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 3
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the same general note repeated in the proposed Connecticut Savings Bank building14 on Church Street. This building will be in the classical style and have a pillared portico in front and a row of engaged columns on the south side. I hope also that the new railway station15 may be designed with reference to this scheme, so as to embody a great colonnade or a line of Roman piers and arches. Either of these two plans would appear to be feasible in view of the great columns recently employed in the South Station in Boston, and in view of the towering arches to be a feature of the new Grand Central Station in New York. We should then have, at the very entrance to New Haven, a building which would prepare the eye for the Connecticut Savings Bank building, which in turn will pre- pare the eye for such buildings as I hope may sometime sur- round the Green. This would give us, in effect, a noble approach to the Green-a great open square, containing and enshrining the precious fabrics inherited from the past and flanked by buildings employing of traditional forms, or forms sufficiently allied to them, to secure substantial unity. Is it too much to hope that some such plan may be carried out? On this point I quote from a writer in the Architectural Record for March, 1904, page 244. He says :
"The great need of American architecture is not individ- uality but style-the style that comes from the sympathetic use of the most appropriate historic models. For without this general sense of style, it will be impossible to establish a good tradition of form; and, in the absence of such a tra- dition of form, architectural design cannot escape from an anarchy of invention and imitation, which does and will sterilize so much well-intentioned effort. This general sense
14 Erected 1906-8; Swarthout & Tracy, architects; Hoggson Bros., builders.
16 Designed by Cass Gilbert of New York, but not yet (1910) built. The old Chapel Street Station was built in 1848 from designs by Henry Austin. The present station, built in 1875, was designed by C. A. Danforth who, as it is only fair to say, was not a trained designer. (Burned May 8th, 1918.)
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THREATENED INVASION OF NEW HAVEN GREEN.
of style is both communicable and constructive. It constitutes good types with which people can become familiar, and which become established as standards in the popular mind. The more familiar, and, consequently, the less numerous these types are, the better; and the individual architect should voluntarily submit to the limitation of such established types, so that both he and his clients may have the guidance of a local architectural tradition."
This general subject is attracting widespread attention. City councils are becoming interested in it all over the country. The public press is constantly discussing it. In this connection I invite your attention to the article on "Public Squares in City and Village" in the Century Magazine for April, 1906, and to the article in the Architectural Record for February, 1906, on the adornment of Naugatuck by a series of three public buildings, so notable in character that the time will come when Naugatuck will be visited by students of architecture, just as places in Europe are visited by students to-day.
I have discussed this matter at considerable length, but not at greater length than the importance of the question, as it seems to me, demands. The future architectural interest and beauty of New Haven hang upon the right solution of the question now before this committee more than on any other one thing. The building of a new library offers a timely opportunity of reviving our historic architectural tradition for the central portion of the city.15a
I will summarize my conclusions as follows :
Ist. The Green, as it is to-day, is the distinctive feature of New Haven, famous the world over and valuable beyond calculation as expressing the fundamental old New England character, which no other New England city begins to typify so well.
2d. The location of a library building upon the upper end of the Green would necessarily detract from the essential character of the Green.
15a In designing the Ives Memorial Public Library, Mr. Gilbert embraced this opportunity, producing a building in the Georgian style.
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3d. If the essential character that the Green now has is to be preserved, the ideal site for a library building is on the north side of the Green, between Church and Temple streets, where a building in the classical style, facing the Green, would repeat the note struck by the Center and the "North" churches, and enhance the architectural interest of the center of the city to a greater extent than could any build- ing upon the upper end of the Green.
4th. A building of such design facing the Green could be so made as to satisfy all of the requirements of size, light, air and safety from fire.
5th. A building on the upper end of the Green would not be more convenient of access than a building facing the Green from a site on Elm street.
Aside from all this-aside from destroying the charming picture of old New England now presented by the Green and aside from putting away an unique opportunity of reviving an honored architectural tradition-it would be hardly less than a crime to close up for all time, by a great pile of masonry, a breathing place in the heart of the city-a breathing place free to all, equally enjoyed by all, and capable of being made of larger usefulness by being thrown open as a children's playground. At a time when other cities are buying up central property, at enormous cost, for the creation of open breathing spaces, I cannot believe that this community will consent to take a backward step and, for the sake of a small present economy, destroys a beautiful park, destined to grow more and more valuable as a breathing place and playground as the city grows larger and larger.
We may well take warning from our sister city of Hartford, whose citizens justly pride themselves upon the appearance of their city and where matters of public concern are, in general, admirably carried on.
