USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > New Haven, a book recording the varied activities of the author in his efforts over many years to promote the welfare of the city of his adoption since 1883, together with some researches into its storied past and many illustrations > Part 20
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79 Read before the Chamber of Commerce, May 24th, 1910, and enthu- siastically opposed by two citizens who spoke against it, but approved by some who did not speak. The daily papers may be consulted by the curious for details. For suggestions for the paper I am indebted to Mr. Mayo Fesler, Secretary of the Civic League of St. Louis; Lewis S. Haslam, Esq., of St. Louis, a member of the same organization; Mr. Richard B. Watrous of Washington, D. C., Secretary of the American Civic Association, and the late Mr. John Carrère, of the firm of Carrère & Hastings of New York City.
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In the South American cities, such as Buenos Ayres, Rio de Janeiro, Lima and Valparaiso, outdoor advertising is strictly regulated and taxed. Our consul general writes from Rio :
"The element of freedom from unsightly signs and ugly commercialism is so strong an element in the present artistic appearance and attractiveness of the city, that it is only neces- sary to suggest it to the stranger to have it fully appreciated."
It is not too much to say that our cities are almost the only cities of the world where outdoor advertising is practically uncontrolled, where it is untaxed, sparingly regulated and practically free to obtrude itself upon an unwilling public. But within the last few years a number of American cities have actively taken up the subject of the regulation of outdoor signs; notably, St. Louis, Kansas City, Washington, D. C., Buffalo, Rochester, and Cincinnati. For the most part the efforts made in these cities have been to control the billboard nuisance, to advocate the taxation of signs, to regulate street signs as to size and position, and to form public opinion.
Considerable litigation has grown out of the attempts to control and regulate outdoor advertising in this country and an examination of the decisions of the courts makes it plain that under the police power signs may be enjoined which menace public health, public morals or public safety. But as yet the courts have not placed restrictions upon signs objection- able only because they impair the appearance of streets and parks, and constitute an offense against what is recognized as good taste.
However, in the current report of the Civic League of St. Louis, it is stated :
"There are other decisions which show an evident growing tendency to recognize the fact that an offense to the eye is just as much of a nuisance as an offense to the ear or nose, and that the power of the State to place restrictions upon the use of private property for the purpose of promoting the beauty and attractiveness of streets, parks and buildings is as valid an exercise of authority as restrictions against offensive sounds and odors."
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In support of the statements above quoted, reference is made to the litigation in Massachusetts growing out of an act passed by the Legislature restricting the height of build- ings about Copley Square to one hundred feet. That case was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the State Court decisions favorable to the law were affirmed. We may now regard it as settled that it is lawful to prevent unreasonable encroachments on the light and air of a public park. Baltimore has recently adopted a similar ordinance for limiting the height of buildings around Monument Square and its validity has been sustained by the Maryland Court of Appeals.
Without going into the legal side of the matter further, it would appear that the tendency of the courts is toward recognition of the principle that property owners cannot abuse the privilege of outdoor advertising, though no one American decision has definitely decided that an offense to the eye is enjoinable equally with an offense to the nose or ear.
With regard now to the situation in New Haven. We have been here, on the whole, rather free from objectionable signs, partly because this is a conservative community, and partly because public sentiment, led by a small group of citizens, has held the cruder forms of advertising in check and upheld the city authorities.
We have, as I am told, a reasonably good sign ordinance, which, however, is not well enforced. Certainly, one need not go far to find signs projecting over the building line more than three feet, which is the limitation the ordinance imposes. But it will be admitted on all hands that New Haven is under- going a considerable transformation, and I think it will also be admitted by all that it is important that here in New Haven we should take as progressive a stand as any American city, on the subject of the regulation of street signs.
