26 



Garden and Forest. 



[January i6, iS 



Spruces and foreign Pines look even more wretched and 

 unhappy in winter than they do when the leaves cover the 

 branches of neighboring trees. Still they are allowed to 

 disfigure the Park year after year — while they are dying 

 slowly — and what is a great deal more serious, they are 

 allowed to inflict great and ever-increasing injury upon 

 valuable trees which are unfortunate enough to stand 

 near them. The interesting and unique Japanese Elm, 

 near the Seventy-second Street entrance to the Park from 

 Fifth Avenue, to which we have more than once called 

 the attention of the lovers of rare and handsome trees, is 

 still crowded and injured by neighbors of no value or 

 beauty — a piece of neglect on the part of the Park authorities 

 which is inexcusable, and should cause the indignation of 

 all persons who can appreciate the beauty and value of 

 this remarkable tree. 



A Japanese Stable. 



A FEW weeks ago we illustrated the approach to the 

 famous memorial temples at Nikko, in Japan. On 

 page 31 we now reproduce a photograph of one of the 

 minor buildings within the wide temple enclosure. It is 

 neither a temple nor a dwelling, but a stable, yet — as we 

 might divine from its ornamentation, which is much richer 

 than that of the habitations of Japanese humanity — not a 

 stable destined for an ordinary steed. It houses one of 

 the sacred ponies — albino animals with pink eyes — 

 which are frequently found within the precincts of large 

 temples. These ponies live on the charity of visitors to 

 the temple, who are in the habit of piously investing a few 

 coppers in peas or grain for their sustenance. 



Despite the peculiar service to which it is put, this build- 

 ing is not only charming to look at, but suggestive of 

 schemes which might serve an American architect for 

 work of another kind. The strong yet graceful sweeping 

 roof is, of course, its chief claim to admiration ; and al- 

 though such a roof is used in Japan upon sacred or semi- 

 sacred edifices only, this canon need not bind foreigners 

 who find it beautiful. Modified to suit our methods of 

 construction, yet not deprived of its essential character, it 

 might well be used to cover some minor building in the 

 neighborhood of an American country home — a lodge or 

 tool-house, a summer-house or well. Nor is the con- 

 struction and ornamentation of the walls devoid of interest 

 for a people like ourselves, who are often at one with 

 the Japanese in using wood without an admixture of more 

 monumental materials, but who have much to learn in the 

 way of using it in fashions at once simple and strong. 

 Rich color, of course, adds much to the effect of such 

 Japanese buildings — so much, that their beauty, displayed, 

 as it is, against a background of deep green foliage, can- 

 not be at all appreciated from a black-and-white print. 

 The flagged path in front of the stable is a good example of 

 Japanese workmanship in another and likewise interesting 

 direction. 



Boundary Walls and Entrances for Prospect Park. 



TT was decided some tirne ago by the Brooklyn Park Com- 

 ^ missioners to surround a great part of Prospect Park with 

 a substantial stone wall in place of the rough wooden paling 

 which has stood there so long, and to furnish the chief ap- 

 proaches with entrances of corresponding dignity. Some of 

 the designs for this work have now been prepared and ap- 

 proved, and their execution will soon be begun. An inspec- 

 tion of these designs shows that the park and the city will be 

 vastly improved by the constructions which they portray. 



The wall is to be low but massive, carefully profiled, and 

 constructed of Milford granite, the soft pinkish tone of which, 

 mottled with black, is well adapted for association with masses 

 of verdure. At the approach facing Coney Island Avenue the 

 wall ends at points considerably removed from one another 

 and the entrance for carriages is set somewhat far back from 

 its line. Each side of this entrance — which is to have no gates — 

 is flanked by a large but not lofty rectangular pier bearing a 

 sculptured group. From these piers long stone seats witti low 

 but massive backs curve outward toward the ends of the wall ; 



