USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Chicago, the Garden city. Its magnificent parks, boulevards and cemeteries. Together with other descriptive views and sketches > Part 7
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Then, amid the vociferous cheers of the thousands, little Martha Wein- hardt, daughter of the park commissioner, unveiled the statue, and when Chief Marshal Greenebaum deposited two beautiful floral tributes from the Schlaraffia and from the Citizens' club of Avondale upon the pedestal, cheers upon cheers were given by the multitude.
Harvey L. Thompson, president of the West park board, accepted the magnificent gift in a speech full of enthusiasm, in which he said: To the people of Chicago the present occasion is one for sincere congratulation. The thoughtful and generous gift of Mr. Dewes to the people of this city is an- other evidence of that large hearted interest manifested by so many public spirited gentlemen by contributing in a public way something to the adorn- ment of our public places and pleasure grounds. Chicago is without a rival in the extent and magnificence of her pleasure domains and the splendid work of art presented to us to-day by one of our citizens and neighbors is an assured promise that the high born spirit of her people, destined to make Chicago peerless among the cities, will also secure to her public places those works of art-those fascinating expressions of the human affections, which so aptly illustrate the progress of an intrepid and exalted civilization.
Mayor Washburne made a happy speech on behalf of the city and Dr. Max Henius, president of the German Press club, paid a masterly tribute to Humboldt in a speech in the German language. The English oration of the occasion was by Professor Albion W. Small, of the University of Chicago. He expressed his sincere regret that Professor von Holst, who at first had been invited, had not yet sufficiently recovered his strength to be present. How- ever, the desire to offer a courtesy to the University of Chicago by giving a part in the celebration to some one of its members, was a mark of distinction which it was an honor to acknowledge.
Another monument will soon adorn this park. It will be a statue of Fritz Reuter, the Charles Dickens of the "Plattdeutsche" people. The money has all been subscribed and the statue is to be cast in one of the celebrated found- ries of Germany.
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GARFIELD PARK.
Not until after the death of President Garfield, was the name of Central Park changed to Garfield Park and then the change was made as a tribute to the memory of the illustrious dead.
This Park is situated about midway between Humboldt and Douglas Parks, about four to five miles from the Court House. It is reached by the Madison Street, Lake Street and Randolph Street car lines and by Washington Boulevard. The Central Boulevard from Humboldt to Garfield Park has been handsomely improved during the last season and now furnishes to owners of private vehicles an elegant roadway for a pleasure drive. A very important improvemeut on the line of this boulevard is the viaduct over the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway tracks, the roadway of which has been paved by the Railroad Company, who also erected a substantial railing on each side of it. This viaduct was thrown open for public travel May 15, 1886. Con- siderable planting was done on the approaches leading to this structure and nearly all the ornamentation with shrubs and trees was executed under the personal supervision of Mr. George Rahlfs, then commissioner and president of the Park Board, and it stands as a monument to his good judgment and taste.
The many hundreds of handsome shade-trees and shrubs scattered over the 185 acres of Garfield Park show signs of a healthy growth and form pretty little groves and picturesque groups. The art of the gardener during the sum- mer months transforms a considerable part of the velvety lawns into gorgeous and odorous flower-parterres of various shapes and designs, but the interior of the elegant greenhouse standing in the extreme southwestern corner of the park, is a beauty all the year around. Here Mr. Sell, the head gardener, propagates and cultivates not only the many varieties of bedding plants for outdoor ornamentation, but also some of the choicest species of tropical and exotic plants; especially rich is the collection of orchids, which is quite large and contains some very interesting species of this genus of plants. The park- lake, which covers an area of seventeen acres, and contains two pretty islands, proves one of the main attractions this park possesses. The piazzas of the ie- fectory or refreshment pavilion afford very fine views over lake and parklands and the boat landing directly below with its merry people either embarking for a ride on the smooth water or returning from a trip full of joy and glee. In 1879 the Illinois Humane Society donated to this park a substantial and beautiful drinking fountain for man and beast. The money for this de- sirable improvement was contributed by Mrs. Mancel Talcott and the donation was in harmony with the liberal spirit of her late husband, and only one of the charitable acts of the donor.
