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 5
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NEW HAVEN :
When East Rock was acquired in the early eighties, Mr. William W. Farnam enlisted the services of our distinguished townsman, Mr. Donald G. Mitchell, who was one of the first men in the country to study what is now known as landscape architecture. With an educated taste sup- ported by sound judgment, Mr. Mitchell very largely laid out East Rock Park, one of the most unique and beautiful parks in the country, admired by every visitor to our city. Mr. Mitchell subsequently laid out other parks as they were from time to time acquired. To what extent his plans as to those parks have been carried out, I am not informed. But we have not had an expert study of our park system as a whole. For a long time, of course, Mr. Mitchell has not been able to give such matters any attention.38 Our park commissioners have thus been obliged to prosecute their work without expert assistance, which a false economy has withheld. It is needless to say that they have done remarkably well, notably in acquiring new areas to be improved later on. The period of acquisition seems to have largely passed, and they are now turning toward the improvement of the property in hand. The time has come for the experts.
The Projected East Rock Park Lake
The eighteenth annual report of the Commissioners of Pub- lic Parks calls attention to a plan of creating a lake of some sixty acres in extent in the East Rock meadows at the foot of East Rock Park. The sum of something like $100,000 will be required for this purpose. The creation of this lake should not be undertaken until the project has been studied by the best experts that we can command, with reference to water supply and levels, to preventing the water from stagnating, to a stone bridge which must sometime adorn the Orange Street entrance to the Park, to the driveways in the Park and to the proposed driveways about the lake. All of these things should be considered with relation to each other. Not only 33 Mr. Mitchell died at his "farm of Edgewood" overlooking New Haven, December 15th, 1908.
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN.
this, but the entire East Rock Park area, with its lake and drives and bridge and approaches, must be considered as a part of the composition which embraces the city and its entire park system.
The Boulevard
1300515
The Park Commissioners are building an extensive boule- vard, miles in extent. This unquestionably should be studied with reference to the whole composition. As the boulevard will connect the chain of parks and form a great driveway, too much pains cannot be bestowed upon it. Once built it cannot be changed as to its course. I am far from criticis- ing anything that the Park Commissioners have done in the past, and do not wish to be so understood. And yet I am certain that it is quite time that we remove the reproach of being one of the few American cities without a well-considered plan for extending and improving our parks and making them more accessible and hence more useful.
New Haven can never pay the debt of gratitude she owes to the members of the Trowbridge, English and Farnam fami- lies, who have done so much for the city parks. To this list I should add the name of Judge Simeon E. Baldwin and Mr. Henry T. Blake.
Municipal Playgrounds
In a pamphlet entitled "American Park Systems," which is the report of the Philadelphia allied organizations, the fol- lowing statement occurs :
"Boston has not only the finest park system in America, but is the leader in the movement for municipal playgrounds, by. which is meant open spaces fitted up with outdoor gymnasia, running tracks and children's courts. They are not connected with schools, and are open to any child or adult. In Boston, under the control of the Department of Parks, there are 15 playgrounds, the location of which is such that every child is within half a mile of one of them, while one of the larger athletic fields is within a mile of every child. It will thus be
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seen that Boston has not been blinded to the advantage of these smaller spaces by the more remarkable idea of its outer park system."
This statement is significant, first, in showing that the city having the most comprehensive, complete and admirable park system in the entire country, also leads the country in the matter of municipal playgrounds; second, in showing the value of a plan with a mind behind it, for it is not to be supposed that Boston's playgrounds were located so as to serve every child in the entire city without long and painstaking study and many calculations.
Mr. Henry T. Blake, the President of our Park Commis- sion, is alive to the value of municipal playgrounds and their part in a park system. How much more he could do in that direction, if our entire park system were studied even as was the park system of Boston, so as to bring a playground within the easy reach of every child in the city, and the Park Commission were definitely committed to developing the play- ground side of park utility! The recommendations of a com- mission of experts as to municipal playgrounds would go a long way toward securing public support for them in a sense not known here now.
The Street Extension Question
We are never without a street extension project. Several are being wrangled about now. A plan prepared by a com- mission of non-resident experts would recommend street extensions where necessary or desirable, and while it might not altogether put an end to these incessant controversies, it would speak with such authority and reason and absence of prejudice as greatly to simplify them. New street plans would also be worked out by the experts.
The Danger of Subdividing Old City Squares
"Our streets," says a recent English writer, "instead of being a symbol of the intelligence of a great people, merely
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN.
express the meanest side of modern commercialism." This will in time be true of New Haven, if we go on subdividing the old city squares by narrow streets which must in time be lined with relatively high buildings. We already have in the center of the city some streets so narrow as to serve as object lessons and warnings.
