Board of Park Commissioners, City of Cincinnati 
Landscape Architect's Report 
To the Honorable Board of Park Commissioners, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
Gentlemen — In submitting to you this report of the 
operations of the Department, permit me to recall the several 
stages of the work since the development of your General Plan. 
In 1907, the Special Board of Park Commissioners was 
authorized to develop a comprehensive plan for a general park 
system for Cincinnati, and in that endeavored to embrace all 
the elements essential to the welfare of the people of the city, 
with respect to their outdoor recreation and the external improve- 
ment of the city as a whole. 
The plans, as developed, endeavor to provide for, primarily, 
the recreation out-of-doors in form of playgrounds for young 
children; for the athletic and general recreation for young 
people; the local parks, and the greater park areas. It seemed to 
become essential with the establishment of such properties, to 
unite by means of pleasant highways, the larger parks with each 
other, and connecting these with the residential districts of the 
city, and at the same time with business areas, providing thereby 
for a boulevard and parkway system. Justification for the very 
considerable expenditures necessary to accomplish these pro- 
jected improvements becomes more and more pronounced, as 
the needed properties under this general plan have been, at least 
in part, acquired and slowly improved. The prompt response 
in the enjoyment of these properties by the public has in each 
instance warranted the effort and expenditure, and is constantly 
proving the very great need of prompt improvements of this 
character throughout the city. 
The Board's early attention to the very serious lack of 
Children's Playgrounds brought about the acquisition and 
rational improvement of a large number of small purely local 
playgrounds for small children — these in addition to the several 
properties acquired by the city just prior to the development 
of the General Park Plan. 
The very great use which the children of the several neighbor- 
hoods have made of these playgrounds, has served to emphasize 
the requirements of the city in this class of development, and 
illustrated the very sad neglect heretofore in providing for safe 
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