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 6
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3d. Among the improvements already in hand or projected are : a new public library, a new hall of records, a new county court house, a new railway station, a lake at the foot of East Rock, and a boulevard miles in extent.
4th. In the near future New Haven will require a new postoffice, and in a generation, a larger city hall.
5th. Plans adopted and being executed in cities all over
47
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN.
the world, involve the creation of a civic center, a term chosen to describe the grouping of public buildings for convenience and superior effect.
6th. New Haven has in the Green an unparalleled oppor- tunity for the formation of a civic center.
7th. New Haven, having already secured the Bristol site and the Trowbridge site, needs only to secure the Edwards site and the Sargent site to control the north side of the Green between Church and Temple streets for a civic center.
8th. The location on the north side of the Green of the Ives Memorial Library, a court house and a hall of records, designed as an organized group of buildings, would be a fine solution of these three problems and greatly enhance the beauty of the City.
9th. New Haven has a grave traffic problem on account of wholly insufficient approaches between the Green and the Union Station.
IOth. The traffic problem can be solved only by the crea- tion of one or two new approaches, involving cutting, the cost of which will be more than offset, as a business proposition, by increase in values.
IIth. Temple Street, if widened and connected by simple cutting with Commerce Street, would make a convenient and stately approach from the proposed new Union Station to the Green.
12th. As the Consolidated railway is now planning not only to build a magnificent railway station, forming a great vestibule for the City, but also to improve the plot owned by the company in front of the new station, the City should coop- erate with the company in making a worthy approach from the new station to the Green.
13th. Experts should be invited without delay to consider and report a plan before mistakes make the acceptance at some future time of an inferior plan necessary.
14th. The right solution of the municipal problems before New Haven to-day, demand special knowledge, experience,
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NEW HAVEN :
complete absence of local prejudice and high powers of con- structive imagination.
15th. Steps should be taken to employ experts and secure a plan before any more work is done or planned affecting the future of the City.
New Haven, Conn., June, 1907.
Note .- The publication of this "open letter" awakened throughout the City an interest in the subject as gratifying to the writer as it was unexpected. So much interest was shown that his honor, Mayor Studley, was led to call a mass meeting which was held on the evening of June 19th in Colonial Hall. This meeting was largely attended by our most prom- inent and public spirited citizens. The following resolution was offered by Henry C. White, Esq., and seconded by Burton Mansfield, Esq., and after being remarked upon by a number of citizens was unanimously passed :
"Voted: That a committee be appointed by the Mayor, of which he shall be a member ex officio, to include one member of the Board of Aldermen, one member of the Board of Park Commissioners, and nine other citizens; to employ experts to prepare a plan for the improvement of the City of New Haven, if after consideration they deem this course advisable; to procure, by appropriation or otherwise, the money necessary to pay the charges and expenses of such experts, if employed; and to bring any plan which may be made to the attention of the government and people of the city, with the committee's recommendations in regard to such plan; said committee to have power to add to and fill vacancies in its membership."
A few days later the Mayor appointed the following com- mittee of citizens to undertake the matter of employing experts to secure a plan : Hon. Rollin S. Woodruff (chairman), Hon. John P. Studley, George Dudley Seymour (secretary), Henry H. Townshend (assistant secretary and treasurer), Messrs. George D. Watrous, William W. Farnam, Frederick D. Grave, Max Adler, James T. Moran, Frederick F. Brewster, Harry G. Day and Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr. A few weeks later the name of Sylvester Z. Poli was added to
49
SUBSCRIBERS TO THE FUND TO SECURE A PLAN.
this list in order that the Italo-American citizens might be represented.
