WTREET PLANS. “THE NEW YORK ae OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROGRESS OF IMPROVEMENTS IN STREET PLANS. WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO Em ie A! RW AX PROPOSED TO BE LAID OUT IN BROOKLYN. 186s. BROOKLYN: I. VAN ANDEN’S PRINT, EAGLE BUILDINGS, 30 & 32 FULTON STREET. 1978 1868. I The following pages comprise that part of our last Annual Report to the Brooklyn Park Commission, which relates to the progress of improvement in the street arrangements of large towns, and to the proposed introduction in the street plan of Brooklyn of a system of improvements, designated the Park-way and the Park-way neighbor- hood. OLMSTED, VAUX & CO., Landscape Architects. 110 Broapway, NEw York. March 9th, 1868. CONTENTS. Relations of the Park to the street-arrangements of the City. Elements of ordinary street arrangements. Why ordinary arrangements are inadequate to public requirements. Historical development of existing street arrangements—First stage. Second stage of street arrangements. Third stage of street arrangements. Erroneous view of the necessary disadvantages of town life. Evils of town life have diminished as towns have grown larger. Reason for anticipating an accelerated enlargement of metropolitan towns. Conditions under which the evils of large towns have diminished. Change in habits of citizens affecting structural requirements of towns. Separation of business and domestic life. Recreative requirements and distance of suburbs, Change in the character of vehicles. Inadequate domestic access to suburbs and Parks. New arrangements demanded by existing requirements. The position of Brooklyn. The opportunity of Brooklyn. How the opportunity may be misused, and how availed of. Influence of the Park on the value of property. How the advantages of vicinity to a Park may be extended. Example of a fourth stage of street arrangements. The Park-way—a fifth stage. Practicable future extensions of the Park-way. Plan of the Park-way neighborhood. Advantages of the Park-way likely to be secured to Brooklyn, exclusively. em RELATIONS OF THE PARK TO THE STREET ARRANGEMENTS OF THE CITY. The unsatisfactory character of the approaches to the Park has been recognized by your Board, from the outset of its undertaking, as cal- culated to seriously detract from the value of the service which it would otherwise be able to render the city, and it has accordingly been an inci- dental part of our duty to devise means of improvement. To do so it has been necessary that we should extend our field of study beyond the terri- tory under your jurisdiction. Our first suggestion led, through the subse- quent action of your Board, to the special appropriation of the ground necessary for the formation of the Plaza, and to the establishment of the several circular spaces by which amplitude, symmetry, and dignity of character was sought to be secured on the street side of each of the Park gates. Through the promptness of the necessary legislative action, and of the subsequent proceedings in regard to the Plaza, a very great advantage was gained at a comparatively small cost for the neces- sary land, much of the adjoining ground having since been sold in the open market at rates indicating an advance of several hundred per cent. upon the prices paid by the city. In our Preliminary Report, accompanying the first study of the plan of the Park, without making any definite recommendations, we sug- gested the leading features of a general scheme of routes of approach to and extension from the Park, through the suburbs, in which the sanitary recreative and domestic requirements of that portion of the people of the city living at the greatest distance from the Park should be especially provided for. In our Annual Report of last year portions of this project were somewhat more distinctly outlined, and the economical advantages were pointed out of preparing and adopting plans for the purpose well in advance of the public demand, which it was intended to anticipate, and while land properly situated might yet be selected in the suburbs of such moderate value that no private interests of much importance would be found to stand in antagonism in this respect to those of the public. Your Board haying brought these suggestions before the public they have during the last year attracted considerable attention. One of the 6 minor recommendations has been already taken up by a body of citi- zens and an organized effort to carry it out is understood to be in pro- gress. Under your instructions a topographical survey has also been made of a section of the ground to which the larger scheme applies, being that lying immediately east of the Park and extending from it to the city line, and a study has been prepared, also under your instruc tions and which is herewith presented, for a revision of a part of the present city map of this ground with a view to the introduction of the suggested improvement. The period seems to have arrived, therefore, for a full and comprehen. sive inquiry as to the manner in which the scheme would, if carried out, affect the substantial and permanent interests of the citizens of Brooklyn and of the metropolis at large. ‘ The project in its full conception is a large one, and it is at once con- ceded that it does not follow but anticipates the demand of the public; that it assumes an extension of the city of Brooklyn and a degree of wealth, taste, and refinement, to be likely to exist among its citizens which has not hitherto been definitely had in view, and that it is even based upon the presumption that the present street system, not only of Brooklyn but of other large towns, has serious defects for which, sooner or later, if these towns should continue to advance in wealth, remedies must be devised, the cost of which will be extravagantly in- creased by a long delay in the determination of their outlines. ELEMENTS OF ORDINARY STREET ARRANGEMENTS. What is here referred to under the designation of our present street system, is essentially comprised in the two series of thoroughfares ex- tending in straight lines to as great a distance within a town as is found practicable, one series crossing the other at right angles, or as nearly so as can be conveniently arranged. Each of the thoroughfares of this system consists of a way in the center, which is paved with reference solely to