Small as her public square originally was, I think it will not be disputed that Hartford made a grave mistake years ago in consenting to its invasion by the present Federal
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THREATENED INVASION OF NEW HAVEN GREEN.
building,16 however expedient the course may have seemed at the time. If it had been preserved intact, Hartford's small public square, sloping away from Main Street toward the river, would have remained a useful and interesting feature of our Capitol City, which needs just such an open space at that focal point, in Hartford's old plan. But the postoffice build- ing blocked up the square, destroyed the significance of the buildings facing it and completely eclipsed the old State House,17 to which it conformed neither in style nor in scale. Indeed, the old State House was so completely eclipsed that it was virtually lost sight of, and has been rediscovered only within two or three years. And yet the old State House is, per- haps, the most historic public building now standing anywhere in the Commonwealth, and undoubtedly the most beautiful in form and detail, designed as it was by Bulfinch, whose master work is the old State House in Boston. But, dominated and overpowered by the postoffice building, the old State House in Hartford has been abused and allowed to go to decay, and now, neglected and hideously disfigured by paint, is an eyesore and a reproach. The postoffice building has recently been enlarged-the old story-and the mistake made years ago has now borne its logical fruit and become irretrievable. Hart- ford may well claim to be one of the best built and cared for of all American cities, but she "sold her birthright for a mess of pottage" when she surrendered a foot of public
Built in 1873-1883, of cut granite at a cost of $874,291.00; three stories 16 and a mansard; one of the monstrosities of Mullet, then in the employ of the Federal Government. Mullet had the triple misfortune of being with- out any real taste as a designer, of working in a period of bad architecture, and of having his designs perpetuated in stone buildings of massive con- struction and enduring character.
"Built 1796; Charles Bulfinch of Boston, architect. £ The balustrade was added in 1815, and the beautiful cupola in 1822 to accommodate a $300.00 bell presented by Hartford to the State. In ordering the building of the cupola, the State Legislature stipulated that it should be modeled on the cupola of the New York City Hall, built in 1803-12 by John McComb and to-day regarded by many students of architecture and artists the most perfect architectural design in the United States. The Connecticut State Legislature of 1822 seems to have been a discriminating body.
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ground, consecrated by long tradition to public uses, to be invaded by the Government building, which, after all, now turns out to have been badly located, so far as convenience is concerned; for the trolley lines make a loop around the square, which is frequently blocked on the outside with strings of trolley cars, making the approach to the postoffice oftentimes difficult and even dangerous. If Hartford's postoffice had not invaded this square, but had been built on a site facing it, the square would have been preserved for public uses, the historic old State House would not have been degraded and neglected, and the public would have been far better served.18
I hope that no site for a new public library building will be determined upon until a solution has been reached that is so obviously the right solution that the entire public will sub- scribe to it.
New Haven, Conn., March 24, 1906.
19 The Old State House was partially restored to its original appearance in 1908 by painting the woodwork white. A movement led by the Con- necticut Society of Colonial Dames is now (April, 1910) in progress for the complete restoration of the structure in opposition to a proposition to demolish it and use the site for a new municipal building.
"All the congregations in New Haven voted, in 1812, that they would take down their churches, and build new ones. Accordingly two of them commenced the work in 1813; the other, in 1814. The church of the First congregation was finished in 1814. The other two have been com- pleted the present year. They are all placed on the western side of Temple street, in a situation singularly beautiful, having an elegant square in front, and stand on a street one hundred feet wide. The Presbyterian churches are of Grecian architecture. The Episcopal church is a Gothic building; the only correct specimen, it is believed, in the United States. Few structures, devoted to the same purpose on this side of the Atlantic, are equally handsome; and in no place can the same number of churches be found, within the same distance, so beautiful, and standing in so advan- tageous a position." Dwight's "Travels in New England and New York"; by Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College, 1794-1817. Published at New Haven, 1821.
"There was in the State enough respect for the Church, but it never lost sight of the fact that the Church exists for the State, which bound it to its duty by placing it in its center where it could serve all alike. And here it is to-day, along with two other churches,-a distinct relic of Church and State, but not a vain relic. It may in some sense be archaic, but its duty,
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THREATENED INVASION OF NEW HAVEN GREEN.
its relation to the community, its obligations, are as vital and binding as ever; nay more binding, because, with every year that bears it further away from the municipal act that placed it on public ground, the privilege it enjoys, the honor and dignity that rest upon it by virtue of its location and its history, deepen its obligation to serve the city in religious ways."
"I seldom cross the Green without noting that as two of the churches are Puritan, and one Episcopal, they together stand for a catholicity and breadth that justify their location so long as they serve the city and not themselves." "The Municipal Church": A sermon preached April 28, 1901, by the Rev. Dr. Theodore T. Munger on his retirement from the active pastorate of the United Church, which as never before in its history, he made serve the City. .
