public iparfts 303 



and obstructed here and there b\' an inferior class of 

 houses, the plan proposes to retain the half dozen 

 important public buildings existing and lay out the 

 grounds around them, or in other words park them. 

 Broad lawns are arranged for pastoral effects and trees 

 and shrubs are clustered along the paths and drives and 

 on the borders of the lawns, and a series of longitudinal 

 elliptical grass spaces leads the eye of any one stand- 

 ing in front of the Capitol down over a vista of green 

 lawns to the Washington Monument. 



By the employment of bridges over the transverse 

 streets the entire territory of park space is brought into 

 one unified whole, a park unit and yet correlated in the 

 most intimate way with the neighbouring city. It is 

 intended that the bridges shall be so screened and 

 planted in the manner of those of Central Park, New 

 York, that the sense of the close neighbourhood of the 

 city shall not be appreciably felt as one wanders through 

 the park. It is also proposed that in future all public 

 buildings for the United States or the District of Colum- 

 bia that may be erected here shall be kept strictly out 

 of the main area of the park, and disposed along the bor- 

 ders of Pennsylvania and Delaware Avenues. It is not 

 claimed that this arrangement of a great park in the 

 heart of Washington City is entirely ideal, but simply 

 that it does recognize and treat with due respect the 

 original plan of L'Enfant, taking in consideration the 

 needs and tastes of the present and future generations. 

 Moreover, it may be said also that the admirable system 

 of tree planting adopted long years ago on the streets of 