sustaining the transportation upon wheels of the heaviest merchandise, of a gutter on each side of this wheel-way, having occa- sional communication with underground channels for carrying off water, and a curb which restricts the passage of wheels from a raised way for the travel of persons on foot, the surface of which, to avoid their sinking in the mud, iscommonly covered with flags or brick. This is the system which is almost universally kept in view, not only in the enlargement of our older towns, but in the setting out of new, such, for instance, as are just being projected along the line of the Pacific Railroad, If modifications are admitted, it is because they are 7 enforced by some special local conditions which are deemed, by those responsible for the arrangement, to be unfortunate. The reason for this is probably found chiefly in the fact, that it is a plan which is readily put on paper, easily comprehended, and easily staked out ; it makes the office of an Engineer or Surveyor at the outset almost a sine- cure, as far as the exercise of professional ability is concerned, and fa- cilitates the operations of land speculators. Its apparent simplicity on paper is often fallacious, and leads either to unnecessary taxation or to great permanent inconvenience, It is obviously incomplete, and wholly unsuited to the loading and un- loading of goods which require storage, but, where it can be well car- ried out, offers very great advantages for the transportation of mer- chandise between distant points. It is also well adapted to equalize the advantages of different parts of a town, and thus avoid obstruc- tions to improvement which mercenary jealousies might otherwise in- terpose. In our judgment, advantages such as these have hitherto been pur sued far too exclusively, but, as the presumption is always strong against any considerable innovation upon arrangements which have been long associated with the general conditions of prosperity and pro- gress of all civilized communities, we desire, before giving reasons for this conviction, first, to remove any reasonable prejudice against the introduction of the entirely new elements into the street plan of Brook- lyn, which we shall have to propose, by showing under what condi- tions of society and with reference to what very crude public require- ments, compared with those which now exist, our present street arrangements have been devised. WHY ORDINARY ARRANGEMENTS ARE’ INADEQUATE TO PUBLIC REQUIREMENTS. At present, large towns grow up because of the facilities they offer man- kind for a voluntary exchange of service, in the form of merchandise ; but nearly all the older European towns of importance, from which we have received the fashion of our present street arrangements, were formed either to strengthen or to resist a purpose involving the destruction of life and the plunder of merchandise. They were thus planned origin- ally for objects wholly different from those now reckoned important by the towns which occupy the same sites, and an examination of the slow, struggling process by which they have been adapted to the present requirements of their people, may help us to account for some of the evils under which even here, in our large American towns, we are now suffering. 8 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF EXISTING STREET ARRANGEMENTS, FIRST STAGE. They were at the outset, in most cases, entrenched camps, in which a few huts were first built, with no thought of permanence, and still less with thought for the common convenience of their future citizens. The wealth of their founders consisted chiefly in cattle, and in the servants who were employed in herding and guarding these cattle, and the trails carelessly formed among the scattered huts within the entrenchments often became permanent foot-ways which, in some cases, were subse- quently improved in essentially the same manner as the sidewalks of our streets now are, by the laying upon them of a series of flat stones, so that walkers need not sink inthe mud. If the ground was hilly, and the grades of the paths steep, stairs were sometimes made by lay- ing thicker slabs of stone across them. Convenience of communication | on foot was, of course, the sole object of such improvements. If, in these early times, any highways were more regularly laid out, it was simply with reference to defence. For example, although two nearly straight and comparatively broad-ways were early formed in Paris, so that reinforcements could be rapidly transferred from one gate to another when either should be suddenly attacked, no other passages were left among the houses which would admit of the introduction of wheeled traffic ; nor in all the improvements which afterwards occurred, as the city advanced in population and wealth, were any of the original pathways widened and graded sufficiently for this purpose until long after America had been discovered, and the invention of printing and of fire-arms had introduced a new era of social progress. The labor required for the construction of permanent town walls, and the advantage of being able to keep every part of them closely manned during an attack, made it desirable that they should not be unnecessa- rily extended. To admit of a separate domiciliation of families within them, therefore, the greatest practicable compactness in the arrange- ment of dwelling-houses soon became imperative. As families increased, the demand for additional house-room was first met by encroach- ments upon the passages which had been left between the original structures, and by adding upper stories, and extending these out- ward so as to overhang the street. Before this process had reached an extreme point, however, the town would begin to outgrow its walls, and habitations in the suburbs would occur, of two classes: first, those formed by poor herdsmen and others who, when no enemy was known to be near at hand, could safely sleepin a temporary shelter, calculating to take their chance in the town when danger came ; and, second, those formed by princes, and other men of wealth and power, 9 who could afford to build strongholds for the protection of their fami- lies and personal retainers, but who, in times of war, yet needed to be in close vicinity to the larger fighting forces of the town. Neither the castle nor the hovel being placed with any reference to the