"If a city, as a mere property concern, is to involve amounts of capital greater than a dozen, or even a hundred railroads, why as a mere ques- tion of interest, should it be left to the misbegotten planning of some operator totally disqualified? Besides, if a railroad is badly located, the track can be altered, but here a mistake begun is forever irreparable. Most human errors are amended by repentance, but here there is no amendment-an advantage lost can never be recovered, an error begun can never be repaired. Nothing is more to be regretted, in this view, than that our American nation, having a new world to make, and a clean map on which to place it, should be sacrificing our advantage so cheaply, in the extempore planning of our towns and cities. The peoples of the old world have their cities built for times gone by, when railroads and gun- powder were unknown. We can have cities for the new age that has come, adapted to its better conditions of use and ornament. So great an advantage ought not to be thrown away. We want therefore a city- planning profession, as truly as an architectural, house-planning profes- sion. Every new village, town, city, ought to be contrived as a work of art, and prepared for the new age of ornament to come." Horace Bush- nell; 1802-1876. From an address entitled City Plans, prepared for the Public Improvement Society of Hartford, but for reasons of health post- poned and not delivered. Dated probably 1858; published in "Work and Play," 1864.
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN AND CITIZENS OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF NEW HAVEN.
"In the early days of the Republic, President Washington and his immediate successors sought trained experts in the arts and called to the service of the country those of the highest skill and employed them in a consistent effort toward the building of the Nation's Capital. Even in that formative period of the nation, with the continent undeveloped and the finances at a low ebb, the Government saw to it that these matters were handled with no less intelligence and farsightedness than the other projects which engaged its attention, and as a result the earliest buildings of the Government, not only in the capital but elsewhere, rank among the great architectural triumphs of their period."-From a letter by Glenn Brown, Esq., secretary of the American Institute of Architects, to President Roosevelt, January 9, 1909.
As a member of the New Haven Municipal Art Commission, and as a member of the committee chosen to build the Ives Memorial Public Library, I feel it my duty to bring before you the necessity, as I see it, of securing from acknowledged experts, a plan for the improvement of our city.
New Haven's Great Opportunity
The proposition to place a hotel upon the Sargent site threat- ens a larger plan not yet developed, but slowly maturing, of creating a civic center on the north side of the Green. No plan, however finely conceived, for improving the city, can redeem the loss of that site. The project to build a new hotel should be encouraged; but it should not be placed upon any
1º Published in the New Haven Sunday Leader, New Haven Sunday Register and New Haven Sunday Union of June 2, 1907. The writer has ventured to leave the newspaper headings in the main as they were sup- plied by one of the papers in which the article was first printed.
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN.
site on the north side of the Green, until New Haven repudiates the great opportunity open to her to-day of creating there one of the most splendid civic centers in the entire country. Other cities are preparing to spend vast sums of money in securing open central spaces for their public buildings. None of them, at any cost, can secure a great open square like our old Green. The opportunity of New Haven to-day is an opportunity unparalleled in any American city. Lest I be misunderstood, let me say at the outset that I am not advo- cating any immediate, large outlay of money. Let no one be alarmed on that score. My present aim is to call attention to the necessity of immediately securing from experts a plan along the lines of which the city may be developed by this and succeeding generations. To this explanation I may add that I do not know what citizens are backing the hotel scheme. I have every confidence that they have no wish but to improve the city. They have, indeed, I hear, consulted a firm of architects so eminent that we may be easy on the score of the design.
General Adoption of Plans
In a recent conversation in Washington with Mr. Glenn Brown, secretary of the American Institute of Architects, the leading organization of the kind in the United States, he told me that New Haven was one of the few prominent Ameri- can cities that had not secured the services of unprejudiced, outside experts to study its problems and report a plan.
Primarily a plan is a business proposition. A city devel- oped on a well-considered plan based on an organic design founded on a principle clearly seen, has its valuations raised, its grand list greatly increased, and attracts a higher class of citizens. This is now so well recognized that the leading American cities have invited experts from the outside to study and report a plan.
Among the cities that have already adopted plans are : Hartford, Waterbury, Springfield, Providence, Boston, New York, Jersey City, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Philadelphia,
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Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Baltimore, Washington, Memphis, Columbia, S. C., Louisville, Buffalo, Toledo, Cleveland, Columbus, Syracuse, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Detroit, Milwaukee, Duluth, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, Denver, Colorado Springs, Los Angeles, San Fran- cisco, Honolulu and Portland.
New Orleans is just organizing to take up a great work of this sort. Seattle has plans of an original and radical char- acter, forecasting her future place as one of the greatest centers of life on the Pacific coast. Some of these cities have as yet only secured "outer park plans." Many of them have also secured "group plans," by which is meant plans for grouping public buildings in the formation of a civic center, with one or more ample approaches, as from a union station, forming, as it were, the vestibule to the city.
