but perhaps in a year or two you may join us and we may enjoy the reality as we [?] Mr. Olmsteds pleasant description of England. Give him my love and believe me your [?] Mary VauxIn Feb. 27th 1865 FLO felt he could not go into the Brooklyn Park with Vaux (contemplated newspaper in San Francisco. FLO had been doing professional landscape design work in Calif -- Oakland Cem. San Fr. park U of Calif. VAUX & WITHERS, ARCHITECTS, NO. 110 BROADWAY, NEW-YORK. April 13th 1865, Dear Olmsted, Yours of March 12th has come to hand. Your theory in regard to laying up money is a good one, not solely with reference to your proposition to break down suddenly which I hope you may think better of -- but also with regard to future action - In the present state of civilization a time comes in every mans career when the advantage of being thwarted & hampered is no longer perceptible and a little independence and prosperity is better calculated to develope the useful element in his constitution. I think you have nearly come to that point now and that I am not far away from it. so that I shall soon begin to entertain the idea of layingup a fund as a sort of fortification to retire into when I feel particularly inclined to plan a strategic movement against the common enemy. and I shall look to you as a shining light because if you can really do anything in this line I am sure none of us need despair --- I have, perhaps, from the accident of temperament more faith in the future than you + I can see no reason why you should not live for fifty years yet and crystallize all your vagaries + whims and freaks -- to say nothing of your aspirations and ambitions into a permanent form. - I really think that the best service you can render the community at this juncture is to lay up enough to live on + then to defy the mammon worshipping crew + fulminate continuously. There is plenty of work to be done + the park should be considered merely as prefatory . it must be used - and certainly abused but you must not let it have too much influence over your way of looking at things. You remember Mr. Saml. Bowles, of Springfield He is a client of mine He called the other day and mentioned that it was the intention of McCullogh to offer you some position in the Revenue Department. Having lately recd your letter I did not suppose that you would accept but was glad to learn of the intention -- By all means take a hand in the mining asphalt means business I should think Nurse a fair proportion but dash in with a percentage boldly. One could live in a country healthily without being on a parallel line with its controlling spirit - As to Mariposa - I know nothing but what you tell me. Stock was down to 8 . and is now 16 or 17. Some comprehensible statement will I suppose at some time be published - In regard to my affairs - business is dull and not likely to be very active[*Apr 13*] this spring. For the Brooklyn people. I was called on to make my formal report as proposed and they adopted it and went at once to the Legislature for power to make the new entrance improvement. They would have gone for the whole but some legal impediment exists in the way of selling their present property this will delay matters for one season, but Stranahan says that it is all settled and that he expects to come to me for a plan, although the boundaries are not yet legally altered, I am in no hurry to rush into this responsibility and as I wrote to you my course of action is at present preliminary simply and leaves me entirely free - Green was in the other day. He wants me to take charge of the Terrace &c [au?ce] to assume new responsibilities in regard to the general plan. I took the position that as matters stood, the Comms had been living for two years on eleemosynary contributions having used our plan and come to me again and again for explanations & advice without giving either honor or profit. As his claim on my consideration rests on his assurance that he has done his best to preserve the design intact (which he [co?] sought to be obliged to him for) this is of course a difficult point to answer. Whether he merely pretends to attach importance to my support or is really in a fix, I dont know and shall wait to see, the idea of our design being perceived intact has of course been worth preserving, & now I believe it is so far advanced as to need but little more nursing I think I wrote you that they have procured an extra million of dollars this year for Hamilton Sq (Zoological Garden probably) and for 7th Av. extension at North end. Yours truly C.V. [*C. Vaux*] [*Central Park*] VAUX & WIITHERS, ARCHITECTS, NO. 110 BROADWAY, NEW-YORK May 10th 1865. Dear Olmsted, I forwarded you yesterday an envelope with an Evening Post letter that I sent to the Prest. of the C. P. C. I shall be quite anxious to know how it impresses you. (tell me particularly what you didnt like in it at the first reading) It will of course give you the key to the line of policy that I am pursuing. I know that you instinctively look at matters a little differently and want to defeat Green in the question of municipal management. But the art placed point must be taken first, because it is the easiest to use as a lever. The other must come later. Unless there is a tangible not a merely possiblesuccess to point to when that side of the question is discussed, it would be useless to argue the point with the public. If I have stated matters with clearness, the public will gradually get to understand that we have employed the Commissioners to carry out our plan as long as they behaved themselves and that we now discharge them for misconduct. Before the facts have been allowed to assume the shape that warranted the writing of my letter the impression of course might be and very probably was the other way. My anticipation however as to the effect of the letter may of course be overstated. As matters now stand I take the ground in not unamicable conversation with Green (for I mean him to work for us yet) that I am very reluctantly forced into this position. I have seen him since the publication. He had the M. SS. for a week first as the date shows and we has some interviews. I will not trouble you with details. I have seen no other commissioners. As I thought for once I could afford to give A.H.G. a little specific notoriety. I took care to mention him by name. Sometimes I smile a little at the humorous side of the affair, but it [al] is on the whole too much of an irksome dead weight of a bore to get much fun out of Hursts drawings are splendidly got up, and very striking, but go too far (fortunately) Brooklyn improvement of entrance &c has passed the Legislature main part of scheme postponed till next year but in good shape. I will send you a photograph soon. President nibbling, perhaps I may accept an appointment &c but there is a nauseous sort of flavor about Park matters to me that it will be difficult to get over on this side of the grave. However never say die. I trust you are getting on pretty well, we may have some fun together yet. I wish you could have seen your destiny in our art. God meant you should I really believe at times, although he may have something different for you to do yet & he cannot have anything nobler in store for you. With love. V.C.V.Vaux May 12th 1865 VAUX & WITHERS, Architects, No. 110 Broadway, New-York. May 12th 1865 Dear Olmsted, I hope my last reached you safely and found you pretty well - I wish you were nearer at hand - I met Irean to day in the street, he told me, as if it were a matter of course that all further proceedings in regard to the gateways had been stopped - he was painfully mild and I expect there have been some unpleasant scenes, perhaps Mores H. did not like the erasing comment. if he objects I will quote the direct forgery of my name in enclosed wood cut signed by me Olmsted & Vaux Landscape Archts but he will not object. I am very gentle with him except when he tries to frighten me and says that I am making the members of the Commssion inimical I then say in distinct terms I expected that and I dont care a damn for the Comm'n at which he seems puzzled but says he will see me again I take the ground that we are reluctantly forced into this position as indeed we are. I am not committed to Brooklyn and mean they should see my letter first. Green recommends Rand as Engineer - I approve as Rand is satisfactory to me. I told him I did not want Grant. Pilot says Grant has been unfaithful to our interests (1)I think it very likely that he has and if it has not been done in a mean way. I naturally imagine what our interests have done for him that he should not be unfaithful to them - But I expect he has acted queerly Pilot is a gentleman & a trump and deserves all we can ever do for him, I should expect to get him a position at Brooklyn if he were inclined to take it. He may be docile but I would not have referred so particularly to that if I had been you - It certainly is not disadvantageous to us to have the Boulevard & the Zoological Garden in the hands of the Central P.C. and you may remember that I wrote you that it accorded with my views - It is as well to have things where you can lay your hand on them. The Goats have eaten up most of the trees and the Dandelions prevent the grass from being seen and Pilot says the lawns will have to be ploughed the playground also wants to be occupied. &c &c. You have never given me much moral support in the plant of campaign that I recommended and have adopted. You know I always argued that if we could not get the money spent on our plan that then we should be independent of the Commission. Your theory was different and I always felt that it would be a most dangerous ground to take. Management against management at that intermediate slope for the C.P.C. must be management or nothing I am not going into this now for it is too delicate a subject with you who have such strong feelings in regard to it. but what is the state of the care today - I am mixed up in these affairs and am proceeding in a very half and half sort of way for alone I am a very incomplete landscape architect and you are off at the other end of the world. depriving the public of your proper services (2) as I argue. My position is that the art element ought to have been the controlling one from the first - I have always striven to sustain that view. and I felt that you were the head orbit in the park matters - art against Commission is easily understood. Now we can say take your Reports and account books. We will take our Park. I have always upheld your art position hoping that you would some day realise that it was your best foundation to build whatever you want on. You were in to great a hurry I think. The Commission too much Archt. in Chief signature and were induced to believe to seem who of course could present this view and get them to leave things in his hands. Now what is the state of things? [today] I have tided things a long and take a strong position for both of us to day although we are both supposed to be dead and buried two years ago. I mean my letter - As I told Greur - before it was printed when he asked if anything would come of it - "It marks an era in Park matters". /// hitherto they have been busy on what they found in the houses of the murdered men, but the day for that ceases and the cloven foot no comes our opportunity - appears. - My object has been to make a clean connection and a intelligible statement before the public when the hour arrived, that is why I resigned. we must preserve our record clear for the day of battle, your management business is just as capable of lucid statement. Hitherto you have failed to find in these matters a congenial outlet for your ambition and rather pooh pooh - plans &c. I attribute all this to the lack of experience you have had. . The Brooklyn Park is all our own. I shall tell them that I intend to ask you to go into it with me any way & will write to you what bargain I make. I consider the C.P.C in a very weak position but it may take longer than I suppose (3).to bring matters to a crisis. Our right unquestionably is to control matters from Washington Heights to the other side of Brooklyn - a nice view of the sea we get from the additional ground taken in. 17th Green has been in to see me, nominally in reply to my enquiry as to Rand purposely made to give him a chance to talk You see it is now several weeks since my [reply to the] letter to the President and no reply or notice taken of it - there is of course no dodging it. it stands in their path and if the design is not erected we succeed. He feels a little better as no more whack's have been administered since and evidently hopes that very few people have happened to notice it. He asked me what next &c. and in the end I said that we were going to defend the design either in the Commission or out of it. He said he did not see how we could be appointed Commissioners &c. I said we did not want to out with these gentlemen particularly but we could stand it if they could. I said all this because it is the only logical way out of bad difficulties. we are