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 53
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A GROUP OF EDITORIALS
benefit of the whole population can be listed as the fruit of his sacrifice, persistence and effectiveness. He is in touch with the best things being done by progressive cities at home and abroad; he is a personal friend of the experts and citizen- leaders who do them. He is no dreamer save as visioning a greater, a more convenient and stately New Haven. He is a trained lawyer, a student, a municipal expert. It is a strange thing that in a city like New Haven, rife with citizens of ability, of means, of aspiration, fortunate in having a George Dudley Seymour eager to be of service, he must after all these years come before its people and tell them, in explanation of why he lays down the task of city planning-laying out the geography of the place so that not only this generation but posterity may find itself about and look out on a plan adopted to its uses-that he is weary and at an end. He can do his work but he cannot do it alone. He must have some interest at least from the officials of their city.
The citizens in their various groups and associations should inform themselves as to the blind corner City Planning is in and why. Meanwhile the administration, vested with author- ity to safeguard the interests of the people, has the floor.
NEW HAVEN'S LOSS.
(An editorial printed in the Hartford Times of August 2d, 1924.)
With the acceptance by Mayor FitzGerald of New Haven of the resignation of George Dudley Seymour as a member of the Commission on Planning, the Elm City suffers a heavy and needless loss. New Haven was an early imitator of Hartford in appointing a group of citizens to supervise plans for the city's development, in order to make sure that its growth might be along the best lines. Like Hartford's Commission the New Haven body has become a passive rather than an active factor in the city's development. Mr. Seymour's resignation is in
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protest against a do-nothing policy. He has become convinced of the futility of trying to serve a city which apparently does not care whether or not it is so served.
One New Haven paper has expressed the idea that such a resignation may sting a complacent municipality into action and have even greater effectiveness in revivifying city planning activities than Mr. Seymour's efforts have produced. That may be so, but we think it is doubtful.
New Haven is, indeed, unfortunate that a citizen like Mr. Seymour has taken himself out of such work. A native of Bristol and a graduate of Hartford's high school and Colum- bian University, civic and patriotic activities have been his hobby. He served on the committee for building New Haven's library, is a member of the State Commission of Sculpture, a member of the State Commission for Developing New Haven Harbor and he purchased the birthplace of Nathan Hale, the revolutionary martyr, to preserve it for posterity.
These and other activities indicate what Mr. Seymour's interests have been. They disclose his fitness to serve upoti a planning commission. A city should count itself fortunate to be able to command such services and should regard it as a cause almost for humiliation when they are withdrawn because no one appears to care whether or not they are put forth.
INTELLIGENT CITY PLANNING.
(An editorial printed in the New Haven Journal-Courier of September 8th, 1924. )
New Haven is a conspicuous laggard in the country wide movement on the part of growing communities to plan care- fully, prudently and wisely for future needs. In other words, it is being realized by many of the growing cities of the country that, if steps are not taken now to anticipate future growth in view of past growth and provide for it as it makes its impres- sion upon civic life, a terribly complex condition will arise which will seriously damage local prosperity.
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The city of Springfield is an eastern city which has come to realize the full significance of this fact and is preparing to set its house in order, through the power of intelligent vision, in a manner to be able to meet each new problem as it presents itself. It has its eye on permanent improvements which must soon be undertaken and is studying the methods to meet the cost they will impose, not in a spirit of locality booming but in an understanding of the necessity which always confronts an expanding community of being prepared for all of the emer- gencies which the imaginative mind can foresee. Two alder- men have been recently elected there on a platform pledging the expenditure of three-quarters of a million of dollars to widen a street as an approach to the city's memorial bridge. As the Hartford Times puts it in commenting on this Springfield awakening : "The outstanding feature is the adoption of a city plan which governs all improvements and anticipates needs of fifty years and a zoning ordinance by which all changes in existing parcels of property are determined. Springfield came to the realization that the city was not laid out for the popula- tion and traffic of today."