enlargement of the town, or to public convenience in any way, streets were formed through the suburbs, as they became denser, in much the same way as they had been in the original settlement; then, as the walls were ex- tended, the military consideration again operated to enforce the idea of compactness in every possible way. The government of these towns also, however its forms varied, was always essentially a military despotism of the most direct and stringent character, under which the life, property, health and comfort of the great body of their people were matters, at best, of very subordinate consideration. Thus the policy, the custom and the fashion was established in the roots of our present form of society of regarding the wants of a town, and planning to meet them, as if its population were a garrison, to be housed in a barrack, with only such halls and passages in it, from door to door, as would be necessary to turn it in, to sleep and feed, and turn it out, to get its rations. It naturally fell out that when at length the general advance of society, in other respects, made it no longer necessary that a man should build a castle, and control, as personal property, the services of a numerous body of fighting men, in order to live with some degree of safety in a house of his own, apart from others, all the principal towns declined for a time in wealth and population, because of the number of opulent citizens who abandoned their old residences, and moved, with servants and tenants, to make new settlements in the country. The excessive suppression of personal independence and individual inclinations which had before been required in town-life caused a strong reactionary ambition to possess each prosperous citizen to relieve him- self as much as possible from dependence upon and duties to society in general, and it became his aim to separate himself from all the human race except such part as would treat him with deference. To secure greater seclusion and at the same time opportunity for the only forms of out-door recreation, which the rich, after the days of jousts and tournaments, were accustomed to engage in, all those who could com- mand favor at Court, sought grants of land abounding in the larger game, and planted their houses in the midst of enclosures called parks, which not only kept neighbors at a distance, but served as nur- series for objects of the chase. The habits of the wealthy, under these circumstances, though often gross and arrogant, and sometimes recklessly extravagant, were far 10 from luxurious, according to modern notions, and as, in order to realize as fully as possible the dream of independence, every country gentle- man had his private chaplain, surgeon, farrier, tailor, weaver and Spinner, raised his own wool, malt, barley and breadstuffs, killed his own beef, mutton and venison, and brewed his own ale, he was able to despise commerce and to avoid towns. The little finery his household coveted was accordingly brought to his door on pack-mules by travel- ing merchants. The vocation of a merchant, in its large, modern sense, was hardly known, and the trade of even the most considerable towns was, in all respects, very restricted, Thus the old foot-way streets still served all necessary requirements tolerably well. As the advance of civilization continued, however, this disinclination to the exchange of service, of course, gave way; demands became more varied, and men of all classes were forced to take their place in the general organization of society in communities. In process of time the enlargement of popular freedom, the spread of knowledge by books, the abatement of religious persecutions, the voyages of circumnavigators, and finally the opening of America, India and the gold coast of Africa to European commerce, so fed the mercan- tile inclinations, that an entirely new class of towns, centres of manu- facturing and of trade, grew upon the sites of the old ones. To these the wealthy and powerful were drawn, no longer for protection, but for the enjoyment of the luxuries which they found in them, while the more enterprising of the lower classes crowded into them to “ seek their fortune.” SECOND STAGE OF STREET ARRANGEMENTS, Wagons gradually took the place of pack-trains in the distribution of goods through the country, and, as one man could manage a heavy load, when it was once stowed, as well as a light one, the wagons were made very large and strong, and required the employment of many horses. In comparatively few town-streets could two of these wheeled mer- chantmen, with the enormous hamper they carried on each side, pass each other. .The seats and hucksteries of slight wood-work with which the streets had been lined were swept away; but, as the population rapidly increased, while the house accommodation was so limited that its density, in the city of London, for instance, was probably three times as great as at present, any attempt to further widen the streets for the convenience of the wagoners had to encounter the strongest resistance from the house-holders. Thus, without any material enlargement, the character of the streets was much changed, They frequently became quite unfit to walk in, It the more so because they were used as the common place of deposit for all manner of rubbish and filth thrown out of the houses which was not systematically removed from them, Although London then occupied not a fiftieth part of the ground which it does now, and green fields remained which had been carefully preserved for the practice of archery within a comparatively short dis- tance of its central parts, to which the inhabitants much resorted for fresh air on summer evenings; although the river still ran clear, and there was much pleasure-boating upon it, the greater part of the in- habitants were so much confined in dark, ill-ventilated and noisome quarters, that they were literally decimated by disease as often as once in every two years, while at intervals fearful epidemics raged, at which times the mortality was much greater. During one of these, four thousand deaths occurred in a single night, and many streets were com- pletely depopulated, All who could by any means do so, fled from the town, so that in a short time its population was reduced more than fifty per cent. It had not yet filled up after this calamity, when a fire oc- curred which raged