I'AKK AND CEMETERY 
COMPREHENSIVE CITY PLAN FOR SAN DIEGO 
One of the most complete, suggestive 
and handsomely executed of the inspir- 
ing city plan reports is the one recently 
prepared for San Diego, Cal., by John 
Nolen, landscape architect of Cam- 
bridge, Mass. It is a book of 107 
pages, permanent^ bound, with many 
views showing San Diego’s problems 
and opportunities, and illustrations of 
bow these same problems have been met 
in other cities throughout the world. 
The more important recommendations 
embodied in the report are summarized 
in the following : 
1. To purchase for a public plaza 
the block from D to C streets and from 
Front to First. 
2. To form a civic center around this 
plaza by some such grouping of public 
buildings as outlined. 
3. To build a sea wall, fill in the 
Bay Front as suggested, and improve it 
for the purposes of commerce and rec- 
reation. 
4. To construct “The Paseo," a pan- 
handle to the City park, and so connect 
the Bay and the park. 
5 . To establish at the foot of Date 
and Elm streets a center for the more 
artistic forms of pleasure-making. 
C. To improve the railroad and 
water approaches to the city. 
7. To open, ventilate, and beautify 
the city by increasing the number of 
small “squares” and open spaces. 
8. To provide ample playgrounds for 
the use of children. 
9. To display more differentiation in 
the location and treatment of streets 
and boulevards. 
10. To establish a system of parks to 
include the City Park, the Bay Front, 
Point Loma, a Beach Reservation, La 
Jolla, Soledad Mountain, Mission Cliff, 
Fort Stockton, and the Torrey Pines. 
The most important features of the 
plans are embodied in the civic center, 
the Bay Front, and the Park system. 
No contrast could be greater than 
the European and American methods 
of dealing with water fronts, says Mr. 
Nolen. In Europe the importance of 
the water front for commerce and recre- 
ation is wisely recognized, and vast sums 
have been spent on the construction of 
docks, piers, promenades, embankments 
and parks. One can name places almost 
at random, — Naples, Genoa, Nice, Men- 
tone, Lucerne, Cologne, Hamburg, Par- 
is, London, Liverpool, — in all these and 
innumerable others the water fronts 
have been improved according to care- 
fully prepared plans, and through im- 
provement made a source of prosperity 
and pleasure scarcely equaled by any 
other. In this country it is quite dif- 
ferent. Cities fronting on the Atlantic 
and on the Pacific, on the great rivers 
that traverse the continent, and on the 
lakes, have not developed in an ade- 
quate business-like way, measured by 
the European standard, the opportuni- 
ties that their situations afford. This 
contrast has now attracted attention, 
and American cities of all classes, lo- 
cated in different sections of the coun- 
try, have taken steps to better utilize 
their water frontages. Witness the 
plans for Boston, Philadelphia, and Chi- 
cago, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit, 
Harrisburg, Roanoke, and Savannah, in 
illustration of this movement. 
On the question of improving the Bay 
front of San Diego, both for commer- 
cial use and recreation, the people of the 
city are substantially a unit. At present 
it is crude, inconvenient, unsightly. No 
one challenges the need for reform. 
The recommendations offered and illus- 
trated in plans and sketches are as fol- 
lows : To build a sea wall and fill in an 
average width of, say, 350 feet from H 
street to Hawthorne street, a distance 
of about 6,000 feet, providing a hand- 
some and yet appropriate water ap- 
proach to the city. Of this width of 350 
feet reserve 50 feet for increase in rail- 
road facilities, 30 feet for a street facing 
the railroad, 150 feet for a building 
block and 120 feet for a water front es- 
planade. 
The supreme importance of commer- 
cial interests should be frankly recog- 
nized, and the division between the sec- 
tion devoted primarily to business and 
SKETCH FOR PROPOSED BAY FRONT IMPROVEMENTS AT SAN DIEGO. 
Showing Pi-oposed Railroad and Water Approaches, the Esplanade, and Paseo connecting the Bay with the City Park; 
.lohn Nolen, Landscape Arch. ^ 
