439 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
BUILDING INDIANAPOLIS GREATER PARK SYSTEM 
The Indianapolis Park Board has 
made a substantial beginning toward 
acquiring and developing a “greater 
park system,” under the law passed 
in 1909, which divided the city into 
districts and inaugurated the plan of 
benefit assessments for park-making 
in each district. The new law gives 
the Common Council, at the instance 
of the Board of Park Commissioners, 
power to divide the city into a num- 
ber of park districts. To pay for ex- 
tensions and improvements in any 
one district, benefit assessments may 
be levied against all of the land ly- 
ing within that district. This is the 
principle, new to the City of In- 
dianapolis’ in its application to park 
work, although it has been tried with 
marked success in other American 
cities. Such a solution of the prob- 
lem of park improvement was neces- 
sary in Indianapolis because the city’s 
limit of bonded indebtedness would 
not permit the issuing of sufficient 
bonds to provide for any extended 
scheme of park extension, and be- 
cause it was felt that the general tax 
levy should not be materially in- 
creased. 
The limitations placed upon the 
Board by the law of 1909 require that 
within a period of ten years not more 
than $1,250,000 may be levied in bene- 
fit assessments of the character just 
stated, and that not more than $200,- 
000 of such assessments may be levied 
in any one year. In addition to these 
limitations, there is a provision that 
the aggregate assessments against 
any one piece of ground may not 
amount, within the ten-year period, 
to more than 15 per cent of the value 
of the ground. It is provided also 
tiiat a majority remonstrance of all 
property owners affected by a par- 
ticular improvement will have power 
to stop that improvement for a period 
of one year. 
Although there was much work en- 
tailed in making ready to operate un- 
der the new law, all of the necessary 
work was accomplished, and one large 
assessment was levied that became 
due before the end of the year. The city 
was divided into four park districts, 
the districts following, in a general 
way, the lines of division suggested 
by -the four avenues radiating from 
the center of the city — Massachusetts, 
Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana ave- 
nues. An effort was made to esti- 
mate the cost of all the work likely 
to be done in the city within the next 
fifteen years in carrying out the plans 
for parkway improvements that had 
been laid down by the landscape arch- 
itect of the Board. This afforded 
a basis for the division of the city 
into park districts, as the effort was 
made to distribute the land values of 
VIEW FROM SOUTH BANK OF FALL CREEK AT START OF PARKWAY 
WORK, 1908. 
SAME VIEW FROM SOUTH BANK OF FALL CREEK TWEIsTTY MONTHS 
LATER, AFTER COMPLETION OP THE DAM. THE BEGINNINGS OP A 
FINISHED PARKWAY. 