New Haven, owing to the public spirit and foresight of George Dudley Seymour, was years ago in advance of all these inquiring cities of the country in peering into the needs of the future and preparing to meet them. It is now several years since an exhaustive survey was made of city conditions as to the very problems which are looming up more and more dis- turbingly by a voluntary committee of which Mr. Seymour was the moving spirit and Frederick Law Olmsted the expert counseller. From every section of the country came a demand for this report, which was published at the private expense of a group of citizens who were able to see beyond the length of their noses. Had that plan been studied and its principles been vigorously advocated by the city administration which fol- lowed its publication, New Haven today would be foremost of all the cities of the country in civic leadership. To have lost the enthusiasm and counsel of Mr. Seymour through political stupidity must be counted a misfortune of no mean proportions.
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A LETTER FROM MR. CASS GILBERT.
CASS GILBERT, ARCHITECT 244 Madison Avenue, New York
September 27, 1924.
Mr. George Dudley Seymour, 129 Church Street, New Haven, Conn.
DEAR SEYMOUR :
Your letter of July 27th reached me personally on my return from Europe a few days ago, and I have read it with very great interest. Your "Valedictory," as you call it, in the Journal-Courier of July 23d, is a very admirable resumé of the whole matter. It is so temperate, so dignified, and so true that it must have made a deep impression upon every one who has read it. I have no doubt that the fine spirit which pervades it will have an effect upon the community.
You are one of the pioneers of the movement toward good city planning. You have rendered very great service to the whole country by your efforts to help solve the problems of New Haven and by your clear conceptions of the great need for the right development of our cities.
The changing conditions of modern life have made it imperative that far-sighted men like yourself should take hold of the problems that have arisen and to see to it that they are solved in the interests of the people. I have faith to believe that out of the discussions of the day will grow better living conditions and it should be a great satisfaction to you to realize that you are among those who have contributed very largely to the sum of information on the subject and to the impulse which will cause the necessary betterments to be made.
Personally I am very glad to have had a part in the plan of New Haven even though the plan is never carried out. It was a most interesting service along with you and Olmsted and the members of the committee with whom I came in contact.
With kindest regards, I remain
Very sincerely yours, (Signed) CASS GILBERT.
LXXVII.
LIGHTHOUSE POINT ACQUIRED AS AN EXTEN- SION OF THE NEW HAVEN PARK SYSTEM -THE STORY OF A "FREE LANCE" AND A POPULAR CAUSE BACK OF IT.
When the Commission on the City Plan was organized in 1913, I decided that I could not, with propriety, continue to urge specific improvements as an individual, without being supposed to speak for the Commission. After a decade of futile effort, however, I had made up my mind that the Com- mission on the City Plan was a failure in advancing the improvements for which it was created, and, foreseeing my own retirement from the Commission, I concluded that before relinquishing public activities, I would take up my old "free lance" once more and endeavor to "put over" one public improvement which had been among my favorite projects from the beginning of my active interest in City affairs. This was the purchase for or by the City of the Lighthouse Point prop- erty as the only remaining opportunity for New Haven to acquire a seaside park which would minister to a large element of her population during the summer season and provide her citizens with decent public bathing facilities.
The ultimate acquisition of the property as a "public reser- vation" was recommended in the New Haven "Report" of 1910, by Messrs. Gilbert and Olmsted (page 88). The project was one often discussed with the late William Scranton Pardee (Yale 1882), and formed a topic of almost constant discussion between us up to the time of his death in 1918. I urged him to make it one of his proposed benefactions to the City, at a time when the property could have been bought for $4500, but
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his hope was that the Commission on the City Plan, in which he was deeply interested, might take the matter up and put it through. Meanwhile, however, the property was acquired, with some additional acreage at the back, by the East Shore Improve- ment Company and "improved" by the erection of bath houses, a ball field, a grand-stand, a merry-go-round, and the other usual features of an up-to-date amusement resort. A large amount of money was expended, but for some reason or other the place never achieved wide popularity. The World War and the increased trolley-fares doubtless had much to do with the virtual failure of the enterprise as a resort. I more than once urged upon his Honor, the Mayor, the consideration that the best time to secure any property was when it was not mak- ing money for its owners, and I never lost faith in the project of securing the property for the City. When Professor Henry S. Graves was placed upon the Park Board, to succeed Judge Baldwin, I enlisted his support also, and was gratified to find that he was warmly sympathetic.
