PARK AND CEMETERY. 
126 
THE CIVIC AWAKENING 
Civic Center for Oakland, Cal. 
The elaborate report prepared by 
Mr. Charles Mulford Robinson, of 
Roches er, N. Y., for the improve- 
ment of Oakland, Cal., has been pub- 
lished in pamphlet form and embod- 
ies twenty pages of recommendations 
for every phase of civic beauty con- 
nected with the city’s growth. The 
people of Oakland early this year 
voted b}' a large majority in favor of 
an issue of bonds to the amount of 
$992,000 with which to purchase a 
considerable portion of the park lands 
recommended in Mr. Robinson’s re- 
port. 
The accompanying plan for a civic 
center for Oakland is one of the chief 
improvements recommended. 
It involves the opening of a short, 
curving street, seventy-five wide, of 
which the postoffice shall close the 
vista at one end and the new City 
Hall at the other; and then the pur- 
chase of the triangular plat at the 
corner of San Pablo avenue and Fif- 
teenth street, with enough land back 
of it for a City Hall site. The plac- 
ing of the new police court and jail 
and the extension of Washington 
street are effected on land which the 
city already owns. A' striking loca- 
tion for civic sculpture is offered at 
the Seventeenth street end of the tri- 
angle in front of the postoffice. At 
Telegraph avenue and Broadway is' 
the place for an “isle of safety,” with, 
at its apex, the fountain which the 
Women’s Civic Club is already plan- 
ning to put in the immediate vicin- 
ity. In front of the City Hall there 
is a site for a flagstaff with ornamen- 
tal pedestal, the whole offering an 
accent to the new street and to Wash- 
ington street until civic sculpture shall 
some day more adequately occupy 
the important site. The City Hall, 
facing obliquely down the open space, 
on an axis parallel with San Pablo 
avenue, would be in clear view from 
Broadway and Fourteenth street, and 
a tower at the east, corner, on the 
axis of the new street and in full 
view from Broadway and Fourteenth, 
would give it fine effect. On the new 
street there would be opportunity for 
those curving facades that are so in- 
teresting an architectural feature in 
Europe — as on Regent street in Lon- 
don — and the curve would make pos- 
sible, as a diagonal street would not, 
a direct view of the postoffice facade. 
The new street offers a short-cut be- 
tween the postoffice and the City Hall, 
and from the postoffice to San Pablo 
avenue and to Washington street; 
also from Broadway and Telegraph 
avenue to San Pablo and to Wash- 
ington street. The plan further opens 
Washington street to San Pablo ave- 
nue and gives direct street car con- 
nection between them. It provides a 
Police Court and jail site and yet 
gives to the jail no conspicuousness. 
It affords an imposing site for the 
City Hall, brings the postoffice into 
the official scheme, and opens a fine 
view of it. It offers a new accent 
for the extended Washington street. 
It furnishes appropriate sites for em- 
bellishment with civic sculpture, 
fountains, etc., and sites where new 
public buildings, as' the need for them 
arises, can be located £o the enhance- 
ment of the scheme’s effectiveness. 
It requires the purchase of no proper- 
ty now expensively improved, and at 
remarkably little net cost makes pos- 
sible a comprehensive scheme that is 
handsome, convenient and ■ appropri- 
ate. 
National Irrigation Congress 
The fifteenth National Irrigation 
Congress will be held in Sacramento, 
Cal., September 2-7, for which the 
official call has been received. The 
purposes of the congress are broad 
in their scope and are declared to 
be “Save the forests, store the floods, 
reclaim the deserts, make homes on 
the land,” and there is a grand field 
for study and discussion in the many 
questions, solutions of which will 
lead to a consummation of the afore- 
said purposes. Certainly California 
offers a most inviting opportunity for 
such study and a very large attend- 
ance should be present to greet those 
who have labored to prepare for the 
coming congress. All interested are 
urgently invited to attend and par- 
ticipate in the deliberations, and it 
is possible to conveniently combine at- 
tendance at the coiwention and sight 
seeing in California. 
New Haven City Beautiful Plans 
About 400 citizens of New Haven, 
Conn., attended a recent “city beauti- 
ful meeting” in the Historical Society 
Building, and after discussing the sug- 
gestions of George D. Seymour for 
beautifying New Haven, authorized 
and instructed Mayor Studley to ap- 
point a committee of eleven to se- 
cure experts and to go ahead with 
designing a working plan. 
