Memorandum

The drawing hereto attached is a preliminary study of the general features of a plan in which the following purposes have been chiefly had in view.

First, to provide a walk having an agreeable relation to the University grounds more secluded, sheltered and sylvan in character than the street walks or those of the open grounds at present in use.

Second, to provide an attractive neighborhood for dwellings in which the more agreeable rural characteristics of a New England Village may be perpetuated without preventing all the street conveniences of a crowded town from being introduced if they should hereafter be required.

Third, to provide a small public green or lawn suitable to be used as a play ground by children of the Neighborhood.

Fourth, to open convenient communications across the property proposed to be operated upon, adapted to the future wants not merely of the neighborhood but the districts on each side of it, even when the latter shall be much more densely occupied than at present.

It will be observed that in the latter respect the existing streets on each side have been accepted without any important addition or change and the only streets required to be opened are within the property of Mr Norton. By opening streets on property exterior to Mr Norton’s, and connecting them with those here proposed additional facilities of communication may at any time hereafter be obtained without any alteration of the arrangements now suggested.

The proposed improvements within Mr Norton’s property are connected with the Common near the Delta by a walk which will give access to Divinity Hall, the Scientific Museum and the Jarvis Play Ground, and which is intended to pass through no land except that belonging to the University. [258]

Plan for Charles Eliot Norton Estate, “Shady Hill,” Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1868

[259]

The Charles Eliot Norton Estate in Relation to Adjacent Sections of Cambridge, Massachusetts

[260]

An object at this time is merely to show in what manner it is feasible without difficult negociations to connect the new Play Ground, the Divinity College and the Museum with the present public walks near the main University buildings on the one side, and with the pleasure grounds proposed to be opened to the public by Mr Norton on the other.