A meeting of this committee was held in the Mayor's room in the City Hall, July 1, 1907, when it was voted to invite Mr. Cass Gilbert and Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., to prepare and report upon a plan for the improvement of the city. It was also voted to ask citizens of known public spirit to subscribe the sum of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) to defray the expenses of securing and publishing the report of the experts. This appeal was made through circulars and the press, and about eight thousand dollars ($8,000) were within a few weeks subscribed without resort to personal solici- tation. The subscriptions were nearly all in the amount of one hundred dollars each. · The following is a list of the sub- scribers up to October 22, 1909 :
Max Adler,
Harry W. Asher,
Samuel R. Avis, Judge Simeon E. Baldwin, S. H. Barnum,
John K. Beach,
Thomas G. Bennett,
Gamble-Desmond Co.,
Hon. Frederick A. Betts,
Edward F. and Frederick C. Bishop,
Hon. Dennis A. Blakeslee,
Hon. Edward A. Bowers,
James Hillhouse,
George E. Hodson,
Henry Brewer, Frederick F. Brewster,
Hon. George F. Holcomb, Mayor of New Haven, 1885-7,
Thomas Hooker,
Henry L. Hotchkiss,
Frederick J. Kingsbury, Jr.,
George W. Curtis,
Walter E. Malley,
Leonard M. Daggett, Harry G. Day,
John T. Manson,
Charles S. DeForest,
Judge A. McClellan Mathewson,
John I. H. Downes,
Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight,
Rev. Robert J. Early,
Henry F. English,
Lewis H. English, Prof. Henry W. Farnam,
Thomas W. Farnam, William W. Farnam,
Hon. Frederick B. Farnsworth, Mayor of New Haven, 1897-9,
Prof. Irving Fisher,
John B. Fitch,
Frederick D. Grave,
George E. Hall,
Prof. Yandell Henderson,
Prof. George J. Brush,
Dr. William H. Carmalt,
D. G. Carmichael, Hon. Minotte E. Chatfield,
Hon. Burton Mansfield,
Ralph Miner,
Gen. Phelps Montgomery,
James T. Moran,
Rev. M. Mckeon,
Charles H. Nettleton,
Hon. Henry G. Newton,
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NEW HAVEN :
Frank W. Pardee,
Henry H. Townshend,
William S. Pardee,
Arthur B. Treat,
Henry F. Parmelee,
Frank D. Trowbridge,
Sylvester Z. Poli,
Winston J. Trowbridge,
Prof. Edward V. Raynolds, died Jan. 25, 1910,
Julius Twiss,
Prof. Edward B. Reed,
Victor Morris Tyler,
Leoni W. Robinson,
William R. Tyler, died Sept. 25, 1907,
Edwin P. Root,
Col. Isaac M. Ullman,
Henriette F. B. Root,
Charles M. Walker,
Amory E. Rowland,
Curtis Howard Walker,
Lucien Sanderson,
Prof. George D. Watrous,
Prof. John C. Schwab,
Weibel Brewing Co.,
George Dudley Seymour,
Pierce N. Welch, died Oct. 26, 1909,
Henry M. Shartenberg,
Henry C. White,
Prof. E. Hershey Sneath,
Dr. F. H. Whittemore,
Levi T. Snow,
Arthur B. Woodford,
Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr.,
Edward S. Swift,
Sherwood S. Thompson,
Yale Brewing Co., Inc.
died August 7, 1907,
Frank W. Tiernan,
Hon. Eli Whitney,
Judge Earnest C. Simpson,
Hon. Nehemiah D. Sperry,
Margaret C. Woodford,
Hon. Rollin S. Woodruff (then the Governor of Connecticut),
Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Olmsted began without delay to collect the material for the report, and in this they were cordially assisted by officials and citizens. To rehearse the details of the preparations required and to describe the data collected would require a book in itself. Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Olm- sted repeatedly visited the City to collect material and famil- iarize themselves with its particular requirements, for cities are as individual as men. Mr. Olmsted kept one of his trained assistants here for several weeks examining the topog- raphy of the environs of the City and making sketches for maps. To assist Mr. Olmsted, the committee employed Mr. Ronald M. Byrnes, a member of the then Senior class of Yale University, specializing in social and statistical science under Professor William B. Bailey, assistant professor of political economy in the University. From official and other sources Mr. Byrnes gathered together a vast amount of hitherto inaccessible material, which he embodied in a report
The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Co.,
PUBLIC LECTURE COURSE ARRANGED BY PROF. WEIR. 5 I
of some one hundred pages, transmitted in February, 1908, to Mr. Olmsted, who found it of great value. So valua- ble indeed is this "statistical picture" of New Haven in the year 1908 felt to be, that it will be printed in full as an appendix to the report of Messrs. Gilbert and Olmsted.
This material having been collected, it yet remained to study it, to consider what recommendations should be made, to prepare plans and maps, and to write the text of the report itself. It is expected that the completed report may soon be presented to the public40a for discussion and for adoption, so far as it is the sense of the community that it meets the requirements of a plan for the development along logical lines of the City.
