Baltimore 



Unstunned by the conflagration, the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore has 

 recently issued a very valuable report upon the parks of Greater Baltimore, which 

 it had prepared to publish before the fire. The map herewith reproduced shows 

 that portion of the proposed system in the immediate vicinity of the city. Refer- 

 ence to it will show how completely this city will be surrounded by parkways, con- 

 necting the four existing large parks located at the four corners of the city. The 

 proposals to accept the opportunities offered by the creek called Jones' Falls, — 

 famous as the natural barrier which limited the ravages of the fire, — by the Back 

 Bay River and Herring Run, by the Patapsco River and Gwynn's Falls and Gun- 

 powder Falls Creeks, suggest the like opportunities furnished by Philadelphia in the 

 exceptionally beautiful valleys of the Pennypack Creek and Mill Creek, Cobb's Creek 

 and Tacony Creek. 



In publishing its Report, the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore obtained the 

 cooperation of a number of other Baltimore organizations and guaranteed the cost of the 

 Report, hoping that in recognition of its value the City would assume the contract. 

 The hope was well founded, and the City appropriated $3,500 to pay the printers and 

 the landscape experts, an example which the Allied Organizations of Philadelphia can- 

 not but hope will be followed by a city which is more than three times the size of Bal- 

 timore and which has not suffered a great conflagration. 



Baltimore now has 1,447 acres of park land. The proposed addition to Balti- 

 more's existing parks would give twenty-four small parks, covering altogether 204 

 acres ; additions to existing parks of about 320 acres ; and valley parks and radial 

 parkways with cross connections varying in width from 200 feet to a quarter of a 

 mile, the total length being about fifty-six miles. In addition, great public reserva- 

 tions are proposed, one of which would cover about 2,560 acres of water area and 

 2,400 acres of land area ; another, about 800 acres of each kind of area ; a third, 

 1,100 acres of land area and 180 acres of water area. Reservations that are even 

 greater in extent are scarcely more than suggested in the Report, because of the 

 pressing importance of other recommendations made therein. These outlying reser- 

 vations cover sixty-one and three-quarter square miles. 



The estimated cost of securing the land for this system is $3,000,000. A loan 

 of $1,000,000 was voted upon affirmatively in April, to begin the system. 



A lucid idea of the conditions of public improvements in Baltimore subsequent 

 to the fire may be had from the striking letter of William Sherlock Swan, printed 

 in the appendix. 



For further information, apply to Theodore Marburg, l\ Mt. Vernon Place, Baltimore; or to 

 Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., Landscape Architect, Brookline, Mass. 



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