The Ornamental Movement of IVater in City Streets 
DETROIT STREET ENTRANCE TO EDGEWATER 
PARK, CLEVELAND 
is the interest of local architects in the im¬ 
provement of their cities. Moreover, other 
testimony is not wanting. Thus, for foun¬ 
tain sites in Buffalo, Mr. William Hart 
Boughton proposes Niagara Square and the 
triangular plots at Main and Genesee Streets, 
Niagara and Franklin Streets, Erie and Frank¬ 
lin Streets, Delaware and Church Streets, and 
Niagara and Front Streets. 
Cincinnati offers a good field for fountain 
designers. The Davidson fountain was shown 
in the May issue of House and Garden ; the 
city’s only other pretentious structure of this 
kind is the Probasco fountain, in the suburb 
of Clifton, opposite the schoolhouse, which 
dispenses refreshment to man and beast. An 
insignificant little drinking fountain stands in 
front of the Widows’ Home, East Walnut 
Hills, while at the entrance to P’.den Park, in 
an exedra placed in a shady grove, stands an 
Italian Renaissance well-head. The Munici¬ 
pal Art Societv of Cincinnati is energetic, and 
street fountains may well lie within the scope 
of its activity. Mr. George M. Anderson 
suggests as sites for water decorations Sixth 
Street Market Square, in front of the Flower 
Market; Court Street Market Square, facing 
the Court House; a narrow park on P'.ighth 
Street from Elm to Vine Streets, and a trian¬ 
gular plot in Mt. Auburn, opposite the water 
tanks on Auburn Avenue. 
Mr. Skeel, in Cleveland, reports that 
several good sites are already occupied by 
fountains without architectural merit, and 
suggests that in such cases, the basins some¬ 
times might be retained, and the existing 
UNION SQUARE, LOOKING EAST FROM 
POST STREET, SAN FRANCISCO 
central structure replaced by somethingbetter. 
One instance is found in the northeast sec¬ 
tion of Public Square, where a geyser foun¬ 
tain, near the street, is provided with a well 
proportioned basin, with stone coping about 
eighteen inches high. I he northwest quarter 
of this square contains in a forty-foot basin a 
set of cast-iron water lilies ; the southwest sec¬ 
tion has two miniature lakes connected by a 
cascade, their banks being built up with large 
clinkers, which are annually washed with thin 
cement; in the southeast division is the 
Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument. Mission¬ 
ary work is evidently needed. Triangular 
pieces of ground adapted to street fountains 
are now lying idle at Superior Street and 
Payne Avenue, and at the intersection of 
Broadway and Orange Street. The latter is 
situated in the most densely populated part 
of Cleveland, and is surrounded bv a desert 
of cheap, shabby buildings, where its influ¬ 
ence would count for a good deal. 
Chicago has three street fountains of some 
size. The Rosenberg fountain, at the corner 
of Michigan Avenue and Park Row, is a little 
Greek temple. Another structure, the gift 
to the city of John B. Drake, stands before 
the city hall. Mr. Peter B. Wight, secre¬ 
tary of the Municipal Art League of Chicago, 
remarks that the statue of Columbus, which 
is at the front of this fountain, is rather 
unfortunate in the disproportion of the head. 
The new fountain executed by Charles J. 
Mulligan,illustrated herewith, will be referred 
to further on. Besides these, the sum of 
$4,000 was left several years ago by a Chicago 
422 