all right. The Commission is all popcock and only needs a few punctures to let people see that it is A.H.G. under another name. I recognized his claims to consideration and said that I had always said with you that if he must have the position he had earned it. I did not of course go much into this. I always felt you know that you were a little insatiable in your ambition and that your theory left no room for Irean or anybody else - and that we ought to have provided for him I recognise your claims exactly as you and I have agreed on and want to see you in the right place again, but have always contended that the past is not a proper boundary. I wonder if you think any differently or like our work any better as a permanent thing than you used to. After the first seven years you gave me Leah after other seven will you give me Rachel. I only value these affairs as opportunities to develop the earnest convictions of my life and I believe my convictions coincide with yours to some extent. It was right that this work should help artists to take a true position - it has not yet but it is planned to achieve that result. I want to make a "frightful" example of the Comm'n and have always had this as a theory so that in the end all the dirt we have had to eat may result in something tangible and these moneyed men may find that artists are their masters (4) For this patience is necessary. You do not quite see that now your artist capacities are the most needed. The country wants artists. Hitherto you have been a little deceived by mere names. Take it and make it is a good motto. I always liked the title Landscape Architect because the speciality was fairly embodied. A title that could as easily be transferred to an inartistic public work is not so satisfactory. You see that my position is that our affair was one of long duration and that we are just beginning work. I cannot of course go on for ever in this way. I have upheld your art position a well as I knew how and have done enough to show you that success is possible. In the next Twenty years Landscape architecture is the thing 5needed as much as anything. I should rejoice in an entire and complete success over the Commrs for artistic and other reasons not personal but I do not know enough to triumph singlehanded. Who are they to get? Who will the public trust? for their Boulevard and their Zoological garden? with you we ought to get them $5000 p ann & $10,000 back pay. I never expected that this thing would ripen all at once If you were here now you could help along [travely?] but of course. It would be of no use to take up the idea with the limited notion of flooring Green and making a name as Park A in C or Sup. all that must come in as subsidiary to a larger aim to be a benefactor in this matter to the people generally and this I think with the years of peace before us is as sound a scheme as any you can connect yourself with [it]. I am perhaps deficient in personal ambition, but I can feel for it in others, if you do not see that you[r] are honored by developing this fitness for art work, of course, don't come. It must be art of landscape architecture and art of administration combined. Think this over. We are neither of us old men you know, to me it seems & always has seemed a magnificent opening. possible together, impossible to either alone. V. C.V. (6)[*Vaux*] [*May 20 1863*] [*to FLO*] [*Mostly*] [*Brooklyn*] [*&*] [*Persuading*] [*Mr. O. to*] [*come into*] [*partnership*] [*Tx July 23/20*] VAUX & WITHERS, ARCHITECTS, No. 110 BROADWAY, NEW-YORK. May 20th 63: Dear Olmsted, I believe I told you that the Brooklyn Park people adopted my suggestions generally and applied to the Legislature for improved Entrance & for certain preliminary powers that would enable them to apply next year for power to get the land wanted on the other side. They succeeded and I am now meeting with them in Detail as to design I ask $5000 for plan and [SYMBOL] $5000 per ann to commence at once and expenses to Europe this summer. The Plan is to be completed in Dec. Then they are to use it to help them get the ground &c. All this, you see, gives Easy time, they seem quiet inoffensive people - you know the prime mover, Stranahan perhaps. He has shown readiness to act. now. I easily accept his excuses for not carrying out Viele's plan. Green keeps communicating with me. we meet in the street now. He cannot come to me I cannot go to him He is in a stew apparently, and would of course like to get me committed. I remind him of your withdrawal of resignation and its unsatisfactory result. I tell him we are out and are satisfied to remain so. If my only object in communicating withhim is to get information. He says he should be sorry if the present state of affairs should drift into an antagonism. I point out to him that the antagonism has existed for some time but that it has not been my policy to mention it. You see that the Commission must be in a queer state for him, after the publication of my letter, to talk in this way. I tell him that I shall do nothing without consulting you I cannot of course tell how you are situated, or what risks you are inclined to take or whether you really want to go ahead, and give the public what they have a right to ask from a work of this kind an organised system for supplying the demand it necessarily creates, at present all this is in a very defective state. The war has occupied the attention of people and I suppose you know enough of human nature to be aware that nobody has begun to miss you much yet. If you were to walk down Broadway tomorrow, it would be all perfectly natural and your friends would be glad to see you. Nobody cares two straws for the miners of Sn Francisco. As yet you are the representative man of the C.P. and not much else to New Yorkers and very likely the majority of those who think of the matter at all suppose you still to be at work there. Most of the artists certainly till the last week or two thought that I was there as usual. You have taken so little pains to cultivate the art interest that as yet of course you are personally somewhat unknown to your brother [cen?urions]. But all this is in good enough shape, as you can readily see. In my proposition to the B.P.C. I did not as I intended when I last wrote to you distinctly say to them that I proposed to offer you the opportunity to combine in this matter as you offered me the opportunity to combine in the other. I had it in the draft, but Withers thought it better not to speak so decidedly and as it were to own the need, until sure of your willingness, in this he is right for you can clearly see that when the link is once decidedly severed it will be difficult to re-unite it & I shall have to make the best of my lonely position. At present, all is square and intelligible before the public and your park reputation is in a logical shape. If I go on and do Brooklyn alone, well or ill, you suffer because the public naturally will say, if Olmsted really was the prime mover in the C. P. why is he not ready to go forward in the path that he started in - moreover the C.P. slides into bad shape and I have either to take it or let it alone. I think I should have to let it alone but if I were to take it afresh, you of course would suffer. In this as you see all depends on your present view of affairsI have no end to gain but the advancement of the whole thing and its proper development. You I know want to manage the park. Of course you do. The artistic development requires it. I see that and have always seen it and never opposed you in any way. My position always was, do it first and manage it afterwards. If you want to be President of that old rattletrap C.P.C. why I suppose you could be it and live on the park till the end of your life - but you must have a plan of campaign. The term Landscape Architect does not suit you, well I am sorry for it. I think it is the art title, we want to set, art ahead and make it command its position administration management, funds, commission, popularity and every thing else - then we have a tangible something to stand on. As administration with art attached as a makeweight the thing is in wrong shape. My tie to you exclusive of personal attachment which does not influence me much in these days - is an art tie. I recognize your ability and that you belong to that side, squarely and fairly. You have now a seven years reputation, long enough of course for any one - and it remains to be seen whether you will use it or not. - I shall not advise but, if when I return in the Fall "If proposition is accepted about which I will of course advise you in a few days" you should happen to be here again disengaged and willing to devote a decade to Landscape art, why, there is the half of Brooklyn to begin on and all we can get besides, but it must not be a pis aller - my position is that I have defended you from yourself and that "Olmsted & Vaux" is an institution that ought not to be a mere bubble to be blown away heedlessly. You see there is time to think things over. If you were here I suppose we could keep in a good knock now but you are not and the chance may go by. Of course they will try and get some new man &c. but the apple of Sodom fair as it looks, is but an apple of Sodom after all. Goodbye for today V.C. Vaux[*C. Vaux mostly Central Park also FLO's professional possibilities*] Roudout May 22d. 1865 Dear Olmsted, I send you the C.P. manifesto enclosed, all fair to the outward eye, a slightly muddy reference to ability to be sure but everything apparently serene and secure. As to management, no hint of the thing has been made. The issue is a forced issue on our part on the point of design that this is intended to include management & everything else nobody suspects. Green of course smells it, on this same Friday, Green asked me to see him at the C.P. office & I refused. I agreed to meet him in the street as I wrote you in my last, and what was the result He walked up with me to 23rd, and offered anything. Would I take the Park Would I take the Boulevard (whatever that may be for I have not looked into the scheme) would I take the Zoological Garden. He supposed I should make conditionswhat were the conditions "He might tell me beforehand", and here he plucked up a little bravado - "they would be pretty moderate" - I told him we were in no position to make conditions that I could do nothing without consulting you - Then would I take it conditional on your acceptance - time pressed. He must do something immediately - this that & the other was needing attention. He meant either to carry it on - or go out of it, and he meant to carry it on [anglise?] he had a very serious fear that he was going to be kicked out of it by his duped associates and his nice annuity stopped. I told him we wanted to carry out our plans, we had no immediate purpose in view He was in & must do his best. We were out and when we had time we would walk around & criticize - He said Well then if you refuse I must do the best I can - I said We refuse nothing If the Board want to make an offer we can't prevent them. You cant quote us as having refused until we have the offer. You will have to put us in the wrong before you can make any thing of that before the public - And to this effect - He would hardly let me go to dinner - He is evidently nonplussed. You understand in this that I am not treating with him - of course not. He is, as he has always been, my tool. I have relentlessly remorselessly led him or let him into this predicament which was the best chance left for us, this utterly false position. You seemed to oppose him and played directly into his hands. I seemed to play directly into his hands and always intended to grind him to powder. In fact, I thought him but a poor stick any way but who had deserved well from us and if I had had my way, he might have been provided for and no more made about it, while the power rested with us. Surely you see that I valued your contribution to the work at its true rate. I sacrificed my own view to it, I did not estimateit as you did but knew that it was invaluable and that the work must fail without it. I also knew that if you expected to carry on public works by making the same demands on other people that you did on me - that your reputation would be difficult to sustain. I set the example of subordination & it was followed because I set the example, but the work must have follow through if I had not happened accidentally to be in a mood for trying an experiment of this sort for you were not at that time open to conviction. You always seemed to be fearing that between Green on one side & me on the other you would get no reputation at all. I allowed this to pass as the misconception of youth that you would outgrow. Coming into business at 40 with the spirit of a boy of 20, allowances had to be made by an old hand like me. I felt that Landscape architecture was better than architecture & threw all I could into the work for which I was very incompletely educated. I also knew that you had the advantage in this and would outrank me if you also threw