PARK AND CEMETERY. 
298 
SMALL PARKS and PLAYGROUNDS 
PLAN FOR PLAYGROUND IN SYRACUSE, N. Y. 
Geo. E. Kessler & Co., Landscape Architects, Kansas City, Mo. 
was to make the park as useful as pos- 
sible, and yet to preserve through 
proper plantings the interesting, undu- 
latory topographical features peculiar to 
this park, which lies in a generally level 
part of the city. 
.\s to oil sprinkling, the superinten- 
dent has decided that the best way is 
to experiment with different solutions, 
and will recommend the construction of 
a plant such as is shown in the accom- 
panying sketch. He says on this sub- 
ject : 
“1 am convinced that there is a way 
to lay the dust on our driveways the 
year around through the use of oil, be 
it applied in its crude state as received 
or diluted through an emulsifying pro- 
cess. To be able to experiment on a 
proper scale and to make those e.xperi- 
ments along economical, lines, it is 
necessary to establish a plant to receive 
the oil by the tank car lot and to dis- 
tribute it without much loss of time 
and labor. We have an excellent loca- 
tion for such a plant along the track 
of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
Railroad near Dean Boulevard. The 
railroad tracks are sufficiently elevated 
to permit the unloading of the oil by 
gravity in our receiving tanks and from 
them by the same process into boilers 
for heating and into the sprinkling- 
carts for distribution.” 
The report is handsomely printed and 
illustrated, and contains many suggestive 
plans and sketches by Mr. Wirth. The 
financial report of Secretary J. A. Ridg- 
way shows expenditures for the year of 
$298,209. 
Syracuse Playground. 
The park commission of Syracuse, N. 
Y., will begin its park work this year 
with the improvement of the Frazer 
school playground, to be one of the 
principal public playgrounds in the city. 
The work will be under the supervision 
of Superintendent of Parks David 
Campbell, who will follow the plans 
prepared by George E. Kessler, of Kan- 
sas City, the commission’s landscape 
architect. The park consists of six 
acres west of Frazer school. The im- 
provements planned include a one-story 
gymnasium 40x50 feet in size, with 
shower baths and men’s and women’s 
dressing and toilet rooms, an artificial 
lake, a baseball and football field and a 
mile running track. 
Playground for Grand Rapids, Mich. 
The old settling basin at Grand Rap- 
ids, Mich., improved according to the 
plans drawn by Park Superintendent 
W. L. Cukerski and adopted by the 
board of park and cemetery commis- 
sioners, will, provide the city with one 
more playground which will be scarcely 
rivalled by any city of the size of Grand 
Rapids. The old settling basin, long 
an eyesore to residents of the north 
end, and which for some years has been 
useful only as a place in which the 
overflow of Coldlirook creek has found 
a place in which to seep away and 
evaporate, will, under the plans now 
adopted, develop into a beauty spot for 
the city and a model recreation ground. 
The spot possesses the natural ad- 
vantages of an ampl-iitheater. All 
around the Irasin the land rises sharply 
to Legrand street on the north and 
North Lafayette street on the east, tlie 
rise being something like twelve feet. 
Coldlirook creek crosses the southern 
end of the basin, while a little stream 
eiTiptying into Coldbrook creek enters 
By \V. L. Cukerski, Supt. of Parks. 