What concerns me most is the question of electric signs. That electric signs have come to stay there is, in my mind, no doubt; nor is there any doubt that the great bulk of our people like them, since they make our city streets lively and
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stimulating in the evening, and greatly assist in street illumi- nation. They are expensive, to be sure, but the merchant, the publican and the theatrical manager find in them the best source of publicity, which is legitimate in business and not to be deprecated. There are many who think that the news- papers and magazines are the most legitimate places for advertising. People can choose whether to read or skip adver- tisements in the newspapers or magazines, which cannot force an advertisement upon a person against his wish. On the contrary a person has no option but to see an outdoor sign, which fairly forces itself upon his attention no matter how little it interests him or how offensive it is to him. Thus in illuminated signs, even when constructed so as to be safe against fire and wind, there is a great menace to the appearance of our cities. When we go down to New York or out to Chicago, to Atlantic City or to Coney Island, we are amused for an evening by the garish electric signs, flashing all kinds of information on us from the tops of buildings ; but I cannot believe that any citizen of New Haven would like to see any of our tall buildings surmounted by some of the flashing signs conspicuous in New York and Chicago. We should feel outraged, for instance, to see in New Haven, on buildings facing the Green, signs representing a woman beating a carpet, or twitching her skirts, or removing her stays. But signs of this character are spreading, and we shall have them in New Haven, if we do not take steps to reg- ulate them in season.
I do not believe that gas and electric signs can be prohibited. That indeed does not to me seem either feasible or desirable, but I see no reason why such signs should not be regulated.
The subject of illuminated signs has been brought to the attention of this community within the last month by the erection of an illuminated sign on the top of one of the buildings facing the Green. I think I am not violating any confidence by saying that the Mayor and Building Inspector deplored the erection of this sign, but, as the ordinance did not prevent its erection, the Building Inspector was compelled to grant the permit for it. This particular sign is not especially
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aggressive in its character and is legitimate in its advertising import; but, located on the top of a building facing our great public square, it constitutes an offense against taste and injuriously affects the square as a public place. I regret to speak in this way against the business enterprise of anyone, but the Green belongs to the entire community, and therefore anything that affects the Green is a matter of public concern and open to public discussion without just reproach. What I fear is that this comparatively inoffensive sign is but the pre- cursor of signs which all of us who care for New Haven would regret to see on our "Great Square."
In this connection, I wish to call attention to an act of Parliament passed in 1907, entitled, "Advertisement Regu- lation Act," giving to legal authorities the power to make by-laws for the regulation of advertisements. The second clause reads as follows :
"For regulating, restricting, or preventing the exhibition of advertisements in such places and in such manner, or by such means, as to affect injuriously the amenities of a public park or pleasure promenade or to disfigure the natural beauty of a landscape."
The principle recognized in the English act should be recog- nized here. I believe that an ordinance preventing the erection of any signs on buildings facing the Green could be sustained in court if it could be shown that the Green was in any way impaired as a public park by such signs. The improvements now in progress on the Green are of an important and dignified character. The new Public Library will represent an outlay of at least three hundred and fifty thousand dollars; the new County Court House will before it is finished represent an out- lay of at least a million and a quarter ; and it is not unlikely that the new Federal Building, to cost as much more, will be located on a site facing the Green. It is important, then, that timely precautions be taken to prevent any defacement or impairment of the beauty and dignity of our public square, destined, as I believe, to be one of the most dignified and beautiful squares in any city in the United States. It goes without saying that
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the beauty of this square would be greatly impaired by electric signs on the top of business buildings, even if those signs were letter signs and not pictorial flashlight signs, which, however, would soon come in. Electric signs on buildings facing the Green may be allowed, but should be limited in height. In many foreign cities I believe electric signs are strictly limited to the second story, or to a height prescribed.
I hope I have made it clear that I am agitating no campaign against signs or legitimate advertising, but am advocating the taking of steps to regulate signs in New Haven, so as to avoid an impairment of the appearance of our City.
I therefore move that the President of the Chamber be authorized to appoint a committee to consider the question of outdoor advertising in the City of New Haven, with par- ticular reference to the erection of any illuminated signs upon the tops of any buildings facing the Green, or any of our public squares.
In addition to this, I earnestly request the members of the Chamber to do what they can in developing in this community a sentiment against illuminated signs on the roofs of buildings, particularly on the roofs of any buildings facing our public squares or our parks.