In May, 1875, permission was given to a number of gentlemen to use the unimproved part of Garfield Park lying south of Madison Street and extend- ing from there as far south as Colorado Avenue as a driving park, but it served this purpose only for a brief period and is now being changed into extensive lawns for base ball, cricket and other outdoor sports, where people, who fre- quent the park in pursuit of pleasure and recreation, will find increased fac- ilities for satisfying their desires. The present Park Board has in contem- plation the erection of a Museum of Natural History in this portion of the park- territory and if this plan should be carried out, Garfield Park would certainly then become the mecca of a vastly larger number of people, than have hereto- fore visited this lovely spot. There is also under consideration the erection of a suitable monument to the memory of our martyr President James A. Gar. field, at the Washington Boulevard entrance to the park, and a committee has
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Scene in Garfield Park.
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been appointed to co-operate with the citizens of the West Division, to secure such a monument, as would be an ornament to the park, and keep alive in the memory of our people the noble traits and character of this distinguished cit- izen.
Garfield Park is bounded on the North by Kinzie Street, on the East by Central Park Avenue, on the South by Colorado Avenue and on the West by Hamlin Avenue. The artesian well, the water of which contains medicinal properties for stomach and kidney diseases, has a flow of about 150 gallons a minute. The result of an analysis of this water is given on another page of this book
Garfield Park, like all the rest of the parks, will become more and more attractive year by year and the purely artificial will gradually assine its ap- propriate place in the natural. The location of the parks out on the prairie- land of the West Side has been of inestimable value not only to the City of Chicago as a corporate body, but also to individual citizens, who have profited by large increases of real estate values throughout the surrounding districts; but this has been especially the case in the vicinity of Garfield Park and the avenues leading to it from the city. The actual worth of a plat of land or a building has as truly been increased by the parks being brought to it, as the actual worth of a bushel of corn is increased by its being brought from the prairies of our State to a storehouse in New York. And then look at the bus- iness that has been created by the establishment of parks! It has spread so widely in every direction as to be beyond calculation. It may be assumed, for instance, that of the large number of vehicles which enter our parks, nearly one half if not more are hired. The profits of the livery business arising from the use of vehicles for drives to the parks and over our boulevards are shared in small portions by many hundreds or thousands of men, by the owners of the vehicles, the drivers, the stable men, the mechanics who build the carriages and manufacture the harnesses, the breeders who raise the horses and the farmers who produce the hay and grain upon which they are fed. Again the street car companies and even the steam railroads which approach the parks convey each year millions of passengers each way and of the fares they receive about two-thirds must be considered as net profit, for it happens that the tide of travel to and from the parks sets in just at the hours, when there is a lull in the ordinary business transit.
But great as is this pecuniary advantage to the city and to individuals, it is the least of the benefits arising from the parks. Every thing is useful just in proportion as it in some way adds to human enjoyment. A good dinner, a convenient house, elegant furniture, fine clothing, ornaments, a swift horse, or a fast yacht, are useful in this respect and no other. So pictures, statuary and music are useful. In fact, the common distinction between the useful and the ornamental is really baseless. The parks are useful, because they add to human enjoyment. But the amount of enjoyment derived from anything is not unfrequently wholly incapable of being expressed in dollars and cents. If we could find out just how much each of the millions of visitors to our parks would give rather than not have the parks open to them, we could ap- proximate a little toward their value. Even this would be only an approxima- tion, for not unfrequently people derive more benefit than they dream of from enjoyments for which there is no monetary measure. No man can say, for example, how much the health of our city is owing to the parks.
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DOUGLAS PARK.
