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 52
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595
A VALEDICTORY
to an adjoining site to the east, and so unlock Orange Street for traffic. With miles on miles of its pipes under our city streets, the New Haven Gas Company is under heavy obliga- tions to the City, and it would be a fine display of good citizen- ship, if the Company would come forward and offer heartily to co-operate with the City in this greatly needed improvement.
Extension of Pearl Street to Whitney Avenue Should Not Be Deferred
In the same spirit, I should like to see the New Haven Lawn Club show its interest in the City by coming forward and peti- tioning for the extension of Pearl Street through to Whitney Avenue, before it is too late. Something has long held back that needed street extension. At any rate, the subject is one that should receive careful attention and full discussion before the new building of the Security Insurance Company is begun.
Mayor Reserves Right to Call Meetings
It was my ardent hope that when you became Mayor in 1916, eight years ago, the work of the Commission might go forward as intended, but the appropriation of not a single dollar has been made by the Board of Finance for the work of the Commission, in spite of the most earnest pleas by indi- vidual members of the Commission. You have maintained the calling of meetings of the Commission to be your exclusive privilege as Chairman. During your term of office of eight years, only fifteen meetings of the commission have been held, 1
and these have been mostly unrelated and for the consideration of scattering situations.
University Perfects Plans to Find New Haven without a Plan
Meanwhile, the City has, in my opinion, seriously suffered for want of a systematic plan, not only to promote a rational and orderly street development in new sections, but also to consider traffic conditions and, further, to meet the expanding
596
NEW HAVEN :
plans of Yale University. While the University-the largest owner of realty in the City, as I am told-has perfected plans for the future development on a great scale of the realty of the University, the City has no corresponding complementary and coordinated plan. This puts the City in a bad position, and is likely to mean the loss of real opportunities and the imposition of heavy burdens of expense and inconvenience upon the City in the future.
Harbor Improvement Plans Dropped
Along with this project of the preparation of a City Plan was another project in which I was scarcely less interested- the project of making our harbor one of the chief assets of the City. The harbor improvement campaign, begun in 1913, has also languished,-another story!
Principles of City Planning Violated
From the foregoing survey, it is clear than my position since the organization of the Commission in 1913 has been one of almost constant humiliation and disappointment. The mandate of the act as to the preparation of a City Plan has been entirely ignored; the Commission has not had stated meetings, and the number of references by the Board of Alder- men to the Commission has been comparatively small, while in many ways the Commission has been ignored in matters in which it had jurisdiction under the act. Such references to the Commission as have been made have found the Commission badly handicapped on account of its having no well-studied, general City Plan, which has placed the Commission in the position of having to pass on details unassisted by the sur- rounding conditions. This, as everybody knows, is in conflict with the fundamental principles of city planning, which aims to consider the bearing of the plan, as a whole, upon any specific question.
597
A VALEDICTORY
Secretary Withdraws Resignation Presented Last September
Last September I placed my resignation in your hands, but was induced by you to withdraw it, which I did, in the hope that the Commission might be allowed to function as designed. At about that time I was requested by your Honor to sit, with the City Engineer, Mr. Nettleton, with the members of the Committee on Streets and Squares of the Aldermanic Board. While not authorized by the Commission so to sit, I was unwill- ing to take a technical view of the matter and embraced every opportunity afforded of sitting with the said Committee and of accompanying the Committee in its tours of inspection. For the conscientious and time-consuming service of that Commit- tee, headed by Alderman Griswold, I would extend the highest praise.
Commission Charged in Aldermanic Chamber with Dereliction of Duty
Now, however, on the floor of the Aldermanic Chamber, the Commission is charged with dereliction of duty and holding back reports on matters never submitted to it. Not having been allowed to function as intended or to prepare a plan for the orderly development of the City, as was made mandatory by the act, the Commission is undoubtedly a handicap, rather than a help,-a hindrance to public business.