A Dominant Principle of Design Needed
The laying out of every street and the placing of every public building should proceed on a definite and controlling idea, there should be a dominant principle of design, an adaptation to an end clearly seen, an effort to weld all together into one balanced composition. To these require- ments should be added courage-a certain audacity. To timidity, to "the weak hand of uncertain purpose," to obstinacy and selfishness, as well as to the absence of a principle, do cities owe the insignificance of many of their streets and thoroughfares.
New Haven Green Suggests Principle of Plan
The plan of New Haven with its central square suggests the principle on which the city should be developed-the principle of ampler thoroughfares radiating from the Green in the direc- tion of the main centers of population and the main lines of travel.
With a controlling principle of design our ever-recurring quarrels over street extensions would solve themselves far more easily. Instead of focussing attention on a small local- ity, a proposed street extension would be viewed in its relation to the entire design. Without a principle of design we work either haphazard or at cross-purposes ; we make unnecessary compromises and magnify the difficulty of doing even small things. On the other hand, with a dominant idea, logic and system would be at once introduced into our practice, all of our improvements would move with far more freedom and ease, and in our own time we should begin to enjoy the con-
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venience and other advantages of large and permanent improvements.
In time all progressive cities will be distinguished by a logical and organic system of ample thoroughfares. After the great fire of London, Sir Christopher Wren submitted a plan for the rebuilding of the city. Had it been followed, London would to-day. have been one of the most splendid cities in the world. As it is, London is almost without great thoroughfares. No city shows so sadly the want of a plan. L'Enfant's great plan for Washington, though virtually lost sight of many years ago, so impressed itself upon the city that a reversion to it is now in progress.
The Founders of New Haven Planned Well in the Green
The founders of New Haven planned better than they knew when they reserved a great central square for a "market- place." Had they then appreciated the advantages of radiat- ing streets, they would have laid the foundation for a truly modern city. Unfortunately the rectangular arrangement of streets has for the most part obtained, and that arrangement is in the highest degree inconvenient, as it provides no radiating avenues.
To a certain extent the old New England towns and cities had civic centers, formed by locating their churches, town halls, academies and schoolhouses on or about a green which served on "training day" for the evolutions of the militia. In this sense New Haven has had a civic center for nearly two hundred and seventy-five years. On the Green to-day are her three old churches, and facing it are the buildings of the City and County and the College. When we better realize what a heritage we have in the Green we shall carry on in a larger spirit and with a clearer vision the improvement of a plan so happily begun for us by the founders of the City.
Among them was Matthew Gilbert, who bore a brave part, as our early records are ample witness. It would be fitting to ask his distinguished descendant, Mr. Cass Gilbert, to help us
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN.
carry on now the plan made in the time of his ancestor, who walked these streets two hundred and seventy-five years ago. Matthew Gilbert was chosen one of the "seven pillars"33ยช on which, August 22, 1639, the Church of New Haven was set. The saying that "history repeats itself" would indeed come true if we should now make his descendant one of a commis- sion to set "our house" on ampler foundations in this year of our Lord 1907.
Blake's "Chronicles of New Haven Green"34
In his "Chronicles of New Haven Green," one of the most informing as well as entertaining of all our books on local history, Mr. Blake says :
"The Green as we see it to-day embraces within its area a fraction over sixteen acres. Its shape is not quite square, there being a difference of twenty feet between its sides on College and Chapel streets and of ten feet between College and Elm. The average length of its sides is about 840 feet and the distance around it a little over two-thirds of a mile. . It was laid out in June or July, 1638, by John Brockett, 'Surveyor,' as he is called in the records, at the same time with the other eight squares of the town plot, this central square being reserved as 'a market place.' In two cases connected with the public proclamation of Royal accessions it is dignified as 'The Great Square,' but with these and perhaps two or three other exceptions, its uniform designation, not only in all local records, but in all contemporary literature, was 'the Market Place' until about 1759. Then for the first time (so far as I have yet discovered) the name 'the Green' appears."
33a "Mr. Theophilus Eaton, Mr. John Davenport, Mr. Robert Newman, Mr. Matthew Gilbert, Thomas Fugill, John Punderson and Jeremy Dixon." (Kingsley's Historical Discourse, 1838, p. 83.)
Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars. Prov. ix, I.
84 "Chronicles of New Haven Green from 1638 to 1862. A Series of Papers Read Before the New Haven Colony Historical Society by Henry T. Blake." New Haven, 1898.
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Mr. Blake also points out that :
"New Haven Green has been identified, to a degree that Boston Common has not, with all the important transactions and events connected with the religious, political and civil life of the surrounding community, and so is richer in historic associations of a local character" (pp. 9-10).