all you had into the scale and I tempted you in every way to do it - caring not a damn about the outranking but desiring an agreeable employment and to help supply a public need. When you said you had so much (false) pride that you ambition would not permit you to take the position of Landscape architect I certainly felt convinced that you[r] belied your better conviction, I mean when you first went to Washington or I would then and there unhesitatingly have set to work to plough you under with the firm conviction that you were no friend to art no friend to the good cause and only a somewhat ambitious self seeker, but I felt then that you were an artist and that it was the art element in a large sense that made your administration valuable as I said before merely as administration. I do not think it particularly comprehensive calm, [Haterma-like?] or well founded and with all the silent support it received from me, a support that it was entirely unsound to calculate on it fell through for very intelligible reasons, the art is if was as pure as ever and was far reaching and sound in principle. The diplomacy or call it what you will - very defective & impatient. I never attended the meetings of the Board or sought to because I was afraid by my domineering habit and [use of] habitual position of power in my own business - that I should press you hard. I also abstained from interesting artists in the work and making it popular in this way as it should have been - and as it would be very useful to day if it were - because I felt that you were jealous of the, as you thought, opposition, art element, and had as much to carry as you well could manage. All this I postponed contrary to my judgment - on the general principle of the greater in preference to the less and I recognized then as I do today that your cooperation was the greater if it could be secured to the public at any price the work or I might be called on to pay for it. Bossing jobs is one thing and art another - and I have an instinctive hate to anything of the Nap III sort. It required a perceptive faculty of a somewhat penetrative character to see through your course of action to its true fountain head and I think I understood your position at least as well as you did yourself. In all this I may be mistaken. You may be no artist. You may be Nap III in disguise you may be a selfish fellow who would like to get power & reputation on other mens' brains. You may be a money grubber you may have no patience &c &c. but it is to be presumed by my acting as I do that I think differently and that I am [poss] under the impression that the humble modest artist spirit is within you. If so, and if you can, taking art in its widest sense, devote yourself to it Your chance was never better than it is today. If you were here today my scheme would be to make the Board cry [peccavi?] I would just as lief hoist the opposition banner boldly and harry them to death in fact on the whole [?] but perhaps it would not be so prudent. Make what conditions we chose & go in as artists and keep the art management in the shade for a week or month or year or two till we had the whole thing done and then we or you if itturned out that that was the logical result could control the matter in its entirety. All this is you see not only possible but it has always been possible Events justify my convictions frequently stated, the subscriptions of all sorts you have, together with me, made to the work sustain it today and moreover bring the Brooklyn offered to our doors. At first shot down comes their damnable stars and bars. If you were here and in your right mind up would go the Stars & stripes tomorrow: indeed, although I have no clue to what is passing in the Board, beyond my conversations with Green I have little doubt but that you could carry everything you want, if it was thought wise at this time to press the management. The hour has come however, the crisis has arrived. I had to hurry it forward a little sooner than I intended on account of the fair opportunity for a clear statement and a good humored square hit offered by the Exhibition, but where are you - Nowhere - where is our chance - perhaps nowhere - I have something almost approaching a bitter feeling as I think of this - and feel that if you lose your rights ultimately and if the whole thing takes a permanently false shape it is because you were of little faith. However we must hope for the best. I responded to Green the next day in a formal letter which he will think I am going to publish but I am Yr C.V. [*Vaux May 30th 1865 Mostly Central Park*] Vaux & Withers, Architects, No. 110 Broadway, New-York. May 30th. 65. Dear Olmsted, Following my plan of not letting matters accumulate so far as your park news is concerned, I write. Brooklyn hangs fire just now the Commn. it seems are rather taken aback by my proposal and Stranahan I think over estimated his influence when he said there would be no difficulty about Europe &c. I do not mind much about that particularly as C.P. looms up Green is on hand, anxious to achieve a fresh relation. I say it must be O & Vaux & better so and he is beginning to think so, although he shyed of course at the idea of countenancing the return of that overwhelming personality F.L.O. and wanted me to run personally. He is now hunting up votes, and it is of course rather tough work. Griswold & Russell pull together - and pull hard. the others are open to conviction. Fields is already a proselyte in fact. G. says - he F. is under the impression that we have not been very well used. Blatchford was away in Europe. Of course the pessimism influence would not be unpropitious but Blatchford treatedme queerly about drawings for his house and although I allowed him to do me out of $400 rather than sue him (in Rome) I still think he formed the idea that I had an opinion of my own in the matter. Still his being away at the time of the resignation makes it easier to come round. Butterworth has not been hostile but G. says cannot swallow the E.P. letter. (I dare say it does disagree with him). He is a friend of Monell and when Monell commenced commencing legal proceedings for me about the unpaid $400, he B. said it was all Green's doing and I believe put the matter through. Hutchins you know is not reliable but has no position to reckon on. He is a partner of my friend Platt, but is not much influenced by him. I carry it, not less however. Grinnell V.P. is bosom friend of Russell. Today I sent Bellows a copy of photograph of Brooklyn Park Entrance and a copy of C.P. letter & the letter I told you I sent to Green about 5th av. entrance (campaign document enclosed). I wrote him very privately to the effect that He got you to go away from the C.P. & He ought to bring you back again, that Public interest was suffering from your absence &c. Boulevard broke your leg. Zoological garden was a special study during visit made in /59 at expense of Commn. [Same?] Com. ought not to destroy you position as Head Artist of C.P. (which to Hd artist you know - as you love me) and Grinnell got you to go, should not Grinnell ask you to come back. You see my object and the entire verity of my position in all this. it would be rather hard on the Commn. for me to go back alone I think. You might come uncommitted you know. Thinking rude boy acted perhaps for the best still that the thing might have been done better but with the milk of human kindness yourself flowing freely from every pore and with the pleasantest possible reminiscences of your park experience the good old times, if there were any, when you took your place at the hospitable Board in Nassau Street. You understood that all this is rather a steep sort of joking, and may come to nothing. I have G. some stipulations verbally & then again in writing but unsigned. I ask for intermediate salary at old rate which is what if they were wise they would pay & have done with it but if a proposition of $5000 is made I shall not stand out. I told Green however that it was a sine qua non that this should be attended to. A clause that the archt. work shall not necessarily at all fall into the hands of the Landscape Architects is to be the seeming white feather. It is just what I want of course to isolate the L.A. position bydissociating it from the A. If in times of yore I had attempted to take this ground, of course the cry would have been that every bridge put in was to increase archts. commission, &c. and I gulped a good deal of bad precedent on the "relative importance" ground which as you know is one of my hobbies, in the way of experimental philosophy. I also say to G. that I like Hunts work at Newport & if the Gateways happen to be postponed & the large Restaurant happens to come up immediately & we happen to be on hand and Hunt happens to be proposed as archt we should cheerfully explain our views to him and he would give us a result that all would be satisfied with. If the restaurant is, as is possible the very next thing done perhaps this might let Hunt down easy, or keep him aloft rather without damage to the work. I only throw this out to G. as capital to work with in the Russell department. At any rate it will show to other comms. that no bad feeling exists on our side. Thus you see I am showing perhaps good words after good words and all in vain to a stubborn cemetery maker in California. Give my love to your wife. Tell her that now I have really trod on somebody's coat tail I feel better, and that the sound of the shillelagh is musical after all. One gets the benefit of a free fight at any rate, and that, (even if one is licked) does not hurt a man like gasping for breath in a [val?] of asphyxiated air year after year. Yr. C.V. [*Vaux June 1 1865 Central Park TK July 25/20*] Vaux & Withers, Architects, No. 110 Broadway, New-York June 1st 1865 Dear Olmsted, Nothing particularly new. I had an interview with A.H.G. Esq before last. He says meeting is called for to day by Grinnell, probably to withdraw postponement. However I do not think much will come of it. Talk was chiefly to the point of his interest. He is not so attached to the management as he was and sees our strength but must save his place, and his $5000. It amounted about to that. This I pledged myself [to] in a general way to because I told him I really thought his work had been a main prop to the concern & that you thought NB. I forgot to mention that A.H.G. said that He had nearly made up his mind to offer the O & V. L.A. resolution squarely himself today, my own impression is that he won't today but he may if he can feel sure of his five votes. I have not seen Bellows, perhaps he is out of town.but I didn't pledge you of course except so far as my influence exceeds &c so too. x That it was your love for the art element on the park considering it as a vital organism that attracted you especially to the management & that this was as attractive & as necessary to be considered as ever. That he must understand that the L.A. meant more than plans & mere control of dead material. It was of course undesirable to pursue this too far. The definition of the art department was there left unsettled and is fairly open for future discussion. If anything comes of the present joust, you must understand my position in all this, so far as I have assumed to represent you & must act accordingly. My feeling is you see that the valuable part is all obtainable, as for the latent idea in your mind of F.L.O. as the grand central representative of Board & art & everything else why do I not work for that, but if, as I said in my last, if it is the logical outcome of fair work & fair acknowledgement of all our friends labors &c. be sure that I shall heartily rejoice at it, but it will not happen today and it will not be helped by "forcing" - or by refusing to consider the whole thing as a debatable problem. Every thing in it is fair for discussion and there is where you missed it I think, before. Much of course if you return will depend on your mode of looking at things. If you had not said in one of your letters that if the affair was to be started de novo you would probably heartily adopt a different idea. I do not think I should be encouraged to pursue you. The light in which I put the thing is not an artificial light suited to my needs, but the broad day-light and if it is not, why then if you believe in it it will fail us at some time, rest assuredSo make up your mind during these intervals I, you know am in the habit of looking at things that only are designed - as if they existed - I suppose it is part of my professional training but it is not all training, and you have the same faculty but we do not look at the same sort of things being biased by temperament. Thus neither being the repeat of the other the cooperation is of the balance character, if rightly understood on both sides. As I said before I do not want to influence you in all this. I am bound by my sense of duty both to the work and to you to do what I do, if after all the idea does not suit you of course you will candidly tell me so and I shall be entirely relieved from