PARK AND CEMETERY. 
5G4 
RECENT WORK ON NEW BOULEVARD AT DES MOINES. 
river front near the business section, 
four out of the six buildings being 
already in place. This civic group, 
connected by four monumental con- 
crete bridges, will be in full view of 
incoming and outgoing railway pas- 
sengers. 
An instructive feature of the Des 
Moines boulevard scheme is the in- 
tended treatment with reference to 
the state capitol building. This is a 
fine piece of architecture with a tow- 
ering dome and situated on a com- 
manding hilltop east of the river and 
the civic group. Although but one 
street seems at present to center on 
this dominating structure, it will be 
possible, without changing the course 
of any existing avenue, to work out 
more than a dozen street vistas to 
the capitol dome, adding greatly to 
the dignity of the city. The capitol 
grounds are none too large, but a 
wide agitation is in progress to have 
the state enlarge its grounds and pre- 
pare for a grouping of state build- 
ings in the rear of the capitol. 
Another interesting innovation is 
in the matter of improvements to 
school grounds. There are 63 school 
buildings in the city, most of them 
new and situated on large grounds. 
Through gifts and otherwise, funds 
are available for landscape treatment 
of several of these school grounds the 
present year, the work to be under 
the direction of Mr. Weirick as the 
board’s landscape architect. 
Des Moines is a very substantial 
and growing city, but not one which 
moves by leaps and bounds. Now 
that plans are quite well agreed upon, 
the impro.vements in the way of 
boulevarding, park development, etc., 
will go steadily on from year to year, 
under the direction of the council. 
The Des Moines of today shows a 
remarkable improvement over the city 
of five years ago, and all indications 
point to even greater advances in the 
coming years. 
THE SELECTION OF PARK LANDS 
From a report prepared for the Park Board of Chatta- 
nooga by John Nolen, Landscape Architect, Cambridge, Mass. 
The establishment of a system of 
parks and pleasure grounds for a rap- 
idly growing city is one of the most 
difficult and responsible duties that ever 
falls to a city government, involving as 
it does the expenditure of large sums of 
money and the construction of many 
permanent public works. The princi- 
ples which should control the selection 
of park lands may be briefly summarized 
as follows: (1) Accessibility for all 
classes of citizens by walking, driving, 
riding, or by means of cars. (2) Adapt- 
ability, or the selection of land possess- 
ing in the greatest degree the natural 
physical characteristics necessary for the 
particular park purposes to be served, 
and thus requiring the least expenditure 
for subsequent development. In this 
connection the boundaries of the prop- 
erty should have special consideration. 
(3) Economy, or the selection, so far 
as practicable, of inexpensive lands and 
lands which would least disturb the nat- 
ural growth of the city. (4) Early ac- 
tion, or the selection of property for 
parks in advance of the settlement of a 
neighborhood. 
While there is a widespread apprecia- 
tion in American cities of the necessity 
for a large increase in the number of 
parks and playgrounds, few even of the 
more enlightened communities seem yet 
to understand that these open spaces are 
of great variety, that they are or ought 
to be selected and designed to serve 
radically different purposes, and that the 
failure to understand this principle and 
to keep it constantly in mind leads to 
gross waste and inefficiency in our pub- 
lic grounds. In few other phases of 
public or private life is there so general 
a lack of clear thinking. This is an 
important matter, because failure to se- 
lect sites discriminatingly, to design 
them for specific purposes, and to confine 
their use to those purposes is to lose to 
a considerable degree the benefits that 
might otherwise accrue to the people. Of 
course, it is true in this, as in most 
other matters, that there is some over- 
lapping. The purposes are not abso- 
lutely distinct, and most public grounds 
are serviceable in a number of different 
ways. It is equally true, however, that 
the greatest efficiency here, as elsewhere, 
depends upon careful planning, upon a 
clear and intelligent differentiation, upon 
a recognition that the ends to be served 
are different, and that, therefore, dif- 
ferent means must usually be employed 
to meet them. 
A park system for such a city as Chat- 
tanooga should be planned comprehen- 
sively, and the recreational purposes of 
each property selected should be clearly 
understood. The units of a park system 
are: (1) City squares or small open 
spaces; (2) playgrounds; (3) small or 
neighborhood parks; (4) large outlying 
parks or scenic reservations; (5) a chain 
of connecting drives or parkways. Few 
American cities have yet what can prop- 
erly be called a comprehensive, well- 
balanced, and well-developed system of 
parks and pleasure grounds, but it 
should certainly be the aim of park com- 
missioners in securing park lands to se- 
lect them with regard to the ultimate es- 
tablishment of such a system. The rec- 
ommendations for Chattanooga em- 
bodied in this report provide fairly ade- 
quately for every feature except city 
squares and the large outlying scenic 
reservations. The former it is probably 
now too late to obtain ; the latter are 
unusually well provided in Chickamauga 
Park and the other parks in or near 
Chattanooga belonging to the National 
Government. 
