In our correspondence thus far as to the proposed pavilion on Ononto Park, we have been more anxious to get an understanding of the views of your committee, and thus of the problem to be studied, than to express our own views, and the sketches sent you have been influenced by this motive. Your note of the 25th instant, which I find here on my return from Bar Harbor, enables us to take the question up in a more comprehensive and systematic manner. Doing so, we are led to offer you fresh advice as follows:-

A structure will be required in Ononto Park for administrative purposes. It should be placed as centrally as practicable and should contain, first, a room with a well lighted desk, to be used as an office by the superintendent; second, a room for keepers (police) with a desk, a temporary lock-up and a place for lost articles; third, a shelter for the laboring force when waiting orders, and while nooning in stormy weather; fourth, water-closets for the park force; fifth, a room for implements, including rollers and lawn mowers; sixth, a small workshop for slight repairs; and, seventh, a place for the storage of various articles wanting repair, or when not in use.

We advise that a house be built by the Commissioners, in the basement of which there shall be accommodations for all these purposes, and that on the ground floor above them, under the same roof, accommodations as follows:- first, a room for visitors; second, a small private room for a woman to be in charge (a room large enough for a sick person to be cared for in); third, a toilet room for women and children, opening out of one end of the visitors’ room; fourth, a toilet room for men, at the opposite end. The woman to be allowed to provide milk, and a few other simple refreshments at fixed charges. This partly that the building may have other obvious purposes than that of the toilet rooms, and the woman other business than attending them, and particularly to provide for real need of nutrition, especially for children, without making the place a candy shop or restaurant. The house to be about 20′ X 30′ on the floor and to be as low, modest and unobtrusive in character as will be consistent with convenience.

The situation that we have in view for this house is a little shelf of the hill-side in the wood, 30 to 50 feet N.E. of the terrace upon which the pavilion is to stand; this being a comparatively secluded position but near the center of the park and close adjoining the points that will be most frequented by visitors, [105]both on foot and in carriages. In the Summer south-west breezes, the house would be to the leeward of the pavilion and in the direction towards which visitors would have their attention least directed. It would be in a great degree screened by existing trees, and the roof would be kept low enough to be looked over from the pavilion.

Assuming that the Commissioners will, in time, build such a cottage as has been above described, we recommend that the pavilion which Ellwanger & Barry are to provide be designed solely with reference to shade, shelter, air and outlook; that it have no basement; that the lower floor be set but little above the surrounding terrace, with sloped approaches, so that baby carriages can be easily run into it. (Provision for baby carriages waiting would be on the terrace between the entrances.) The ground floor to be of concrete, tile or brick, as a wooden floor, under the circumstances, would soon rot.

The pavilion is to be a structure of great prominence, very public, much visited and observed. It will be the crown of the park. It should be as large and as fine as it can by any means be made within the limit of cost fixed. The simpler it is, the larger and finer it can be made.

The objection we suggested to placing semi-detached toilet rooms adjoining the pavilion on the terrace was that they would be conspicuous and would obscure views from the pavilion. It may be feared that some inconvenience would result from placing the accommodations for visitors, proposed to be removed from the pavilion to a separate house, at the distance suggested, but this has not proved to be the case in practice under our experience. There is a large pavilion set on an eminence in the Central Park of New York, designed and very largely used for the airing and recreation of little children.

[106]Near it, but in a lower situation to the north-east, a toilet and refreshment house is placed. The arrangement has been in use twenty-four years. We have closely watched the manner of its use and found it satisfactory.

If the Board adopts the suggestion we have thus made, the site for the building can be prepared, the plans completed and construction begun sooner than would otherwise be practicable.

Until we hear further from you, we shall proceed upon the assumption that this advice will be accepted. The plumbing arrangements for the entire business will be simpler and less costly. You realize, we presume, that they are, in any case, to be an important element of the cost.