further source of duty on that score. Either to the work or to you. I shall then give my thought unchecked liberty as to what is proper to be done, and shall stick to the result - if not with the same tenacity that I have stuck to you, still with sufficient persistence to make something out of my seven years botheration and perplexity at least I shall try to do so. Nothing new from Brooklyn. It hangs fire but I do not see how they can get along, without toe-ing the mark at some time. Yours truly C. Vaux. [*Vaux Important FLOs duty to the profession Central (& also Brooklyn) CV needs FLO*] Roudout Sunday June 3 [*1865*] Dear Olmsted, I saw Stranahan yesterday he called with a counterpropositon - a rather wooly and involved affair but he explained all about the Board & its membership &c. and said although the mission such was the phraseology to Europe was politely discountenanced. The reason was that as they had only part of their ground they wished to avoid being quoted as doing this but that really as Prest he could say that I could start next week if the thing was quietly arranged .. however I do not see us there just now. I am unravelling the proposition and shall put the thing into square convenient shape in the course of the week. The appt. they wished to avoid in definite terms for similar reasons. It will probably result in $7500 or thereabouts for the plan with an understanding that no work is to be started of any consequence and that I am to advise with the Board & supervise generally all the close ofthe next Legislature when they hope to get their ground. He was very kind & seemed to wish to disabuse my mind of any idea that they wished to be mean or stingy. I think I told you that at the committee meeting at my office when they came to propose a simple $5000 plan I was rather short with them and gave them to understand that they did not stand between Brooklyn and myself as protectors of Brooklyn but that we were going in together to serve Brooklyn in a spirit of mutual confidence and that if we were not the sooner the matter was closed the better. I see no reason why things should not turn out well Campaign Document No. 2 which I sent to Stranahan the day before he last came, he did not refer to but I could see that he noticed the Brooklyn reference. It was of course intended he should & should show it to his men also. So this remains unsettled as I deem it should just now they have refused my proposition and I am free - to accept any better one from elsewhere while considering their counter prop The Central P. progresses. Bellows wrote me a kind note on general news & asked me to call but it came yesterday just as I was starting for Roudout with Mary & he goes west for 3 weeks so I do not suppose he will act still he may see Griswell today but that is not likely. I wrote him a brief reply giving him the hint but do not anticipate that anything will come of it. It is of no material consequence however - at the meeting on Friday, called by Griswell to countermand the gate postponement. The thing was understood to be finally disposed of, Green Blatchford & Fields voting adverse & G & Russell for. 5 must vote to countermand. The vote to re-appoint did not come up Butterworth & Hutchins must come in if G. & R stand out. Why they should bow out now I know not. There is so much to be done that now the "referred to Green with powers" Dodge has had the bottom knocked out of it. They are in a fix with the public and all want of course to get out of town so it may come to a head this next week by special meeting. I refused all "Ex Com"operations in private conversation with Green. You could not help being a little annoyed at the turn things were taking in that direction - he was at my home for the first time the other day hanging around as of old for encouragement and consolation. He said "It seems to me that it is about time for some one else to come to me about this thing. I go from one to another & then to you and perhaps it may appear that I am not perfectly frank in the matter. It places me in a very delicate position. I think perhaps some other member had better bring this up. I saw that as the strong man of the Board if any pressure had to be brought to bear he was the man to bring it. I suppose but it made no difference to us who brought it up. But if it should fail said he. Blank silence and evident perception of the fact on my part that he not we should be the sufferers in the long or now pretty short run. He is anxiously looking for violent declamation in the papers on the subject, and always winces when I tell him that the plans hang there till the middle of July and any time will do the public are making up their minds. Campaign Document No. 3 is however in preparation this time not signed by C.V. and I will send it you when it appears perhaps however the Campaign will be ended before it appears. I hope in all this you will see that whatever may be prudent to do in regard to A.H.G.. that he is played out and if we play decently that we can make the L.A. cover anything we would or rather anything you want and save ourselves trouble into the bargain. We can talk all about this when you return. You must let me know exactly how all this strikes you and if I have not understood you & have missed in any way why you [must?] understand that I am sure that anything you want not only is right to be had but that it can be got by prudent calculation & cooperation. All this may come to nothing but it looks very little like it this last week. Green is under the impression that his life depends on it I should think by the way he is working. I only now fear that Humpty Dumpty cant be put together again with pace and celerity but we must try & make things smooth and "aisy". I called A.H.G. a p.s. and an ni. p. in two different letters apparently inconsistent statements but still true. He has been a main prop in one sense and I cannot reconcile myself to the idea of any man who has stood by the plan being left in the lurch so we must try & makehis mind easy as to his Comptrollership a just the proper name for his work and proceed by judicious means to get the power over the vital management of the park by proper reports and influence with the Board & public. In the end the L.A. may include all you want. If isolation is desirable to carry out your view it can be had in time. But I will tell you what I am driving at. I will give you an example to illustrate. The Academy Building has just been built by the Artists through their organization. It has been built by raising funds in a prudent and Yankee way by fellowship of laymen &c. The result is a business success for artists. They take the position of not only being artist but energetic men of affairs also. This is what we [want?] to show that an artist is every body else with something besides. The guild must be supported and this applies especially in the Park the big art work of the Republic. I have always felt that it would be mean on the part of its members to let the success be an administrative success it wold seem as if they were ashamed of their work - you approaching this thing from the other point & not being except instinctively an artist failed to see this but I assure that there is a valuable truth in it. I faithfully failed to keep this idea because you never would have understood it except in the light of a newly started opposition or antagonism - but I always expected that the thing would refuse to be carried through on an inaccurate basis - and this has been my main perplexity from beginning to end how to accommodate my convictions to my implied contract with you. I felt that the L.A. must be the title I must fight under if I fought at all and fight I felt I must some day and yet as you know it nearly made you feel that I had deserted you & taken advantage of your absence. It did not help me to know that you were merely laboring under a misconception and were pursuing your end under unfavorable circumstances that [may] might be avoided and that in all essentials I was entirely with you and entirely appreciated the beauty of the idea of considering the park from beginning to end as a vital organism to be artistically treated not only in L. and A. but also in management and all the rest of it. This is what you are [?] to foresee & design as well as and perhaps better than architecture or Plants or both together but it is all art of the [?se] sort, and places you on the platform with the rest of guild. Of course you have unartistic capacities as who have not that is able but these predominate so far that you ought to be in no doubt as to where you stand and really ought to subscribe your abilities and everything you have to our side, not the L.A. but the art side so that if for example you succeed in administration it may be quoted as an artists success and not show as if artists had to get other people to do their work of this sort. How far all this may impress you I know not, but I have so little doubt about your success as an artist and so great fear as to your judgment in entirely unartistic matters [that] that I speak of course my own thought plainly - I will also give you a clue to my habit of thought, and enclose two documents which please preserve, when I started in business I found the system of remuneration defective and unsettled. I refused all business not on the plan I determined on & established a set of precedents quietly (quietly enough) then I published my book and quoted these precedents, not so quietly and with considerable prominence quoted my terms in the end of the vol - so as to attract attention. This was a little misunderstood and I afterwards elided the card. It was said that I advertised and that I was protruding my card &c rather vulgarly. It touched me & I asked myself, if this really was so and if I was shoving myself into notice under the impression that I was strengthening the best interests of the profession. Just at that time the C.P. came up and I was placed in the position of either starting on the thing in a way that I could not approve as an architect or of seeing to insist at the outset on personal prominence I concluded to by the former alternative knowing well that it was unsound and perhaps not wholly defensible having as I did then in regard to the profession of which I was a well established member, however, I did adopt this line and this I refer to because my statement as to "accident" in a late letter might appear confused otherwise. Knowing the state of art and the position of artists and the needs of every strength being brought to bear it was of course somewhat difficult to countenance the idea of an established archt. serving as clerk for six months to a new man who chose to call himself or be called archt. but I chose to risk it trusting to the truth working itself out, and being well aware that you were wanted where you were more than anywhere else that no one could do your work which was delicate art work most of it &c &c. Of course it led to much needless difficulty but if I had opposed you and you had been destructive there very likely might have been no park to chatter about today for I alone was wholly incompetent to take it up. I approached the work first by arranging the terms of the competition first before you came on the Park or saw me but I had no idea of competing because I felt my incapacity. I feel it no lessI will not say no less but very little less now, and enter on Brooklyn alone with hesitation and distrust not on the roads & walks or even plants which Pilat would have to attend to but as regard to the main [h?] the translation of the republican art idea in its highest form into the acres we want to control. I feel with regard to the L.A. that I must try & do for it at least as well as I felt it my duty to do for the A. Do my best to make it a precedent worth following. I am therefore steadying its systems and making or trying to make judicious precedent [wearing] weaning the L.A. from the A. including all the art in the L A that it can be got to hold &c &c. Is not this a worthy aim why is it not a brilliant one in the long run. I feel that it will be a burning shame and a reprehensible mistake on our part if the C.P. slips up as a confused jumble of which there is nothing quotable as precedent, that will help our successors. Think of this with me of as almost a matter of religion and I speak of it the more distinctly because hitherto you have seemed to me too much of a Bedouin in your views of such matters You have refused to accept such responsibility and have preferred to accept other responsibilities. For Gods sake let all this weigh with you. Do not do the small thing by the profession that you have entered in, and leave it with the big job of the art as a state that may be quoted perhaps as an ornament among many ornaments in the watch chain of F.L.O. a mere point for a paragraph but which is only half done and yet spoiled for any one elses handling [and] while it is [yet] full of the most vigorous vitality and have a million dollars & over in it till with an endless pocket to