The Green Laid Out in 1638 by John Brockett,35 Surveyor
John Brockett, "Surveyor," to whom New Haven owes the Green more perhaps than any one person, came to New Haven in April, 1638, with Davenport and Eaton and their Company. He laid out the "town plot" in the following June or July and did his work so well that "meets and bounds," established by him then, stand to-day. Much engaged in public affairs, the early records are heavy with his name. He lived where Poli's theatre now stands. In 1669 he removed to Wallingford where he died March 12, 1690. The Green is his real memo- rial, but a tablet should record his name.
The Rev. Dr. Bacon on the Civic Character of the Green
In his civic oration of May 30, 1879, the Rev. Dr. Bacon said :
"This Public Square was called, by the founders of our city, 'The Market Place.' It was designed not as a park or a mere pleasure ground, but as a place for public buildings, for mil- itary parades and exercises, for the meeting of buyers and sellers, for the concourse of the people, for all such public uses as were served of old by the Forum at Rome and the Agora (called in our English Bibles 'Market') at Athens, and in more recent times by the great square of St. Mark in Venice, or by the 'Market-place' in many a city of those Low Coun- tries with which some of our founders had been familiar before their coming to this new world. The central square
35 "John Brockett, Surveyor"-a paper read January 17, 1910, before the New Haven Colony Historical Society by his descendant, Mrs. C. Berry Peets.
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN.
which they, with wise forethought, reserved for public uses is still, and ever will be, the heart of their city."
I have stepped from my main path to look for a moment at the historical aspect of the Green, in order to show that its re-creation now as a civic center is in line with its original purpose and its actual historic function. We should seek in every way possible to preserve the Green as a center for the civic and social life of the people of the City.
A Civic Center Plan Would Require the Sargent Site
I have approached the whole subject through our new library, as that problem comes the closest home to me. I can foresee that the new library plan, so generously conceived by Mrs. Ives and so happily forwarded by our Mayor and Board of Aldermen, will be in large measure defeated if the north side of the Green cannot be appropriated to a civic center ; that it will be in a large measure defeated if a towering hotel is placed upon the Sargent site, as proposed. I can only hope that the hotel syndicate will look elsewhere for a site, taking perhaps the site of the Tontine Hotel, or some other site, not cutting the heart out of the only plan that can give the best results and secure the greatest general good. I am reliably informed that the Tontine site will be available within three years.
Tall Buildings should be Grouped Together
The new library will be a low building-probably two stories: The new hotel will almost of necessity be a tall build- ing-perhaps twelve or fourteen stories. The people may judge of the effect produced by placing two buildings, one very low and one very high, on the opposite corners of the square, on the Bristol and Sargent sites. The new county court house and the new hall of records will be relatively low buildings, and should be grouped with the new library building. The new hotel should be grouped with high buildings or placed where in the future we shall have high buildings. Some
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site between the Green and our monumental union station would seem to be an appropriate as well as an advantageous site for the proposed new hotel.
A towering building on the Sargent site would upset the balance of the Green beyond any possible recovery, and belittle and ruin the effect of the new library building; and the better the library building the worse for it. A quiet, restrained library building, relying upon fineness of line and justness of proportion for its effect, would, as anyone can see, be entirely eclipsed by a nearby building aggressive in bulk and height, however well designed.
The City of Cleveland's Message to New Haven
The problem which confronts New Haven is so much like the problem that confronted Cleveland several years ago, that it is worth while to consider what Cleveland has done. In . the "Report" of the St. Louis Group Plan Commission, I find this statement :
"The city of Cleveland which has a population of about one-half that of St. Louis, has actually started work on a municipal group scheme, which the average citizens of any city in the United States would pronounce 'ideal,' but abso- lutely impossible of fulfillment. Cleveland has condemned acres in the best part of the municipal district and is building the buildings just as she created her wonderfully beautiful park system."
The Philadelphia "Report" makes the following comment upon Cleveland's progress :
"This 'ideal, but absolutely impossible-of-fulfillment' plan that is being fulfilled, was suggested several years ago, when it happened that the construction of a city hall, a court house, a public library, a new union station and a United States postoffice was being considered. It was proposed that these buildings should be arranged around a mall, so as to increase their convenience, to produce a complete effect, to enhance the beauty of each other and to give to the stranger
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN.
an impression that would never be forgotten. After several years of effort, the plan herewith reproduced was presented and has been adopted. It consists of a central mall cut from a part of the city, which, though near its center, has no build- ings of great value, the land itself being less costly than that which surrounds it.
"Cleveland's group plan establishes an entranceway to the city, which for dignity and beauty will hardly be surpassed in any city in the world. Only a portion of the expense can be charged against the group plan. If there were no such plan, the necessity would still exist for the purchase of sites for and erection of many buildings. .
"In addition to this it must be borne in mind that without the group plan more costly building sites would certainly have been selected than have now been secured.