NOTE. Since writing the foregoing, I have been assured by persons who have given the matter of the regulation of signs much attention, that it is the consensus of opinion that signs should be taxed in this country, the same as they are taxed abroad. The argument for the taxation of signs when dis- played on buildings seems to be unassailable. If a building is so located that signs placed upon it secure an unusual amount of publicity, and hence are particularly effective as mediums of advertising, it follows that the building is increased in value to the extent of its additional value as a means for dis- playing signs. This additional value should pay a tax. To make a local application of this principle, if it be found that buildings on sites facing the Green or any of our public squares, are particularly valuable on this account for the dis-
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play of signs, such buildings should be revalued so as to yield a larger tax, or the signs upon the buildings should be taxed so as to yield collectively a tax corresponding to the increased value of the building. It is certain that we are coming in this country to some regulation of signs. This community may not be ready to take any steps in that direction, but forethought and good sense would suggest that some steps toward the regulation of signs should be taken here before an extensive use of illuminated and flashing signs makes their regulation difficult, oppressive, and, perhaps, unjust.80
80 A large meeting was held in New York City on July 7, 1910, "to pro- test against the unsightly electric signs which disfigure Fifth Avenue and to plan how those who have put up these signs can be forced to take them down." The following extract from the report of the meeting as published the following day in the New York Times will serve to show how widespread is the effort being made throughout the country to regulate electric signs. I do not wish to be understood as endorsing the "denunciations" of these several "reformers." I print the extract merely to show the drift of public opinion.
"The meeting was called by the Fifth Avenue Association, and Presi- dent Robert Grier Cooke, who presided, read a resolution adopted recently by the association disapproving 'of the construction and maintenance of unsightly electric or gas advertising signs, or signs of any other character, on the roofs, or against the walls, or affixed to any part of the premises of buildings on Fifth Avenue, or immediately adjacent thereto.'
"J. Horace McFarland of the American Civic Association then denounced the growing use of large electric signs as 'a form of special privilege and a violation of property rights.'
" 'Electric signs have been made a nuisance by statute in California and Missouri,' said Mr. McFarland. 'They ought to be made a nuisance on the statute books of New York. The sign business is essentially parasitic. It depends on the good salesmanship of men who persuade merchants to erect the signs. The merchants have not discovered yet that these huge and costly electric signs really don't bring in returns proportionate to the cost. They can't be "keyed."
"'As a matter of fact, electric signs have become so numerous, so big, and so blinding, that people's attention has become deadened to them by their continual assault on the optic nerves. Several of us went through a railroad station arcade recently which was ablaze with signs. We found on emerging from the arcade that we didn't remember the name of a single one of the signs which had so dazzled us.'
"'Efforts are being made all over the country to restrain the electric sign evil. At least fifty cities have passed ordinances against them, among them Los Angeles, Tacoma, Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Chicago.
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"Secretary Israels of the Municipal Art Society suggested that this city might regulate the sign nuisance by getting the Aldermen to pass an ordinance taxing each sign according to its size.
" 'The City of Berlin gets an income of $94,000 a year from its sign licenses,' Mr. McFarland suggested.
" 'This city imposes a tax of 10 cents a square foot on all signs which extend out at right angles to the building,' said Alderman Johnson. 'But there is no tax on the height of signs. Fifth Avenue is excepted from all the rest of the city in having a special ordinance against awnings. Why not use this as a precedent, and have a special ordinance passed forbidding the putting up of electric signs in Fifth Avenue The most objection- ble feature of the Fifth Avenue signs is that almost all of them adver- tise foreign concerns, which are connected in no way with the buildings on which are the signs.'
"On motion of Simon Brentano a resolution was adopted inviting all the reform organizations to join with the Fifth Avenue Association in drafting and obtaining suitable legislation against all unsightly signs on Fifth Avenue."
A Briton's View of New Haven and Yale in 1869.