unchecked during four days, and destroyed the houses and places of business of two hundred thousand of the citizens. Its progress was at length stayed by the widening of the streets across which it would have advanced if the buildings which lined them had not been removed by the military. Five-sixths of the area occupied by the old city was still covered with smoking embers when the most distinguished architect of the age seized the opportunity to urge a project for laying out the street system of a new town upon the same site. The most novel feature of this plan was the introduction of certain main channel streets, ninety feet wide, in which several wagons could be driven abreast upon straight courses from ‘one end of the city to the other. It was also proposed that there should be a series of parallel and intersecting streets sixty feet wide, with intermediate lanes of thirty feet. The enormous advantages of such a system of streets over any others then in use in the large towns of Europe were readily demonstrated; it obtained the approval of the king himself, and would have been adopted but for the incredible short- sightedness of the merchants and real estate owners. These obsti- nately refused to give themselves any concern about the sacrifice of general inconvenience or the future advantages to their city, which it was shown that a disregard of Wren’s suggestions would involve, but proceeded at once, as fast as possible, without any concert of action, to build anew, each man for himself, upon the ruins of his old warehouse. There can be little question, that had the property-owners, at this time, been wise enough to act as a body in reference to their common inter- ests, and to have allowed Wren to devise and carry out a complete 12 street system, intelligently adapted to the requirements which he would have been certain to anticipate; as well as those which were already pressing, it would have relieved the city of London of an incalculable expenditure which has since been required to mend its street arrange- ments; would have greatly lessened the weight of taxation, which soon afterwards rose to be higher than in any other town of the kingdom, and would have saved millions of people from the misery of poverty and disease. Although in a very few years after the rebuilding of the city, its commerce advanced so much as to greatly aggravate the inconveniencies under which street communication had been previously carried on, the difficulties were allowed to grow greater and greater for fully a century more before anything was done calculated to essentially alleviate them. They seem to have been fully realized and to have been constantly de. plored, nor were efforts of a certain kind wanting to remedy them: the direction of these efforts, however, shows how strongly a traditional standard of street convenience yet confused the judgment even of the most advanced. A town being still thought of as a collection of buildings all placed as closely as possible to one centre was also re- garded as a place of necessarily inconvenient confinement, and there- fore, of crowding, hustling and turbulence. An enlargement of the population of a town could only aggravate all the special troubles and dangers to which those living in it were subject, add to the num- ber of its idle, thriftless, criminal and dangerous classes, and invite disease, disorder and treasonable tumults. As, therefore, to amplify the street arrangements or otherwise enlarge the public accommoda- tions for trade or residence, would be to increase its attractions, the true policy was generally assumed to be in the other direction. In London, not only its own Corporation followed this policy, but Parlia- ment and the Sovereign systematically did the same. Once, for instanee, a proclamation was issued, to forbid under heavy penalties ‘the erection of any houses, except such as should be suitable for the residence of the gentry, within three miles of the town; another followed which interdicted householders from enlarging the accommo_ dations for strangers within the town; another enjoined all persons who had houses in the country to quit the town within three weeks, while constant efforts were made to ship off those who had none to Treland, Virginia, or Jamaica. In spite of all, new houses were built on the sides of the old country roads, the suburban villages grew larger and larger till at length they were all one town with London and the population became twice as great and the commerce much more than twice as great as at the time 13 of the great fire: Even when at last plans of real improvement began to be entertained it was no thought of resisting the increase of disease, pauperism and crime, by other means than fencing it out, that produced the change, but mainly the intolerable hindrance to commerce of the old fashioned arrangements. Though some refused to see it and still pro- tested against the plans of improvement as wholly unnecessary, hazard_ ous, reckless, and extravagant, and denounced those who urged them, as unprincipled speculators or visionary enthusiasts, the merchants gen- erally could no longer avoid the conviction that their prosperity was seriously checked by the inadequacy of the thoroughfares of the town for the duty required of them. Parliament was therefore induced in the latter part of the last century, to authorize a series of measures which gradually brought about in the course of fifty years, larger and. more important changes than had occurred before during many cen- turies, As the definite aim of these changes was to get rid of certain incon- veniences which had previously been classed among the necessary evils of large towns and as the measure with reference to which the purpose of their design was limited is thus clearly established it is evident that before we can realize the degree in which they were likely to approach the ultimatum of civilized requirement we need to know more exactly what the inconveniences in question amounted to. It appears then that the imperfect pavements, never having been adequately revised since the days of hand-barrow and pack-horse trans- portation, were constantly being misplaced and the ground worn into deep ruts by the crushing weight of the wheels; the slops and offal matters thrown out of the houses were combined with the dung of the horses and the mud to make a tenacious’ puddle through which the people on foot had to drag their way*in constant apprehension of being run down or crushed against the wall. In the principal streets strong posts were planted at intervals behind which active men were ac- customed to dodge for safety as the wagons came upon them. Coaches had been introduced in the time of Elizabeth, but though simple, strong and rudely hung vehicles, they were considered to be very dangerous in the streets and their use within the town was for some time forbidden. Sedan chairs for all ordinary purposes superseded them and for a long time had been in common use by all except the poorer classes upon every occasion of going into the streets. When George the Third went in the state coach to open Parliament, the streets through which he passed were previously prepared by laying faggots in the ruts to make the motion easier. There was little or no sewerage or covered drainage, and heavy storms formed gullies of the ruts and often flooded the cellars destroying a great deal of merchandise. 14 This was the condition in which after several hundred years, the town - had been left by the transformation of the passages, first occuring between the huts of the entrenched camp of a tribe of barbarians, from the serviceable foot ways of the early middle ages to the unserviceable wagon ways of the generation but one before the last. THIRD STAGE OF STREET ARRANGEMENTS. To remedy its evils, in the construction of new streets, and the recon- struction of old, the original passage for people on foot was restored, but it was now split through the middle and set back with the house fronts on each side so as to admit of the introduction of a special road- way for horses and wheels, at a lower level. A curb was placed to guard the foot way from the wheels; gutters were used to collect the liquid and floating filth, and sewers were constructed which enabled the streams thus formed to be taken out of the streets before they became so large as to flood the sidewalks. At the same time an effort was made to so straighten and connect some of the streets that goods could be taken from one quarter of the townto another by direct courses, and without the necessity of doubling the horse-power at certain points in order to overcome the natural elevations of the ground. Thus, just one hundred years after Wren’s suggestions were rejected by the merchants, their grandsons began to make lame efforts to secure some small measure of the convenience which his plan had offered them. A few of the latter improvements had been adopted in other towns at a somewhat earlier period than in London. In the plans of St. Petersburg and of Philadelphia, for instance, directness and unusual amplitude of road-way had been studied, and some of the free cities of Germany had, at an earlier date, possessed moderately broad and well- paved streets, but the exceptions do not affect the conclusion which we desire to enforce. To fully understand the reason of this long neglect to make any wise preparation for the enlargement of population which it would seem must surely have been anticipated, we need to consider that while a rapid advance was all the time occurring from the state of things when a town was intended to be governed with little direct regard for the interests of any but a very few of its occupants, at the same time direct responsibility for the care of its interests was being diffused and held for shorter intervals, and was, consequently, less and less felt, as a motive to ingenuity and energy, by any one of the several individuals who partook in it. The theory and form of town government changed 15 more slowly than the character and modes of life of those who were called upon to administer it, but an adherence to the antiquated forms was only calculated to make a personal duty, with reference to the actual new conditions of the people, less easily realized and. less effect- ively operative. What is everybody’s business is nobody’s, and al- though of late years experts, with professional training in special branches, are not unfrequently engaged by municipal bodies to study particular requirements of the people, and invent means to satisfy them, still, as a general rule, improvements have come in most cities, when they have come at all, chiefly through the influence of individual energy, interested in behalf of special mercantile or speculative enterprises, by which the supineness of the elected and paid representatives of the common interests of the citizens has been overborne, ERRONEOUS VIEW OF THE NECESSARY DISADVANTAGES OF TOWN LIFE. What is of more consequence, however, not merely that we may avoid injustice to our ancestors, but that we may realize the changes which have occurred in the standard of requirement, with reference to which the merits of a street system are now to be judged, is the fact that when these improvements were devised, it was still pardonable to take for granted that the larger the population of a town should be allowed to become, the greater would be the inconvenience and dan- ger to which all who ventured to live in it would necessarily be sub- ject, the more they would be exposed to epidemic diseases, the feebler, more sickly, and shorter their lives would be; the greater would be the danger of sweeping conflagrations ; the larger the proportion of men- dicants and criminals, and the more formidable, desperate and danger- ous the mobs. EVILS OF TOWN-LIFE HAVE DIMINISHED AS TOWNS HAVE GROWN LARGER, We now know that these assumptions were entirely fallacious, for, as a matter of fact, towns have gone on increasing, until there are many in Europe which are several times larger than the largest of the Middle Ages, and in the largest the amount of disease is not more than half as great as it formerly was; the chance of living to old age is much more than twice as great ; epidemics are less frequent, less malignant and more controllable ; sweeping fires are less common, less devastating and are much sooner got under ; ruffians are much better held in check; mobs are less frequently formed, are less dangerous, and, when they arise, are suppressed more quickly and with less bloodshed; there is a smaller proportion of the population given over to vice and crime and a vastly 16 larger proportion of well-educated, orderly, industrious and well-to-do citizens. These things