AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS 57 



rendered it impossible for them to find proper points for sewage discharge within their 

 own boundaries. Commission after commission was appointed to investigate the problem, 

 until the State Legislature at last authorized the formation of a Metropolitan Sewerage 

 Commission, to construct and operate a system of trunk sewers for the relief of the whole 

 district. The appointment of a commission by the State to undertake the solution of a 

 problem affecting a number of communities closely related to one another and yet unable 

 to help themselves by independent effort, marks an important period in the history of 

 the Boston district. The Commission effectively carried out the improvements entrusted 

 to it, and the sanitary disabihties of the various towns and cities were relieved. 



CONDITIONS DEMANDING METROPOLITAN PARKS IN 1892 



During the period between 1869 and 1892, while the city of Boston was securing 

 a park system for itself by argument, legislative act, and actual construction, the district 

 about Boston which had been described as a part of the central city to all intents, except 

 in name, was taking on a congested growth similar to that which made parks necessary 

 for Boston in 1869. The arguments that had been advanced for Boston parks were re-stated 

 with nearly equal force for each of the near cities. Houses had covered the face of the 

 country, and the outlying districts, which had always furnished a field for recreation, ^ 

 were being built upon until town was touching town. Only upon the outermost borders 

 of the district could out-of-door recreation be enjoyed among natural sourroundings, 

 and the town-dwellers found these places too expensive and too difficult of access for frequent 

 visits. Few of the towns and cities of the district possessed open spaces within their own 

 limits which were larger than small squares, and these areas were often ill provided with 

 facihties for the utilization of their precincts as playgrounds or even as resting-places. 

 Vacant lots here and there furnished playgrounds for children; but when these lots were 

 built upon, streets and sidewalks were the only resource left to them. Many of the towns 

 were traversed by rivers whose borders were already occupied to an alarming extent by,^ 

 a class of cheap dwellings that threatened to obliterate what little beauty remained to 

 the abused streams, and to bring about unhealthy conditions of habitation. The least 

 favorable sites for houses upon the rugged eliff-Iike hills which bordered certain parts 

 of the inner towns of the district were also being sought. The river borders and the rugged 

 hills had been spared until this time by the unconscious plan of development which topog- 

 raphy had forced upon the community, and it was clear that these territories could be 

 made to offer recreation advantages as parks, although they did not ofi"er healthy or desirable ^ 

 house-sites. 



The city of Boston, as already described, was able to solve her own problem for the 

 relief of congestion and prevent the occupation of certain unsanitary ground by creating 

 a park system for herself. Her relief, however, contributed very little advantage to the 

 cities and towns upon her borders except toward the south and west, where the inhabitants 

 of a few towns were able to enjoy privileges which they had no hand in creating. It there- 

 fore remained for the great metropolitan district to secure parks for itself. 



THE MOVEMENT FOR METROPOLITAN PARKS 



At the time when the need of parks as a means to relieve the evils of close settlement 

 and to solve certain sanitary problems was greatest, there was a pronounced movement 



