Before anything more is done about the improvements of the public grounds in Washington concerning which you have asked my opinion, the question, what shall be the motive of their improvement, should be conclusively settled.

For convenience sake I will consider this question first with reference to the whole body of open ground from the Capitol to Lafayette Square, and afterwards, more especially to that immediately about the Capitol.

Within or on the borders of the larger ground stand the Capitol, the Executive Mansion and the several buildings occupied by the State, Judiciary, Treasury, and War and Navy Departments, the Agricultural Bureau and the Smithsonian Institution. To these the National Library and other buildings are expected to be added.

The larger part of the exterior of the existing buildings is of marble and granite elaborately wrought. Beyond the cost of all necessary accommodations for the business to be done in them, they represent an investment by the Nation of Millions of dollars, made solely with a view of producing certain impressions upon the mind of observers. Had this outlay been wisely and comprehensively directed to the purpose in view, no nation in the world would now possess as noble and fitting a capital as the United States. As it is, the effect produced is admitted to be a broken, confused and unsatisfactory one and is unhappily often alluded to as a standing reproach against the system of government which has been able to secure no better adaptation of means to such an end.

That the result of so much architectural effort is so comparitively insignificant is largely due to the circumstance that the several government buildings are seldom seen under conditions favorable to the impression designed to be established; that this impression, so far as it might otherwise be [37] produced, is not sustained or supported by objects adjoining them and that long rows of other buildings have been intruded between the more important of them, the character of which is adapted only to bewilder and dissipate the desired effect. In short the capital of the Union manifests nothing so much as disunity. This is not because of the distance between the government buildings simply: were this reduced one half, the intervening spaces remaining occupied as at present, the lack of any coordinating purpose would be felt none the less. What is wanting is a federal bond. Had the buildings been ranged about a single field of landscape all the other objects within which were not only objects of beauty but were consistent and harmonious one with another, a much more sustained and consequently more impressive effect would have been produced. Great breadth in this field of landscape and largeness of scale in all its features {provided it were consistently sustained} would not be felt in the least as a disadvantage.

It follows that if a space could now be introduced into the plan of the city by which the same result even in a modified degree could be gained, the capital would be more transformed and elevated in the scale of art than by any and all other means for the purpose that can be proposed.

It is my judgement that the canal district, now mainly a dreary waste, with the adjoining public grounds, presents an opportunity for accomplishing this object, and this is my answer to the question, what should be the motive of any scheme for its improvement.

It would be requisite to the end in view that the motive should be absolutely controlling in all parts of the ground and the first obstacle to success would exist in the fact that certain portions of it have already been worked and are held and managed under divers committees and other authorities each with a different purpose.

General Babcock showed me plans which had been prepared for other portions, the plan of each being substantially in dependant of that for every other, and he informed me that there was a project for improving yet other parts in the same way and for finally connecting each part with those adjoining it so that it would form a link in a chain of such grounds, extending from the Capitol to the Executive Mansion.

Under existing laws a project of this kind may be the best that can be adopted but with reference to the purpose of forming a ground which shall bring the various government buildings into a relation of landscape unity it can lead only to its antithesis.

Each building and other object of interest instead of appearing as one in the National assemblage will have its own little separate domain and seem more distinctly set apart from all the others even, than at present. And no matter how pretty each of these might be in itself by no aggregation of such prettiness can any great beauty or any fine impression of unity throughout all be produced.

I apprehend that the first step necessary to be taken toward a comprehensive [38] improvement would be the most difficult one, that is, to place the control of all these grounds under one body so constituted that it would be likely to pursue a sustained policy year after year and not be led off by regard for special and temporary interests. The cost of carrying out such a plan as I suggest would probably be less — acre per acre — than of pursuing the project now entertained.