A City Plan Commission without a Plan an Anomaly
Ready as I have been since the organization of the Commis- sion in 1913 to serve the City in every way within my power, it is clear that I cannot, in justice to myself, longer remain upon the Commission. A City Plan Commission without a plan is an anomaly in which I can feel little interest. During these eleven years of my service, the very inactivity of the Commission has resulted in an expenditure of more time on my part, I dare say, than I should have spent, had the Commission functioned as intended. My correspondence with officials and private individuals all over the United States, interested in
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NEW HAVEN :
city-planning, has consumed a large amount of time and placed me in the thankless position of replying to inquiries as to the progress of city-planning in New Haven, by saying that New Haven had not adopted city-planning, save in name. In place of thirty-five meetings since the Commission was organized eleven years ago, we should have had meetings once a fort- night, or at least monthly meetings, over the entire period.
Kinds of Improvement Most Needed as Stated in New Haven Report of 1910
I cannot retire from the Commission and take leave of a project which has engaged my attention for so many years without reiterating my conviction that large sums of our tax- payers' money would have been saved, had the mandate of the act creating the Commission been immediately complied with by the preparation of a plan for the systematic and orderly development of the City as a physical entity. I never urged anything but a "City Practical,"-the great aim of city- planning. It was my misfortune and I think the City's misfor- tune, to have the sensational slogan "City Beautiful" fastened upon the project by the newspapers, by ultra-conservatives and by those whose chief pleasure resides in deriding progress and who delighted to dub my project "the dream of a dreamer." Against all such opposition then and now I call attention to the New Haven Report. In its table of contents I find the fol- lowing significant practical improvements proposed, under the heading "Kinds of Improvement Most Needed":
The Railroad. The Harbor. Main Thoroughfares and Car Lines. Street Trees, Poles and Wires, Advertising Signs. The Sewerage Problem. Local Parks and Playgrounds. Rural Parks and Reservations. Parkways.
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A VALEDICTORY
A few illustrations will suffice to illustrate the practical side of city-planning.
Olmsted Foresaw Great Future of Elm Street in 1907
First: Mr. Olmsted, as long ago as 1907, foresaw Elm Street as one of the two great east and west thoroughfares in the City, and urged its provision with building lines to hold its width. Nothing was done. To-day, Elm Street at Broad- way presents, I am told, the most serious single traffic problem in the City. Mr. Olmsted foresaw the growth of the north- western section of the city and the necessity of better traffic communication therewith. The problem confronting the City to-day is to provide for the relief of this traffic congestion, through Wall, Grove, or some other streets, or in some other way. This problem, which could have been solved fifteen- or even ten-years ago, with comparative ease, appears to be almost insoluble now, and certainly cannot be solved except at a tremendous expense, which the City must bear.
The Building Line Menace Forecast
Second : Mr. Olmsted regarded our building line situation as perilous and urgent. Few American cities, I have been told, are so deficient in legal building lines as is New Haven. Anyone who walks our streets with an observing eye may see on every hand store-fronts and house-fronts pushing out to sidewalk lines, thus virtually narrowing streets already too narrow to bear the daily increasing traffic. Wall Street, much in the limelight to-day, has been virtually narrowed by the erection of a great building on the sidewalk line. A proper building line would have prevented this handicap on the street, impairing its future usefulness. Our City Building Line Com- mission is performing a valiant service but is handicapped and has been handicapped from the first by the fact that it has not been provided with any funds. Obviously, building lines can- not always be established by making benefits and damages.
600
NEW HAVEN :
equal. The widening and extension of Court Street eastward would have greatly relieved traffic conditions on Chapel Street and provided freer communication to those parts of the City immediately to the eastward, promoting developments in that section and needed accessions to the grand list.
Tax Valuations Equalized by Re-routing Car Lines
Third: The re-routing of our trolley service would have helped to de-congest thoroughfares and equalize values.
Orderly Street Extensions Favor General Welfare Rather than Pockets of Promoters
Fourth: An orderly development of our streets in the outskirts, in accordance with a systematic plan, considering, first of all, the welfare of the City, ahead of the pockets of promoters, would have largely eliminated the wrangles which the City has witnessed during the last few years with regard to new streets in areas being developed, and secured new and convenient streets coordinated with existing streets, and by the elimination of jogs and sharp turns, adapted our thorough- fares for the travel of fast-moving vehicles, which have, in a decade, imposed many new burdens on city and country streets and highways.