"Shortly after visiting Harvard I went to the no less celebrated College of Yale at New Haven in Connecticut. New Haven is a clean, cheerful little town, situated upon land which slopes gently up from an estuary, and is backed by wooded hills, two of which, from their abrupt rocky sides, form a noble feature in a rich and beautiful landscape. At the . top of the town is a long range of old-fashioned red brick buildings, resembling the barracks at Hampton Court. This is Yale College. The buildings are divided into several parts, which are known respectively as South College, South Middle College, North College, North Middle Col- lege, and Divinity College. The hideous chapel stands in the midst, and behind are the Geological and Art Museums. In front is a strip of grass bounded by a beautiful avenue of great overarching elms-an Alameda worthy of Spain. Beyond this again is a large expanse of grass, dotted with fine trees, and sprinkled with the prim churches and chapels of various denominations, with the ugly whited State House in the middle. The College buildings and their surroundings have an air of antiquated respectability, rare in the New World, and though the buildings are in themselves ugly, they look comfortable and home-like."-"Transatlantic Sketches," by Greville John Chester (B.A. 1869) ; reprinted in The Yale Alumni Weekly of Dec. 15, 191I.
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SOME SUGGESTIONS REGARDING THE SCULP- TURAL DECORATION OF THE NEW HAVEN COUNTY COURT HOUSE.81
" the true relationship of the human family on the earth; the conception of the service of humanity as directing and centralizing life and giving it purpose-such themes have yet to be adequately expressed or symbolised in the places where the highest thoughts and aspirations of a people are most fittingly and enduringly expressed-in the design and decoration of noble public buildings." Walter Crane in "Art and Life, and the Building and Decoration of Cities." London, 1897, p. 166.
To the Editor of the Times-Leader:
The suggestion that Mr. Paul Wayland Bartlett, a native of New Haven and one of the foremost of living sculptors, should be commissioned by the County Commissioners, with the approval of Messrs. Allen and Williams, the architects of the building, to execute a pediment and two large groups for the new County Court House, is an admirable one.
Mr. Bartlett, though still a young man, has enjoyed a great reputation in this country and abroad for a number of years, and it is somewhat singular that his native city has not up to this time taken any notice of him.
Since the fine design for the Court House is the work of a local firm of architects, and since the work is to be done almost exclusively by local contractors, it is especially fitting that a native of the city should be employed to furnish the sculpture called for by the design.
Sculpture of the right kind is the supreme decorative adjunct of architecture, and it would be a pity if the sculpture for the new Court House should not fulfill its complete mis-
81 Reprinted from the New Haven Times-Leader, May 16, 1910. The editor of the paper assured his readers that these "Suggestions" would "undoubtedly be warmly supported." It would not, in the light of present knowledge, surprise the writer to learn that the subject of the sculptural decoration of the Court House was settled before this letter was written.
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sion in that respect, since the sculpture will be seen in full light from almost every portion of the Green east of Temple Street.
Mr. Bartlett is well placed just at this time for undertaking the execution of a group of figures for the pediment of the Court House, since he is now executing a great pediment for the Capitol of Washington,82 a task for which he prepared himself by a study of the best pediments of ancient and modern times.
If the suggestion that has recently been made of securing Mr. Bartlett to do the sculpture for the new Court House is followed (and I understand that some of the Commissioners regard it with favor), the Commissioners and all others in authority will earn the gratitude of our citizens, since Mr. Bartlett may be relied upon to adorn the Court House with sculpture so fine that it will form one of the chief, and perhaps the chief, art treasure of New Haven, and of all the more interest because executed by a native of the city.
The design of the architects, Messrs. Allen & Williams, calls for two huge groups at the foot of the main flight of steps leading to the building. I venture to suggest that these groups should be replaced by two figures, on a suitably large scale, of Governor Theophilus Eaton and Roger Sherman. It would be eminently proper that these two notable personages connected with the history of New Haven should be associated with the Court House.
Governor Eaton was the lawgiver of the New Haven Colony in its earliest days; our oldest records are heavy with his name. He might well be represented in the costume of the period, bearing in his hands the tablets of the Mosaic law, which for a brief time he sought so earnestly to enforce here.
