Proposed Improvements in Philadelphia s City Plan 
south of Pennsylvania Avenue, but less atten¬ 
tion has been paid to the equally admirable 
system by which new outlying parks and 
public reservations of differing character will 
be secured, all connected by a system of park¬ 
ways completely encircling the city. The 
interest and attention drawn to Washington 
and particularly to its plan, has resulted in 
other cities feeling their want ot diagonal 
avenues or parkways, and this has, perhaps, 
been felt nowhere more deeply than in the 
City of Philadelphia. William Penn’s plan 
for this city was excellent in the amount of 
open space that he provided for. If a pro¬ 
portionate number of squares had been 
secured in the enlarged city, Philadelphia 
would now have two hundred and eighty small 
parks instead of the forty-five that exist to¬ 
day. But Penn did not provide for a single 
diagonal thoroughfare. Contrast with this 
the City of Washington, where from the 
Capitol, eight diagonal avenues radiate, which 
with other streets, make it the focus of twelve 
fine, broad avenues. 
The City Parks Association of Philadel¬ 
phia, organized in 1888 shortly after the 
beginning of the interest in small parks, 
issued a special report on the city plan a few 
months ago, in which the need of diagonals 
was pointed out. Moreover, for the last two 
or three years, this organization has been forci¬ 
bly urging the importance of connecting links 
between the outlying parks of the city. There 
are now three or four propositions before the 
city authorities which are receiving very con¬ 
siderable attention ; and in the last month of 
1902, a great impetus was given to the pro¬ 
posed parkway projects by the authorization of 
THE NORTHEASTERN OR TORRESDALF. BOULEVARD 
(Prepared expressly for House and Garden) 
An ordinance was passed in December to 
put upon the city plan a parkway stretching 
from Broad Street (the principal street of 
the city) to Torresdale, a suburb on the 
Delaware River to which the city extends. 
The thoroughfare is to be three hundred 
feet wide throughout its entire length of ten 
miles. 11 follows a diagonal direction, making 
a distinct break in the regularity of the grid¬ 
iron plan, and combining the advantages of 
a parkway and a diagonal street. It will, 
moreover, serve as a connecting link between 
three isolated parks that have already been 
secured, and will cross the Pennypack Creek, 
the banks of which are exceedingly beautiful. 
It has long been thought that a park reserva¬ 
tion of at least a thousand acres should be 
secured along this stream. Boston’s main 
park reservation, covering four thousand 
acres (an area as large as all of Philadelphia’s 
parks put together) is situated eleven miles 
from the center of Boston, in a straight line. 
The proposed Pennypack Creek reservation 
would be but nine miles and a half from the 
center of Philadelphia. 
The Northeastern Parkway will leave 
Broad Street at a point about four and a 
half miles north of the City Hall. It will 
touch the northern boundary of Hunting 
Park,—the largest pleasure ground in the 
northern part of the city,—and then turn in 
a northeasterly direction, following high 
ground in order to avoid grade crossings at 
the railroads. It will cross the valley of 
Frankford Creek, along which a short con¬ 
necting link will readily bring it into natural 
160 