$25,000 for Zoning; Not a Penny for City Planning
Fifth: Zoning, coordinated with city-planning, would have been greatly simplified and promoted, particularly in view of the fact that all questions of traffic are primarily those of city planning and not those of zoning. On zoning the City has already spent some $25,000, but not a penny on City Planning. A zoning ordinance is now being worked out under the guid- ance of Mr. Leonard Tyler and I believe will be found to be worth all it has cost, when once in operation.
601
A VALEDICTORY
Harbor Improvements Would Help to De-Congest the City's Streets and Save the City's Pavements
The development of the harbor and its provision with modern terminal facilities would have been followed by dredg- ing by the Federal Government. The economic "pull," which would have inevitably resulted from such terminal facilities as were proposed, would have resulted in the ultimate building of a great industrial section in the neighborhood of such facilities and gone a long way toward simplifying zoning in its relation to industry-its great problem. The costly paving of our streets would have been freed from the wear and tear due to the hauling of hundreds of thousands of tons of coal over them to manufactories remote from the harbor, to say nothing of the corresponding de-congestion of all of our thor- oughfares and the attendant noise and dust.
Nere Sewerage System Should Precede Showy Marble City Hall
Finally, the City Plan Commission, had it functioned, would have done its utmost to promote a study of our sewerage prob- lem-a problem so grave that it has been sidestepped for a full generation. For my own part, I cannot conceive that this city will undertake to spend several millions of dollars in shunting the Ives Memorial Public Library over onto the adjoining square and erecting a showy marble City Hall on Elm Street, adjacent to and double the size of the County Court House, while, at the same time, we are using our once famous but now forgotten harbor as a cesspool, by daily discharging into it the untreated sewerage of a city of one hundred and seventy-five thousand souls. I hope that wiser counsels will prevail and that the City will have an up-to-date sewerage system before it builds a new City Hall.
602
NEW HAVEN :
Why Not Remodel Present City Hall and Buy Powell Building? Priceless Colonial Records Endangered
For my own part, I should like "to be shown" why our present City Hall cannot be remodeled and made to serve for the present. Its tower, lined with pine dry as tinder, is a fire menace and a menace to our priceless records kept in an old vault on which it would probably fall and crush, in case of a serious fire. This tower should be made safe or taken down. If the present building cannot be remodeled, the City might condemn and acquire the Powell Building, which would pro- vide facilities for years to come at a cost far less than a new City Hall of marble on the Elm Street site.
Independence Hall Suggested as Model for City Hall when Built. Grandiose Marble Buildings Fail to Express Genius of New Haven as a Community
Ultimately, I should like to see on the present site, a new City Hall of brick, sparingly trimmed with marble and designed something after the style of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Tall buildings do not overpower low buildings, if the latter are well designed and suitable. It would be a pity, in the years to come, not to have one brick building in the colonial style (and no style equals it in practicability ) facing the oldest public square in the United States. Waterbury's City Hall, of brick and marble, is a far better model for us than our grandiose County Court House. Ornate marble buildings do not suit and do not express the genius of this community.
City Enterprises Fail without Support of Proper City Officials
These several problems are practical problems and must some day be met by a City Plan Commission or some other body authorized by law to undertake and work them out. If these are the "dreams of a dreamer," I am willing to accept that characterization. My conception of a "City Beautiful"
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A VALEDICTORY
will be realized by a city which has addressed itself manfully to these practical problems and other problems of a kindred nature. Fine architecture is and has been the least of my concerns in this enterprise, which has failed, as I think, for want of official support, rather than for the indifference of the electorate. In his address at Rochester on May 2, 1910, Mr. Olmsted said :
"Outside experts and special commissions may be valuable to arouse or educate public opinion, or to stimulate and inform local officials, or to confirm or correct the judgment of the latter; but the real work of getting the results, toward which any paper plan is but a step, depends mainly upon the right sort of unremitting, never-ending work by the proper adminis- trative officials."
New Haven Plan of 1638 Oldest in the United States
New Haven has, I believe, the oldest organized City Plan on the American continent, going back to 1638, when the City was laid out by John Brockett, surveyor, under the direction of Governor Theophilus Eaton. And I still hope that it may, in time, have a modern plan worthy of that great tradition.
