PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 123 



opinion, that should have been done years ago. We would also be 

 continuing the work on Liberty Island and then reclaiming, if that 

 is the proper word, some of the New Jersey waterfront and making 

 it into a beautiful, green park. The three will then form one 

 complex. 



It is my conviction that the antipoverty program does have a con- 

 tribution to make toward our goal of conservation and beautification. 

 Our youth programs are pointed towards this and are equipped for 

 this and ought to do more of it than they are doing. I hope as you 

 participate in these programs locally, if you do so, you will point up 

 the need in your own communities for the Neighborhood Youth 

 Corps and the Job Corps to busy themselves in this kind of thing. 



Mr. VOLLMER. When I was studying city planning thirty years 

 ago, cluster planning, as a device to conserve and concentrate open 

 space had been well established and accepted by the profession. Ex- 

 amples like Welwyn Garden City and Hampstead Garden Suburb in 

 England and Sunnyside, Radburn and Chatham Village in this coun- 

 try could be seen, evaluated and used as precepts. 



Yet a year ago, William H. Whyte's greatly needed restatement of 

 and argument for the cluster principle struck many as revelatory, so 

 little had been done in its name. 



Again, roughly thirty years ago, I presumptuously called the at- 

 tention of New York City's Parks Commissioner to numerous small 

 parcels of land owned by other city agencies which were crying for 

 transformation into small sitting or play areas. With unusual 

 patience and to my infinite embarrassment he reviewed in detail 

 the efforts that had been and were being made to acquire development 

 rights to these very parcels. Apathy, departmental jealousy and 

 inertia largely blocked the endeavor and this was in the adminis- 

 tration of Fiorello LaGuardia, no mean redtape cutter himself. 



With deference to my fellow panelists and, for that matter to 

 those on the other panels the planning and conservation principles 

 which we all advocate here are not new. There may be minor dis- 

 agreement as to where and when they are applicable but essentially 

 we are together on broad objectives and we are carrying on in a time 

 honored tradition. 



Our deficiencies are in practice rather than in what we preach. 

 And much of our failure results from the all too human tendency to 

 accept the will for the deed, to feel that our wisdom and our state- 

 ments of noble intent are enough in themselves. We should make 



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