Roger Sherman, on the other hand, might be portrayed bearing three rolls, symbolical of the three great charters of American liberty, which he assisted in framing, and all of
82 See "Mr. Bartlett's Pediment for the House of Representatives, Washington, D. C." by William Walton, Scribner's Magazine, Vol. XLVIII, No. I, p. 125.
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which he signed.83 Roger Sherman grows more and more in stature as his part in the constructive work of his time is better understood, and he, too, can be most fittingly memoralized by a statue connected with the Court House.
In the hands of a master-sculptor of the rank and experi- ence of Mr. Bartlett, these two figures could be made fully as decorative as symbolic groups, and would, it seems to me, greatly heighten the interest of New Haven for visitors and increase the historic significance of the Court House. It is time, moreover, that honor was paid to Governor Eaton and to Roger Sherman. Both men have many descendants in this community. Governor Eaton was a man of lofty char- acter,84 and Roger Sherman has long been a figure of national importance.
I make this suggestion to the architects of the building and to our County Commissioners. I hope they will consider it at the time an artist is commissioned to execute the sculpture for the Court House.
New Haven, Conn., May, 1910.
O
83 (From the memorial tablet in the United Church.) IN MEMORY OF ROGER SHERMAN 1793
1721
A MEMBER OF THIS CHURCH FROM 1761 UNTIL HIS DEATH HE SERVED THIS CITY AS ITS FIRST MAYOR YALE COLLEGE AS ITS TREASURER THE COLONY AND STATE AS AN ASSISTANT & JUDGE OF THE SUPERIOR COURT & THE SUPREME COURT OF ERRORS THE UNITED STATES AS A MEMBER OF EVERY CONGRESS FROM 1774 TO 1793 WHEN HE DIED A SENATOR ONE OF THE COMMITTEE WHICH DREW THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF THAT WHICH REPORTED THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION OF THE CONVENTION WHICH FRAMED THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION AND A SIGNER OF THESE THREE CHARTERS OF AMERICAN LIBERTY
84 "Eaton, so famed, so wise, so meek, so just, The Phoenix of our world, here hides his dust. His name forget New England never must."
(Epitaph on Governor Eaton's altar tomb removed in 1821 from the Green to the Grove St. Burial Ground.)
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"This man," says Hubbard, "had in him great gifts, and as many excel- lencies as are usually found in any one man. He had an excellent princely face and port, commanding respect from all others. He was a good scholar, a traveler, a great reader ; of an exceeding steady and even spirit ; not easily moved to passion; and standing unshaken in his principles when once fixed upon. Of a profound judgment; full of majesty and authority in his judicatures, so that it was a vain thing to offer to brave him out."
In the "Magnalia," the pungent first "Who's Who in New England," Cotton Mather says of Eaton: "Mr. Eaton being yearly and ever chosen their governour, it was the admiration of all spectators to behold the discretion, the gravity and the equity with which he still managed all their publick affairs. He carried in his very countenance a majesty which cannot be described. Thus continually he, for about a score of years, was the glory and pillar of New Haven Colony. He would often say, 'some count it a great matter to die well, but I am sure 'tis a great matter to live well.'"
THE MEMORY OF GOVERNOR EATON NEGLECTED.
I share the regret of an earlier writer that the altar-tomb of Governor Eaton was removed in 1821 to the Grove Street Burial Ground. His monument should have been left on the Green, in the center of the city of which, in any view of the evidence, he was co-founder with Davenport, above whom he was placed by Cotton Mather in the "Magnalia," and Mather, writing two hundred and twenty-five years and more ago, must have known facts better than later writers. Eaton was noted for his modesty and his descendants have not been jealous to keep his name in the forefront, while the "horn" of Davenport has been constantly "exalted," and now Davenport appears alone upon the Harkness Memorial as founder of New Haven, the inscription reading, "John Davenport, Founder of New Haven in 1638, moved as early as 1648 for having a College here." Mr. F. B. Dexter's inscription is misleading in so far as it does not recognize Governor Eaton as co-founder of New Haven with Davenport. My conviction is that it is to Governor Eaton that New Haven is indebted for the first systematic town-plan created on the American continent. (G. D. S. 1921.)
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