Evening star., 1926-05-02

| Elneef corps OF the AFIlly, anu eAeCE-
tive and disbursing officer Of the com
mission, follows:
1.-THE work contemplated largely
consists of the preparation of COM
prehenSive plan of park development
/, in collaboration with the extension
| of city improvements. There Will also
| be landscape design and park plan
ming"
| There was a tentative understand
| ing. Mr.. Langdon states. that he was
/ to be the city planner of the commits
! sion and chairman of its city and park
planning committee, a position subSe-
! quently given to and now occupied
| by, Maj. Carey ii. Brown, Army En-
glneer Corps
| Change in Interim.
| In the interim between the an
| nouncement of the park commission S
decision to employ Mr. Langdon and
his appointment, Maj. Brown was De
tailed here at the urgent appeal of
| Col. Sheriff. and Lieut.. Col. j.
| Franklin Bell, engineer Commission
| er Mai. Brown was formerly an as
sistant engineer Commissioner OF the
! District, assigned here at the time
| the Zonipg law went into effect. AS
| soon as he reported he was made the
! city planner and selected as chairman
of the city and park planning COM
| mission of the National Capital Park
! Commission.
Mr.. Langdon said that his plans,
! formulated in furtherance of the gen.
eral scheme of the Mcmillan plan of
| 1901. have met constant rebun on
| the part of Maj. Brown, who, he as
serted, refused to give them con-
| Sideration.
Cites Fort Drive Plan.
Citing what he considers specific in
| stances of where the city development
was suffering from his remaining
I here, and inability to have his plans
approved, Mr.. Langdon called atten-
| ton TO the much talked of Fort Drive,
| proposed to link in a continuous drive
way of all the Civil War forts around
| the city From Sixteenth street.
through Fort Stevens, to Fort Slocum
in Brightwood. He said the drive is
about to become reality, as the route
is settled and the agreements now
are in the hands Of the owners of the
land. However, from this point to
Bladensburg, no tangible headway
has been made, and Mr.. Langdon as
serts that 1t is due to failure to fol-
low UP the preliminary work.
The officials of the Catholic Uni
versity of America he said, had Of
fered to withhold building projects
from certain of their lands in order
to cooperate, and were willing to
dedicate such land for part of the
drive. Other Catholic orders in
Brookland had offered to do the same
| thing, and the land would have cost
the Government nothing, he said.
However, the ultimatum has now been
| issued by the Catholic authorities that
if such land is not accepted, they will
withdraw the offer. In the mean
time, there has grown up a home de-
| velopment in the path of the pro-
posed drive, and this has been allowed
to happen, Mr.. Langdon said, because
of the failure of responsible officials
to consult with the owners of that
property and request them to hold
off until the drive plan is formulated
| Mr.. Langdon said that he consistently
and continually urged Maj. Brown to
| complete this task.
Says Another Was Refused.
l. Several weeks were spent by MIR.
| Langdon, he said, in redesigning the
| highway system on Potomac Heights,
adjacent to Conduit road, having in
mind the idea of preserving the nat
ural contour of the country there.
This plan has been completed, but
no attention was paid to 1t by the
planning commission, and when Mr..
Langdon presented 1t, he asserts,
Maj. Brown, the chairman, refused to
take 1t into consideration and left
the meeting.
Recently the city and park plan
ming committee has been meeting
weekly, but has considered nothing
but minor street changes, and Mr..
Langdon said that he made a for
NAL protest against this weekly con-
sideration Of petty street widening
and sought to have the planning
committee take some definite action
on the big things that are pending.
He states he was unsuccessful.
Another project on which Mr.. Lang
don has been working Is the bypass
ing" of traffic around the city. He
pointed out that motor travel Is be-
coming so heavy it soon will be
practically impossible to send touring
traffic through the center Of the city,
and he has designed traffic inter
ceptors, consisting Of three inter
ceptor belts, an inner belt, middle
belt and an outer belt, patterned some
what after similar projects on which
Detroit and Buffalo are working.
Three Belts Defined.
In this scheme, he said, Florida ave.
nue. will have to be widened to 120
feet as the inner belt The inter-
mediate belt would be the Fort drive,
which to carry out the scheme would
have to be a continuous drive. and the
outer belt will be a continuation of the
Lee Highway. These belts will divert
through traffic around the city. The
only tangible result of this plan, he
said, was an agreement by the District
Engineers office to route a section Of
the outer belt through the Dalecarlia
reservoir, and that in the erection of
! buildings on the new filtration plat
project of Dalecalria the houses will
| be erected so as not to stand In the
path of this project. Also agreement
has been reached to carry the traffic
| over. the proposed dam above the
| Chain Bridge.
| Mr.. Langdon has been prominent
and active in the projects for the
Identification and development Of the
Capital City dating from the Mcmillan
plan Of 1901.
One of the projects with which he
| has been connected is the preparation
of the Government exhibit at the Pan
Pacific Exposition. He wrote the
Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway re-
port, and negotiated the purchase Of
about 60 per cent OF the land for this
project, just being completed, at about
90 per cent discount from the assessed
valuation. He was placed in sole
charge of the Public Buildings Com
mission work Of 1916 and 1917, which
resulted in the report which will be
followed to large extent, except with
notifications to bring the building
changes up to date, in carrying out
the public buildings project. He pre-
pared the appendix for this report and
had full charge of the report. He con.
L l.,