appeal to. For myself I could with perfect calmness and satisfaction at any time (or nearly at any time) have sat down with you - & discussed & decided on the minutest detail of the most remotely necessary part of the scheme, living or dead with the full confidence that our time would come. I hope if you return this will happen. As we get older our words are more variableLet us try and help each other in this way and lay up a store of completely developed ideas so that as our power or the power of each increases we may succeed as if by magic and always be in an impregnable fortified position Mid day Monday cannot take up this thread of ideas again - am immersed in the ups & downs - will send it off as it is yrs C.V. 37 East 15th St New York Irvington Sunday, June 4th 1865 Dear Calvert, I received yesterday the printed copy of your letter to the "Post" which you were good enough to send me. I intend, as soon as I can secure a few hours time, to write a letter, myself, to one of the newspapers about the Design for the Gateways, as to which you, very properly perhaps, say nothing. But, something must be said; although I fear it is too late to prevent the infliction of such monstrosities upon our public. And I shall say what I think. Perhaps, if it accomplishes nothing else or better, it may excite a little discussion, and open an eye or two. I have worked carefully at the Designs, and studied them, but, I dare say, as rich a profusion of deformities I may have overlooked a hundred or so which you may have discovered. Perhaps you could find time to communicate with me on the subject, and help me to make my indictment complete. I see nothing objectionable in your doing this doing this if you would, and it might be a less obnoxious way of getting your special points of criticism before the public. You must do as you think best about it. If I can make room, I shall print your two letters in the "New Path" and, afterward, my own. I do not know to what source to credit the second letter. Was it, also, in the Port? Your truly, Clarence Cook --- (over)P.S. Did you see the "Builder" on the "new Path"? C.C. [CP] Newburyport June 5th '65 My dear Vaux: I would like to contribute something to advance your admirable plan to adorn Central Park with representative gate-ways; but here, away from the city, I cannot fix my attention upon anything but nature. If you were with me you would appreciatemy desire to detach myself from the city. However, if I have an impulse to treat the question, I assure you that I will honor it, and send something to the Post or Commercial. Keep me in your best thoughts and believe me, with high regard, yours truly Eugene Benson to C Vaux Esqr:To Vaux E BensonN.Y. June 6th [*1865*] [ *[Cook]*] Dear Clarence. Glad to receive your note. I will give you some rough views of my points jotted down for a letter to Mr.H. the idea being now entirely abandoned, certainly nothing objectionable because you will take nothing or half or all just as a free American has a right to do- - I have not really analysed the designs, am glad to find a sort of instinctive feeling that they are not American & that the Park is. If this can be [l?] well & good. I suppose that the effort at display is the source of failure in works of this style. My objections [lie in] are to the conceptions of the works with ref to their situations - no feeling for the Landscape exhibited - frank artistic way of exhibiting the whole thing to be commencing as we want to encourage open air criticism. It is to be remembered that he probably might have gone on & built them in time if he had kept his own counsel. Now I see no chance of it if [with a little acceptance of] the offer to [be as] criticise is accepted. Design for the Park. done at this part or nearly so. so that it is not as if we were starting de novo. We contend and have always contended that but little architectural demonstration should be made at the entrances beyond a generous treatment of the constructive facts - believing that the first need of the visitor when he leaves the city sidewalk is a perfectly free & unencumbered draught of "Park" - The success we have aimed (1) for is to make the change from city to country instanteneous and complete and in accordance with our theory the change cannot be too abrupt. Hunt says visitor must be induced to linger round the entrances as long as possible change must not be too abrupt - elaborate demonstration - introduced outside of park gates altogether terrace & fountains at [s?d] of 60th St why 60th st. what has 60th st done to be so honored. People come to entrances. they want to go in & in and in. - on leaving they want to get home. the view [of] in the park is least satisfactory just at the Entrance. and the view of the city from the park is [not] disagreeable no temptation no perception of artistic process of ideas or views in providing for loungers. if a building is needed for persons waiting for cars, let the R.R. people build one [but] [not] let [it] not commr crowd up the entrance with people merely waiting &c.&c. The imperial style. presumes that people wait wait hang around and provision is made for, clients, courtiers subordinates, lacqueys. the great panjandrum is buttressed as it [way] by this support, this suggestion of importance. But when the New Yorker enters his park, the great Panjandrum enters at exactly the same moment & in the same suit of clothes. This you see may be [the] developed. Our 6th Ave. entrance is unsymmetrical immediately on entering we feel it somehow to be part of a picturesque scene it overlooks - a landscape painter would at once understand the notion. Hunt insists on a symmetrical arrangement, semicircular plateau &c. &c. (this is really a very weak point, because the entrance as now arranged, is a unique foot entrance naturally quite unsurpassed I think for a Park, rocks being included (2)Park treated as a whole, i e lower Park in general design - no natural centre of importance - artistic centre developed by [Promen] Mall & Terrace. What is Mall open air hall of recep. what is Terrace. Ditto with the addition that it expresses this idea. That arch is left in subordinate [position?] every where on the Park not because [we] the citizens have not money to spend or are mean but because the art idea requires it. Nature first and 2nd & 3rd - archt. after a while. When the centre is reached If our area were boundless no centre would be necessary perhaps but if we dont provide a centre - people would go on and out the other side looking for a resting place - a half - the demensions are contracted. Arch not inappropriate under the circes. -Size required in Nature to suggest magnificence only measurably when artificial attempt is made. Terrace is big - for a Terrace - rich for a Terrace- liberal for a Terrace - and in the absence of a mountain or a rock - will do. What else could be done - the facts are there. [Every] Let any body suppose a re-arrangment if he likes. If the centre is weak any how - and we feel it is simply because if we had had a choice we would have preferred a natural centre [which] although as it is we make the prospect. The Ramble & water a main feature - how unwise to make it weaker by suggesting the confessed "ambition of it in [petto?] [or] at outset. - our bridges &c are thoroughly subordinated only introduced for actual convenience. if not varied would have been odiously monotonous - no one even today is seen from another - or only in the most subordinate way. The Landscape is everything the architecture nothing - till you get to the Terrace. Here I would let the New Yorker feel that. The richest man in N.Y. or elsewhere cannot spend as freely as [I] is here spent just for his lounge. - here he may lounge by the week if he pleases. entirely acclimated - his eye all (3) purified - his reminiscences of archt. all wiped out here. he may feel that - 'archt.' is permissible but - the [aim] success depends upon its being here just here and no where else. - or the possibility of [in] emphasis is dribbled away. Each years growth of planting helps this notions - The Terrace comes out as into prominence. The archways go in to obscurity Why is the terrace left starved and unfinished and a proposition entertained to squander vast sums where the result would be even if the designs were marvels of richness & beauty [in?] to spoil the whole design by weakening its emphasis. (I send resolution of Board about Terrace. This was a month before J.W. Mould saw the design I speak of this because - as a feature in the Landscape it is an original conception of my own in its entirety and I am free to confess to you that of all I have ever done it is perhaps the only thing that gives me much encouragement that I have in me the genius of an architect that might with good chances & proper culture be developed. You need not say this to every body however. Surely there is light & shade & play of line & the overcoming of difficulty in the warp & woof the weaving of the L into the A. & the A into the L. - and certainly no example of the same character is anywhere to be found. It is essentially Republican in its inspiration and general conception - but this is a parenthesis) (4)object of Park primarily as art. to translate - Democratic ideas into Trees + Dirt [to] Has it done so - if so the errors may be corrected. The [ill] ill designed portions removed & replaced - the weak points made strong - but if not- there is no hope, for it can never be done all over again. Take Boundary wall for example - The first idea of a wall [is to] or fence is to keep people out exclusion - abrupt & decided it suggest thieves and vagabonds. This is altogether avoided by transmuting the fence into a protection by lowering it [breast high &] so that from the side walk it is only breast high - and is a safe guard that could not be spared. The eye even of the outsider roams at will over uncounted acres of Gods green - and the iron railing the cage like suggestion, the irritation to the eye, is avoided. (I think I bore six months serious trial at the last - solely to carry this point which involves an expenditure of 3 or 4 hundred thousand dollars. I was entirely successful - fortunately - because first impressions are everything. Hunts gateways to wit.) - Unfortunately People have a great idea about gateways - expect something stupendous - Why? perhaps they are right - I have always been unable to see it exactly in this light - - Gateways should be postponed - common wood barriers erected- why? seven years have elapsed why not build? because - the city approaches may be improved at 8th & 5th, because even at 6th & 7th some changes are possible. (5) Because the neighbourhood is poor and unfinished Blasting has to be done. If expenditures are made on appropriate scale - wild Irishmen may shillelagh in 10 minutes the mouldings and roses to an extent that would be alarming [develop this] (this only hinted at you see) -Strange that most of the damage at the Terrace was done while the ground was [unf] lumbered with processes - now damage seldom occurs. unwise to risk when risk is unnecessary. Point - In the Park any damage should be carefully rectified at once and costs & charges set down to profit & loss - as part of the necessary expend' for the art education of the people. more costly today - because it was neglected yesterday. less costly tomorrow if attended to now. The city to blame for not [t] giving the opportunity to acquire the good manners long ago, and must take the consequences good humouredly. -See fountain at seventh av. Archway. mutilated a year ago and still mutilated [bad precedent] why is not the memory of the evil obliterated. [Not] Wise to assume all responsibilities on this score that are fair but useless to quixotically do this at gates just now while everything is in a chaotic state in the territory surrounding the locality. If a visitor cannot enjoying the park without a demonstrative gate, He won't enjoy it with. How fine it would be to have no gates. to keep open House & trust all always. This cannot be done and the difficulty must be got over someday, but it does not (6)press why bother about it and neglect the art educator. The Terrace for example. This might have been done & might have been teaching its lesson of possible magnificence for the poor [by right] years ago - all in good time however - no great loss in this respect. The park is the teacher The other lesson is a very minor one that could perhaps have been dispensed with if the Creator had happened to construct that part of the Island in a different way. See 17 & 18 Greensward Report [Perhaps this might be quoted] -Observe wood diagram it is not a bad guide to the park even yet. - Why should the Commrs having gone so far go after strange women in their old age. We have been consistent from the first hour till now. & shall be till the last trumpet sounds because on the vital point I know we are right & that we represent the people and the good part of the people. -You were right in your "humanitarian" criticism perhaps the art is poor and desires to be