FIG. 225 Cass Gilbert and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., "Preliminary Plan: Improvement of the City of New Haven," 1910.

possible extinction, he would not co-
aloofness on the school's part. As he
close friend Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr.
and a fellow member of the Civic In-
Committee), "I am one of a great many
who think that the University is unable
to do more for this community not
of exemption from taxation, but also
the obligation imposed by reason of
leadership."31 To that end, he openly
become more involved in the public
including making institutions such
Museum, the Art Gallery, and Wool-
accessible to local residents. Yale was
at first but finally agreed, and related
almost immediately. Seymour's effo-
tributed toward the formation of the
Association of New Haven in 1909, a
decade of good will was a notable hit
and gown relations.32

Along similar lines, Yale's School
at Seymour's urging, organized a pub-
series on civic improvement in 1907
by Gilbert and Olmsted as well as Jo-
one of the architects of Yale's Bicent-
(University Commons, Woolsey Hall),
and Frank Miles Day, who was
Yale's first consulting architect in 19
time, the Civic Improvement Com-
request of Gilbert and Olmsted, cor-
Yale student of statistical science to
economic data on the city, in order
sort of things now lacking would co-
to the satisfaction of its citizens." H.
appeared to the planners' report an
one of the first uses of statistical re-
mulation of a city plan.33

Although Gilbert and Olmsted
completed their work by early 1909
to the written report delayed its rele-
a year.34 Finally, in December 1910,
presented it to the public in book for
of the New Haven Civic Improvements

FIG. 227 Cass Gilbert and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., "Sketch view...showing how the Avenue would connect the Station with the City," 1910.

squares, the subway would run below a widened Temple Street across the Green and emerge at a new public plaza to the south (see FIG. 226, middle right). The heavily traveled east-west streets of the nine-square grid would then run unimpeded over it, relieving gridlock at downtown intersections. As it was an ambitious and costly undertaking, Gilbert and Olmsted did not discuss the subway in depth, treating it as a suggestion to be taken up or discarded in the plan's future development. Easily overlooked in the text and accompanying drawings, it remains one of the least known elements of their plan.

On the other hand, the best known and most striking aspect of Gilbert and Olmsted's plan was a proposed grand avenue connecting the new railroad station to the center of the city. Inspired by Seymour's suggestion in his "Open Letter," the avenue received relatively little textual attention in the *Report*—half a page describing its purpose and character—but was featured prominently in the accompanying drawings

common in American cities at the time. With the consolidation of the nineteenth-century railway industry, many urban centers were sponsoring the construction of new, larger stations. Coinciding with the emergence of city planning, these stations often precipitated large-scale city master plans, becoming the tail wagging the dog of civic improvement. In New Haven's case, the new railroad line, or "cut," laid out in 1905-6, mandated the placement of the station to the south, isolated from the downtown by an intervening section of densely built, irregular city blocks. Connecting it more directly with the city center thus became a priority.

Gilbert and Olmsted's proposal included not only the avenue, cutting a 120-foot-wide swath through the tangled blocks, but also two anchor spaces at its ends: a plaza fronting the station and a public square, or "secondary civic center," deflecting the axis of the avenue onto Temple Street as it led to the Green. The processional sequence thus formed

argued. "Healthy trees in front of or about
elling make the place more livable, as well as
utiful, and increase the value of property
quence."⁴⁸ Gilbert and Olmsted put the
t in terms that New Haven's business com-
would understand, helping them to see this
nity as an investment in its future:

New Haven's assets as a pleasant place to live in is
ness of its shade trees. On any reasonable basis
on, tree for tree, it has a large amount of capital
. It is not a negotiable asset... but it is none
valuable asset and one which can be to a great
reserved and increased, or which can by neglect
tely lost.⁴⁹

our had urged the hiring of an “urban
and the *Report* seconded this recommen-
d 1911, the city’s Department of Public
ith the help of the Yale Forestry School,
with a trained superintendent to run its newly
 Bureau of Trees. The work of reclamation
nmediately, starting on the Green and mov-
rd through the nine squares.

t addressed as well the issue of local parks
rounds. Progressive Era urban reformers
great deal of attention to such spaces,
them a positive force for the moral and
development of neighborhood children.⁵⁰
n's planners treated them more as a matter
quity. They admonished the city that "any
deliberately...leaves any considerable
oods permanently without the benefit of
parks and playgrounds for local use... is as
cical, unjust, undemocratic and unwise."⁵¹
for the creation of a variety of small
throughout the city, so placed as to be within
of every home (FIG. 229). In addition to
play space for city children (especially
expanding immigrant communities),
would also form the nuclei of new and
neighborhoods.

perfectly circumscribes the colonial grid that
New Haven's founders had laid down nearly three
hundred years before.

The planners paid even more attention to the
larger outlying parks that ringed the city, devoting
a full third of the *Report* to recommendations for
improving their design and management. The exten-
sive treatment reflected the close alliance between
city planning and landscape architecture at the time,
with Olmsted taking the lead in developing the pro-
posed improvements. These were organized into
two geographical sections, an "Inner Circuit" and

Olmsted praised the foresight and efforts of the
local park administration and suggested only minor
adjustments and connections.

He was much more urgent about the need for
the city to secure additional land, especially along
the urban edges not yet given over to private devel-
opment. This included the waterfront around the
harbor, where, Olmsted recognized rightly, the last
opportunity was at hand to acquire it for public use.
In addition, he urged that stretches along the neigh-
boring Quinnipiac and West Rivers be purchased
to preserve their function as watersheds. Aware of

FIG. 229 Cass Gilbert and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., "City of New Haven: Map showing areas [in black] in which are needed more small parks for local purposes," 1910.

243

NEW HAVEN'S CIVIC IMPROVEMENT PLAN

FIG. 230 Cass Gilbert and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., "New Haven [Regional park plan]," 1909.

the potential long-term negative effects of urban
development on the surrounding ecosystem, he
begged the city to adopt a farsighted policy of
resource management. His proposed acquisitions,
in concert with the existing parks, would have made
the "Inner Circuit" a greenbelt around the city,
buffering growth and protecting the environment
upon which it depended.

The "Outer Circuit," as the name implied, formed
a second concentric ring of parklands around the
city, thinner and more tenuous than the "Inner Cir-
cuit." Its purpose was to <u>connect existing or proposed</u>
<u>watersheds and reservations with parkways, or land-</u>
<u>scaped drives, which would encircle the city as an</u>
<u>"emerald necklace." These greenways, although</u>

VALEDICTORY

Outside experts and special commissions may be valuable to arouse or educate public opinion, or to stimulate and inform local officials... but the real work of getting the results, toward which any paper plan is but a step, depends mainly upon the right sort of unremitting, never-ending work by the proper administrative officials.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., "Address to the Second National Con-
ference on City Planning," 1916. <sup>54</sup>

Despite the long delay in the *Report's* release, New
Haven's drive for civic improvement retained its
momentum, and the city opened a number of fronts
based on the planners' recommendations.⁵⁴ Of first
importance was creating a municipal commission
to oversee the improvements. This was a legal and