Hundreds of Thousands Spent on a City without a Modern Plan
The City is to-day spending hundreds of thousands of dol- lars, paid into its treasury by the taxpayers, for schools, for street-paving, for police and fire protection, for parks and playgrounds, and so on. All these instruments of our com- munal life are imposed upon the City as a physical entity. Would it not be practical judgment to expand the compara- tively small amount of money required to fit that physical entity better to carry the load? I can find but one answer to that question. Vast sums of money in recent years have been spent on impermanent pavements. A tithe of that money, say $2,500 a year for ten years, would have provided the City with a plan of great practical value.
604
NEW HAVEN :
For personal courtesies extended to me by your Honor and your secretaries, and for courtesies extended by the members of the Aldermanic Body, I have only to express my sincere acknowledgments.
I append a list of the meetings of the Commission with dates.
Respectfully yours, GEORGE DUDLEY SEYMOUR.
HON. DAVID E. FITZGERALD,
Mayor, City of New Haven,
City Hall,
New Haven, Connecticut.
P. S .- When a city official, whatever his office, resigns from it, he is not allowed to escape without giving his reasons, and on that account I shall assume that you have no objection to my giving copies of this letter to our local papers, in which it will serve also to re-state and re-affirm my faith in the projects for which I have so long contended.
Schedule of Meetings of the City Plan Commission of the City of New Haven, Conn. Under Mayor Rice
Ist
Nov. 17, 1913
9th
Oct. 19, 1914
2d
Dec. 29, 1913
(Adjourned to meet on Oct. 27th)
3d
Jan. 31, 1914
9th
Oct. 27, 1914
4th
Mar. 14, 1914
10th
Jan. 26, 1915
5th
Apr. 20, 1914
IIth
Jan. 29, 1915
6th
June 15, 1914
12th
Feb. 15, 1915
7th
June 22, 1914
13th
Mar. 15, 1915
8th
Sept. 22, 1914
14th
Apr. 19, 1915
15th
Feb. 28, 1916
16th
Mar. 13, 1916
Under Mayor Campner
17th
Dec. 18, 1916
20th
Jan. 15, 1917
18th
Dec. 27, 1916
2Ist
Feb. 23, 1917
19th
Jan. 9, 1917
22d
Dec. 14, 1917
Under Mayor
FitzGerald
230
Jan. 4, 1918
28th
July 5, 1921
24th
Jan. 7, 1918
29th
Aug. II, 1921
25th
Jan. 21, 1918
30th
June 13, 1922
26th
Feb. 18, 1918
3Ist
Oct. 9, 1923
27th
Feb. 3, 1920
32d
Nov. 8, 1923
(Adjourned to meet on Feb. 6th)
33d
Dec. 27, 1923
27th Feb. 6, 1920
34th
May 5, 1924
(Adjourned to meet on Feb. 10th)
35th
July 15, 1924
27th
Feb. 10, 1920
LXXV.
THE MAYOR'S REPLY.
City of New Haven, Connecticut, Office of the Mayor
GEORGE D. SEYMOUR, EsQ., July 29, 1924.
129 Church St.,
New Haven, Conn.
DEAR MR. SEYMOUR :
Supplementing the acknowledgment by my Secretary of your letter received at this office on the 22d instant, resigning from the Commission on the City Plan, I desire to say, I exceedingly regret you feel you must leave the Commission.
Your letter containing a statement of the case from your point of view, which you say "you were advised should accom- pany your resignation," gives many details. I feel there is no necessity, at this time, to refer specifically to any of these except, in reply, to say you know at no time, did I interfere with the functioning of this Commission. On the contrary, however, you know I have at all times aided every plan having for its object the development and progress of the City of New Haven.
I thank you exceedingly for the services which you have rendered, not only during the period I have been in office, but also for each and every one which you rendered to the City at any time.
I assure you that the courtesies referred to as having been extended to you by myself and my office, are only those which this office is accustomed to extend to all the people.
In view of your letter and its contents, I therefore accept your resignation, and in whatever field of endeavor you devote your talents, please be assured you carry my very best wishes for success.
Sincerely yours,
(Signed)
DAVID E. FITZGERALD, Mayor of New Haven.
DEF-C
LXXVI.