renewed. reckon on my vote whenever it can be done. I mean that I could see without a sigh every work in birch or wood or stone eliminated (except the backbone of the terrace!) and other works by other men inserted in their places, because I should still feel that our subscription to the work was barely touched. It is humanitarian but then you will find that it is now the less art for that - You vote for naturalism in sculpture - so I do I (now more than I did perhaps) but we having the power insisted on naturalism over sculpture - on naturalism in its essence as the controller of our control (7) We served the idea of naturalism and all its best inspiration as faithful servants, not in the detail of sculpture to be sure - although that was on the books but in a way that was of vital importance to the central idea of the scheme. - Today. People say that the Park is American. I have found this idea prevalent more than I was at all aware during this discussion. Why? if you can develop that you will do good service. It was all hog pens of Greeley's criticism. Well they have let it alone better than I thought they would - does not hold. We concealed the processes from him but there were processes & nearly all was intended & foreseen. That is perhaps 5 per cent was intended & foreseen for God Almighty is so much beyond our calculation that when he acts as contractor one cannot reckon on the specifications being very exactly followed - He trust in some liberty of action and lets us think we meant all he says & does - while the result in fact surprises even the "bosses". - There is now fear that the designs will be erected that is not the point although of course it is not impossible that they should be. The occasion is a good one for really teaching the people something. it is the hour for analysis the impression has been growing & exerts as an unacknowledged fact in the sensations of each or nearly each individual - and you can reckon on it as on a bank account. Draw freely and explain as you can perhaps explain why. -this imperial style is not appropriate (8.)I do not think ridicule will do much good. ridicule always assumes the superiority of the reader - and that is assuming a good deal. but not in a way that the reader is likely to quarrel with you for, and yet if the superiority does not happen to exist - the whole thing is in bad shape as art. Line upon line & precept upon precept is what our "young" people wants - (to use the singular number) but this of course is likely to be dull, so you will fire away in your own fashion. - We think it desirable that the 5th Avenue entrance should be so planted that the houses on the avenue may be hidden from the interior of the Park as they will be elsewhere when all the sidewalks are lined with a double row of trees as is contemplated. This planting has had several years growth and is thriving satisfactorily. The Commrs now allow Mr Hunt to cut all these trees down and to substitute lamp posts so that the city will be left open to the view from the interior of the Park and the continuity of umbrageous skyline will be destroyed. On approaching the Park the visitor should surely be welcomed in as soon as poss. In H. plan he is induced to stay outside, conspicuous archt. arranget. built up opp 60th St. - 60th St tends to make 5th Ave. inferior. Why. 5th Ave is true approach. (9) The same principle of design that appears in the drawings of the Fifth Avenue Entrance controls your study [your other gateways] for the other gateways. The foot path at our Sixth Avenue [entrance] approach is unsymmetrical and irregular [alway] immediately [on entering] on entering - because we feel it to be somehow part of [our picturesque] a picturesque scene that it overlooks [which where the b are general will I think be] [We think that] You propose [an arrangement as] a perfectly symmetrical plateau arrangement [and though] that [can] can only be gained by a [very] forced treatment of the ground - [and] that [will yield] [really seems to] to us seems quite unnecessary. At the Seventh Avenue entrance there is the same disregard of our design both as executed and as intended - Any visitor who will enter at this point on one of these pleasant May mornings will find a descending grade and an attempt to treat the problem artistically I [mean] do not mean architecturally for that as I have said before is [to an] in our view rather undesirable. than otherwise [We have architecture] This example if it could have been left [untouched as we] intact [and] would have answered some good purpose as it [off] is one that often occurs in landscape gardening, and [this entrance] has been studied with some care, but I see that you intend to obliterate the whole scheme and to make an architectural plateau [with] inside the park with sculpture symmetrically arranged. This of course will necessitate the introduction of [slope at the] a [that] flight of steps, down to the archway that occurs [very] so near to the entrance which I cannot help thinking [?] will be less pleasant to a visitor than the present gradual descent. At the 8th Avenue entrance we find the same spirit at work As now executed it consists of a [wide road] main running north and a subordinate one running east. You disregard the entirely secondary character of the minor road - and are going to [? it up ?] make (11.) [(3.)]8th Ave. Entrance now consists of wide & narrow roadway. This is the true statement of the public need. Why falsify the facts at great expense & do the work all over again because Mr H. is unable to solve the problem of wide & narrow except by making it into two wide regardless of truth and extravagant waste of [mowers?]. - Who would sit down on the seat. it is just where no pedestrian ever would want to go, for police purposes it is intelligible, but it is too big a seat for two policemen. 7th Av. is a descending grade, from very commencet and at short distance passes under archway. H. contemplates large level plateau with sculpture inside gate. Of course a flight of steps must go down to archway, awkward arrangement at main entrance. present arrangement a carefully studied treatment of descending grade and it was intended to be so from the first. Ironwork of gateways interesting, say what you can good for the designs. The 7th Ave (entirely clear of all inside arrangements) seems to me to have merit. Try & describe in words what should be aimed for. The Triumphal arch idea bothers a great many. (12) It has been one of the cardinal aims [of] in our design and it is of some importance to the sweep of the landscape [effect] effect to secure an umbrageous skyline all round the park, so that the city may not be seen from the interior and we have induced the Commissioners to include in their scheme six miles of planting on the sidewalks to achieve this [purpose] [among] among other objects. At the Fifth avenue entrance was an awkward corner to get over in this particular, we perceived the necessity of [setting out this point] settling the point and planting the trees at an early stage of the work. The [trees were accordingly planted and] matter was therefore attended to several years ago and [were]the trees were in a thriving condition when I went to bid them good bye the other day. [for I] after learning from your design that [you are going to] it is now decided to cut them [all] down [-I see that you propose putting lamp several lamp] [You may ? think] I wish you could be induced to bear the umbrageous skyline in view and if our arrangement does not [meet your] agree with your views achieve the same result in some other way (13.) [(2)][In] It is a good time to ventilate park matters not in matters of detail but the ["sensorium"] of the people is made louder by the experience of the last four years. the park typifies what we have been fighting for. and [?] the gates typify what [we] we have been fighting against it is the Nap III in disguise all over. [* Gideon VerPlanck*] H. a good liberal Republican. he took the entire responsibility of ejecting G. VerP. from the Cent Club went round & actually begged votes (of course I only know this by hearsay). it lost him the Fulton Monument at a later day. but he stood to his guns. It is unfortunate that he is bitten by the "display" mania. At Newport he has built some clever original sparkling villas that I think you would like - picturesque - with novel wooden treatment & altogether [the] American. - I hope he may yet do something good on the Park in this way he shall have my vote when the time comes as come perhaps it will some day & if it were poss. Should like it hinted that he is capable of better things. - I want to avoid all suggestion of art jealousy He has done his work in a fair bold straightforward way - at least in exhibiting his plans he has and I have no desire to let him down "hard" but the gates must not be built of course. - I dont know whether you will be able to make anything out of all this - such as it is - it is your own. I have not used it elsewhere at any time and shall not tell you your paper. If any of the ideas can find expression by another from [tha? man?] I shall be glad. Most of the notions are presented wrong and foremost and I dare say I shall hardly know them again when I see them. - If I know myself at all I believe that I am really desirous to have the P. a good thing with or without. Your humble servt C. About 2nd letter. It is not published in any paper I felt that it was impolitic to follow with a minor proposition. This does hold now and if you think it is worth while to have it put in the Tribune merely. At the request of Mr Vaux we insert the following letter" why well & good. Perhaps [however] it is a minor matter after all. - but I shall trust your judgment It must appear forthwith however if it is to take this shape for reasons that I cannot now explain so if troublesome confine yourself to C.P. letter only. Yr. C.V.[*after June 6, 1865*] Dear Clarence, Do not suppose I am under the impression that your are "awake nights" on C.P. topics, but I will jot down any views that occur to me from time to time till I see your article. Do not hurry it unduly but now is a good time. I felt last year about the picture sale that your position was weak not because the criticisms were severe, for any amount of severity is permissible if it can only be sustained by the author as justifiable but because it was un-pre Raphaelite, superficial and too light centered on attributing motives &c is dangerous and sweeping assertions based on mere general impressions are unwise. You will understand that I refer to this merely with the hope that the C.P. comments may take a more incisive, exhaustive form. A good comment on the C.P. has not been written. The most interesting point of view to look at it in is I think fairly reachable just at this time if you feel like it. A view I mean that would not preclude a searching and even severe criticism of very important (and only not important) matters in the future. Do not suppose we have any grievance or at least that we want it ventilated at this time. It would be very bad art to do it speaking of criticism as an art I mean The Review has a gross comment which offended me by mixing irrelevant things together. Mr Hunt has I think (at least sufficiently to require caution) avoided this nepotism insinuation by boldly exhibiting his work and demanding judgment in art grounds solely. I make our statement at beginning of C.P. article to show who we are and how we stand to the work, if the last part would have been complete without it, I would not have put it in as it is perhaps a little premature. I mean taking the interests of the work into a/c but this you will not understand I mean of course only from my point of view as a "strategist" of course (1) VAUX & WITHERS, ARCHITECTS, No. 110 Broadway, New-York. June 10th/65 Dear Olmsted, I saw your father yesterday at the Brevoort House incidentally for a few minutes. He was looking well I send you Campaign Doct. No. 3 in original form. I shall have it reprinted, perhaps, the Encyclopedic tirade that follows is bosh of course- I do not know who is the inspirer. A.H.G. probably. it has the penny a line smell and will do little good. Still it is on the right side in some things. status quo remaining Why is not O & V at this corner of the Phot? Yours truly C. V.