52 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 



agant scale, sacrificing nothing to the spirit of prodigality, but keep- 

 ing in view the two great fundamental ideas of utility and progress. 

 We must not commit the error of providing only for present emer- 

 gencies, but must try to realize the wants of Boston commerce as it 

 will be a century hence. The new business edifices to be put up in 

 the burned district will probably be the most costly as well as the 

 most substantial ever erected in any city on this side of the Atlantic, 

 and after they are built it will be too late to think of making changes 

 in our street lines. Whatever is to be done in this connection must 

 be done beforehand, as the sad opportunity afforded by this great con- 

 flagration is not likely to be repeated in that locality. 



But, after all that can be done to economize space for commercial 

 purposes, th e hard fact must still remain, that the business formerly 

 accommodated in this burnt district can never be wholly put back 

 there. Even with narrow streets its territorial limits afforded but a 

 scant pattern and no " elbow room " for the great branches of trade 

 which had been concentrated there. But after these contemplated 

 street improvements shall have been carried out, it will be as physi- 

 cally impossible for them to get back bodily into their old quarters, 

 as it would be to crowd a bushel of corn into a peck measure. They 

 must hereafter be content to scatter themselves, and locate further up 

 town, or wherever there may be a chance to spread out with the con- 

 ditions of a healthy and natural growth. The Fort Hill district must 

 be built up and utilized ; the old North end must be rejuvenated, 

 and its antique structures give place to buildings suited to the wants 

 of modern commerce. Even the retail trade must surrender its time- 

 honored haunts on Washington and Hanover streets to the pressure 

 of the wholesale business, while our central resident population must 

 retreat before the march of improvement and find better and more 

 pleasant homes in the outlying wards on suburban towns. 



Whatever may be thought of such an arrangement as 

 I have suggested, for a perfectly level site, it is hardly 

 conceivable that any sane man will attempt seriously to 

 defend the rectangular system when applied to a tract 