It should be stated that, on the initiative of Professor John F. Weir, director of the Yale School of the Fine Arts, the Trow- bridge Lecture Course was given in connection with the move- ment now in progress for civic improvement. These lectures, open to the public, were given in the Trumbull Gallery of the Art School building. Professor Weir's wide acquaintance with the foremost men of the country working along con- structive artistic lines, enabled him to prepare and carry out a lecture course on the subject in hand, never equaled in this country. The lectures, fully illustrated, informed the public and gave impetus to the movement. The following is a list of the speakers, their subjects, and the dates on which the lectures were given :
December 3, 1908, Mr. Frank Miles Day, president of the American Institute of Architects, "Civic Improvement in the United States"; December 10, 1908, Mr. Cass Gilbert, A.I.A., S.A.R., "Grouping of Public Buildings"; December 17, 1908, Mr. John M. Carrère, A.I.A. (of Carrère & Hastings) "Civic Improvement as to Parks, Streets and Buildings"; January 21, 1909, Mr. Walter Cook, trustee of the American Institute of Architects, "Some Considerations in Civic Improvement";
40a The first copies of the report were issued January, 19II, to the sub- scribers to the fund. The report was submitted to the public almost immediately thereafter.
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NEW HAVEN :
January 28, 1909, Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., landscape architect, "Parks and Civic Improvements"; February 4, 1909, Mr. Charles Howard Walker, A.I.A., "Embellishment of Cities."
New Haven, Conn., September, 1910.
"We must come, I believe, to a full acceptance of the principle, now well established in some of the German states, that, when any tract of land in or adjoining a city is opened up for building purposes, not only the necessary streets must be set apart and dedicated to the public, but also all the other areas that will be required to meet properly and liberally, but without extravagance, all the public needs of that locality when fully occupied, just so far as those needs can be foreseen by intelligent and experienced men. In no other way can the sites for these local institutions be placed so well or with so little economic waste." Fred- erick Law Olmsted; Address at Rochester, May 2, 1910.
"We spend thought on the inside of our houses, and develop to a fault the insidious instinct of the collector, but the setting of our build- ings is still an affair of haphazard, and we seem to have given up, as desperate, the attempt to make the city beautiful as a whole. Slipshod administration is accepted by the public without protest, and the artist, in despair at the intellectual atmosphere that surrounds him, tends more and more to withdraw into himself. The consequence is that we do not get the best ability available. Problems of the greatest artistic difficulty are often settled by amateurs, and the laying out of our streets and public places proceeds on no consecutive system whatever." Reginald Blomfield in "Art and Life and the Building and Decoration of Cities." London, 1897, p. 170.
The first instance of the use of the sorely overworked and misleading expression "City Beautiful" of which I am aware is to be found in Mr. Blomfield's book from which the above quotation is taken.
The movement inaugurated by the Open Letter printed on pp. 16-48 bore fruit in an amendment to the Charter of the City of New Haven, creating a Commission on the City Plan. The text of the act which was approved May 28, 1913, is printed in full in the Appendix. Up to this time (1920) and to the writer's profound disappointment, the Commission has accomplished virtually nothing. Its carefully prepared plan to acquire the so-called Heublein property on the corner of Court and Church streets failed. It may at least be said that this Open Letter defeated the project then well under way of locating the Hotel Taft on the site of the Sargent House, now occupied by the New Haven County Court House. That indeed, as it may now be stated, was the immediate object of the prepara- tion and publication of the Open Letter.
III.
A TRIBUTE TO MR. ERNEST M. A. MACHADO.41
"Some pretend to judge an individual by his hand writing; but I would rather say, 'Show me his house.'"
To the Editor of The Register, Sir:
I cannot forbear a few words of tribute to Mr. Ernest M. A. Machado, whose work contributed so much to awaken- ing New Haven to the necessity of securing a plan for the future improvement of the city, with particular reference to grouping public buildings around the Green. His designs for grouping the library, the county court house and a hall of records on that portion of Elm Street lying between Temple and Church streets, did more than anything else to visualize the project and show the greatness of our opportunity. At the risk of appearing too personal, I may say that I was introduced to Mr. Machado one evening in the forepart of last April at the Graduates Club by Mr. Arthur B. Woodford, rector of the Hopkins Grammar School. Mr. Machado was then at work upon designs for houses for Mr. Woodford and Mrs. Frederick S. Root, to be located on the old Bowditch estate on Whalley Avenue. In talking with Mr. Machado I said that I was preparing a paper by which I hoped to interest the people of New Haven in securing a plan for the future improvement of the city and that I felt that I must in some way visualize the project to a sufficient extent to drive the argument home:
Mr. Machado showed so much appreciation of the proposi- tion that we finally went out upon the Green, and, although it was dark, I was able to show him in a general way what my project was for grouping the three buildings mentioned, upon the sites occupied by the Bristol, Trowbridge, Edwards and Sargent houses. Mr. Machado was quick to appreciate the situation and we spent some time discussing the project, and
" Published in the New Haven Register, November 10, 1907.