[*Vaux June 10th 1865*] Having only just rec' your letter with enclosure. I have had no time to look at plan &c. I think that Pieper & Miller would be better off here, but they must act on their own responsibility to both we feel much obliged, remember me to them, I do not think they can look for work here while out there, they must make their election, my hope is that they may come back with a little [?ing] a hand and with an eye to business and a good stock of faith & hope, I will do all I can but do not like to make any promises or entangle either of us further with them. Vaux & Withers, Architects No. 110 Broadway, New York. June 22nd 65. Dear Olmsted, Yours of May 22" is just recd. so it takes a month to reach us from your diggings- It is evident that you have not recd. mine enclosing our protest in regard to Gateways &c I hope I shall receive consecutive letters from you now as you must be receiving mine by every post- I send you agreement with Brooklyn Commr. It places the thing in a good shape so far as other work is concerned and as the payments are not to be made monthly but almost fully when the plan is done (Jan 1st) the arrangement cannot be construed into an annual appointment that would conflict with other things. If you return and go in with me it will be O&V at the time when the really important question comes up. It is premature to talk ofbusiness details perhaps but, the work is now under consideration and has occupied time of course since Feb. the date of first report. The legislative action I consider certain to be favorable, the clause in the Resolution, being merely a way to get over a difficulty the Commr wanted the amount to be $6000. I stood out for $7500, and I suggested that a contingent view might be taken. (good precedent too! you will laugh at my sensitive olfactories in this direction [but] but precedents are good things on the right side and very damaging on the wrong) - I therefore think that $5000 will be a fair sum to put into O & V, the rest will probably be spent by the time you arrive. In regard to this however we will not differ and you shall give me your view. In regard to C.P. my last informed you that A.H.G. was undemonstrative. I asked no questions & did not press for information or actions. He came the day before yesterday & staid an hour or so. In new Report He has the Nomenclature Developed w the list of names without any further action of the Board. Well & good if he takes the responsibility. In one of my unsigned docts I put this in - as a sine qua non - and he prefers taking the chances of being let alone to definite vote. it suits us quite well. Stebbins is away [you know] in Europe He returns in a few days. Green [heard] read me extracts in which he, S., speaks favoringly of his reminiscences of Hunts designs. Finest things on the Planet, like S that isnt it? A.H. expects (& doubtless with reason) to be able to qualify his enthusiasm. I do not hear in re Hutchins but nothing adverse. A.H. evidently expects to get S. on the side of the majority. A.H. hopes that the press will give warrant for action &c. (I cannot go into this it is rather troublesome to describe). I wrote to Grant the other day. a semi-business letter and asked him to call. He replied in an "offish" particularly prim style. I wrote again still cordially (because I have no grounds for objecting to his course so far as I am aware of it.) This brought a visit a struggel for the fall is the right of any opponent if he wants it[*Vaux June 22 1865*] which was what I wanted. He looked rather out of [window?] you know but at last I got him square to the point and he said he considered that the North End design was his as we left it unsettled &c. I [you know] have exchanged no conversation with him since we resigned preferring to deal solely with Green. Commr representative. I told him plainly our interests and his were identical in reality whatever he might think and that he must see we could not afford to yield the point that was so evidently necessary to the integrity from plan & so supported by the facts. That my letter to the Pres. was very public & very direct and that I was surprised as he did not immediately respond that he should at least take this view. He must see that I was not to be expected to pre-suppose it till I heard it from his own lips. The upshot is that we are relieved from any obligations at a very cheap rate for he could do us no harm and I really feel that his labors & life with Park entitled him to much consideration & if he writes a book on the Park as he proposes, he will only write himself into his true position in the public situation. I mean if we should go back and if the Commrs should feel disposed to part with Grant (A.H.G. I believe is rather opposed to him) he G. could not expect any half from us, he rather would look for us to initiate a movement adverse to him in self protection. You will see what I mean & why I wanted to see him just now. N.Y. July 6th /65 Dear Olmsted, Yours of June 8th acknowledging mine of the 10th is received. I cannot of course tell whether my later letters will modify your view as there expressed or not. The letter is satisfactory because candid, if of course is discouraging so far as it touches on your views, and [s] gives me no expectation of any cooperation that will amount to anything. You take the same dreary uphill view that you have habitually done, as I suppose is to be expected. However I shall go on to the end in what I consider the right path so far as my obligations to you are concerned and leave you to decide deliberately. Then I shall if you say no, do what seems right in regard to other responsibilities that I recognize and you do not and in regard to which we may perhaps entertain different opinions, and youmust not expect me to sympathise heartily with the idea of subordinating the general design to the general management. I think it a semi-barbaric idea that you share with others. If you will be Head artist, so be it. I vote yea. But there are conceivable positions that your views would lead to which I should certainly vote nay to. I think that what you say about Green is unsatisfactory. By assuming the position you did you assumed the responsibility of protecting others & you could not even protect yourself. I wonder that you do not see this. A scheme that can be upset by a Green is sure to be upset for men of his calibre are to be found everywhere. I will not pursue this topic now my letters will explain the circumstances and you will give me your final comment. No new developments in regard to C.P. I read your report on Plan with interest shall look for a copy of the treatise on Cemeteries. I do not perceive the conspicuous deficiency you dwell on. There can be no doubt that together we are better fitted to take up these matters than any one else, and that this and what it includes is of vital importance to the progress of the Republic. I am quite as much a lover of the People as you or any man can be. I show it in my way, You in Yours. To me my views seem as broad and unselfish as yours doubtless do to you and for us to be the means of elevating an unaccredited but important pursuits seems to me a direct contribution to the best interests of humanity. If you think otherwise and prefer to have a something-ship all the time, so be it but I cannot allow the superiority of your view until convinced. There are plenty of people to write for "The Nation". Add one more to the number if you will. There are plenty of Gold mines to superintend but who is going to be the better for the Gold. I have nearly come to the end of the rope, a few more coils and then the final decision whether to hold on or cut loose. Mary & the children are at Roudont We mean to be away in the Adirondack during August. Tell Mrs Olmsted her welcome letter came to hand. I will answer it soon but am not in the mood to day. Yours affly C. Vaux [*C. Vaux July 6th 1865 [?] Importance of Profession*] [*Vaux*] Vaux & Withers No. 110 Broadway, New-York. July 8th/ 1865 Dear Olmsted. I enclose with this terms of Brooklyn. I believe I sent you the copy of the Resolution or its purport before. I answered your letter of June 8th a day or two since. Please telegraph whether you intend to take hold or not the Plan has to be sent in Jan. 1st. I am obliged to you for telling me all your fallings off in the Landscape Gardening matter but I happened to know them before. I proposefair subscription of the power that each is capable of exercising. I do not limit myself to be an A. or an L.A. or anything else except an aspiring citizen and I do not ask you to do so. (The B.P. is an easy affair & a short job) It is a convenient title to use that excites no jealousy, gives an opportunity for boundless influence, and that ought to be strengthened by being adopted. Your objection to the plan is I believe at heart because it involves the idea of a common fraternal effort it is too republican an idea for you, you must have a thick line drawn all round your sixpen' worth of individuality of course you will grow out of this like you did out of your porcupine arrangement of Foremans reports 70 to each pocket and one in your mouth so that you never had a word to say to a friend, but you are a damned long while about it. The gold mine people and the oil people get rich, most of the artists remain poor, except they prostitute their abilities. In a properly civilized republic this should not be, in our republic it need not be if representative men were only true to their (implied) oath of office. The designers of the Parks if successful in one way should be successful in the otherIn the present state of art development in the country it is very necessary indeed for those who have the power to exert themselves to protect the strictly legitimate pecuniary interests connected with the pursuits they follow for each in its turn must be proved to be profitable or young men of ability will be deterred from venturing into it. Those who assume the chief offices and take the prestige assume the chief responsibility in this as in other respects and pernicious precedents are lamentable evils productive of wide spread [evils] injustice to unworthy persons. You have allowed yourself to stand before the Public as A in C of the C.P. and it is useless to argue that Vaux & Withers Architects, No. 110 Broadway, New-York. no responsibility attaches to you. Of course you can repudiate it and walk off and do the other thing, arguing all the while that you are a badly used injured innocent. As a friend I wish you every success, but I cannot fail to see that you have the cause in the lurch and that the bearing of the whole proceeding is unsatisfactory. In a many sided work like the Park you must not therefore be surprised that I cannot heartily endorse an unsuitable egoism that insists on it feebleness except in one direction, a direction inwhich it was going to go with tremendous power if Green had not put a stop to it by telling stories to Russell and other bad tricks. Well Well! That reads as if it were written with a hard pen and from a hard heart, perhaps it is. I shall therefor write it to you so [that] I may have no excuse for saying it to any one else. Yours affly and in haste C.V. PS What I mean by a fair subscription of the power is this that you will cooperate with me to the best of your ability. -Your last position was about this "all theirs is ours" all ours is mine - and all mine is my own or something like it. To the Commissioners it was I will work for the Park, but I must have the reputation, and I must have it all, and I must have it immediately and I must have it always. I suppose you will say that this is exaggerated, but I am writing hurriedly and only wish to convey a general idea. Love to Marion Yr C.V.65 July 19th NY. C.P. O & V appointed L.A. of the Board - consulting services $5000 per an. in [?] + $5000 in full for pfl services to date (pprs in D.V.s Office)N. Y. July 21st. /65. Dear Olmsted, O & V. were reappointed yesterday L. A. to the C. P. with the understand'g that they are to be called on to advise & report on archt. designs that may be submitted to the Board &c. (this forms part of the resolution of which I have as yet rec. no official copy) Salary $5000. ⅌ ann. $5000 for past services. - The latter might have been in full if you had been here I have little doubt - I should be satisfied withthe result if I felt well assured of your real cooperation- As I said before my main perplexity all through has been in this direction -You are, and I am, and several other people are, necessary to this work, and it can be successfully carried through in an artistic spirit to a real end, that is to a point that is beyond much chance of harm- both as a constructed work and as a vital organism, but it depends on you- and the spirit in which you now approach it whether this result is to be arrived at or not. I am willing to contribute all I can. Are you content to do the same The Telegraph is out of order. Please reply if it is in order, so soon as you receive this letter. Do not delay your return if poss. Yours affy Calvert Vaux, Vaux July 21st 1865 [*re-apt. O & V Central Park*] [*Vaux*] No settlement probably till regular meeting of the Board but I have given this to Pilat with expectation of cheque when the time arrives. Copy. 110 Broadway NY. July 26th /65 Copy. Dear Mr Pilat, You will we know be glad to learn that we have accepted a re-appointment and are again Landscape Architects to the Central Park. Although our general plan, as approved by the Board, has been pursued during the suspension of our engagement, and the vacancy caused by our resignation has remained unfilled, we are well aware that very much has depended on you in the interim and that if our design has been virtually carried out, it is your persistent adhesion