224 



PARKS 



and unsystematically with more and more strips and pieces of pavement 

 for the convenience of abutters. Even in strictly residential districts, unless 

 the abutting properties are interdicted from direct access by automobile 

 over the 'parkway' and are provided with another street or suitable alley 

 in the rear, the construction of garage runways and of paths from the 

 curb of the central roadway across the area of parkway planting to the 

 lots is apt to impair very greatly any special beauty that might otherwise 

 distinguish the so-called parkway from an ordinarily good residential street. 

 () Having one roadway on either side with a strip of ornamental 



treatment in the middle and usually 

 with at least one row of trees in the 

 sidewalk planting space between each 

 road and the abutting private prop- 

 erty. This class of course has no 

 roads except 'border roads,' and 

 where the central strip of ornamental 

 ground becomes wide and parklike 

 in character it merges into the fourth 

 type of parkway previously discussed. 

 There are several practical advan- 

 tages in these 'double barrelled boule- 

 vards' as they are often called, but 

 aesthetically they are apt to be in- 

 effective and 'ribbony' unless the 

 central ornamental ground is much 

 wider than each of the roadways. 

 Where a parkway is to include within 

 a limited width a natural water course 

 and some of its valley, or a cliff, bluff 

 or other long and narrow declivity, 

 this 'double barrelled' sort of park- 

 way is logical and may have a great deal of picturesque charm. Otherwise, 

 unless the central space is very wide, the type is more often adapted to a 

 formal rather than a picturesque or naturalistic treatment. A good ex- 

 ample is the older portion of Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay 

 district of Boston. Other examples are Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Ring- 

 strasse in Vienna, and many of the Chicago and Kansas City parkways. 

 (c) Having a central roadway immediately flanked by 'parked' areas 

 ranging from mere formal strips of grass with one, two or more rows of 

 trees with or without footpaths and bridle paths, to elongated gardens or 

 parks, both formal and informal beyond which are other roadways to 



PLATE No. 98 



PATH ALONG RIVERFRONT PARK, 

 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA 