Before proceeding to the second question of the motive which should govern a plan for the improvement of the ground immediately about the Capitol, I will observe that too much importance seems to be generally given to the circumstance that the first Capitol building was designed on the supposition that the city of Washington would be built on the East side of it and that it is therefore considered to be fronted to the East. A building may have two fronts and most noble buildings in fact are designed with two, of which not unfrequently that of the carriage or most used entrance is the less important architecturally and in the landscape. Such is the case with the palace of the Tuileries, of the Luxembourg and of Versailles, for example, as it is of the noblest halls of England. It is much better for most purposes to which a large building is to be put that one side of it should be left entierly free from the disturbance of carriages and it is on that front that any beauty of architecture possessed by the building will commonly be seen to the highest advantage and on which any landscape beauty associated with it may be best enjoyed from within.

If the suggestion of a federal ground on the west should be carried out I should think the circumstance that the carriage front of the Capitol was on the East and that the question of the treatment of the ground on the West need not be complicated by the necessity of a grand approach road a fortunate one. I do not know the full history of the arrangement by which the West front surmounts an elevation looking out upon a space of ground gradually and symmetrically widening as the distance from it increases, extending to a broad river a mile away beyond which and toward the setting sun verdant heights terminate a prospect the natural elements of which are all broad, simple and tranquilizing, but if the most firmly established principles and the most satisfactory precedents in Landscape Architecture had been consulted the arrangement would not have been different. The cause of regret lies solely in the poor use that has been made of the opportunity thus originally secured.

The capitol building is a very large one and its design grand and imposing. The ground about it should be so managed as to sustain and minister to this design as much as possible. To this end its general features should be large in scale, simple in outline and in all respects as quietly dignified in character as the requirements of convenience will allow. Trees should be so placed that nature will gradually bring them into satisfactory landscape relation with the building.

Under present conditions advantages are nowhere found for fully enjoying [39]

View Of U.S. Capitol With Earth Terraces, C. 1880

Looking from the West, owing to the disposition of the trees, there is no position from which a general view of it can be taken; none from which its real proportions are not apparently distorted. It is best seen as a whole. from points on the Northwest or the Southwest but from these it appears crowding over the edge of the hill and to have no proper standing room.

The face of the hillside is broken by two formal terraces which are relatively thin and weak, by no means sustaining in forms and proportions the grandeur of the superimposed mass.

These disadvantages of the Capitol are mainly due to the single fact that the base lines of the wings were not adapted to the ground they stand upon but were laid down with relation to those of the original much smaller central structure, and that the trees now growing about it were planted with no thought of the present building but only with regard to the old one. A considerable number of those on the East have also been introduced subsequently to the original planting and apparently without reference to the purposes then had in view. It is chiefly by these trees that the design of the architect is on that side obscured. On the West a few of the permanent trees were probably planted with consideration only for the effect they would have while young and small-others unquestionably with the expectation that they would be thinned out. [40] Had this been done at the proper time the Capitol would be seen to much greater advantage than it now is and the general effect of the trees would be much more umbrageous as well as more harmonious with its architecture.

The proposed lowering of the surface to meet the new grade of the street which bounds the Capitol grounds on the East offers an opportunity for remedying the principal defects to which I have referred on that side. It would not be a necessity of this lowering of the surface that the trees upon it should be destroyed but not more than half can, I think, be advantageously retained where they are. It is quite practicable by removing a part and introducing others to rehabilitate the ground in a short time with a larger body of foliage than is provided by the present trees and to have them grouped in much better relation with the enlarged building.

The defect of the West front is due, as I have said, to the fact that the new parts of the building are further advanced on the face of the hill side than they probably would have been had it been possible to design them with reference to it, and that the terraces by which this misfortune is designed to be relieved, being continuations of lines originally laid out with regard to a much smaller building, are inadequate to the purpose.

As the building cannot be moved back, the only remedy possible is to be found in bringing the face of the hill simply and boldly forward. This is especially needed on the flanks where the terraces are now run out with a constantly diminishing face. The material for this purpose could now be supplied at a moderate cost, by the proposed reduction of the surface on the East side but the work should not be undertaken until after the intended new lines on the West side have been most carefully studied in relation to the Architecture.

You ask us to report in answer to the following question:

Is it desirable that a statue, which with its pedestal would be thirty feet in height, should be placed in the centre of the oval plat of turf at the south end of the Mall of the Central Park?