A GROUP OF EDITORIALS: "THE CITY PLAN COMMISSION"; "CITY-PLANNING STALLED";
"NEW HAVEN'S LOSS"; "INTELLIGENT CITY PLANNING"; AND A LETTER FROM MR. CASS GILBERT.
THE CITY PLAN COMMISSION
(Reprinted from the New Haven Register of July 24, 1924.)
New Haven learns with regret of the resignation of George Dudley Seymour from the City Plan Commission, and will sympathize in large measure with the reasons he gives there- for. There is nothing more unsatisfactory than to serve for years on any public body which ceases to function and the City Plan Commission, except in a minor way, ceased to function almost from the start. In fact its only functioning to date has been as an advisory body. Various minor matters regard- ing streets and building lines have been referred to it and its judgment has been sought as to their desirability. Its original object to suggest a more general comprehensive plan for city improvement has never been attained.
The fact is that the people of New Haven as a whole have never taken kindly to the idea of a City Plan Commission because they have feared that it meant plans for large expendi- tures, beyond the reach of the city's purse, and expenditures that on the whole were not for the real necessities of New Haven. With the city debt nearing the limit, with an annual budget the past few years of six or seven million dollars a year, with tremendous expenditures for schools and the recent decision to construct a number of Junior High Schools; also with the large expenditures already made and planned for
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A GROUP OF EDITORIALS
the West River Park system and the Lighthouse Point Park, to say nothing of extensive street paving, the average citizen and tax payer has felt less interest in city planning than he otherwise would have felt for the simple reason that he feared it meant a lot of new expensive projects which the city could not afford.
This, however, in our opinion is a somewhat erroneous view to take. There could have been no objection to the City Plan Commission having functioned in this respect at least: It could have considered all the needs of the city, or of the possi- bly desirable improvements, and placed them before the public for discussion. Then the public could have formed its own opinion as to what was desirable and possible and what was not. Furthermore it might have done a great deal in the way of establishing building lines on the fringe of the present busi- ness section of the city before improvements in the way of new buildings were made which would render the establish- ment of such building lines extravagant and impossible. It is not too late for the Commission to perform that service, for certainly some one should cast a glance into the future in any growing city. Without entering into a fuller discussion of this matter at a time when so many citizens are on vacation, The Register is glad to pay a deserved tribute to Mr. Seymour for the many services he has rendered New Haven in suggesting improvements of a desirable character. His work in connec- tion with the Post Office building, the Public Library, the rehabilitation of Center Church deserves high commendation. His advocacy of various improvements in the Park System together with his advocacy of the Lighthouse Point Park have shown foresight and wisdom. New Haven will hope that even though not occupying an official position he may continue to give it the benefit of his advice and counsel.
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NEW HAVEN :
CITY PLANNING STALLED
(An editorial under the above heading printed in the New Haven Journal- Courier of July 24th, 1924.)
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories, remarks Montaigne, and it is quite likely that Mr. George Dudley Seymour's retirement from the Commission on the City Plan marked by his detailed letter of explanation and information will-from the vantage point of eleven years of service-do more for the improvement of New Haven than if he longer "carried on" in the vain rôle of sustaining a Com- mission to plan, which does not plan and is not encouraged by the city authorities to plan. It is much for a busy citizen to give his time in the arduous and inconspicuous labors involved in considering and advancing projects for the welfare of the city in the years to come-and surely in a great city like this, doubling its population in three decades, some one must do some thinking-but to carry this load without recompense and to have added to it the inertia, the irresponse and even the hindrance of those who should as officials be keener in the hunt than Mr. Seymour himself, is too much. It is not only an over-tax on human nature but, unknowingly to Mr. Sey- mour-jaded, disgusted and discouraged-he has made the situation an opportunity. Citizens are to-day asking them- selves if they as a body can afford to have scrapped as of no value the intelligent zeal, the unselfish enthusiasm of Mr. Sey- mour. They want to know what is the matter with a munici- pal outfit that is unable to appreciate how rare such coun- sellors are, and refuses to recognize the emergency-street layouts, sewerage, building programs and the like-that calls for prompt, wise and continued policies.
Constructive enthusiasm is difficult enough to get in private business where there is money to buy it; it is rarely available in community administration where it must be unpaid. New Haven already owes very much to Mr. Seymour: a dozen park, public building, artistic and historic projects for the
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