The main drive from the Humane Fountain in Garfield Park to the main drive in Douglas Park is called Douglas Boulevard, which forms an important link in the chain of drives, connecting the three great parks of the West Side
Douglas Park, four miles south west of the Court House, contains 179 aeres. The chief beauties of this park are found in its magnificent lake, its beautiful foliage trees, lovely floral decorations and the newly improved section lying south of Ogden Avenue, where, in 1890, a large Palm house, called the Winter- garden, was constructed. This building and its surroundings, although simple in detail, combine to produce an elegant effect and are unique in the park system of Chicago. The Wintergarden is built on an elevation fronting towards Ogden Avenue, about midway between the east and west lines of the park. In this new improvement a large lawn at the southwest end, of suffic- ient size for amateur ball games, tennis courts and for militia drills, has been laid out. This was thought especially desirable, as heretofore there was no such large lawn in any of the west side parks. South of this lawn is a lake, the excava- tions from which were used for the necessary filling, as the ground of that portion of Douglas Park was below the grade of the adjacent streets. The lake connects under Ogden Avenue with the older lake to the north of the avenue, and the Wintergarden stands in the midst of terraces, which continue clown to the lake to a boat landing at the south. These terraces accommodate quite a large concourse of people, and there is a band stand so placed as to ad- mit a large audience within easy hearing distance. The Wintergarden build- ing is 178 feet long by 62 feet wide at the widest part. It has a center pa- vilion forty feet square, with wings on the east and west, each wing terminat- ing in an aquilateral cross, the arms being sixty-two feet by thirty feet. The center pavilion is approached from the north and south through wide ves- tibules, the approach on the Ogden Avenue side containing also the offices of the head gardener, ladies' toilet, the stairs to the basement and to the gallery over the vestibule.
In the center pavilion and in the east wing the plants are mostly set di- rectly into the ground. Here are cultivated the largest tropical plants, such as palms, ferns, banana-trees, etc. The entire improvement, which also em- braces a large lily-pond west of the Wintergarden building, was made at an expense of about $60,000.
But the park has many other attractive features. The artesian well in an embowered grotto feeds the lake and is visited by many on account of the medicinal properties of its water, which however is not considered as valuable in that respect as the water from the well in Garfield Park, from where hun- (reds and thousands of gallons are annually carried away in jugs to private residences throughout the surrounding districts.
From the balconies of the spacions and well equipped refectory is had a fine view of the lake and the most striking vistas of the grounds. Numerous costly improvements have been completed hereduring the last few seasons among which the new greenhouses erected on California Avenue near Nineteenth Street take a high rank; then the park has been provided with one ladies' and one gentlemen's cottage building and with a band pavilion. The old prop- agating houses formerly situated near California and Ogden Avenues have been entirely removed and the place laid bare thereby has been transformed , into a lawn to be used for floral decorations.
Douglas Park, which was named after the renowned statesman from Illi- nois, Stephen A. Douglas, is reached by the Ogden Avenue and West Twelfth Street car lines, the distance being about four miles from the Court House.
Residence of Andrew Leicht, near Lincoln Park.
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A monument to the memory of Stephen A. Douglas will undoubtedly before long become an important link in the chain of attractive features this lovely park possesses.
To the popular superintendent, Mr. Nelson Johnson, and the gardener in chief, Mr. Zapel, is due in a great measure the credit of keeping steadily in view the one object of making the park a pleasure ground, admitting nothing which would interfere with this, prohibiting nothing which would conduce to it, and as mentioned before, the Commissioners have wisely set apart a portion of the newly improved section south of Ogden Avenue for a parade ground, cricket, the "national game" base ball, etc. The certainty, that upon any day there is access to the green-sward, forms one of the greatest attractions of the park, especially for those, to whom of all others it is for the well-being of the com. munity that the place should be rendered attractive. The toil-worn artisan, his weary wife and pining children are assured, that on any bright summer or autumn day they will find sward and shade open to them, and their welcome face therefore becomes more and more frequent in the park.
And now in this connection let us measure out full praise to the men, who. from the year 1869 to the present day, have given their time and personal ef- forts to the grand work of creating and maintaining the great Park-System of the West Side. From first to last the administration of the West Park Com- missioners has been not only pure, but unsuspected, and few residents of our City need be told how much private worth and public spirit is embodied in the men who have faithfully and without pecuniary reward served the people in the capacity of West Park Commissioners. The honest and capable admin- istration of all of our parks stands in pleasing contrast to many other depart- ments of our public service.
