Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-19
PARKS PROFITABLE,
Colonel Culyer Declares That
Schenley Will Be a Pay
ing Investment.
FINEST IN THE COUNTRY.
Its Topography Unexcelled by Any
Other Breathing Spot.
PLANS FOR THIS SUMMERS WORK.
The Architect Makes q Novel Offer to This
or Any Other City.
FINEST IN THE COUNTRY.
'LANS FOR THIS SUMMERS WORK.
NEED A BRIDGE OVER PANTHER HOLLOW

/
fulness for improvement either Central
Park, New York, Prospect Park in Brook
lyn or the Chicago parks The Colonel ar
rived in the city yesterday to resume
the landscape architectural work
at Schenley and Highland Parks,
and has grown enthusiastic over
the former He has partially completed
the whole general plan of the grounds as
thev will be when developed, and expects
to finish the drawing in few weeks. In
the meantime, work of constructing roads
and bride paths through the urimproved
sections of the park will be actively carried
on. The first important step in road-mak ing
will be the construction of a hand
some driveway from the Steel en-
| trance on the eastern extreme of
the ground, around on the southern
and western borders to connect with the
present main road beyond the bridge, and
forming with it complete circuit of the
park. A half-mile track of oval form is
also to be surveyed and built for the e1-
elusive use of those who desire fast driving.
Numerous other roads and bride paths are
being laid out and will be constructed as
rapidly as time and the park appropriation
will permit.
Will Not Spoil Natures Beauty.
Colonel Culyer is radically modern in his
ideas of parks. He abhors the formal
stilted plans of the Continent, with their
geometrical roads and straight lines of
trees, and their fountains and monuments,
his endeavor being to give nature every ad-
vantage and only assist the natural beauties
by artificial improvement He believes
in the English landscape theory for
park architecture and says that the popular
notion that parks in large city are a
luxury is erroneous. Parks, he saws, are q
necessary recreation, not for one class, but
for all the people. A rich man enjoys a
drive over the smooth roads amid the fresh,
pure atmosphere, but his less fortunate
neighbor, who gets less recreation and en-
joys it more, derives equal pleasure and
greater physical benefit from a ramble in
the park.
Parks are a good investment for any
city" continued the Colonel. land when I
say that, don't limit their value to the
christianizing, educating and recreative
benefits, but to actual cash return. Parks
pay for themselves in a very few years. I
would be willing to buy land and improve
it for park to the most modern perfection
in any large city in the country if the city
to which 1 would afterward make the park
free gift would only give me the in
crease in thereafter received revenues
Parks Pay verv Big Profits.
'I would be getting back far more than I
expended. When you establish park in
suburban section of city, land values 90
away up at once and the effect is felt over a
large area The result is q large increase
in tax receipts to the city. Men buy land
facing or near to park and erect costly
residences, knowing the park is a perma-
nent institution and that their land will
always be desirable and valuable
Few people stop to consider this feature in
connection with parks, but you have had a
practical demonstration of it recently in
this city. 1 am told that land valued at
5000 or 1900 an acre in this city, near to
both your beautiful parks, is now held as
high as 81, 900 and even $4,000 an acre. 1t
will not take long for such property to paw
for the money expended, and every foot
added TO the parks will increase revenues
proportionately.
1T is only natural for people who don't
understand and are not educated to this
point to oppose park purchases. In 1857
New York City bought the Central Park
property, then farm land lying on the out
skirts of the city. Although New York was
even then an immense city, the people were
not ready for such a park, and there was
general discomfort. The purchase was a |
venture. Its promoters knew its value, but |
a number of years elapsed before the peo-
pie realized it.
New York Buys Another Park.
"How well they became educated can he |
understood from the fact that recently |
nearly 5000 acres more have been bought |
for park purposes in the rural part of the |
city, and the people even want more. It is |
simply business enterprise, and the people |
know it.
Central Park is beautiful place, but it |
has not the natural beauty of Schenley, and |
while millions have been spent omit, the |
effect is not so pleasing to the lover of |
nature as your Schenley is to-day. Schen-
lev is several times smaller than Central
Park, but when 1 go out there it seems much |
larger. The reason is this: Central Park is
~ miles long, but only balf mile w1de
forming a long, narrow strip, of almost
level land. A street built up with
great tall residences and magnificent
apartment houses passes along either side of |
1t, and no matter where You are in the park
those buildings loom up to view. dissipating
any illusion of solitude and keeping con-
stantly in mind the unpleasant fact that YOU
are in what is now the heart of the metrop-
oils, In Schenley you need only ride
back into the main park when you find
yourself surrounded with green hills and
hidden from the busy world as completely
as If on the Allegheny Mountains There
are hundred places of rare picturesque
beauty where one can 90 at any time, in
absolute solitude, to commune with nature.
1t is beautiful park and its topography
offers thousand suggestions to the expert
enced eye to render it more so without rob-
olng 1t OF any OF its rugged features.
Bridge for Panther Hollow.
"One step to making its beauties access
lble will be in the improvement of Panther
Hollow, a lovely ravine, by constructing
bride paths through it. In this place we
propose to provide tables, light sheds and
other conveniences for picnic parties, so
that churches and societies may be spared
he necessity of going 40 or so miles out in
The country for that pleasure. A waterfall,
over former water course, supplied by
artificial means, will trickle down over a
edge of rocks at the lower end of the hol-
low, and the water will form lake in
which swan, fancy ducks and other water
fowl can be displayed in summer, and in
Einter it will be a skating pond for the
children. A bridge over Panther Hollow
md many other features proposed will make
! beautiful place. In sho ort time Pitts :
,urg will have a famous park, and an effort
hould be made to have it completed as far
s possible before the Worlds Fair opens.
There will be thousands of strangers here to
lee 1t at that time from all parts of the | ,