PARK AND CEMETERY. 
246 
THE CIVIC AWAKENING 
Billboard Activity in St. Paul 
The members of the East Side Commercial Club, St. Paul, 
Minn., have decided to make a concerted effort to compel 
billboard companies to comply with the city ordinance with 
regard to the size and location of the billboards. It is as- 
serted by residents of the neighborhood that the boards are 
twenty and twenty-five feet high and are placed within a 
few feet of the sidewalk, whereas the city ordinance provides 
that the boards must be erected at a distance equal to their 
height away from the sidewalks. The club will start a 
crusade to eliminate the unsightly boards along Payne ave- 
nue. A committee, with Aid. C. E. Nyberg as chairman, 
was appointed to bring the matter to the attention of the 
city authorities and the com.mittee was instructed to work in 
conjunction with other organizations. 
The Art Commission of Minneapolis, in its annual report, 
recommends the removal of the old city hall building and 
the use of the site as a park plaza. It also suggests the ac- 
quisition of the block in front of the court house building. 
Metropolitan Park System for Milwaukee 
A metropolitan park system similar to that of Boston, 
and embracing a country boulevard from Milwaukee to 
Waukesha, with convenient wild park areas along the 
way, will be a feature of the bill which Assemblyman- 
elect C. E. Estabrook intends to introduce in the Wiscon- 
sin legislature. He believes that the plan is feasible and 
no constitutional impediment can be urged against it. 
Improvement Work in Mexico 
Extensive improvements in the Plaza de Zaragoza, in 
Saltillo, Mexico, are being planned by the committee 
which has the collecting of funds for this purpose in 
charge. A bandstand will be erected on the plaza,, and 
the entire plaza retiled. A marble statue of Juan An- 
tonio de la Fuente, for whom the Aeneo, fronting on the 
plaza, is named, will be erected also. Other improve- 
ments toward beautifying the square will also be under- 
taken by the committee. 
Smoke Abatement in St. Louis 
The report of the Smoke-Abatement Committee of the St. 
Louis Civic League, recently issued, goes exhaustively into 
smoke conditions in St. Louis and causes therefor. The re- 
port charges the superabundance of smoke in St. Louis to 
overcrowding of boilers, ineffective firing, overcrowding of 
boiler-rooms and inadequate smoke devices. The conclusions 
of the committee are that the smoke is costing St. Louis 4.05 
per cent of its trees annually; $20,000 damage annually to 
books and stationery, and six and one-quarter millions in 
fuel money that might be saved by the installation of smoke- 
less gas-producer plants and internal combustion engines, 
as well as inestimable damage to stocks of merchants, vary- 
■| 
ing according to degrees of delicacy. The recommendations 
of the committee are that an entirely new smoke prevention 
department be created as a part of the city government ; that 
the Terminal Association be compelled to use electric en- 
gines or smokeless fuel ; the establishment of central power 
plants for manufacturing and similar purposes, and the es- 
tablishment of central heating plants for the residence dis- 
tricts. 
Art Commission and Group Plan in Philadelphia 
The widening of. the proposed parkway between City Hall 
and Logan Square, in Philadelphia, from its plan width of 
160 feet to at least 600 feet, of which the central 200 feet is 
to be devoted to vehicle traffic and the remainder on either 
side to municipal buildings, statuary and fountains, is the 
suggestion by Director of Public Works Hathaway for “The 
City Beautiful.” 
The director explains the plan as follows : 
“It would be less costly to find additional rooms for mu- 
nicipal departments along the parkway as thus widened than 
to attempt to enlarge City Hall. Thus we might place all 
the bureaus of the Department of Public Works in one or- 
namental building, beginning at the City Hall end. Across 
the parkway we might locate a building for the Department 
of Public Safety or the Board of Education. At the Logan 
Square end of the parkway we might rear the Municipal 
Art Gallery, for which we have so long agitated, and oppo- 
site that the Free Public Library. Many other buildings 
might be located along the route. I understand, for instance, 
that the postoffice is overcrowded. The federal government 
might be induced to use the building at Ninth and Chestnut 
streets for the courts alone and erect a new postoffice along 
the parkway. This is merely a suggestion of the kind of 
buildings we might place along this great highway, making 
it the very center of municipal life. Between the buildings 
there might be laid out flower beds, with fountains, monu- 
ments to public men, and statuary. I will welcome the co- 
operation of all associations working towards the city beau- 
tiful to realize the suggestion of a 600-foot wide parkway. 
Beyond having a rough estimate made that the cost will be 
about $20,000,000, I have proceeded no further.” 
The movement to obtain an Art Commission for Philadel- 
phia was recently crystallized at a meeting of citizens of that 
city prominently identified with art. After a general discus- 
sion of the project Leslie W. Miller, principal of the Penn- 
sylvania School of Industrial Art; Dr. Talcott Williams, 
TVndrew Wright Crawford, secretary of the City Parks As- 
sociation ; C. L. .Borie and Eli K. Price were appointed a 
committee “to bring about the passage by the legislature of 
an act to secure an Art Commission, with authority to gain 
the co-operation of the Art Federation and of delegates of 
other bodies in the city, or act in harmony with committees 
now engaged in similar purposes.” 
PROPOSED BOULEVARD AND GROUP PLAN FOR PIIILADEJ^PHI.4 
