Messrs. F. L. and J. C. Olmsted, the Landscape Architects, make the following comments upon the preliminary plan for the widening of Beacon street, printed herewith:

This plan is designed to supply certain advantages, the lack of which is hindering a desirable, and inviting an unadvisable, occupation of the large and beautiful district lying on each side of Beacon street for three miles beyond Back Bay. It assumes that what is wanting to secure a natural, suitable, speedy and profitable outgrowth over this district from the Back Bay quarter, is, first, a spacious, direct trunk-line thoroughfare, specially adapted to pleasure driving, riding and walking; and, second, a means of direct communication between it and the city that shall be always ready for use, convenient, economical and expeditious.

As to the latter requirement, it is to be considered that an ordinary street railway laid in any one of the existing narrow streets would destroy any value it might otherwise have as a pleasure drive, and that the noise of cars passing so near would render property fronting on the street unsuitable for first-class suburban residences.

Under the plan here presented, a cable railway, with all the improvements that experience has proved to be desirable in the extensive cable systems of San Francisco and Chicago, is to be laid in the midst of an avenue of about three times the breadth of the broadest of the present streets of the district, and is to be screened on each side by two rows of trees growing in well prepared borders. The usual objections to a residence upon a suburban street through which a house railway passes will thus be avoided.

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It is to be further considered that the arrangement proposed will prevent ordinary road vehicles from being driven along the track of the railroad: that the track will be crossed only at infrequent intervals, and that at these, because of the breadth of the avenue, an approaching car will be seen well before the track is reached by any crossing vehicle, so that danger of collision may be readily avoided. For these reasons a much higher rate of speed can be maintained by the cars (and this with much less disturbance and noise) than is usual on street railways. With reference to travel otherwise than by railway, the designed arrangement of the cable road, and of the trees bordering upon it, involves the necessity of a drive on each side of the avenue, in order that houses facing upon it may be directly accessible by carriages. One of these two drives is planned to be wider than the other, in order that those using it may have greater enjoyment of the sociability of a promenade. A soft gravel course is provided for equestrians, and this, for the same reason, is placed adjoining the broader of the two carriage-ways.

The normal plan is modified where the line of the avenue crosses the steep slope of Corey Hill, because, otherwise, the differences of elevation between the avenue and the adjoining properties would be inconvenient, and also because the cost of its construction would be excessive. It will accordingly be seen, by the lower of the two cross sections on the left of the plan, that the two drives are here designed to be at different elevations, one of the planting spaces at the side of the railway being widened and sloped to make such an arrangement feasible. The southern-most of the two drives is made the wider, because its grades will better adapt it in pleasure driving, and the bridle-way is carried with it.

The different means of locomotion, and the several lines of trees, provided in the plan, are expected to make the avenue attractive, not only because of the usual convenience secured, but also because of the sylvan beauty to be enjoyed in passing over it. As those to be drawn to use it on this account, will form in themselves, and by the elegance of their equipages and attire, a pleasing spectacle, as they pass by in daily procession, another feature will be gained, tending to make the adjoining building sites particularly attractive to many people.

Experience in the development of suburban districts elsewhere, both in the Old World and the New, justifies the conclusion that ready accessibility by cross-roads to an avenue having the advantages that have been thus explained, will also make a broad district on either side far more attractive as a place of residence than it is likely to become through any other means not greatly more costly. Many men of importance in the business of a city, and of abundant means, are found to prefer to live a little retired from the animation of such an avenue, who yet highly value it as a resort, and as a route of travel to and from their places of business.

“Preliminary Plan for Widening Beacon Street from the Back Bay District of Connections with Massachusetts Boston to the Public Pleasure Ground at Chestnut Hill Reservoir and for and Commonwealth Avenues,” November 29, 1886