and at the points of junction stand large rectangular pavilions, 

 open except for a colonnade formed by square angle-piers 

 with two intermediate columns on each side and covered with 

 red-tiled roofs. Each long curved bench is broken midway 

 of its length to admit of the passage of persons on foot, and 

 behind each (within the park) stand two graceful, tall columns, 

 bearing the national eagle. The design is classic in 

 character, simple in its elements, but scholarly and beautiful, 

 and exquisitely treated as regards matters of detail. The 

 combination of the massive central piers with their groups of 

 sculpture, the long, curving benches, the colonnaded shelters, 

 and the tall, isolated shafts, forms a composition of the most 

 dignified simplicity and harmonious variety. It is a great pity 

 that in accepting this design the Commissioners should have 

 thought best to mutilate it by the omission of the four isolated 

 shafts. Not only are they beautiful in themselves, but their 

 slender, aspiring lines are needed to relieve and dignify the 

 low horizontal lines that elsewhere prevail. Without them the 

 park will still have a good and tasteful entrance, but with 

 them it would have an architectural adornment of the highest 

 monumental beauty.- 



The design for the Willink entrance shows again no gate, 

 but two massive round low piers, with conical roofs covered 

 with the scale-like stone tiling familiar to all students of 

 classic art. From the apex of these roofs rise rich tlnials of 

 wrought-iron, and between them springs a lofty elaborate 

 arch of the same material, from which depends a lantern. 

 Long stone seats flank this entrance also, divided as before for 

 the passage of pedestrians ; but in place of the colonnaded 

 shelters, we have here two small circular entry-boxes, with 

 conical red-tiled roofs. This design, it will be seen, is less 

 ambitious than the other, but it is as good in its own way; and 

 again one must count it a great misfortune that it must be 

 executed in a mutilated shape — the iron-work is to be entirely 

 omitted, though it adds immensely to the effectiveness of the 

 composition, which without it seems almost too simple and 

 severe. In both cases, however, these mutilations can easily 

 be rectified at a later day, and meanwhile Brooklyn may con- 

 gratulate itself upon having secured the services of genuine 

 artists for this part of its park improvements. No competition 

 was opened for the walls, or for these two gates, or for the still 

 simpler one which will face Third Street and Ninth Avenue. 

 The task was given directly to Messrs. McKim, Mead and 

 White, of this city, and the excellence of the result secured by 

 this simple process of selecting architects of recognized ability, 

 may well encourage other commissioners and committees to 

 a similar course. 



It remains, however, to speak of the most important item in 

 the scheme for improving the circuit of Prospect Park. This 

 is the gateway for the main entrance on the Plaza, which it is 

 proposed to make a memorial to those citizens of Brooklyn 

 who fell in the War for the Union. 



Several years ago it was proposed to build such a monu- 

 ment on the Plaza, and a design was selected which would 

 have cost $250,000, and represented a huge drum surmounted 

 by emblematical figures. But the Legislature voted only 

 $ 100,000 for the work, the design was fortunately abandoned, and 

 the matter was turned over to the Board of Aldermen. This 

 Board had almost decided to erect an isolated comrriemorative 

 shaft, when it was suggested that the memorial should take 

 the shape of a triumphal arch (such as has often been used 

 for a similar purpose abroad and in our own country at Hart- 

 ford, Connecticut), and should stand, not on the Plaza, but be- 

 yond it, forming the entrance to the park. This new idea was 

 adopted, and the control of the scheme was placed in the 

 hands of Mayor Chapin, the City Works Commissioner, and 

 the President of the Grand Army of the Republic. Competi- 

 tive designs were solicited by them for a monument which 

 should cost $250,000, and these designs have recently been on 

 view in the Brooklyn Art Rooms, on Montague Street. An in- 

 spection of them has given no such grounds for satisfaction 

 as were felt when the drawings for the wall and the smaller, 

 entrances were studied. 



Just how the competition was organized we are unable to 

 say, but, apparently, not in the only right and proper way — as 

 one in which all the contestants were to be paid for preparing 

 their studies, and in which their naines were to be concealed 

 until after the committee's decision had been made. All the 

 sets of drawings, with one exception, were signed in full ; and 

 so few of the names thus revealed were well and favorably 

 known, that the observer was forced to believe either that no 

 intelligent choice among American architects had been made 

 when the circulars were sent out, or that no payment had been 

 promised which could induce self-respecting and busy prac- 

 titioners to compete. The result was what might have been 