are true, in the main, not of one town alone, but of every considerable town, from Turkey on the one side to China on the other, and the larger each town has grown, the greater, on an aver- age, has been the gain. Even in Mahomedan Cairo, chiefly through the action of French engineers, the length of life of each inhabitant has, on an average, been doubled. The question, then, very naturally occurs : What are the causes and conditions of this amelioration ? and Can it be expected to continue ? REASON FOR ANTICIPATING AN ACCELERATED ENLARGEMENT. OF METROPOLITAN TOWNS. If the enormous advance in the population of great towns which has been characteristic of our period of civilization, is due mainly to the increase of facilities for communication, transportation and exchange throughout the world, as there is every reason to believe that it is, we can but anticipate, in the immediate future, a still more rapid move- ment in the same direction. We are now extending railroads over this continent at the rate of more than fifteen hundred miles a year, and before our next President takes his seat, we shall have applied an amount of labor which is represented by the enormous sum of two thousand millions of dol- lars, to this work, most of it preparatory, and more than half of it directed to the opening up of new lands to profitable cultivation, The productive capacity of the country thus laid open, and the demand upon commerce of its people, has scarcely yet begun to be manifested. We have but half made our first road to the Pacific, and we have only within a year begun to extend our steam navigation to Japan and China, where the demands upon civilized commerce of a frugal and. in- dustrious population, much larger than that of all Christendom, yet remain to be developed. We are ourselves but just awake to the value of the electric telegraph in lessening the risks of trade on a large scale; and giving it order and system. Thus, we seem to be just preparing to enter upon a new chapter of commercial and social progress, in which a comprehension of the advantages that arise from combination and co-operation will be the rule among merchants, and not, as heretofore, the exception. CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH THE EVILS OF LARGE TOWNS HAVE DIMINISHED. The rapid enlargement of great towns which has hitherto occurred, must then be regarded as merely a premonition of the vastly greater enlargement that is to come. We see, therefore, how imperative, with reference to the interests of our race, is this question, whether RE as the enlargement of towns goes on the law of improvement is such that we may reasonably hope that life in them will continue to grow better, more orderly, more healthy? One thing seems to be cer- tain, that the gain hitherto can be justly ascribed in very small part to direct action on the part of those responsible for the good management of the common interests of their several populations. Neither humanity nor the progress of invention and discovery, nor the advancement of science has had much to do with it. It can not even, in any great degree, be ascribed to the direct action of the law of sup- ply and demand, Shall we say, then, that it has depended on causes wholly beyond the exercise of human judgment, and that we may leave the future to take care of itself, as our fathers did? We are by no means justified in adopting such a conclusion, for, if we can not yet trace wholly to their causes, all the advantages we possess over our predecessors, we are able to reach the conviction, beyond all reasonable doubt, that at least, the larger share of the immunity from the visits of the plague and other forms of pestilence, and from sweeping fires, and the larger part of the improved general health and increased length of life which civilized towns have lately enjoyed is due to the abandonment of the old-fashioned compact way of building towns, and the grad- ual adoption of a custom of laying them out with much larger spaces open to the sun-light and fresh air; a custom the introduction of which was due to no intelligent anticipation of such results. Evidence of this is found in the fact that the differing proportions between the dying and the living, the sick and the well, which are found to exist between towns where most of the people still live on narrow streets, and those in which the later fashions have been gene- rally. adopted; and between parts of the same town which are most crowded and those which are more open, are to this day nearly as great as between modern and ancient towns. For instance, in Liverpool, the constant influx of new-comers of a very poor and ignorant class from the other side of the Irish Channel, and the consequent demand for house-room, and the resulting value of the poor, old buildings which line the narrow streets, has, till recently, caused the progress of im- provement to be much slower than in the much larger town of London, so that, while the average population of Liverpool is about 140,000 to the square mile, that of London is but 50,000; the average age at death in Liverpool is seventeen, and that in London, twenty-six. In the city of Brooklyn the number of deaths for each thousand of population that occurred this last year in the closer built parts, was twice as large as in those where the streets are wider and there are many gardens, / 2 18 Comparisons of this kind have been made in such number, and the data for them have been drawn from such a large variety of localities in which the conditions of health in all other respects have been differ- ent, that no man charged, however temporarily and under whatever limitations, with municipal responsibilities, can be pardoned for ignoring the fact that the most serious drawback to the prosperity of town com- munities has always been dependent on conditions (quite unnecessary to exist in the present day) which have led to stagnation of air and ex- cessive deprivation of sun-light. Again, the fact that with every respiration of every living being a quantity is formed of a certain gas, which, if not dissipated, renders the air of any locality at first debilitating, after a time sickening, and at last deadly ; and the fact that this gas is rapidly absorbed, and the at- mosphere relieved of it by the action of leaves of trees, grass and herbs, was quite unknown to those who established