It is as true, however, of "a professional citizen" (as some of my critics called me) as it is of any one else that "everything comes to him who waits," and at last an opportunity for direct action came to me. At a public hearing on February 1, 1924, before the Committee on Streets and Squares of the Board of Aldermen, a petition for a bond issue of $100,000 for the pur- chase of a public golf course, backed by the Chamber of Com- merce, was heard. I sat with the Committee at the Mayor's suggestion, as a member of the Commission on the City Plan, and when the Committee went into executive session, after the hearing, I expressed myself as unalterably opposed to any expenditure of the taxpayers' money for public golf, until the Lighthouse Point property had been acquired to meet a far more urgent public health and recreational necessity. "But," said Alderman Greenberg, who sat by my side, "that project is not before us. If you are prepared to present such a petition, I think that you will receive the united support of the Repub- lican contingent of the Aldermanic Board." Alderman Camp-
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bell also joined in the discussion and gave his assent. I replied that I would think of it over-night. The truth is, that I knew how large an amount of time and effort would have to be put into such a campaign as the success of the petition would require, and I shrank from it. On the other hand, to present the petition and push it to success would justify my faith and in some measure compensate me for past labors, and I felt that I could not, in justice either to myself or to the "shade" of Billy Pardee, refuse to take advantage of such an opportunity (even with a high factional coloration) to attempt, at least, to accom- plish an object cherished for so many years. Accordingly, when Mr. Greenberg called me early the next morning on the phone to ask for my decision, I said that I was ready to present the petition as soon as it could be prepared in due form. From that hour forward until the public hearing on my petition, there was no busier man in New Haven than the writer, as any one who has been through such a campaign will understand. The newspapers agreed to support the project, as did the Board of Health, the Park Commission, organizations of women voters, and so on. The public hearing on March II, 1924, was attended by a throng of representative citizens, and was fol- lowed by a favorable report to the Board of Aldermen, who in turn acted favorably upon the report. The Mayor approved it, and in due season condemnation proceedings were instituted under the direction of the Corporation Counsel, Hon. Harrison Hewitt (Yale 1897) and are now in progress. That the City of New Haven will soon be in possession of this beautiful property of some eighty-four acres is assured. In addition to a fine bathing-beach protected by the breakwater, the tract includes about half a mile of harbor frontage, which will fall into the Gilbert-Olmsted plan for a shore drive as outlined in the City Improvement Report of 1910.
The yellowed sheets of the above text I find among my papers. It is undated, but it shows that it was written when condemnation proceedings were under way. How they resulted, everyone knows. The sight of unnumbered crowds of men,
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women and children who throng the beach on hot summer days constitutes an ample reward for the effort put into the acquisi- tion of the park for the city. I am sure former Alderman Greenberg and all other workers in the cause feel just as I do about it. To record their names would be gracious, but handicapped, as I am, I must forego the pleasure but, none the less, they have their reward in the satisfaction of having served their city and humanity well.
New Haven, October 16, 1940.
A PUBLIC GOLF COURSE VETOED.
(A Stray Page of Reminiscence)
On May 10, 1924, I presented to the Board of Aldermen a petition for a bond issue of $32,500 to purchase a tract of 129 acres on Fair Haven Heights, pronounced by Mr. Pryde, our highest authority in such matters, to be the best available tract for a public golf course in the vicinity of New Haven, the area being on high ground, free from timber and brush, well turfed, and only about two and one-half miles from the City Hall. The petition was favorably reported on by the Board and at first approved by the Mayor, but later the Mayor recalled his approval and vetoed the measure. As a real estate investment alone, the site seemed a good one to acquire-a desirable accession to our park system, even if not utilized for a public golf course. I predict that the City will spend a far larger sum for a less desirable tract for public golf links within a very few years.
LXXVIII.
MR. TAFT GREATLY LOVED NEW HAVEN AND FAVORED THE ADOPTION OF SYSTEMATIC CITY PLANNING AND THE INSTALLA- TION OF TERMINAL FACILITIES IN THE HARBOR, AS PROPOSED BY THE AUTHOR.