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NEW HAVEN :
viewing the present buildings and the site from different points on the Green to reach an idea of scale. Without going into the matter in further detail, Mr. Woodford soon arranged with Mr. Machado to make some tentative designs suitable for sub- mission to the public. Mr. Machado undertook the work with the greatest enthusiasm, securing measurements, maps and photographs of the Green and the houses referred to, and studying the whole proposition with as much care as though he had been formally commissioned to design the three build- ings specified. He made many studies never, of course, seen by the public, but of great interest and suggestiveness, and all marked by a singular refinement of taste. Indeed, he spent so much time on the work that the publication of my "Open Letter"42 was considerably delayed. His final designs made a profound impression, as I believe, on the community, and perhaps helped more than anything else to show the people of the city the imperative necessity of securing the land in ques- tion for public purposes. It must be left to architects to say how intelligently he solved the problem before him, and what a firm grasp he showed of fundamental architectural principles. He did this work last April and May. His com- pensation for the work was inadequate, but he had the satis- faction of knowing that his work had told. In September he was drowned by the overturning of a canoe in the lake at Freedom, N. H., and a career of exceptional promise was closed.
Mr. Machado was born in Salem in 1868; his father, Juan Francesco Machado, of Spanish ancestry, came to Salem from the island of Cuba ; his mother was of old New England stock. He attended the public schools of Salem and then took the four years' course in architecture at the Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology, graduating with the class of 1890, of which he was a prominent member. For the next four years he continued his studies with Messrs. Shepley, Rutan & Cool- idge of Boston, successors to Mr. H. H. Richardson. A young architect could hardly ask for a better opportunity
42 The preceding article, pp, 16-48.
55
TRIBUTE TO MACHADO.
of beginning the practice of his profession than in this office with its great traditions. Here he did designing and super- intended the construction of all buildings designed by him. For the next three years he held a similar position with another noted firm of Boston architects, Messrs. Winslow & Wetherell. When with Messrs. Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge he made the designs for Perkins Hall, the first of Harvard's new buildings to be built on Colonial lines. While he was with these two firms he did some business on his own account. His private business grew to such an extent that about eight years ago he opened an office of his own in Salem, then another in Boston.
It falls to few young architects to have such varied work to do as fell to the lot of Mr. Machado in his seventeen years of work. He avoided the too common mistake of the mod- ern professional man of beginning with a specialty instead of leading up to a specialty through years of general prac- tice. He designed churches, schools, libraries, business build- ings, clubhouses, city and country houses and country estates. He worked in a variety of styles and used a wide range of building materials. Last spring he opened an office in Ottawa, Canada, as the growth of his business there seemed to require it. This office was under the name of Machado & Weeks.
He was, however, most at home in the Colonial style, which he had exceptional opportunities of studying in its purest and most distinguished forms at Salem. His work in this style was marked by great refinement and an exceptional sense of scale. He used its motives as easily as one speaks a language-he adapted it to the conditions of modern life. In domestic buildings he made the style bend to convenience and comfort; in public buildings he secured the required formality without approaching the grandiose effects so unsuited to the genius of a home-bred people like those of New England. It would be unprofitable to attempt to enumerate a list of the buildings he designed. I may mention, however, Perkins Hall for Harvard; a memorial masonic building at Wilton,
-
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NEW HAVEN :
N. H .; a holiday house for the G. F. Society at Milford, N. H .; Christ Church, Duxbury; Blake Memorial Chapel, Salem; Lyceum building, Salem; Ottawa Country and Golf Clubhouse, and American Bank Note Company building, at Ottawa; country estate for J. H. Proctor at Ipswich; town hall, public library and schoolhouse at Hamilton, Mass .; country estate for C. H. Parker at Beverly Farms.
Without capital and without influential friends, he built up a large practice by his own persistent effort, his conscientious work and real ability. He loved his profession and took the keenest interest in every detail connected with it. He had the rare combination of a fine artistic sense with an equally keen sense of the practical. He was quick to grasp a situa- tion, to see its possibilities, and make the most of them; he made everything count.
With all his enthusiasm for his profession, he had a corre- sponding passion for life out of doors. He was a devoted fisherman and counted the days till he should be in the woods again. On September 22, at Freedom, N. H., while returning with his nephew in a canoe from one of his camping expedi- tions, his canoe was upset in Lower Danforth Lake. The water was very cold, and before the canoe could be reached, he sank. His body was recovered and services were held in St. Peter's Church, Salem, October 2nd. There was also a private service in the beautiful Blake Memorial Chapel, which he designed.