All of the cities that have secured outer park plans are rapidly developing the public sentiment required for group plans. The two things are closely related. The city of the future will have both.
Group plans generally involve large outlays for cutting away buildings to secure open spaces and to form approaches, all made necessary by the fact that most cities have grown up without any reference to the grouping of public buildings, to railway and waterway approaches, to radial avenues of communication, and to the correlation of parks with streets and boulevards.
The group plan made by Messrs. Peabody & Stearns for Springfield involves considerable cutting, but now that the plan has been submitted and its advantages are seen, Springfield does not hesitate at the expense. Her citizens realize that she must lose her place as a progressive city-must lose money and business and sacrifice growth, unless she swings into line with other American cities. With an exten- sive parking on the Connecticut river and a wide approach from her new civic center to her water front, she will soon be one of the most attractive of all our inland cities.
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN.
A City Plan should be Prepared by Non-Resident Experts
In the case of each city, experts from outside have been invited. Local prejudices are thus eliminated. In most every case the plans reported have been adopted and are being carried out. Of course, great enterprises of this sort are not carried out at once. The plan is perfected in all essential details and executed as fast as circumstances will warrant. One generation does not bear all of the expense. The main thing is to secure a well-considered plan. Each city, with its business section, its residential section, its park system and its environs, is considered as one composition. The old way was to consider each problem by itself. Piece- meal improvements have proved the most costly of all muni- cipal enterprises.
The Municipal Improvement Movement
The municipal improvement movement, one of the most significant movements of modern times, has extended with remarkable rapidity throughout the United States during the last few years. Most of the European cities of importance, especially those on the Continent, had already been re-created before we began in good earnest.
Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Florence, Turin, Rome, London and Berlin may be mentioned. A great plan for the future building of Manila has just been published. Johannesburg in South Africa is at work on a plan. Rio Janeiro and Buenos Ayres are being developed and improved on plans magnificent in scale and with a public spirit unknown in the United States. Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal are setting the Canadian cities an example. Australia has appointed commissioners to report on a plan for a new capitol.
But the idea is an old one; the Greeks and Romans pos- sessed it and practiced it to perfection. They grouped their temples and public buildings around great open central spaces and by the lavish use of columns secured architectural effects never surpassed.
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During the Middle Ages when people were huddled together in walled towns, the old idea was lost, and can hardly be said to have been fully recovered until Paris was re-created by her great system of radiating avenues under the leadership of Baron Haussmann, who, curiously enough, is said to have borrowed his ideas from L'Enfant's plan for Washington- a plan fully appreciated by President Washington and Mr. Jefferson,21 but too far ahead of the time to be put into com- plete execution.
New Haven Asleep
During all this time New Haven has been asleep. But Hartford, thoroughly awake, and led by public-spirited cit- izens, has profited splendidly by the movement. Her City Plan Commission is actively at work. Its members have just returned from New York, where they went as a committee to gather information for use in the development of Hartford. Her mistake in surrendering the park that once led from the old State House to the river is now bitterly regretted. Her new plan is to group her public buildings around Bushnell Park, which is already crowned by the State Capitol building.
And New Haven has been, and still is, asleep, although this is undoubtedly the most critical day of her entire history as
21 Jefferson was fully alive to the importance of cultivating the arts. Commissioned to secure in Europe a plan for the State House to be built at Richmond, the plan was delayed in transmittal and the impatient Vir- ginians began the building without it. This was the occasion of an anxious letter from Jefferson, then representing us in Paris, to James Madison. It is dated September 20, 1785, and contains these striking passages :
"But how is a taste in this beautiful art to be formed in our country- men unless we avail ourselves of every occasion when public buildings are to be erected, of presenting to them models for their study and imitation ?
"You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts, but it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world and procure them its praise."
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN.
a city, if we take into account the magnitude of the under- takings now in hand.
We have here in New Haven men of the energy, capacity and influence required to secure a plan, and put it into execu- tion, if they could be made to realize the importance of doing it.
It is to be regretted that, when the proposition of the railway "cut" was before the public, New Haven did not promptly invite the greatest experts in the country here to advise her. But that day is past. Anyone who has visited the "cut" can now see the gigantic character of that undertaking-can see how, for better or for worse, New Haven for all time must shape its future with reference to the "cut."
New problems, at least, New Haven should face with clearer understanding. I will not attempt to enumerate them all, but the main ones are worth consideration.
The New Public Library
The gift of Mrs. Ives of $300,000 to the city of New Haven for a new public library on a site to be provided by the city, at once raised the all-important question of a site. To this the aldermen, led by Mayor Studley, responded with fine public spirit, intelligence and generosity. They not only secured incomparably the finest site in New Haven for the library, but an option upon the Trowbridge property adjoining, so that the library might not be cramped, and so that no discordant building should be put next to it.
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