New Haven, Connecticut October 16, 1940
This portrait (the Frontispiece) of Chief-Justice Taft was painted from life in 1929 in The Corcoran Art Gallery, Wash- ington, D. C., by Ernest L. Ipsen, N.A., commissioned thereto by the subscriber who presented the portrait to the Government to be hung with the portraits of the Justices of the Supreme Court. In conversation with me one day, Mr. Taft deplored that he had been painted for the White House by Zorn, and for his brother, Charles P. Taft, by Sarolla, rather than by an American painter. He would have preferred, he said, to have been painted by Sargent. I got his permission to write to Mr. Sargent, who replied that he had given up portrait painting and declined the commission with reluctance. Mr. Sargent was then at work, I believe, on his murals for the Boston Public Library. Accordingly, I referred the matter of the selection of a portrait painter to my friend, Herbert A. Adams, president of the National Academy of Design. After surveying the field, Mr. Adams recommended Mr. Ipsen for the commission.
Mr. Ipsen, accordingly, went to Washington and, as a spec- tator, attended the sessions of the Supreme Court for several days in order to study Mr. Taft who, of course, did not know who he was. Then Mr. Taft gave Mr. Ipsen what sittings were required. Before the portrait was completed, I went to
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Washington with my junior partner, Mr. Malcolm P. Nichols. We joined Mr. Taft and Mr. Ipsen in the improvised studio in The Corcoran Art Gallery, and I made some suggestions about the portrait-all in the direction of simplification. Both Mr. and Mrs. Taft expressed themselves as entirely satisfied with the likeness. In due time I presented the portrait, and Chief- Justice Hughes wrote me that he would like to arrange a simple presentation ceremony if I would come on to Washing- ton, but as I had no idea of any publicity in connection with the gift, I declined, and have kept the matter a secret until within a few weeks, but having reached my eightieth year, I thought I might as well "let the cat out of the bag," and had some prints made of the portrait to send to a few of Mr. Taft's more intimate friends. I have dictated this brief description of the picture, as I know from long experience how much facts regarding portraits from life are valued. I have been interested in portraits and portrait painting all my life. I have just now learned that Mr. Taft regarded this portrait as the best ever painted of him.
Mr. Cass Gilbert, a close friend of mine since 1906 until his death, designed the new Supreme Court Building in Washing- ton for Mr. Taft, during whose chief justiceship the building was designed and constructed. Mr. Gilbert was taken into the secret of the portrait of Chief-Justice Taft, and told me that he had designed a particular place for it in the new building, but whether or not the canvas was ever hung in that place I do not know. I now learn that Mr. Taft's portrait is honorably hung, opposite the portrait of Chief-Justice Jay, in the Main Conference Room of the Supreme Court Building, but whether or not in the place designed for it by Mr. Gilbert I have no idea. -G. D. S.
LXXIX.
TWO SOUVENIRS OF THE WAR OF 1812.
I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Rawson W. Haddon, Curator of the Mattatuck Historical Society of Waterbury, for copies of two letters in the archives of that society which have never been printed and which are of especial interest here in New Haven as confirming one of New Haven's most cher- ished traditions. The tradition applies to the building of the three churches on the old Green, but the letters in question relate only to Trinity Church and to the North Church, the latter of which, designed and built by David Hoadley, a Water- bury man, is referred to in one of the letters as "the meeting house."
In building the churches, it appears, some of the lumber was rafted down the Connecticut River but could not be delivered at New Haven on account of the embargo by British warships then in control of Long Island Sound. This was, of course, during the War of 1812. Permission to let the lumber come to New Haven from the mouth of the river had to be secured from the British commander, whose flagship lay off New Lon- don, and Mr. Hoadley wrote to Judge John Kingsbury of Waterbury asking for a letter to his brother, Jacob Kingsbury, then in some official position at New London. Hoadley's letter to Judge Kingsbury, dated June Ist, 1814, is the first of the two letters now printed. The second, dated 19th July, 1814, is Jacob Kingsbury's report of the matter to his brother at Waterbury. In the interval a flag of truce had gone to one of the British ships and on the day the letter was written a favorable reply had been received from Captain Paget, the British commander, in the form of an open letter addressed to his Excellency, John Cotton Smith, Governor of Connecticut.
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The lumber was accordingly released and delivered in due course.
The puzzling thing about the letters, as a matter of fact, is the way in which Trinity Church is named as the beneficiary in the letter of July 19th. Trinity Church was built by Ithiel Town. It was the North Church that Hoadley designed and built and must have been seeking the lumber for. I offer copies of the letters and leave it to other antiquarians to explain the matter.