The position, outlines and color of every object in this part of the Park, as in every other, have been studied, first by reference to the main purpose of the Park, and afterwards with reference to special local purposes, consistent with and more or less contributive to that paramount purpose.

[44]

It may be assumed that the desirability of the introduction of any additional object at any point can best be determined by a similar process of study.

We shall consider the proposition, therefore, with reference, first, to the general design of the Park, and afterwards to the special design of the Mall, and other local conditions.

In providing for recreation from the effects of constant urban confinement of the people of a great city, it would but for one reason be better to have several comparatively small grounds rather than a single large one. This reason is that a sense of escape from the confinement of buildings and streets is in itself an important element of the desired recreation, and that the degree in which this is produced depends largely on the extent of open country which can be brought into view. The site of the Central Park was unfortunately selected with no regard for this desideratum, and happened to be divided in the middle by the reservoirs and further subdivided by rocky hillocks in such a way that in but few places was there any general rural view more extensive than might be found in a tract of land but one-tenth as large. It has consequently been a primary object in its design to get the better of this most conspicuous defect of the site, and to take the utmost advantage of such opportunities as were offered in the topography to make the visitor feel as if a considerable extent of country were open before him.

Such opportunities were therefore made key-points in the design of the park.

Of these key-points, the locality in question was considered to be of the first importance, for the following reasons:

The eminence at the southwest corner of the reservoir, called Vista Rock, is the most distant natural object which can be seen from any point in the southern part of the park; and the Drive, south of the Mall, is the nearest point to the entrance from Fifth avenue at which it can be brought into view. A little to the right and left of the line of view towards it from this point, large rocky elevations shorten the prospect by more than one-half. Further to the right and left, the prospect opens again much more broadly, but not to so great a distance. The strongest effect of distance can only be had, therefore, for a moment in passing this spot; and it was, in the estimation of the designers, worth so much that, to the enhancement of the possible impression it might make on the visitor, every element of the plan for long distances about it was subordinated. Not only, for instance, were the lines of the Mall, and the choice of trees upon it and its borders, controlled by this motive, but it influenced the courses of all roads and walks south of Seventy-second street; it led to the very costly excavation of large bodies of rock, and determined the selection of trees and color of foliage nearly half a mile away. The towered structure on Vista Rock itself was placed where it is and designed, by its grey colors and the small proportions of its elevated parts, solely to further this purpose.

The middle line of the vista of the Mall is the line on which all these operations centre, and in looking along which everything tends most to favor [45]

Plan of lower central park, new york city (1873)

[46]

It is obvious, then, that the adoption of the proposition would be a direct repudiation of the primary motive of the general design.

It may be said that the view would still be open on either side. It is true that it would, but aside from the fact of its being divided and narrowed by the introduction of the statue, if an object of the character proposed were so placed in the foreground the intended importance of the distant elements of the scene would certainly be lost.

So far also as the statue would be visible to those passing on the drive, their attention would be drawn by it to a lofty object near at hand and of course withheld from the distant scene below upon which it has heretofore been assumed that every means should be used to concentrate it.

With regard to the special purpose of the Mall, it is the only place in the park where large numbers of people are expected to congregate in summer, the walks elsewhere being designed for continuous motion, with seats and spaces of rest for small clusters of persons only.

Walks from all sides lead towards the Mall, the principal approaches being carried by arched passages under the carriage roads: this element of the design of the park, therefore, stands, with reference to all others, as the hall of audience to the various other rooms, corridors and passages of a palace. Although the elms by which it is to be completely arched over and shaded are as yet not nearly half grown and but two of the many objects of art, by which its dignity is expected to be supported and its perspective effect increased, are yet placed along its borders, it even now begins, in popular use, to assume its designed character. On a fine day in summer thousands of people who have been walking rapidly while in the various approaches to it, here move more slowly, often turning and returning, and the seats which are then placed at its side with accommodation for several hundred persons are often fully occupied.

The proposition is to place a colossal statue in the middle of the south end of this grand hall of the park with its back set square to the people.

The impropriety of such an arrangement is plain.

