343 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
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PARK NEWS. 
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The Metropolitan park commission of 
Massachusetts has put into effect a rule 
forbidding the use of tire chains and ar- 
mored or metal-studded tires on auto- 
mobiles driven upon any of the roads 
under its jurisdiction. 
* * * 
After a lapse of several years in the 
holding of “park days” the park com- 
mission of Grand Rapids, Mich., and 
Park Superintendent Cukerski are mak- 
ing preliminary plans for celebrating the 
formal opening of the city parks this 
year with a genuine “park day” to be 
held about the middle of June. 
* * * 
The City Parks Association of Phila- 
delphia will offer a prize of $100 for the 
best plans for beautifying the city hall 
courtyard. John F. Lewis, president of 
the Academy of the Fine Arts, is chair- 
man of the committee having the matter 
in charge. The prize will be awarded 
upon the basis of “the best workable 
design.” 
* 5j« 
After making a few changes in the 
ordinance providing for the creation of 
the office of park superintendent, the 
ordinance committee of the city council 
of Atlanta, Ga., has decided to recom- 
mend its adoption. The ordinance as 
amended provides that the superintend- 
ent of parks shall also be secretary of 
the park board, and that the salary shall 
be $1,800. The members of the park 
board shall be elected for a term of 
three years by the council. 
* * * 
Director Hornaday of the New York 
Zoological Park and Commissioner 
Smith of the Borough of Manhattan 
have both recently been driven to ex- 
treme measures to prevent visitors to 
the parks from littering the lawns with 
waste paper and other rubbish. In the 
Zoological Park warning signs printed 
in four languages direct that rubbish 
be thrown in the receptacles provided 
for the purpose, and the director an- 
nounces that the police will deal prompt- 
ly with all offenders. Commissioner 
Smith has had a similar rule passed for 
Central Park, and is also having warn- 
ing signs prepared. 
* * * 
Chairman Frank G. Newell and the 
members of the Seneca Park committee 
of the park board of Rochester, N. Y., 
have fixed the date for the music fes- 
tival at that park as Thursday, July 16, 
and have plans for the annual event that 
will make it even more attractive than 
it has been in former years. The vocal 
music will be provided by two large 
choruses now in process of formation. 
One of these will consist of 300 men and 
women. * * 
On the ground of the cost and the in- 
advisability of the project, the park com- 
mission of Providence, R. I., made an 
adverse report’ on Councilman Newton’s 
plan for public bathing at Roger Wil- 
liams Park. The report says that the 
site is of local convenience only, and 
would not meet the needs of the whole 
city and that the establishment of bath- 
ing facilities would attract a noisy and 
boisterous element which would inter- 
fere with the pleasure of those using the 
park for driving, boating and fishing, 
and one also which might prove disor- 
derly ifnless under more complete police 
control than is at present available. 
^ 
The act giving the Metropolitan park 
commission of Rhode Island the right to 
acquire land by right of eminent domain 
was defeated in the lower house of the 
Legislature after a spirited debate. Rep- 
resentative Harris in speaking on the 
question prophesied that if the Metro- 
politan park commission is to be con- 
tinued in existence the Legislature must 
grant it the power of eminent domain, 
or it would Ise so hampered in carrying 
out the park plans that it would have to 
give up the work. The people had voted 
for a metropolitan park bond issue of 
$250,000, by a vote of 2 to 1, he said, 
and if the park system is to be obtained 
the commission must have the power to 
acquire such property as might stand in 
the way of the completion of the sys- 
tem as a unified whole. 
sK * * 
A Correction 
Editor Park and Cemetery : “The illus- 
trated description of a small triangular 
park in Newark, N. J., designed by me 
and published in your last issue, was no 
doubt copied from a local paper. Both 
drawing and description were made 
without my knowledge and consent, as I 
hope you will mention in Park and 
Cemetery. The diagram accuses me of 
decorating a scalene triangle of ground 
with a sort of ribbon of ‘flowers’ enclos- 
ing grass patched with casual bunches 
of shrubs. What I did was merely to 
enclose this piece of land with shrub- 
bery so as to screen it from the street 
and give some privacy to the mothers 
and others who might watch the chil- 
dren play on the lawn.” 
Neza York. Harold A. Caparn. 
* ^ 
Superintendent Jens Jensen, of the 
West Park System of Chicago, has ef- 
fected a remarkable transformatioiT in 
that system in the short time he has 
been in charge, and has plans under way 
that will still further increase its use- 
fulness. All of the unsightly and old 
buildings in Humboldt, Douglas and 
Garfield Parks have been razed and 
their places have been taken by modern 
structures designed to be in harmony 
with the landscape. The old race track 
at Garfield Park has been torn out and 
golf links built in its place. The west 
half of Humboldt Park, which has lain 
idle since 1867, has' been improved. A 
big meadow for playgrounds has been 
built in Douglas Park. A formal rose 
garden is being built in Humboldt Park; 
music courts have been constructed in 
Humbolt and Douglas Parks ; the larg- 
est conservatory in America has been 
built in Garfield Park, with new propa- 
gating houses and utility buildings. In 
the new rose garden in Humboldt Park, 
Mr. Jensen will have placed four pieces 
of pictorial sculpture, the first to be put 
in Chicago parks. The figures will- be 
those of children, two boys and two 
girls, and are designed to embellish and 
harmonize with the effect of the gardens. 
Leonard Crunelle, a pupil of Lorado 
Taft, has been at work on the figures 
for some time and has two of the pieces 
about ready. “My idea is that the 
sculpture work we have in our parks 
now is out of place,” said ]\Ir. Jensen in 
a recent interview. “The heroic figures 
of men have no place in a park. They 
are out of harmony with the true idea 
of a park. We should aim to preserve 
the beauties of nature. The woods, the 
meadows and the lakes are the pre- 
eminent things ; all else should be made 
to harmonize with them, the buildings, 
the statuary, the gardens and the courts. 
It is along this idea that I am working 
in my plans for the improvement of the 
West Side parks. We have taken care 
of 1,000,000 people on the West Side, and 
we have only about 700 acres of park 
land to do it with. We should have 
7,000. I am in favor of the purchase of 
4,000 or 5,000 acres of land now, while it 
can be bought along the Desplaines river. 
It will soon be out of the market en- 
tirely and the future needs of Chicago 
in park lands will be left wholly un- 
provided for.” 
(Continued on page 354.) 