to its letter, and to its spirit when that would not suffice, that has ensured this result under circumstances of peculiar embarrassment. It is not necessary to pursue this subject farther now, but before going on to the work again, we desire, as artists to express our thanks to you, a brother artist, for the help you have so freely rendered to the design in our absence, and we have no hesitation in asking your acceptance of the enclosed cheque for $500. feeling assured that you will not for a moment suppose that we have any idea of thus cancelling our obligation, which is not of a character to have a money value set on it. We remain Dear Mr. Pilat Your friends O & V Landscape Acht. Iz. A. P. Head Gardener. CP. Vaux N.Y. July 31st/65. Dear Olmsted, The telegraph being out of order I shall have to wait some time I suppose to hear your reply to my letters, I shall not write further as there is no necessity -- Green's father is dying of strangulated hernia & he is away. So I am not pushing matters & indeed have not yet been to the park. However I shall probably go today with Pilot to the Restaurant site by way of enumerating my resumption of duties. I cannot of course tell how the arrangement may strike you. I have you see had to deal with you throughout in two characters, as Olmsted the artist & republican with whom I could heartily act and sympathise - and with Olmsted, the bureaucrat and imperialist with whom I never for a moment sympathise All the good to the Park that you could ever hope or expect to achieve is now easily possible, and without your vigorous cooperation it is not possible, but the realization of "your plan" is unlikely. if by that I understand. the conversion of this many sided, fluent thoroughly American high art work into a machine - over which as Frederick the Great, Prince of the Park Police you should preside, [and] and with regal liberality dispense[ing] certificates of docility to the artists engaged - in the work - All this side of the affair is nauseating & odious. I have not opposed it either by word or deed, solely because it was worth the risk of your discovering the danger of the method you pursued - yourself and, asI once before said, it was absolutely necessary when every thing was flying apart, that our interests should seem to be identical. The result of this cutting and paring and stifling was that you took it out of the region of high art or tried to do so and cut & pared and stifled it down to Greens level and were then surprised at his taking it, although he was bound to do it by all logical rules in self defence. Your "plan" including for him "nothing" and for every body else "nothing" - your position being unrepresentative & undemocratic. In this latitude a man must be representative [and] to deserve success, and if you ask yourself who you desired to represent I suppose outside of the Park Police you would find nobody. However think this all over of course I may be wrong. Yrs affly C.Vaux [*Vaux*] N.Y. Aug. 2d, 1865. Dear Olmsted, I thought the other day I would close up in regard to C.P. and as it is I hope you may have started for this place long before you receive this. I had supposed that I should have heard from you oftener but probably you have been in the Yo Semite or otherwise occupied. I send Tribune article. Of course you will not misunderstand my police onslaught, all I mean is that - first one thing then the other must be in theascendent. The affair is not childs play. we need everything & every ounce of ability we possess to sustain ourselves. I mean that not a crumb shall be lost that is all. Surely the thing now to do is by wary prudent intrepid sincere vigorous fraternal cooperative action to strengthen our position - which is not important because it is ours but because it expresses an idea. I will only add that it is very desirable that you should return as soon as possible. When I next leave this thing I leave it for ever but I hope that all may turn out well and that you will see that now is the time for ensuring a bona fide permanent success. Yrs C.V.[*/aux.*] [* dupl IV NY.CP*] C. V. to Olmsted - Aug. 2n. 1865. N.Y. Aug. 2n. 1865 Dear Olmsted: I thought the other day I would close up in regard to C. P. and as it is I hope you may have started for this place long before you receive this.... The affair is not child's play. We need everything and every ounce of ability we possess to sustain ourselves. I mean that not a crumb shall be lost that is all. Surely the thing now to do is by wary, prudent, intrepid, sincere, vigorous, fraternal cooperative action to strengthen our position, which is not important because it is ours, but because it expresses an idea. I will only add that it is very desirable that you should return as soon as possible. When I next leave this thing, I leave it for ever, but I hope that all may turn out well and that you will see that now is the time for insuring a bona fide permanent success. Yrs. C. V.[* Vaux*] [*C. Vaux*] 110 Broadway Nov. 10th Dear Mrs. Olmsted, I meant to have sent the enclosed for Olmsteds perusal Mary & I were much delighted with the Victoria Regia and asked Cranch to go and see it and he was so pleased that at my request, he wrote the enclosed for the Times. We mean to get the Water Babies, a queer sort of baptismal title and will let you know the result. Enoch Arden has interested us it is a strangely involved tragedy although so seeming simple. What did you think of the northern Tell Olmsted that Belmonts vote was challenged and that he lost it having bet on the result - he tried again but was equally unsuccessful the first statement is authoritative. The 2nd not so well provenfarmer. I took a drive up on the Park for the first time since I left - on Sats last with my wife & two young ladies, one of whom is going to Nashville in a day or two as governess to Spooner the Provost Marshal's children The drive round the top of the Bojandus Hill is complete and adds interest to the trip - The scoundrels charge $4.00 for driving from the 59th St. entrance - up there & back about 50 minutes is not this outrageous, and the Commrs accept it quite quietly as the correct thing to be done. No use has been made of the play ground this or any summer this absurdity is apparently to be kept up through all time. I was amused at Miller, for according to Pilat he drew his salary at Nassau St. for the month & on going out left a note stating that he gave up his engagement - Green sent a carriage for him late in the [us?] to his house but Miller said that he preferred spending the few hours left prior to his departure with his family in this showing his good taste, I think. -We do not hear anything more of Bertha but Mrs. [Newell?] I understand called on her in the course of last summer. she did not I expect carry out the plan. I have an invitation to go to Hartford tomorrow or next day to look over the grounds of a Mr Chamberlin & probably to build a house for him, if practicable. I shall call in & pay my respects to your father while in the city. I had a pleasant ride through the Baltimore Park before the autumn leaves fell off, it was most enjoyable but the work is not entirely satisfactory that is being done there. They have a broken backed promenade that looks perfectly ridiculous [drawing] point of view [16 trees] Pavilion it is about the same length as ours perhaps a little shorter. Write again soon and keep us at least well acquainted with your state of health and let us know if your morals are suffering from the surroundings. I feel better than I have done for some years past. Yours truly C.V. [* After April 1865*] Rand came to town to take up the Brooklyn survey merely the preliminary one for our purposes but went off west [with] on bieng offered $3,800 per ann. consequently Green recommended Frost to Shualiam. this is not nearly as satisfactory but I had no one to fill the vacancy and he is engaged for two or three months. Of course if Pieper had been here it would have been put in his hands as S. left it really with me to decide. I have had a private matter for J.W. Bartlett. 160 acres to lay out next to Bartons Hudson River you remember and a large house &c to build. The surveys need doing thoroughly and neatly I wish Pieper were here to attend to it. Perhaps I can keep it for [S?ia] if he comes soon Also another tract is being surveyed owned by Fuller Lord & Co. which will require to be laid out as picturesque village &c. about [$2] 200 acres. I asked for $5.00 an acre. and shall probably get it some day but not for months perhaps years As I wrote you, there is much work likely to be done, my idea is now the war is over to concentrate our your & my attention principally on development of this profession. My partnership with Withers expires (legally) in May next. It may be renewed or not. We can employ Pieper Pilat Miller & half a dozen others in a proper professionalway if we are lucky without engaging to pay their annual salaries, and this is what I always anticipated would be the outcome of the Park. It would some day be done & we could take the principal men that had helped us to carry on the business that it would inevitably lead to. You want to go back & "keep the park tidy" you say. I have I believe gone into this in my letters. I know what you mean & appreciate it. Green wants to make Ryan superintendent in name as in practice. This suits me [exactly] I confess at this juncture although I do not say yes exactly because my theory is to put matters in such train that we that is you can vitalize & control the management actions without much recognition perhaps in an exclusive way but without exciting Greens fears that you are going to rob him of his $5000 which depends on his real or apparent or sufficient control of maintenance till he dies or is otherwise provided for a by no means impossible contingency. I tell him as I undoubtedly think that he is wise in keeping to his title of Comptroller. it may lead to still larger responsibilities [being] falling in his way &c. &c. Try & see the drift of this and [are] think if it does not offer the best outlet to our and your difficulties, as is my habit I speak of things possible as if they were actualities. All may end in smoke, but be ready to pack up & come home quietly and with an eye to business and a taste for an affectionate welcome from yours C.V.[*[Nov 21 [65]??]*] J. H. Morse 112 WEST [??]TH STREET NEW YORK Dear Mr. Vaux, I have got Dr. Crosby's name, but failed with Mr. Villard. He has Frankfort in his mind, and sees no reason why the Park should not be a suitable place for the animals, if properly cared for; nor was he ready to say even that the particular place chosen by the Commissioners was a bad place. I fear that nothing would move him unless we were prepared to point to some other available place as nearand is satisfactory to him. Trusting that we shall find other capitalists less well provided with theories of their own. I ever Yours sincerely, J.H. Morse. Nov. 21st [*D. Olmsted You may like to see this. You need not return it Yr. C.V.*] Fragment Vaux to FLO 1865 Development of Prof Practice O. & V.1865 IV NY Central P. Hunts design for 5th Ave entrance Object of O & V not to arch. design of the entrance but to its intrusion upon a secluded passage of scenery abt lake intended to be separate from entrance drive etc. See C.V. letter in N.Y. Evening Post a few days after May 1 '65 D.V.'s off 65 NY Cent P.k Hunt's design 59th St. entr. 5th Ave proposed in sq. outside pk. O. & V. urged acquire of outside land very strongly before & after resignation in 63 (from papers in Downing Vaux Office)March 26 /66 O, V & Co. 110 Bwy Letter sigd C.Vx - to A.H. Greene notifying of intent of putting "our claim" in the hands of counsel for collection (D.V.s Office)142 Concord St Brooklyn April 16th. 1867 Mr. Davis Being a resident of Brooklyn during the last twenty five years necessity death, sickness (caused by the late war) and your amicable character are my apologies for trespassing on your already over taxed patience in applying for any employment within your gift not being accustomed to the use of the Pick or Shovel I fear I would not be able to give general satisfactions in their use Still I would do my best I could obtain letters of introduction to you fromfrom some of our best Citizens but prefering to appeal directly to a Gentleman of so varied information and fine human feeling as you are acknowledged to possess I hope you will not reject the application of one whose youthful education and not being entirely neglected your perusing these few lines you will place me under many obligations I am Dr. Sir your Obed't Servant Miles Jordan Brooklyn April 12th 67 Mr. Dawes Dear sur the bearer would like to get worke in the park buy giving him a chance you will oblige DeWitt C Daniels Hld 20th WardBrooklyn April the 12th 67 Mr Davis Dear Sirs Mr hefferan a old resadence of the Ward has a good horse & cart Wishes to get to Warke in the park I would consider it a favour to have him put in respectfully yours &c Dewitt C Daniels Hld 20th Ward [*W. April 12th 1867*]