Park Department Organization 



By Frederick Law Olmstead. 



{Continued from September issue.) 

 Probably the most perplexing and troublesome set of 

 relations to tix between tne various parts of the organi- 

 zation are tt.ose between tlie people in charge of play- 

 grounds, etc., and the general maintenance and operat- 

 ing forces. It is obvious that for dealing skilfully with 

 the children and others who resort to playgrounds,' baths, 

 social-center buildings, and kindred recreation tacilities, 

 quite a different set of people are needed from those 

 iitted for the ordinary work of the physical maintenance 

 and improvement of parks, playgrounds, etc. It is ob- 

 vious also that these people need to be directed and 

 controlled by a central staff-department expert in this 

 special class of work. The personal requirements for 

 efficient service in this w'ork are peculiar and exacting in 

 respect to tact, imagination, sympathy, firmness, and 

 common sense, as well as in respect to certain kinds of 

 technical training; and the job of creating and maintain- 

 ing an efficient corps of such people by a process of 

 -seiect4cn, elimination and wise control calls for a high 

 •order of ability, as well as for special training and ex- 

 perience, m the head of the department. There is needed 

 -also a very close and intimate relation between the head 

 •of this department and the instructors and other workers 

 who are actually dealing with the public in the various 

 playgrounds. 



Most of the work for the supervision of which other 

 staff-departments are responsible can be done to ad- 

 vantage by employees who are working under a local 

 division foreman, who are responsible to the staff-de- 

 partment only through that division foreman, and who 

 are transferred at the discretion of that foreman from 

 one class of work to another. This is clearly im- 

 practicable in the case of the playground instructors. 

 They must be directly and absolutely under the orders 

 of the head of the recreation department, just as a 

 transit-man assigned to work in any park must be directly 

 under the orders of the head of the engineering de- 

 partment and not, like the construction gang for which 

 he sets the stakes, under the orders of the division 

 foreman. 



On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that 

 the boundaries of the field of work for which a play- 

 ground or recreation department might properly be made 

 resjionsible are extremely vague with endless interlock- 

 ing ramifications. The whole park system exists for no 

 other purpose than to furnish various forms of recre- 

 ation for the public, and the business of educating and 

 guiding the public to the full and proper use of the facili- 

 ties provided, and at the same time preventing their abuse, 

 ■calls for the constant exercise in greater or less degree 

 throughout all the parks of the same qualities of tact, 

 imagination, sympathy, firmness, and common sense, that 

 are so peculiarly necessary in playground instructors. 

 It calls for the exercise of those qualities in connection 

 with various sorts of technical knowledge, as in de- 

 termining just how far and where the public can be 

 encouraged or permitted to use the lawns for walking. 

 for picnics, and for games, without destructive injury 

 that would actually reduce the net return of public recre- 

 ation derived from the entire investment. The so-called 

 policing of the parks is one aspect of this group of 

 functions ; but park policing cannot wisely be divorced 

 from the business of park maintenance. Some cities 

 liave made the serious mistake of turning over the 

 policing of their parks to the general city police de- 



partment, whereas it can be done better and more 

 economically by park employees responsiDle to tiie local 

 division foremen. L.enerally, one man can unite the 

 functions of a maintenance laborer and of a guard ; at 

 times in the larger parks and on the busy days men 

 must be assigned to the sole duty of watching and direct- 

 ing the users of the park. It is the concentration of 

 certain kinds of public activity on the playground areas 

 and bathing-places, etc., that makes possible and justifies 

 the further specialization of expert playground in- 

 structors and the like in charge of such places. There 

 are many places in the parks where an isolated ball- 

 field or a few tennis-courts or a few swings add materially 

 to the recreation facilities, yet where there is not suffi- 

 cient justification for stationing a playground instructor, 

 and where the control of the public using these facilities 

 must, for economy, be exercised by the same man who 

 does the labor of maintenance. 



In view- of all these considerations, I believe the most 

 satisfactory method of adjusting these duties and re- 

 sponsibilities is the following: There would be a staff- 

 department of recreation under a thoroughly competent 

 chief with an adequate staff of assistants. He would 

 receive the orders of the board through and be respon- 

 sible directly to the chief executive officer, the depart- 

 ment being conducted under the su])ervision of and in 

 Consultation with a sub-committee of the board specializ- 

 ing on this subject. The department would keep a 

 general oversight upon the conduct of all park employees 

 in their relation to the public seeking recreation in any 

 of the parks and playgrounds, and would give advice and 

 instructions to the local division foremen in regard to 

 such matters, just as a horticultural department gives 

 them advice and instructions in regard to lawns, planta- 

 tions, etc. In those places where the work demands and 

 justifies the assignment of a specialist, the chief of the 

 recreation department, after proper consultation with 

 the division foreman, would have it done by a playground 

 instructor or other employee of his own department, to 

 that extent relieving the local division foreman of the 

 work; just as the horticultural department might send 

 its own planting gang to handle a special job of planting, 

 or its tree .gang to do a job of tree-pruning. Where 

 the work is not thus handled directly by employees of 

 the recreation department, it would of course be done 

 bv the force of the local division foreman, through whom 

 the instructions of the recreation department would be 

 transmitted. If any part of the work done by or under 

 a local foreman was not satisfactory to the head of the 

 recreation department, and the circumstances did not 

 justify him in doing it with his own force, he would 

 take "up the matter with the superintendent. Similarly 

 if the division foreman felt that instructions received by 

 him from the recreation department or direct work done 

 bv die employees of that department within his division 

 were such as' to interfere with getting the best results 

 in his division as a whole, he would take the matter up 

 with the superintendent. In this way the principle of 

 the general responsibility of the division foreman for 

 his entire territory would be maintained. 



An alternative method would be to segregate certain 

 playground areas from the park divisions in which they 

 occur, to free the regular division foreman from any 

 responsibility for their management or maintenance, and 

 to make the instructor in charge of each of them in 