the models which have been more or less distinctly followed in the present street arrange- ments of our great towns. It is most of all important, however, that we should remember that they were not as yet awake to the fact that large towns are a necessary result of an extensive intercourse between people possessing one class of the resources of wealth and prosperity and those possessing other classes, and that with each increase of the field of commerce certain large towns must grow larger, and conse- quently, that it is the duty of each generation living in these towns to give some consideration, in its plans, to the requirements of a larger body of people than it has itself to deal with directly. CHANGE IN THE HABITS OF CITIZENS AFFECTING THE STRUCTURAL REQUIREMENTS OF TOWNS. If, again, we consider the changes in the structure of towns which have occurred through the private action of individual citizens we shall find that they indicate the rise of a strong tide of requirements, the drift of which will either have to be fairly recognized in the public work of the present generation or it will, at no distant day, surely compel arevision of what is now done that will involve a large sacrifice of property. SEPARATION OF BUSINESS AND DOMESTIC LIFE. In the last century comparatively few towns-people occupied dwell- ings distinctly separate from their place of business. A large majority of the citizens of Paris, London and of New York do so to-day, and the tendency to divisions of the town corresponding to this change of habits must rapidly increase with their further enlargement, because of the greater distance which will exist between their different parts. The 19 reason is obvious: a business man, during his working-hours, has no oc- casion for domestic luxuries, but needs to have access to certain of his co-workers in the shortest practicable time, and with the smallest prac- ticable expenditure of effort. He wants to be near a bank, for instance, or near the Corn Exchange, or near the Stock Exchange, or to shipping, or to a certain class of shops or manufactories. On the other hand, when not engaged in business, he has no occasion to be near his working place, but demands arrangements of a wholly different character, Families require to settle in certain localities in sufficient numbers to support those establishments which minister to their social and other wants, and yet are not willing to accept the conditions of town-life which were formerly deemed imperative, and which, in the business quarters, are yet, perhaps, in some degree, imperative, but demand as much of the luxuries of free air, space and abundant vegetation as, without loss of town-privileges, they can be enabled to secure. Those parts of a town which are to any considerable extent occupied by the great agencies of commerce, or which, for any reason, are espe- cially fitted for their occupation, are therefore sure to be more and more exclusively given up to them, and, although we can not anticipate all the subdivisions of a rapidly increasing town with confidence, we may safely assume that the general division of all the parts of every con- siderable town under the two great classifications of commercial and domestic, which began in the great European towns in the last century, will not only continue, but will become more and more distinct. It can hardly be thought probable that street arrangements perfectly well adapted in all respects to the purposes to be served in one of these divisions are the very best in every particular that it would be possible to devise for those of the other. RECREATIVE REQUIREMENTS AND DISTANCE OF SUBURBS. Another change in the habits of towns-people which also grows out of the greatly enlarged area already occupied by large towns, results from the fact that, owing to the great distances of the suburbs from the central parts, the great body of the inhabitants cannot so easily as formerly stroll out into the country in search of fresh air, quietness, and recreation, At the same time there is no doubt that the more intense intellectual activity, which prevails equally in the library, the work shop, and the counting-room, makes tranquilizing recreation more essen- tial to continued health and strength than until lately it generally has been. Civilized men while they are gaining ground against certain acute forms of disease are growing more and more subject to other and 20 more insiduous enemies to their health and happiness and against these the remedy and preventive can not be found in medicine or in athletic recreations but only in sunlight and such forms of gentle exercise as are calculated to equalize the circulation and relieve the brain. CHANGE IN THE CHARACTER OF VEHICLES. Still another important change or class of changes in the habits of the people of towns may be referred to the much greater elaboration which has recently occurred in the division of labor and the consequent more perfect adaptation to the various purposes of life of many instruments in general use. A more striking illustration of this will not readily be found than is afforded by the light, elegant, easy carriages which have lately been seen in such numbers in your Park. When our present fashions of streets was imtroduced sedan chairs were yet, as we have shown, in general use for taking the air or making visits to neighbors, The few wheeled vehicles employed by the wealthy were exceedingly heavy and clumsy and adapted only to slow travel on rough roads, a speed of five miles an hour by what was called the “flying coach,” being a matter for boasting. Now we have multifarious styles of vehicles in each of which a large number of different hands has been in- geniously directed to provide in all their several parts for the comfort, pleasure, and health with which they may be used. For the sake of elegance, as well as comfort and ease of draft, they are made extremely light and are supplied with pliant springs. They are consequently quite unfit to be used in streets adapted to the heavy wagons employed in commercial traffic, and can only be fully enjoyed in roads expressly prepared for them. In parks such roads are provided in connection with other arrangements for the health of the people. INADEQUATE DOMESTIC ACCESS TO SUBURBS AND PARKS. The parks are no more accessible than the suburbs, however, from those quarters of the