235 
PARK AND 
ways. This idea has been taken up by smaller cities, a sig- 
nificant development of the last 13 months. 
Honolulu, Colorado Springs, Columbia, S. C., and' other 
cities and towns have issued improvement reports all of which 
dwell on the necessity of securing large outer parks before 
their natural beauty is interfered with by building operations, 
and on the desirability of connecting them by parkways, car- 
rying the resulting park system into the center of the city 
by means of park approaches. 
Greenville, S. C., with a population of but 13,000, has em- 
ployed an expert to report on its comprehensive development. 
A report from Indiana notes that a recent state law has been 
the means of creating park boards in cities of the second 
class as well as of the first class. In East St. Louis, 111., a 
city of 35,000 inhabitants, a committee has been appointed by 
the Civic Improvement League to secure the appointment of 
a park commission. Moorestown, N. J., with but 3,000 citi- 
zens, proposes to acquire its first park. 
These are but instances. These cities of the future will 
be more wisely planned than our existing huge centers, which 
have grown only at right angles. 
The metropolitan centers are working to correct the mis- 
takes the smaller cities are avoiding. Denver, Colo., Cin- 
cinnati and Columbus, O., have joined the procession since 
the last meeting of the association. In Cincinnati, a bond 
issue of $350,000 was authorized in July of 1905 for the pur- 
pose of purchasing new park property, and the mayor and the 
board of council have each appointed a committee of promi- 
nent men to confer together in regard to enlarging the park 
area of the city, and laying out plans for a systematic beauti- 
fying of the entire city. This is a very recent move. As the 
result of the report of Mr. Robinson in January, Denver has 
already bought seven parks aggregating 429 acres. Provi- 
dence, R. L, under the leadership of a member of the Ad- 
visory Committee of this department, Henry A. Barker, has 
acquired six new parks and has issued a report on its pro- 
posed system reproducing ten of the maps in the report on 
American Park Systems, one of the maps of which appears 
also, corrected on the frontispiece of Mr. Kelsey’s book, “The 
First County Park System,” (Essex Co., N. J.), published by 
that eminent member of your association during the year. 
Philadelphia will vote in two weeks on a loan of $650,000 
for parks and parkways, and has just announced the date for 
opening bids for tearing down houses to bring Fairmount 
Park to Logan Square, a distance of one-half mile, at a cost 
of $2,000,000, already provided. Other improvements have 
been placed on the official city plan for future consummation. 
St. Louis has appropriated $1,700,000 for small parks and 
boulevards, and the famous Civic League “is at work on an 
inner and outer park and boulevard system which will include 
some three or four thousand acres and miles of additional 
boulevards.” 
So I might go on enumerating more than 1,000 acres se- 
cured in a year— and would if I thought it fair to the other 
departments. But this is but the third division of this report 
and two sub-headings are yet to be spoken of, one in sad- 
ness, the other in gladness. 
No new park area has been acquired in Washington, Con- 
gress having failed utterly to begin the acquisition of the outer 
park system proposed by the Commission in 1901. It’s not 
too late. 
Six years ago the Palisades of the Hudson were threatened 
with complete destruction as are the Falls of Niagara now. 
A great outcry caused the appointment of the Palisades In- 
terstate Park Commission, which reports almost the entire 
preservation of that natural scenery which, of course, repre- 
sents, in the eyes of contractors, only so much quarrying ma- 
terial, just as the Falls represent, in the eyes of manufacturers. 
CEMETERY. 
only so much power. We have saved the one — we are saving 
and must save the other. 
Recreation Centers. 
A year ago in the report of this department, Mr. G. A. 
Parker noted that the public was dissatisfied with the old 
keep-off-the-grass parks. He predicted a change in the type 
of development, a prediction that has been fulfilled beyond the 
expectation of that portion of the United States that is not 
Chicago. The 14 recreation centers of Chicago will doubt- 
less be dwelt upon by reports of other departments. They 
unquestionably constitute the greatest step in advance in the 
use of parks that has been taken in any one year by an Amer- 
ican city. Their use by hundreds of thousands who have en- 
joyed the varied amusements and who have taken advantage 
of their facilities for improvement in health and morals, has 
more than justified their construction at the average expense 
of $90,000 each. The coming year is apt to see the duplica- 
tion of these recreation centers in many cities throughout the 
United States. 
Baltimore has within the last three months opened a recrea- 
tion building in Patterson Park at a cost of $50,000. A strong 
movement was inaugurated last winter to have a similar 
Recreation Center opened in Washington. The report of the 
St. Paul department of parks calls official attention to Chi- 
cago’s recreation centers, introducing a statement as to what 
they cover with the sentence, “The Recreation Centers es- 
tablished in Chicago present the ideal of playground possi- 
bilities.” 
In reports from many correspondents the dominance of the 
playground movement has found the keynote. Nearly every 
city has one or more new playgrounds to report for the past 
year. In many, the playground was acquired for that purpose. 
In still more, old parks have been given new life by the new 
method of using them. New playgrounds are being estab- 
lished, and a new national organization has been called into 
being. This is unquestionably the striking development of 
the year, this broad use of parks and their conversion into 
play grounds. 
Water Fronts. 
We are accustomed to the feeling that European cities are 
ahead of us in all civic art matters and that, while we have 
much to learn from them, they have nothing to learn from us. 
Particularly do we believe this to be true of Paris. But it is 
interesting to know that during the past year Mr. J. C. 
Forestier, “Conservateur des Parcs et Promenades de Paris,” 
has issued a well illustrated report entitled “Grand "Villes et 
Systemes des Parcs,” in which are reproduced six of the plans 
published in the report on “American Park Systems” and 
also plans of the City of Adelaide, Garden City, London and 
Paris. I referred a year ago in my address on the City Plan 
to the German magazine devoted to the discussion of that sub- 
ject and within the year an article devoted to American Park 
Systems appeared in that magazine. Paris copied Washington 
in its street system. There is much promise that European 
cities will adopt the idea o{ our outer park systems. Let us 
adopt their treatment of water fronts. 
The appreciation of the idle opportunities of our water 
fronts has gained ground steadily. The report of the park 
commission of St. Paul states that during the year of 1905 a 
strip of land along and including the Mississippi river bluff 
for a distance of 2J4 miles for the extension of the river 
boulevard was secured and the board has ordered the con- 
demnation of another strip a quarter of a mile in length. The 
recognition of the opportunities offered by the water front 
of St. Paul iS recorded in these words ; 
“This west side bluff which stretches for about 4^4 miles 
from South Wabasha to Mendota, a continuous cliff of sedi- 
mentary rock clad with native foliage, except as denuded by 