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WEST SIDE BOULEVARDS.
At Halsted Street it is where the grand boulevard system of the West Side begins, Pick your way among the shuttling street cars, avoiding the population, which is heavy in that section, until you reach Jackson Street, or rather Boulevard, for a boulevard it became in name something over two years ago through a decision of the Supreme Court. And now it's a boule- vard in fact, and one of the finest long drives in the city, famed for its mag- nificent stretches of roadway. Jackson Boulevard, with its unpretentious gate, flanked on one side by a theatre building, on the other by a typical Halsted Street saloon, stretches away from there as far as the eye can reach. The roadway, forty-four feet wide, smooth as a marble mantel in a parlor, is one of the best bits of ashphaltum work in the world. On each side of the street is a parked strip of green running along the smooth asphaltum as regularly as binding on a garment, separating the sufficient sidewalks from the drive. At regular intervals, twenty-five feet apart, trees, young but full of promise, bear pretty if not abundant foliage, and between them at stated intervals are ornamental boulevard lamps on artistic supports. You drive along by rows of houses that are comfortable even if the elegance that you might expect to see on a boulevard is wanting. Right here is where you want to bring your reflective and comparative quality into action and figure it out that not much more than a year ago the boulevard was only a plain, hard- working, every-day street, so rongh.that the babies were liable to be jolted out of your family carriage during an afternoon's drive. You will be bound to admit that the asphaltum roadway can't be surpassed, and the beauti- ful foliage and the boulevard appurtenances generally grow more pleasing as you drive along. And occasionally you see evidences of the boulevard spirit cropping out in improvements on the old houses, that were good enough for a "street," but were thought shabby for a boulevard. Here and there on each side you come upon a new residence that causes you to appreciate the fact that the boulevard spirit has been perfected. For there are residences, new ones, that are models. At every cross street we see evidences of airs be- ing taken on in the way of improvements, and by the time Ashland Avenue is reached and crossed you are convinced that nothing can beat Chicago and its roadways. At that point, as you look west, the trees and the lamp posts be- gin to come together far away, and Jackson Boulevard seems to have an end in a yellow house with green blinds, and you gain the impression that you have struck a blind boulevard. But you keep on and you see your error, and at the same time a little bit of platting that you will find only in Chicago. Beautiful "winding ways" are often seen, but a boulevard with a right angle curve in it is something entirely Chicagoesque. A long time ago people who owned prairie land out there concluded that the turnpike down to the city would never need to run further than Hoyne Avenue, so somebody built a house right across the road. His heirs and the heirs of his neighbors to the west hold the property, and when the course of empire got to Hoyne Avenue it had to go north a few feet and turn a corner, and so Jackson Boulevard comes to have an angle in it.
But it does not affect it, for it's rather refreshing to swing around the cor- ner, for you come on to a continuation of the boulevard stretching away to the west, beautiful as ever, with its foliage and manor swards of green. The end comes at the portion of Garfield Park south of Madison Street, which is now in the hands of the landscape artist and the workmen. The old trotting
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Edward Uihlein's Conservatory, near Wicker Park.
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track has been torn up, and it will be the work of but few months to convert the present unsightly field into a splendid recreation ground for the people. It will include a speed track for horsemen, tracks for wheel riders and other special features for the entertainment of patrons. It is indeed a beautiful sight to look down the beautiful boulevard, behold the enterprise, and to view the general improvement about its western terminus. But you can't go further west just now without crossing the improvements under way, so turn the rig around, or "right about face," and enjoy again the case of Jackson Boulevard back to the fashionable thoroughfare of the West Side-magnificent and stately Ashland Boulevard, whose only fault is that there is not enough of it between Lake and Twelfth Streets, which mark its termini.