town occupied domestically, except by means of streets formed in precisely the same manner as those which pass through the quarters devoted to the heaviest commercial traffic. During the periods of transit, therefore, from house to house and between the houses and the Park there is little pleasure to be had in driving. Riding also, through the ordinary streets, is often not only far from pleasant, but, unless it is very slowly and carefully done, is hazardous to life and limb. Consequently much less enjoyment of the Park is possible to those who live at a distance than to those who live near it and its value to the population at large is correspondingly restricted The difficulties of reaching the Park on foot for those who might enjoy 21 and be benefited by the walk, are at the season of the year when it would otherwise be most attractive, even greater, for they must follow the heated flags and bear the reflected as well as the direct rays of the sun _ But we cannot expect, even if this objection were overcome, that all the inhabitants of a large town would go so far as the Park every day, or so often as it is desirable that they should take an agreeable stroll in the fresh air. On the other hand we cannot say that the transportation of merchandise should be altogether interdicted in the domestic quarters of a town, as it is ina park, and as it now is through certain streets of London and Paris during most hours of the day. On the contrary it is evidently desirable that every dwelling house should be accessible by means of suitable paved streets to heavy wheeled vehicles, NEW ARRANGEMENTS DEMANDED BY EXISTING REQUIREMENTS. It will be observed that each of the changes which we have examined points clearly towards the conclusion that the present street arrange- ments of every large town will at no very distant day require, not to be set aside, but to be supplemented, by a series of ways designed with ex- press reference to the pleasure with which they may be used for walk- ing, riding, and the driving of carriages; for rest, recreation, refresh- ment, and social intercourse, and that these ways must be so arranged that they will be conveniently accessible from every dwelling house and allow its occupants to pass from it to distant parts of the town, as, for instance, when they want to go toa park, without the necessity of travelling for any considerable distance through streets no more con. venient for the purpose than our streets of the better class now are. We may refuse to make timely provisions for such purposes in our suburbs, and we may by our refusal add prodigiously to the difficulty and the cost of their final introduction but it is no more probable, if great towns continue to grow greater, that such requirements as we have pointed out will not eventually be provided for than it was two hundred years ago that the obvious defects of the then existing street arrangements would continue to be permanently endured rather than that property should be destroyed which existed in the buildings by their sides. THE POSITION OF BROOKLYN. If we now take the case of Brooklyn we shall find that all the reasons for an advance upon the standards of the street arrangements of the last century which apply to great towns in general, are applicable to her special situation with particular emphasis. 22 With reference to general commerce, Brooklyn must be considered as a division merely of the port of New York. The city of New York is, in regard to building space, in the condition of a walled town. Brook- lyn is New York outside the walls. The length of suitable shore for shipping purposes which the city of New York possesses is limited. Many operations of commerce cannot be carried on in the northern parts of the island. It may be reckoned. upon as certain that the centre of the commercial arrangements of the port will be in the lower part of New York island. It may be also reckoned upon as certain that everywhere, within 2 limited distance back from its shores, all the ground will be required for commercial purposes. The amount of land enclosed by this commercial border remaining to be devoted to purposes of habitation will then be comparatively small and will be at a considerable distance north of the commercial centre, probably not nearer on an average than the upper part of the Central Park which is more than seven miles from the present Custom House. On each side of it, north, south, east, and west, will be warehouses and manufacturing and trading establishments, and, at a little greater distance, wharves and shipping. - The habitable part of New York island will then necessarily be built up with great compactness and will in every part be intersected with streets offermg direct communication for the transportation of merchan- dise between one part of its commercial quarter and another. If now, again, we look on the Long Island side of the port we find a line of shore ten miles in length which is also adapted to the require- ments of shipping. It may be assumed that the land along this shore will be wanted, as well as that along the shore of New York island and for an equal distance back from the water, for mercantile and manufacturing purposes. Supposing that the district thus occupied shall, after a time, reach as far back as the corresponding district on New York island; in the rear of it, (and still at a distance from the commer- cial centre of the port, not half as great on an average as the Centrai Park), we find a stretch of ground generally elevated, the higher parts being at an average distance of more than a mile from any point to which merchandise can be brought by water. East of this elevation the ground slopes to the shore, not of a harbor or navigable river, but of the ocean itself. A shore in the highest degree attractive to those seeking recreation or health but offering no advantages for shipping, manufactu- ring or mercantile purposes. At present this slope is occupied chiefly by country seats, and the habitations of gardeners and farmers, and only through the most perverse neglect of the landowners of their own in. terests is it likely to be built upon for other purposes. 23 THE OPPORTUNITY OF BROOKLYN, Here, then, there is ample room for an extension of the habitation part of the metropolis upon a plan fully adapted to the most intelligent re- quirements of modern town life.