New Haven June Ist, 1814.
John Kingsbury, Esq. Sir,
I have in Connecticut River a raft of lumber which I have purchased for the purpose of building the meeting house here. I have also purchased a quantity of lumber for the same purpose which is now up the River and which I am very desirous of bringing round by water in a vessel. This cannot be done with safety without permission from the Officer commanding the British squadron in the sound. For the purpose of obtaining that per- mission, I propose to go with a flag to the commodore's ship off New London. This however cannot be done without the aid of the American Officer com- manding at that port, who I am informed is your brother. In pursuance of the advice of several gentlemen here, my object in writing this is to request from you a letter of introduction to your brother, stating such facts to him regarding the subject as you may think proper. When the object for which the lumber is wanted is considered, I cannot but hope that the necessary permission will be obtained. Mr. Town last summer, under similar circumstances, obtained from Capt. Hardy the same permission which I now propose to ask. Please to let me hear from you by the first opportunity or by the first mail.
I wish nothing said on this subject.
Yours respectfully (Signed) David Hoadley.
P. S. If you write to your brother, please to send the letter to me. I will deliver it myself.
New London, Connecticut 19th July 1814.
Dear Brother,
Your letter by Mr. Hoadley of Waterbury, I received, since which a Flag has been sent on board one of his Majestys Ships, and I have this day received an answer, by a Flag from his Majestys Ship Superb, with an open letter addressed to his Excellency John Cotton Smith, which I shall forward to him immediately by Mail. The contents of the open letter are as follows: "In compliance to your request in favor of the Wardens and Vestry Men of Trinity Church in New Haven the Ships under my Orders will be
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directed not to molest any Vessels that on examination prove to be literally engaged in conveying from the Connecticut the materials in question to New Haven for the purpose of erecting a Church. It will be most proper in my opinion for Mr. Hoadley to wait on his Excellency Governor Smith, and receive from him a Certified Copy of the permit from Captain Paget.
Give my love to your Children, and accept of this, from your friend, and Brother- (Signed) Jacob Kingsbury.
John Kingsbury, Esq., Waterbury. N. London 6 July 21
Jacob Kingsbury Inspector General Free John Kingsbury, Esq. Waterbury Connecticut.
APPENDIX.
NEW HAVEN AS IT APPEARED TO THE FIRST PRESIDENT DWIGHT OF YALE, 1752-1817.
"The plain, on which New Haven is built, is not improbably a congeries of particles, floated down to this place in early times from the interior. Its surface is sand mixed with loam and gravel. Beneath this is usually found a stratum of yellow loam. Still lower, at the depth of fifteen or eighteen inches; a mass of coarse sand extends about six feet. Beneath this is another, composed principally of pebbles, rounded and smoothed like stones, washed by the ocean. Still further down, the materials, gen- erally like those which have been mentioned, are more mingled and con- fused. I speak here of the most elevated parts of the plain. Formerly the surface was covered with shrub-oaks; and wild turkeys, and part- ridges were found in great numbers." (Vol. I, p. 183 "Dwight's Travels in New England and New York." New Haven. 1821.)
"The area, occupied by New Haven, is probably as large, as that which usually contains a City of six times the number of inhabitants, in Europe. A considerable proportion of the houses have court-yards in front, and gardens in the rear. The former are ornamented with trees, and shrubs; the latter are luxuriantly filled with fruit trees, flowers, and culinary vegetables. The beauty, and healthfulness, of this arrangement need no explanation.
The houses in this City are generally decent; and many of the modern ones handsome. The style of building is neat and tidy. Fences, and out- houses are also in the same style; and being almost universally painted white, make a delightful appearance to the eye; an appearance, not a little enhanced, by the great multitude of shade-trees; a species of orna- ment, in which this town is unrivaled. Most of the buildings are of wood; and many may be considered as destined to become the fuel of a future con- flagration. Building with brick and stone is, however, becoming more and more frequent. The mode of building with stone, which seems not unlikely to become general, is to raise walls of whin-stone [trap-rock], broken into fragments of every irregular form, laid in strong mortar; and then to overcast them with a peculiar species of cement.
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