PARK AND CEMETERY. 
248 
PLANS FOR NEW YORK STATE FAIR GROUNDS 
New York State has recently con- 
ducted an architectural and landscape 
competition for the procuring of pre- 
liminary plans which shall, if executed, 
provide for a comprehensive and ade- 
quate development of its fair grounds 
situated in a suburb of Syracuse. . 
The last legislature appropriated 
$10,000 for the purpose and the com- 
mittee of the Fair Commission awarded 
the first prize to Green & Wicks of 
Buffalo. 
Considerably over half a million feet 
of area is to be covered by the prin- 
cipal structures excluding the minor 
buildings such as barns, police, hos- 
pital and other incidentals, and the 
material of construction is to be con- 
crete. 
The motive which probably prompt- 
ed the holding of a competition is con- 
spicuously worthy of commendation 
and finds notable parallels in those 
held for similar objects in planning the 
Universities of California and Johns 
Hopkins, the West Point Military 
Academy at West Point and the Chi- 
cago World’s Fair. 
A prominent feature notable by its 
absence is that of an advisory board 
for the judging committee. 
Professionals have a wholesome feel- 
ing of wariness about indulging in 
technical competitions to be judged by 
laymen. However successful an indi- 
vidual may be in mercantile life that 
does not qualify him to pass upon the 
merits of a design. 
Findings of the committee would be 
received with general endorsement, 
give greater public assurance of the 
final result and the wisdom of follow- 
ing its adopted plan, were it known 
that it was advised and acted on the 
advice of well known experts acknowl- 
edged as distinguished in their own 
fields of endeavor. 
Especially noteworthy is it that the 
size of buildings represented indicate 
a probable minimum height of forty 
feet. On that basis there would be 
twenty million cubic feet which at twen- 
ty cents per foot brings its cost to four 
million dollars. Add to this the cost 
of minor buildings, land and remodel- 
ing and it would not be unreasonable 
to allow another million or two to the 
afore mentioned cost, thereby totaling 
four to six million dollars for an in- 
stitution in use virtually but one week 
in the year. Many travelers on the 
New York Central Railroad can recall 
the aggregation of temporary shriek- 
ing yellow shacks bunched together on 
the outskirts of Syracuse. Few will 
dispute the need of action on the part 
of the Empire State to present, if 
nothing more, a decorous dress by a 
new coat of paint on its Fair buildings. 
Fewer still, we hazard the statement, 
would predict that even opulent New 
York would venture into a scheme of 
such proportions as the present pro- 
ject contemplates. Granted that it ex- 
pends only a few millions, it would be 
a grave misfortune to retain the pres- 
ent site. It is admirably located for 
convenience of approach by competing 
steam railroads, and is bounded on 
two sides by railroad rights of way. 
Any considerable expenditure in re- 
modeling this state institution would 
warrant an abandonment of its present 
site and relocating it on the shore of 
the nearby lake. No reasonable and 
feasible means of connecting the two 
as at present located would have even 
a remotely similar value to that to" be 
gained by shifting the location over 
to the lake shore. 
Chicago in its temporary World’s 
Fair competition has given expression 
to the value of water in a large build- 
ing and landscape competition and in 
so doing has ever since served as a 
model in exposition designs and dis- 
tinctly recorded an epoch in American 
civic art. That was in 1892. It is 
earnestly to be hoped that New York 
State will not permit itself to be handi- 
capped by the ownership of an ill- 
located tract of land primarily selected 
with large regard for traction interests. 
Aesthetic impulses are strong and 
very general in the nation today and 
any meritorious advance in a large 
public enterprise exerts a general and 
immeasurable salutary influence. New 
York’s opportunity to sum up and 
register our national progress is also 
an obligation. There is an appreciative 
and intelligent endorsement of a state’s 
contemporary aesthetic work well done. 
May the great state of New York not 
be found wanting in this regard in its 
Fair Ground project. 
PLANS FOR PARK IMPROVEMENTS IN TWO CITIES 
In pursuance with a fixed policy of 
the park commission of Fitchburg, 
Mass., to lay out a general plan for im- 
provement of the park system of the city 
and to work with some definite end in 
view, Herbert J. Kellawa’y of Boston, 
their consulting landscape architect, has 
prepared plans of improvements for the 
three parks on Main street, and the il- 
lustration herewith shows the plan for 
the improvement of Monument Square. 
Monument Square forms the center 
of an interesting group of public and 
semi-public buildings with but few 
sites remaining in private ownership, 
thereby forming in a limited sense, a 
civic center. Wtih such conditions an 
effort should be made to make the 
grounds of the square of a simple and 
dignified character. 
Mr. Kellaway recommends that the 
trees on Main street be removed, as 
they are in poor physical condition, are 
an element of danger to the driving 
PLAN FOR DENVER BOULEVARD. 
public, being outside the curb, and de- 
tract from the dignity of the square, in 
MONUMENT SQUARE, 
FITCHBURG, MASS. 
