When I saw you in Chicago last fall you asked me if I could explain the intention of some rather incoherent lines and dots in the very rough lithographic representation of our plan for the South Park. I was not at the moment able to do so but {as it just now comes back to me] I will now try to give you an understanding of it.

Imagine a plane of an acre or more with a finely gravelled surface except for a series of circles six feet in diameter arranged thus: The space between centres of circles to be 16 ft. These circles are to be pits 3 ft. deep filled with fine soil. Ample provision to be made for agricultural drainage and for surface drainage by gratings and pipes. Suppose four posts to have been set in each circle: posts to be a foot in diameter and 10 or 12 ft in height above ground. Connect the posts with strong floor joists in this way. Upon these joists make a floor of lattice-work in the usual manner of pergolas (Examples in Skizzen Buch) uniformly covering the entire space. Plant vines in the pits between the posts. Train them straight up the inside of the posts, taking care they do not cross, and from the head of each post train out each vine fan-fashion. If the soil is sufficiently [526]

Olmsted, Vaux & Co., Plan for South Open Ground and Upper Plaisance sections of Chicago South Park (1871)
Pergola overlooking South Open Green is shown on concourse near 56th Street entrance.

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Between the pits, upon the ground, you can place tables and chairs for the serving of refreshments. Thus: (the cross showing the table), or the tables can be omitted on intermediate lines, AA. The entire space may be so used if there should be found occasion.

The distances I have given may be considered minimum distances to allow passage between the tables and the posts—and may be enlarged at discretion.

The whole affair is to form a shaded promenade concert ground. On one side would be the concourse, on the other the house in the lower story of which would be the offices but mainly large covered spaces for shelter in case of sudden rains. The upper floor would be a covered esplanade, commanding a view over the top of the pergola, the relative heights being such that the nearest parts of the meadow would be in full view from all parts of the esplanade and a complete view had of parades, matches &c. upon it.

Vines from the pergola should creep up the posts supporting the overhanging roof of the house and the whole affair kept as quiet and unobtrusive in the landscape as possible consistently with its main purpose of shade and shelter for a great multitude.

It should be purely a summer affair, and very distinctly a Café and not a hotel or restaurant. I would ask for nothing more than is absolutely necessary to fulfil the requirements—trusting the vines to cover and decorate everything except the roof of the house.

In reply to your inquiry of 24th inst., I beg to observe that the all-important feature of the site proposed for a park at West Roxbury is a gentle valley, nearly a mile in length and of an average breadth, between the steeper slopes of the bordering hills of less than a quarter of a mile. Relieved of a few buildings, roads, causeways, and fences; given an unbroken surface of turf, and secluded by woods on the hillsides, their edges breaking into bays, capes, and detached groups, a perfect example would be had of a type of scenery which is generally thought more soothing in its influence than any other. A man might wander for hundreds of miles through the country without coming upon one as complete and free from incongruity. No site has been proposed for a park near Boston which is to be compared with it in this respect.

Natural tranquility, without bareness or deadness, is the quality more to be valued in a public recreation-ground. There is simply the difficulty connected with it of reconciling the necessary apparatus of public use with the requirements of consistency and harmony of expression,—of making them, that is to say, sufficiently modest and unobtrusive. Assuming that this difficulty can be met with fair success, the opportunity is an exceedingly valuable one, and it would be improvident for the city, with its present prospect of increased population and future prosperity, to neglect to secure it.

The quiet, pastoral dale, the natural beauty of which is now broken and obscured by roads, buildings, orchards and crops, with so much of the adjoining elevations as would be necessary to control it, occupies less than three-quarters of the tract first recommended by your commission to be taken for a park. The remaining part of the original area is mainly of two descriptions, a part being outlying dale-land detached in landscape, more or less, from the main valley; the other part rough upland, mostly shaded by rather stunted woods, but with many grand rocks, and adapted to yield at moderate expense to a picturesque development.

