## Proposals

There was no lack of proposals for developing the Back Bay and the Charles River. One of the most ambitious and imaginative of these proposals was that of Robert Gourlay, whose plan was detailed enough to include a pagoda design for the Common and broad enough to plan an inter-urban railway and subway system. Circus Island was the hub transfer depot of the rail system, and a second island just north of it, Asian Fields, was his thoughtful division of a cemetery, just about where Copley Square is today. Gourlay to made some startlingly accurate predictions about the population increase that Boston was to undergo, and planned his boulevard-road system 200 feet wide around the Charles river basin with three traffic lanes, matter of some foresight if one of these could be reversible in accord with morning and evening traffic flow.

### Gourlay proposal. Details.

Gourlay proposal. Plan and Elevation of a Pagoda, with a Flower Garden, in Boston Common.

## PLAN AND ELEVATION

AGODA, with a FLOWER GARDEN, in Boston Common.

20 feet, Basement. — 15, first, and second Floor. — 11, third, and fourth Floor. — 10, Roof.

3. David Sears's proposal of 1850 for a 37-acre lake as the Back Bay's central feature.

"In a town Bay district, glorious lines of facades, cedars and pines, roles in Art works still thors like liam Dean, lips Brook and Willia great finar so much to see and Gardn. Forbes and legendary Laphams, to see sociations of the brownstone block in a wall cannot."

This sup and engagin of Boston's at its greatest g origins to its anonymous w veness. Bainbridge

20

Commonwealth Avenue looking east from Dartmouth Street. Back Bay streets resemble great outdoor corridors connecting open areas at each end of the district. More or less uniform house fronts form the corridor walls, and the sense of direction is impelling. This picture was taken from the Vendome Hotel in the summer of 1879 or 1880. The house under construction at number 107, built for J. M. Forbes, was not begun until May 7, 1879; permission for construction of the dwelling on the empty lot at 119 was granted October 29, 1879, but build-