215 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
BUILDING A GREAT METROPOLITAN PARK SYSTEM 
There is probably no park project of 
greater magnitude actually under way 
in this country than that of the Metro- 
politan Park Commission of Providence, 
R. I., which is providing playgrounds 
and reservations for three-fourths of 
the population of the state. The com- 
mission has gone about the work in a 
most careful and systematic manner, 
under the ablest professional guidance 
to be obtained, and its methods are 
worth more than passing study to park 
workers who are interested in the broad 
projects of developing comprehensive 
city and county park systems. 
The reports of this body furnish a 
valuable compendium of methods in or- 
ganizing, acquiring and developing a 
park project of great magnitude. The 
fifth annual report recently issued, re- 
cords the actual acquiring of some land. 
The work of mapping and surveying is 
well under way, and land purchases and 
improvement will follow as fast as ap- 
propriations permit. 
The metropolitan district of which 
Providence is the center is strikingly 
varied. Besides the sections properly 
adapted to the dwellings of the people, 
and those more naturally suited to man- 
ufacturing or commercial activities, are 
those others which, owing to irregu- 
larit}^ of outline and to rivers or bluffs 
or ponds, cannot be used for the building 
of traffic highways or residential dis- 
tricts without great economic waste. 
These are the logical playgrounds. 
By such reservation a well-recognized 
public necessity is provided, while fu- 
ture slums and engineering difficulties 
that would cruelly tax the resources of 
the city will be avoided. These places 
are destined to be, either the most beau- 
tiful features by which the public hap- 
piness is served, or else dismal districts 
of perpetual nuisance and expense. 
The park system as planned is, first 
of all, severely practical and economic, 
rather than aesthetic, in its purpose. It 
recognizes the inseparable relation be- 
tween the most attractive park develop- 
ment and the most prosperous commer- 
cial development. The scientific princi- 
ples upon which this metropolitan pro- 
ject was first sketched upon the map 
are universally conceded as correct by 
those who make a special study of city 
planning or community development 
throughout the world. The proposition 
has not only received the full approval 
of the distinguished landscape and civic 
advisers who have recently directed the 
work, but the endorsement of many 
other civic experts throughout the coun- 
try, and of writers and lecturers in for- 
eign countries. 
The great metropolitan district of 
Providence Plantations — a single com- 
munity so far as all outward appearance 
and physical condition goes, and doub- 
ling in population every twenty-two or 
twenty-three years — has park needs that 
admit of no separation. To try to de- 
velop complete park systems for each of 
its various municipalities would be. a 
waste of effort and an overlapping of 
expenditure. Every feature of the park 
system must from the nature of things 
be an asset accessible and useful to all 
the inhabitants of the greater commun- 
ity. It was this fact that made a Met- 
ropolitan Commission necessary. 
In 1908, the Commission engaged as 
its landscape advisers, Olmsted Brothers, 
of Brookline, Mass., whose connection 
with a great number of the most not- 
able park and civic development projects 
throughout the country gave assurance 
of their wisdom and ability. The pre- 
liminary inspections and general sugges- 
tions previously given were then sup- 
plemented by the beginning of a more 
careful study, which still continues. In 
May of last year, bonds to the amount 
of $250,000 having been issued, a busi- 
ness office and engineering department 
was established under the direction of 
the landscape advisers, and work was 
undertaken in earnest. The first rough 
maps and drawing were as rapidly as 
possible replaced by more accurate plans 
upon which the various parts of the pro- 
ject could be minutely studied. Many 
original surveys were soon found to be 
necessary, and work has been pushed as 
well as it could be with the limited 
appropriation and crowded quarters. 
Prof. George L. Hosmer, of the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology, or- 
ganized the engineering work and since 
his retirement, Mr. Charlton D. Putnam, 
from the same institution, has adminis- 
tered the office. 
So far as time and means have al- 
lowed, every available bit of data has 
been secured and arranged for careful 
consideration in order that the means of 
the Commission might be utilized to the 
BIG TREES AT MERINO FLATS. 
Metropolitan Park System of Providence, R. I.; four miles from the State House. 