But it is also to be remembered that a colossal statue in the proposed position would tend to establish a scale to which no other object in the vicinity has been or can be adapted. Relatively to it the adjoining walks and plats and the spaces between the trees would seem cramped and mean. It would have the effect of dwarfing and, so to speak, of casting in the shade the statue of Shakespeare and all others which are designed to be placed in the vicinity, of which there are four now provided.

With reference to the value of what has already been acquired in the park, it is thus clearly not desirable that the proposition should be entertained.

We shall proceed to consider, whether, setting aside the fact that by [47] far the greater number of visitors to the park would see only the back of the statue, the position proposed for it is one adapted to its favorable and dignified presentation.

On the elliptical plat of turf to be occupied there are four trees, and in the design of the park there are no more important trees upon it. They were the very first, or among the very first, planted on the park, and their trunks have already grown to be over one and a half feet in diameter. In a few years they will be three feet. The entire figure of the statue would be elevated above the point at which the branches spread out from these trunks.

If the base of the pedestal at the ground should be a square of about fifteen feet, as is probable, one of these trees would stand opposite each corner, at a distance from it of fifteen feet, and a quartering view of the statue from any greater distance would therefore be wholly obstructed.

Nearly at the same range, but a little more toward the front, stand two other trees of the same character; still further toward the front two more, all of which, as will be plainly seen by the annexed diagram, would be between the statue and the carriage-way, and the most distant less than eighty feet from the base, and within equal distance, laterally, there are several others.

These trees have suffered from ice storms while young, and were, unfortunately, trimmed up under Mr. Sweeney’s administration; their heads have consequently not yet grown in fair proportion with their bodies, and are not well filled out, but it is only necessary for an observer walking around them today to imagine what they will be in June, five years hence, to be convinced that there is no point of view in which, during the summer, the proposed colossal statue would be even visible at the distance, and from the positions in which a colossal statue at the proposed elevation should be seen to the best advantage. If it were to be set up even two years hence, as it has been suggested that it might be, with a view to the centennial anniversary of Independence, and an audience were to gather as large as greeted the unveiling of the Shakespeare statue, not half of those assembled would be able to see the head of the figure.

If such a statue had been expected to stand in the proposed position, and the designers of the park had, at the outset, been instructed to arrange the foot approaches to the Mall, and to set the trees about the position in such a way that only the pedestal would be conspicuous, the result would be very much what it is.

Even were the dozen trees, which have been referred to, away, the position from which the statue would be seen to the best advantage is at the meeting of three carriage ways, and the busiest and most disturbed place in all the park, so much so, that it has long been the custom to station a keeper upon it to prevent people on foot from attempting to cross it, and to guard against collisions. Such a spot is certainly not one to be selected for the worthy contemplation of a great work of art.

[48]

The views which have thus been expressed as to the motives which should be controlling in respect to every object introduced at or near the point in question, are those adopted by the Park Commissioners before the first stroke toward the construction of the park was ordered. To show this, we quote from the explanation of the plan published by the Commissioners in 1858:

From this plateau a view is had of nearly all of the park up to the Reservoir, in a northerly direction, and in looking to the south and west we perceive that there are natural approaches from these directions, which suggest that we have arrived at a suitable point of concentration for all approaches which may be made from the lower part of the city to the interior of the park. Vista Rock, the most prominent point in the landscape of the lower park, here first comes distinctly into view, and, fortunately, in a direction diagonal to the boundary lines, from which it is desirable to withdraw attention in every possible way. We therefore accept this line of view as affording an all-sufficient motive to our further procedure.

* * * *

The idea of the park itself should always be uppermost in the mind of the beholder. Holding this general principle to be of considerable importance, we have preferred to place the avenue [or Mall] where it can be terminated appropriately at one end with a landscape attraction of considerable extent, and to relieve the south entrance with only so much architectural treatment as may give the idea that due regard has been paid to the adornment of this principal promenade, without interfering with its real character.

Mention should perhaps be made of the fact that a statue has once been offered to the Commissioners of the Park, with the expectation that they would place it on the spot now in question. The Commissioners declined to do so, and the offer was withdrawn.