"The citizens of Cleveland may well regard the cost of the group plan as small in comparison with the permanent advan- tages of the investment. There will be a great increase in the value of surrounding property, and a consequent increase in the amount of taxes collected. And beyond all monetary considerations, the city must derive large benefits from its foresight in paving the way to what, but a few years hence, may correspond favorably with those wonderful and beautiful architectural effects in European capitals that command the admiration of the world."
Testimony from the City of Buffalo
In a letter to Mr. George Cary of Buffalo from Mr. Sher- lock Swann I find the following :
"There is no question that public improvements of this character in any city must in time not only repay for any reasonable outlay, but, as years go on, the greater taxable basis eventually decreases the amount of levy annually necessary. Judging from the result obtained here, and as you know we have not as yet had a year in which to see them, I would say that any city that passes or lets pass an opportunity for great
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public improvements, takes a step backward in the path of progress."
Two Arrangements for Buildings
The library, a hall of records and the county. court house offer two arrangements :- First, the location of a hall of records between the library and a county court house on the Sargent site; second, the location of the county court house between the library and a hall of records which would then occupy the Sargent site. Both arrangements permit the three buildings to be organically related and designed as one group, but the second is more logical and would secure a finer effect, as it would locate the court house in the center where it would command the Green and balance the City Hall on the one hand, and the Phelps Gateway on the other.
Preferably the largest building should occupy the center of the group. Moreover a court house gives a finer opportunity than a library can give for a building repeating the high note struck by our beautiful Colonial churches. By placing these three buildings, the court house in the center, on a slightly raised platform or terrace, to tie them together and lift them slightly above the Green, an effect of splendid style and great dignity could be secured.
A Public-spirited Citizen Employs an Architect
Through the public spirit of a citizen,37 an architect38 has been employed to design a group of Colonial buildings-a library, a hall of records and a court house-to suggest in a tentative way how they might be made to look under either of these arrangements. These drawings are published herewith. They are not intended to suggest any final design; they aim only to visualize the idea-to show how finely buildings
37 Mr. Arthur B. Woodford, one hundredth Rector of The Hopkins Grammar School, New Haven, founded by Governor Edward Hopkins, I660.
88 Mr. Ernest M. A. Machado drowned in Lower Danforth Lake, N. H., September 22, 1907. See pp. 53-57.
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN. 45 designed as a group might be made to look on the site in question.
The Time has Come for New Haven to Act
Is it not time for New Haven to act? Should not the Mayor call a meeting of her citizens and appoint a committee to secure a commission of experts to prepare and present a plan? It so happens that Mr. Charles F. McKim, easily the greatest authority in this country on plans of this sort, is particularly interested in the Colonial style of which he is the greatest living exponent. Is it not quite possible that an opportunity to prepare a plan for an old Colonial city like New Haven, with its unrivaled great central square and matchless opportunity for an encircling park system, will appeal to him so powerfully that he will consent to give his aid and serve on a commission ?39
No future generation of citizens will have an opportunity for doing for the City what the present generation can and should do. We cannot look too far ahead nor plan too largely nor too well for what is and must always be the largest and most widely influential City of Connecticut.
Primarily a Plan is a Business Proposition
I wish to emphasize the point that I am not advocating an art commission of any sort. I am advocating a business proposition-the painstaking study by trained experts of a matter of municipal business.40 Municipal business affairs are governed by the same laws as private business. Constructive
39 During the few weeks following the publication of this letter, the writer was in communication with Mr. McKim and did his utmost to secure his services on a commission of experts to prepare a plan for New Haven. But Mr. McKim, overburdened with work and anxiety, was already a sick man; he died September 14, 1909.
40 "The beauty of a city is an asset of commercial value, and money spent, within reasonable limits, in making it an attractive place of residence, is prudently spent. For it will draw to us people of wealth and refinement, seeking congenial homes, whose possessions will find their way into the grand list of the city."
-
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imagination and experts are as much needed in the successful administration of the affairs of a great municipality as they are in the administration of a great railroad system. In an under- taking of this sort, beauty is secondary ; utility is and must be the first consideration. To make our City more convenient, easier to live in, easier to do business in, easier to keep clean, and in every way a better and more wholesome place-these are the primary objects which should lead us to get into line with other cities and secure a plan.
On the other hand, nothing so unifies and solidifies the life of any city as public works designed with particular reference to making it a desirable and attractive place of resi- dence for that great class of people who must live in it all the year round. Public works make for the solidarity of municipal life and good order.
I have endeavored to show that this is the time and the hour for New Haven to secure a plan. New Haven is to-day being given the form it must have for hundreds of years. Just as the railway "cut" as decided upon three years ago has made its permanent mark upon New Haven, so will these other improvements in their own degree make their own mark upon New Haven ..
Let me briefly summarize the foregoing as follows :
Ist. New Haven has in hand several large undertaking's which should be considered together as a part of one plan rather than separately.
2d. New Haven is one of the few prominent American cities that have not secured from outside experts a plan to follow in making future improvements.
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