House and Garden 
shouting to the heavens, and with overhead 
wires doing their best to interfere with the 
attractiveness of the main building. 
In yet another characteristic is Buffalo for¬ 
tunate. Many of its houses, particularly in 
the residential section, are set back consider¬ 
ably from the street with open spaces be¬ 
tween them. The result is that even though 
some of the houses are not architecturally 
attractive the total effect of the residential 
section of Buffalo is distinctly pleasing. 
Grass and trees and shrubbery must ever be 
essential features of the City Beautiful. 
Modern sky-scrapers have made everyone 
familiar with the appearance of the tops of 
city houses. As one looks out of the win¬ 
dow one sees a dreary mass of heavy, brick 
smoke-stacks piled on slate or tin roofs and 
occasional glimpses of the top stories of un¬ 
interesting buildings with scarcely a bit of 
verdure to relieve the monotony of the scene. 
It is not so throughout Buffalo. The view 
which is here reproduced shows the principal 
residential section along Delaware Avenue. 
The effect of houses set back from tree-lined 
streets can be secured on one or two streets 
at least in most cities, but in scarcely any can 
a scene comparable with this one be found. 
Even the overhead wires are forgotten in the 
pleasure given by the unusual view. 
The park system of Buffalo begins a few 
yards southwest of Niagara Square with the 
Terrace, whence Front Avenue leads to “The 
Front,” a park forty-eight acres in extent 
that fronts on the Niagara River; thence 
Porter Avenue leads past Pros¬ 
pect Place to a circular park five 
hundred feet in diameter at its 
intersection with Richmond 
Avenue. These Circles, of 
which there are several in the 
Buffalo system, are as delightful 
features there as they are in 
Washington. When a number 
of streets intersect at the same 
focus there results a number of 
triangular points. By taking the 
focus and laying out a circular 
park around it, these points are 
truncated, thus giving greater 
variety to the scene and,—the 
chief advantage — giving each 
street that comes to the focus 
something to end its vista. The eye is not 
led past continuous houses to nothing, as in 
so many cities. Circular parks so situated 
offer effective locations for monuments, but 
the monument should be much finer than 
the majority of public monuments in this 
country in order to deserve location at such 
foci. 
From this Circle Richmond Avenue leads 
to Ferry Street Circle and thence to Bidwell 
Place. Bidwell Place and Chapin Place again 
introduce variety. While their outline is 
square, they are set at angles of forty-five 
degrees to the streets that form the ap¬ 
proaches to them so that the streets enter at 
their corners. The squares thus situated 
likewise end the vistas of the streets that 
enter them. From Bidwell Place the Bid- 
well Parkway, two hundred feet in width, 
runs for a half mile to Soldiers’ Circle, the 
largest circular park of Buffalo, seven hun¬ 
dred feet in diameter. Soldiers’ Circle can 
be reached more directly from Niagara Square 
by following Delaware Avenue (the principal 
residential street of Buffalo and a parkway 
in all but name) directly to Chapin Place, 
already spoken of, whence the Chapin Park¬ 
way runs for half a mile to Soldiers’ Circle. 
This circle marks the entrance to the Lin¬ 
coln Parkway, two hundred feet in width, 
which forms the approach to Delaware Park, 
the largest park of the City, covering 362 
acres. 
On each side of Delaware Park, southeast 
and southwest of it, are open spaces which 
A VIEW IN FOREST LAWN CEMETERY 
Illustrating the “ natural ” treatment of a stream 
99 
