The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1907-01-03
THE CIVIC CENTER.
What Cleveland is Doing in the Way of
City improvements.


City Improvements.
Cleveland is first of all business
city, and while art may be regarded
with a tolerant, and evsn benevolent,
eye, it must not collide with business.
The railroad ran along the entire lake
front under the bluffs, and there it
would stay. In the midst of the dis
cussion the government settled the
question by deoiding to put up the
Federal building, to accommodate the
postoffice custom house and United
Estates courts, on a site three blocks
from the railroad, diagonally opposite
the distressing Soldiers and Sailors
monument. That meant that if there
was to be any group plan at all, all the
other proposed buildings would have to
be put somewhere in that vicinity.
With one end Of the group anchored
by the Federal building, and the othsr
by the railroad station the general lay
out of the system determined itself 1t
remained to devise a detailed plan, and
this was done by commission Of arch
fleets, consisting of Daniel H. Burn
ham, John M. Carrere and Arnold w.
Drummer. But there was the eternal
railroad again. The commissioners
thought that a view through smoke
and cinders, over maze of tracks,
would not be particularly enhancing,
even If the business objections to NOV
ing the station far enough to get 1t out
Of the picture could bs overcome. There
remained, then the alternative Of
frankly accepting the railroad and
making the station one Of the great
features of the plan. That was what
the board decided to recommend. Mr.
Burnham, who loves monumental sta
tons as the medieval architect loved
cathedrals, was commissioned to de
sign mighty transportation palace
whose columned front should fittingly
close in the Court of Honor, while the
Whole building, as well as it's APP
preaching plaza, bestrode tho railroad
tracks below. 1t was lucky for Clevs-
and that they were below. Chicago
knows what 1t is to wrestle with
track problem on a level lakefront.
Here comes up again the old trouble
that rises in every city where men are
trying to look ahead-that has con-
fronted the idealists in Washington, in
Baltimore, in Boston, in Nsw York, in
Buffalo, in Chicago, in SSSan Francis
/ co, In every one of the fifty towns that
have been touched by the spirit of the
civic renaissance. The practical
man" looks at a complete plan, showing
what ought to b., and exclaims: ''Why,
all this would cost millions! What's
! the use of throwing away money on
that fountain, and those statues and
4 that arch when we need more school,
houses and fire engines?" And then the
artist explains YEARLY Tor the hum
dredth time; My dear sir, you don't
need to spend all that money now. For
get the fountain, if 1t irritates you But
there is the plan. Lay it away, and
some day, il you feel like putting up a
fountain, or some millionaire is moved
to raise a monument to himself in that
form, put it there. Don't just stick it
anywhere, don't let a real estate agent
select a site for it near some lots he
has for sale, but put it right where it
is marked on the plan. 1t won't cost
YOU cent more, ana IL Will De
charming touch in a picture instead of
a dab of meaningless paint on dirty
canvas,
"And when you want to build an art
gallery. and an opera house, and a mu-
scum, which you will before long, don't
go hunting all over town for passable
locations, but put them here, and here,
and here. We don't expect you to car
ry out the plan all at once; we have
merely furnished you a guide, so that
whatever you do hereafter will be done
right instead of wrong, and will form
an approach toward that ideal we are
looking forward to, but shall never see
completely realized on this earth. "
M1iIn n 10 20 r,.r,i1nor out thnrn crrna I