Ashland Boulevard really begins at the north end of Union Park, but the few blocks of it that skirt that pretty little breathing place are generally con- sidered as a part of the park, and the broad boulevard begins where it is crossed by Madison Street, which stretches away to the east and west, the most imposing retail business thoroughfare in the West. To Ashland Boule- vard there is neither beginning nor end so far as its stateliness is concerned. It is as wide as Michigan Boulevard and its roadway is much superior to the South Side drive so famed and popular. The parking of the boulevard is tasteful, and the general outlay of the thoroughfare is on a scale of magnifi- cent distances. First one sees from Madison Street the massive Third Presby- terian Church, and across a triangle from it rises, at the junction of Monroe Street, Ogden Avenue and the boulevard, the pretty church of the Fourth Baptist congregation, one of the most striking buildings in all Chicago. The contrast in these two editices is only a hint of the variety in architecture and design that is encountered as the drive along the boulevard is pursued. Aslı- land Boulevard seems to be the one belt in Chicago that the smoke always avoids. There is not a shadow of uncleanliness there. The white stone houses that men built before they learned what a monster soft-coal-devouring Chicago was going to be, are as immaculate as when they were erected. To the left in driving north after crossing Monroe Street, one comes on the white-fronted buildings of the Illinois Club-real swell, and much the same to the West Side that the Calumet is to the South Side. Across the broad street stands a row of fine houses resting under the shade of great trees. It's always so white, this row of houses, that it has come to be known as "ghost row." The houses are of the old swell front, high-stoop style. They lack the modern, but they do look so comfortable and respectable, that one keeps on thinking well of them, even when the great and striking mansions that, in spacious grounds, line the boulevard further south, bid him stop in admiration.
A characteristic of Ashland Boulevard is that every inch of ground has not yet been given up to brick and stone. Its chief charm, indeed, is, that distance prevails everywhere. The houses are not glued together. All of the great mansions have settings of their own, great green yards with grav- eled walks and drives and flower beds and shade trees, with lots of room for the children, for lawn tennis devotees, and for fresh air. The style of archi- tecture prevailing in the latest improvements on the boulevard is massive, but there is no crowding.
Where Jackson and Ashland Boulevards eross is a beauty-spot. Carter H. Harrison lives there in a house that is old and out of date, but one sees so little of the house, and the surroundings are so stately, so comforting, that one wonders how the owner could cherish an ambition for any other pleasure than simply living there in the old house. So Ashland Boulevard runs its course with beauty, elegance, variety and spaciousness on every hand, im- proving from end to end. That it is in great favor as a driveway, one learns as he picks his way along its crowded asphaltum pavement on a summer evening, and dodging here and there, and everywhere wheelwomen who seem to find in Ashland Boulevard the choicest place of any for their invigorating recreation. There is much to see in the way of clegant streets from the Boule- vard besides its own residences and stately edifices. From the drive one has a view of these eminently respectable and staid home streets, Adams, Mon- roe, Van Buren and Harrison, and of marvelously developing Polk and Tay- lor Streets. To the left, one sees the "medical" district, from the center of
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which one sees the buildings that constitute the County Hospital. Surround- ing them he sees the medical colleges, private hospitals, schools and other public buildings. But all too soon Ashland Boulevard comes to an end, and Ashland Avenue continues on its course, still a good average street, far be- yond the stock-yards, where it is finally lost in the prairies. As the end comes, one looks back with admiration on the broad road, with its regular trees, its pretty lamps and its wide sidewalks, separated from the broad road- way by the smooth greensward; and there is a regret that there is only a mile of the boulevard. The avenue should be asphalted further south than Twelfth Street. and this will probably be done.
But there is consolation to the summer evening-outer, for at Twelfth Street he leaves Ashland Boulevard for another grand drive-maybe not so beautiful as to all its surroundings, but certainly most inviting. Twelfth Street is one of the city's wonders. The stranger who turns on to it from the Ashland Road is amazed, for right at that junction he becomes impressed with the wonder- ful versatility of the "marvel city." For Twelfth Street Boulevard is demo- cratie. One can find everything there. The asphaltum pavement in the cen- ter, wide and smooth as any in the country, is perfectly parked for an even mile. On either side of it run street-car tracks and traffic roads paved with
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