Notes and Reviews 
T HE City of Cleveland enjoys the distinc¬ 
tion of being the first city in this country, 
after the National Capital, to seriously take 
up the question of civic improvement upon 
radical lines. These involve the rearrange¬ 
ment of streets in the business district, a 
new position for the railways, a union 
station, the extension of the water-front and 
the locating of public buildings according to 
the “ group plan.” 
The scheme prepared a year and a half 
ago for the improvement of Washington 
established the esthetic advantages to be 
gained by a city in which the principal 
public buildings should be grouped about 
a mall, esplanade or gardens, which aggrega¬ 
tion should constitute a civic center. To 
indicate the esthetic benefits of a great 
municipal rearrangement is one thing; to 
urge by platform and pen its artistic and 
practical advantages is another; but there is 
need of further demonstration still—a beau¬ 
tiful and rational civic scheme actually carried 
out. May the progressive City of Cleveland 
supply it! 
The Board of Supervision consisting of 
Messrs. Daniel H. Burnham, John M. 
Carrere and Arnold W. Brunner has just 
made its report to Mayor Tom Johnson 
and the Board of Public Service of the City. 
This report contains reproductions of the 
Commission’s architectural scheme, and 
prefacing it is a summary of conclusions 
reached after an exhaustive investigation of 
the conditions which the present city im¬ 
poses. No one can examine this report 
without admiration. For transforming the 
heart of a city from ugliness to beauty it pre¬ 
sents a superb solution ; and as such, these 
illustrations fairly inspire the beholder as did 
the drawings and models for Washington. 
A city with a northern frontage upon a 
lake and that frontage irremediably ruined 
by a vast stretch of railway tracks : from 
such bases must the improvements at Cleve¬ 
land begin. 'The solution lay in keeping 
the tracks but a little above the lake while 
back of them lies the city upon an upper 
level. A high retaining wall, surmounted 
by formal rows of dense trees, shuts out the 
noise and smoke of the trains below from 
an esplanade upon which are to face the 
Court House and the City Hall. At a first 
glance one may ask why the railroad was not 
ignored and covered over by the city ex¬ 
tended ; but practical considerations have 
weighed here as elsewhere in the Commis¬ 
sion’s scheme, and the answer is found in 
the memory of tunnel horrors, the discom¬ 
fort of ill ventilated and worse lighted en¬ 
closed train-sheds and the constant need of 
the railroads for more space to meet demands 
of growing cities. A monumental bridge 
which is wide enough to be a plaza leads 
from the station, over the tracks, to the 
esplanade, and continues into the city, form¬ 
ing a beautiful mall lined with trees. Around 
the southern end of this are grouped the Post 
Office, a proposed Public Library and other 
buildings playing an organic part in the life 
of the city. All of these buildings are suit¬ 
ably surrounded by parking, parterres of 
grass and flowers to which are conjoined 
monuments and fountains. 
A uniform style of architecture is wisely 
urged for all buildings facing upon the open 
spaces, the architects expressing their pref¬ 
erence for the historic motives of the classic 
architecture of Rome. Another important 
recommendation, and which applies to the 
execution of the scheme, is that the city 
shall acquire not only the land to be occu¬ 
pied by the group plan but enough in addition 
to control future developments facing upon it. 
In examining the plan prepared by the 
architects the predominance of rectilinear 
lines is apparent, which, if it open the work 
to the criticism of being unimaginative, is 
justified by the fact that an existing city is to 
be dealt with and the minimum of expense 
incurred. The elevations suggested for the 
various public buildings are very restrained 
in design, but they may later be elaborated. 
'The report as it stands is far from being 
what the most practical of citizens might con¬ 
sider the phantasmagoria of architects, and 
having no footing in reality. The scheme 
is, on the contrary, specific and practical 
in its purpose and founded upon the city’s 
lines as they now exist. It only remains 
for the City of Cleveland to carry out the 
idea. 
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