The range of Mr. Machado's interest is shown by a list of his clubs. He was a charter member of the Canadian Insti- tute of Architects. In addition, he was a member of the fol- lowing clubs and associations in Massachusetts: Society of Architects, Puritan Club, Technology Club, Appalachian Mountain Club, all of Boston; the Essex Institute, Salem Club, Young Men's Republican Club, Salem Country Club, Civic League of Salem, all of Salem; the Eastern Yacht Club of Boston and Marblehead, and the Corinthian Yacht Club of Marblehead.
57
TRIBUTE TO MACHADO.
The two perspectives finally finished by Mr. Machado and shown to the New Haven public, were the result of a series of careful studies involving an amount of work hard for anyone but an architect to comprehend. One of these was reproduced in the New Haven papers of Sunday, June 2nd. Both were afterwards exhibited for some days in the window of Mr. Phelps's studio on Chapel Street. Mr. Watrous has asked for the original drawings and they will be framed and placed in the new library building. As time goes on it is believed that they will be regarded with more and more interest as souvenirs of the very beginning of New Haven's awakening to the civic improvement movement.
I did not know Mr. Machado well enough to speak of him personally, nor am I sufficiently familiar with his work to speak of that critically, if I were competent to do so; but feeling that we are here under a great obligation to him for what he did for us, I am unwilling to let his untimely death go unnoticed-unwilling not to pay him this brief, if inade- quate tribute.
New Haven, Conn., November 6, 1907.
"Every city should make ample provision for spacious public squares. Trees of every variety, shrubs, flowers, and evergreens, should decorate these grounds, and fountains throw up their sparkling waters, contrasting their pure, white marble with the deep green foliage. Here, beneath the shaded walks, the inhabitants might enjoy the sweet air, the children sport upon the fresh grass, and all be refreshed and cheered by the sight of beautiful natural objects. Here the young and the old might meet to 'drive dull care away,' and lose for a few brief moments the cal- culating, money-making plans that almost constantly usurp American thought and feeling.
"The New Haven Green has been justly celebrated as one of the most beautiful public squares in this country. Its elms are remarkably fine ; it has recently been enclosed with a light and tasteful iron railing, which adds much to its beauty." (Mrs. Tuthill in "History of Architecture from the Earliest Times, its Present Condition in Europe and the United States, etc." Philadelphia, 1848.)
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NEW HAVEN :
It is rather curious that over sixty years ago a New Haven woman should have been advocating more parks and playgrounds for American cities. The beauty and fame of New Haven Green undoubtedly had much to do with her feeling on the subject. For an account of Mrs. Tuthill see pp. 206-7.
A Description of New Haven in 1834
"New Haven is considered to be the most handsome town in the States ; and every one inquires of the stranger, whether he has seen New Haven? I cannot exactly accord with this opinion; but, without comparisons, it is handsome enough, and has attractions of a higher class, to which few towns can have even a pretence. It is placed on a small plain, which is redeemed from tameness by the bay, with its fine headlines in front, and by the west and east rocks, with the distant peak of Mount Carmel in the background. This plain is laid out in squares; so that the streets cross each other at right angles. They are unusually wide; and on each side are planted with the drooping elm, which flourishes here in high luxuri- ance.
"One of these squares is left open, as a green and promenade; and it is here that the great beauty of the town is concentrated. Round three sides of this large area, stands some of the best dwellings in the place. The remaining side is occupied by the several erections of the college; and in the centre of it are placed, with intervening distances, three churches and the State House. These buildings, especially the State House, are admir- ably adapted to become the principal object of the picture; and the ver- dant forground, with the breaks which allow the eye to take in parts of the old college make, indeed, a noble sight. But the charm of this, as of other views, is derived from the over-spreading foliage of the trees, which soften down the hard lines and bright objects delightfully, and which form, as you pass about, those lovely vistas of light and shade in which the eye rejoices. New Haven is a city in a wood, and a wood in a city. It wants, however, a strong sun to appreciate it. On a cold and heavy day it might appear cheerless; but give it a fine warm sun and a playful breeze, and whose shades shall be so refreshing? whose lights so sparkling and animated?" Andrew Reed and James Matheson: A Narra- tive of the Visit to the American Churches, by the Deputation from the Congregational Union of England and Wales. London, 1835, pp. 471-473. (The above description was apparently written by Doctor Reed.)
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