House £s? Garden 
UNION SQUARE 
Trafalgar Square in that it is a point of 
confluence for lines of heavy travel. A 
portion of it has been paved as a plaza ; but 
it is the wrong portion. It is not where the 
heaviest travel meets; but, at the north 
end, it is bare, as an island where streams 
have parted. The balance of the square is 
planted. There are some good trees, a 
couple of excellent statues that are so badly 
placed as to receive little but anathemas, 
and there are flowers, turf, and an incon¬ 
gruous “cottage.” Now, on Manhattan 
Island—with its dreary stone and iron— 
turf, flowers and trees are to be loved 
wherever they are seen. Nor at this spot 
is there any such predominating architecture 
as to justify the stately formalism of 
Trafalgar Square. The decision to plant 
the area—a decision from which, pathet¬ 
ically, New York deviates only twice 
when given the power of choice, and 
then only at Park entrances—was suffi¬ 
ciently inevitable not to indicate any 
departure from haphazard selection. The 
paths wind circuitously, destroying the 
square’s value for short cuts; and the 
trees and grass are perfectly neutral, to 
say the least, as a setting for the hotch¬ 
potch architecture that looks down upon 
them. I n this case, 
then, only one of 
the three considera¬ 
tions that should 
determine the treat¬ 
ment of a square in 
the business district of 
a city was respected. 
The planting offers 
an urban variety, 
and that is welcome 
enough to make the 
square loved; but 
as far as city build¬ 
ing is concerned as 
a science, Union 
Square has the 
appearance of “ con¬ 
structed ornament,” 
instead of that in¬ 
evitableness which 
is its right. 
In crowded neigh¬ 
borhoods the accom¬ 
modation of traffic should be ever the 
first consideration if ornament be desired, 
for what is the ornament that does not 
please? And then in determining the 
style of embellishment, a large view 
should be taken. City beauty requires 
not isolated jewels, no gem that shall 
not be better for its setting as plainly 
as the setting shall be better for the 
jewel, and none that shall not have a 
clear relation to the city as a whole. 
These are simple rules in the telling. 
It would seem that they scarcely required 
recital ; but who has formulated them 
and where have they had a conscious 
adherence ? The Science of city building 
must be put into plain writing if we 
would advance. We must look here and 
must look there, and according as things 
have been done, well or ill, must choose 
our course and lay down such general 
principles as we may. The square in 
the city’s heart is a more complex 
problem than at first appeared. It will 
be necessary in other papers to consider 
other kinds of squares. With other pur¬ 
poses and other surroundings there will 
develop other rules. 
Charles Mulford Robinson. 
NEW YORK 
261 
