H ouse and Garden 
BRIGHTON STATION 
may be found on the New York Central’s 
Boston and Albany division, the road that 
forms that division having been one of the 
pioneers in the work—gradually developed 
into an art—of beautifying station surround¬ 
ings, having far distanced one of its con¬ 
temporaries in the movement and having in 
permanence of effects outdone the other. 
Considered in this larger way, the study is 
full of suggestion and ought to have wide 
interest, for he who wills may learn—not 
merely what is here done, but what, under 
the like conditions, can be done. That 
makes the study personal and helpful. 
The problem becomes simply this : A 
certain road is unusually successful in the 
artistic effect of its station gardens. These 
station grounds cannot, obvi¬ 
ously, be all alike. They rep¬ 
resent a great variety of topo¬ 
graphical conditions. Given, 
then, this or that original con¬ 
dition of topography, what 
did the road do with it to at¬ 
tain such success ? “ H ouse 
and Garden” has already had 
something to say regarding a 
few stations of the Newton 
Circuit, just around Boston.' 
I hough these include some of 
the best on the road, it is not 
necessary to further touch 
upon them here. 
A station that was not il- 
1 November, 1902. 
lustrated in the previous 
article is Waban. Notice the 
pretty parklike effect here, 
and how much this is en¬ 
hanced by the diagonal path 
that comes into the foreground 
of the picture. Two highways 
lead past the station. One 
crosses over the tracks at 
right angles, and to this the 
diagonal path leads, with 
effect far lovelier than if the 
ground between road and sta¬ 
tion had been cleared for an 
unnecessary little plaza. Be¬ 
hind the b u s h e s—m a i n 1 y 
bridal wreath, if one may trust 
the memory of a June day 
when it was all abloom,—the carriage drive 
leads into the highway, at the corner of the 
station grounds. An alternative plan would 
have thrust the planting where the path now 
is, and have led the path beside the road to 
the station. That would have been drearily 
commonplace, and thus does little Waban 
offer a good example of the value of a daring 
imagination in the planning even of station 
grounds. The other highway is parallel to 
the tracks, and you can see how the drive¬ 
way, curving beyond the porte-cochere, 
reaches it. A landscape architect does not 
consider a road as a thing to be emphasized 
any more than is necessary, and to get a good 
picture he has to define—or, in a measure shut 
in,—his design. Faithful adherence to an 
BOSTON & ALBANY R.R. 
WEST NEWTON STATION 
BOSTON & ALBANY R.R. 