The value of the smoother outland lies in the fact, first, that if it were not available, the main valley would be likely to be used for various special methods and appliances of popular recreation, which, as before suggested, [529]

Area proposed for West Roxbury Park by Boston Park Commissioners (1876)

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The special value of the outlying rough and wooded land consists in its immediate availability as a shaded, rambling, and picnic ground; in the distinct interest of its picturesque elements, and in the heightened effect which would be obtained by contrast of character in passing between it and the dale scenery.

The question now raised is whether any notable part of the outlying land of either class can be dispensed with without a serious diminution of the value of the site as a whole for public use? It is mainly a question of what use the public will, in the future, need to make of it, and this again is mainly a question of what is elsewhere to be provided.

If this were to be the only considerable provision of the city for out-of-door recreation, the whole would be inadequate to the purpose, and for this reason:—

In time the numbers resorting to it, on days its unrestricted use would be most valuable, would be so large that the provisions for them first made, in roads, shade, houses of refreshment, and arrangements for special forms of recreation, would be found too limited; and to obtain an enlargement of them the quiet of the valley would be invaded, and little by little the only special charm which had led the locality to be selected as a park would be destroyed. Therefore this question cannot be prudently considered without reference to others which your commission has heretofore brought to the attention of the City Council, and to one more particularly.

Within a mile of this West Roxbury site the city has been offered 120 acres of land, for a public recreation ground, with the condition that it shall add about 40 to it, and allow parts of it to be occupied by certain plantations, to be paid for out of a fund of which Harvard College has been made the trustee in perpetuity.

Portions of this ground are much better adapted to be used as a rambling and picnic ground than any at West Roxbury. It is already furnished with much finer trees, and it has the advantage for this purpose of more open, higher, and more breezy elevations, commanding extensive and beautiful distant views.

If the city shall accept the gift of this land, make a road through it, and connect this road with the roads of the West Roxbury park, the two grounds would be used a good deal in connection. They would also be used by many alternately, one holiday being given to one, the following to the other, and the provisions for the public of one would complement and fill out those of the other.

A smaller extent and less cost of roads, walks, buildings, and plantations

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Olmsted’s study for reduction of size of West Roxbury Park

The proposed new boundary is indicated by the shaded area along the boundary drive. for shade would therefore be required on the ground now more particularly under consideration, and a distinct character of scenery, distinct horticultural attractions, and contrasting points of interest in other respects being provided on the Bussey site, it would be much easier to maintain the distinctive beauty of the West Roxbury park free from the embarrassments and incongruities with which it would otherwise be threatened. It follows that a [532] much smaller body, of what I have termed the outlying land, would be necessary to secure the essential purpose which justifies its selection.

I have, at your request, gone carefully over the ground, and have considered the assessed valuations of the different properties as published in your former report, and am satisfied that if the course above suggested is adopted, portions of the outlying lands, originally proposed by your Board to be taken, may be set off, aggregating over 150 acres, the value of which would probably be more than a third that of the entire area, leaving a park of great value because of its unity of character and the strong distinctive and desirably distinctive quality which it may, with very moderate works of improvement, be made to possess.

If I may be allowed, in closing, to express a judgment, based on a careful study of the experience of many other cities, I should say that there is no part, division, or quarter of Boston, which would not gain greatly by the city’s acquisition of such a park. I may go further. So far as I know, there is no body of land within the limits of the city in which a considerable expanse of tranquil, “park-like,” natural scenery could be obtained nearly as economically; and, if not, an outlay sufficient to make it available would be a better investment in the long run, in my judgment, even for the most distant and least benefited part of the city, than {if} an equal sum would be laid out within that quarter, with a view to a park of more detailed and spectacular interest.

It is wonderful that so large a body of naturally attractive land, so near a densely built city, should be so free from costly “improvements.” After a much more careful examination of it than I have heretofore made, my opinion of the good fortune of your commission in finding such a piece of ground, and its good judgment in selecting it as the site of the principal park in common of the citizens of Boston, is greatly strengthened.