St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-03-17

us as individuals by the taste, lberality and
refinement and culture displayed in our pri-
vate yards and home surroundings.
WE HAVE ONE OUTSIDE PARK
which the city and county authorities propose
to make a moral and physical slop-bowl by
EN- plying all the criminals and paupers of the
county into it, with a hospital to cap the eli
max with smallpox, diphtheria and cholera.
The proposition is disgraceful in the extreme.
We only need to go one step further, and
make it the dumping ground for the garbage
and offal of the city, goigotha OF dead cats
and putrefying carcases, and the beauty and
symmetry of the scheme will be com pleted.
Remove the workhouse which already orna-
ments 40 acres of this park and we should
then only have about 300 acres. Chicago
has single park of about 1000 acres. Phila-
delphia has nearly 5000 acres, st. Louis
about 1000 acres, and our sister city and
neighbor in the last two years has laid out
in ornamental parkways and bouleyards
about twenty-five miles, which, with other
parks, gives her nearly 600 acres of park
ways and public grounds.
We are therefore
FAR IN THE BACKGROUND,
and the same self-respect and pride as well
as regard for the expectations of strangers
and visitors which make it necessary to build
fine hotels, court houses and school houses
like other cities, must rouse US from our
lethargy, and make US equal to the emery
ency of giving to our city style and quality
of improvements in the matter of parks and
boulevards which will keep her abreast with
other cities, and which will attract strangers
and visitors and not repel them.
A broad and liberal policy on this sub
ject is not extravaganza, but economy.
In ten years after the commencement of
Improvements on Central park, New York,
the increased valuation of taxable property
in the wards surrounding it was no less than
S54, 900, 900, affording a surplus Of So, 000,-
900 after paying the interest on all the city
bonds issued for the purchase and construc-
ton of the park-a sum sufficient if used as a
sinking fund, to pay the entire principal and
interest of the cost of the park in less time
than was required for its construction. When
Brooklyn purchased her park grounds she
did not purchase enough. Afterwards when
she desired to enlarge the grounds by other
purchases, she was compelled to pay 500 per
cent more for the grounds, such was the
erty consequent upon the improvement of
the park.
The improvement of St. Paul's parks and
driyeways will result in the
INCREASE OF OUR TAXABLE PROPERTY
in the same manner.
One hundred thousand people are added
to the winter population of Paris, whose
elegant parks and boulevards are not the
least of the attractions that contribute to the
comfort and enjoyment of strangers. II
each visitor expends only $500 during the
season, $50, 600, 600 is added to the city's in
come. st. Paul needs parks and boulevards
to attract entertain and please strangers, as
well as fine hotels, court houses and school
houses. st. Paul needs parks and boulevards
for sanitary purposes. The Boston park
commissioners say Nothing is so costly as
disease and sickness and nothing so cheap as
health. Whatever promotes the former is
the worst sort of extravaganza, whatever
fosters the latter is the truest economy"
AS an elegant EN- bellishment for the future
great city, as sanitary measure to purify the
air, as break to stop the progress of great
CONGREGATIONS, as stimulus to the growth Of
the city and the increase of its taxable prop
erty as an ornamental driveway for tourists
and strangers and a convenient approach TO
our state fair grounds, we need a two-hun-
dred-foot avenue from st. Paul to Mnneapo-
lis, with row of trees and grass plats
in the middle, with marginal em-
Enlistment of trees and grass on either side
with twenty or thirty foot hard roadway for
heavy traffic and several roadways for light
travel and driving, with the lands or lots on
either side sold on condition that n 70 building
shall ever be erected within seventy-fve feet
of the boulevard.
The lands are now in such condition and
owned by so few persons that this condition
of their sale can now be controlled.
Such an arrangement would give US
A CONTINUOUS PARK
from st. Paul to Minneapolis $50 feet wide
with a boulevard capable of embellishments
and attractions making it among the finest
in the world.
Al property along the line would be dou-
bled in value by it, and the city would be
reimbursed in the increased revenue from
taxes for any outlay either for the ground or
the improvement.
Further suggestions as to the style of these
boulevards In other cities and in Europe, and
the question as to the costs aud means of
paying for this driveway must be reserved for
another report.
We therefore report progress and ask leave
TO sit again.
J. W. McCLUxG,
l.. w. RUNDLETT,
w. A. SoMERs,
THOMAS COCHRAN, Jr.