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BELLE ISLE: AFTER ONE YEAR.
| To the Citizens of Detroit, — | Brookline, June, 1884. |
As an introduction to the present pamphlet, I would refer to advice offered in the same form a year and a half ago, and to the circumstances that prompted it.
The city having, against the judgment of many, undertaken to make a park of Belle Isle, commissioners had been selected to start the work, who, it was supposed, would command public confidence in an unusual degree. The business being new to them, they had sought counsel of experience, and had been advised by the commissioners of parks of other cities to consult me. The grounds of this advice were, that I had been during thirty years a designer, superintendent, or commissioner of parks; had been practically engaged in their management in several cities, — some East, some West, — some larger, some smaller, than Detroit; and through this experience had become familiar with the public requirements gradually developed by their use.
An engagement with me followed, on the same terms that the commissioners were advised had been elsewhere found economical and satisfactory. I refer to this action because it is said that the confidence of some citizens in the commissioners’ fitness for their duties was shaken by it.
I soon learned that there was much anxiety — among those, especially, who had regarded Belle Isle as an extremely unsuitable site for a park — lest the city should be drawn into a course of extravagant and wasteful expenditure. It was obvious that this would, to a certain extent, depend upon the plan that should be adopted for the work; but it was known to me, that, in other cities, the chief difficulty of economy had not been in obtaining a plan satisfactory at the outset, but in subsequently pursuing any steady policy of working it out. Among the reasons for this may be mentioned the following:—
The site of an intended park is liable to be much resorted to by the public before it is half prepared for any suitable park-use, even when the operations are yet much more obstructive than aidful to all desirable forms of general recreation. Under these circumstances, work in progress upon it cannot but be seen disjointedly, and much of it appear discordant, confusing, pointless, and profitless. Thus, in parts at least, if offers a standing provocation to thoughtless expressions of impatience, leading on to surmises and guesses, [420] out of which grow rumors, running often, at last, to matter-of-fact statements, apparently showing that those in charge are proceeding ignorantly, recklessly, and extravagantly.
As an example of such reports, to which there has as yet been no parallel in Detroit, I will mention that it has repeatedly occurred that piles of soil laid up for temporary storage have been mistaken for permanent constructions, and as such have sustained a severe fire of public criticism; while, later, the removal of the soil to its original destination has been denounced as evidence that the work was being carried on without forecast, plan, or method. Charges of this character have repeatedly been made matters of bootless legislative investigation.
Such reports often prompt suggestions, and prepare the public to entertain suggestions for improvements in the general plan and organization of the work, and sometimes lead to the pushing of projects of supposed improvement, or for the arrest of what are thought wasteful operations, with the energy of an honestly heated antagonism.
As a park commission is a changeable body, and as city councils—more or less in control of park commissions — are still more changeable, there is a liability that such efforts may, because of hasty consideration in minds newly taking up the matter, have a degree of success of which the ultimate effect is very different from that contemplated. Nearly always it will follow that the object of various previous operations is thwarted, and the outlay that has been made for it in some degree wasted.
I thought it best to take advantage of the prevailing anxiety to avoid an extravagant plan, to call attention to dangers of this class, and to show how they might to a certain extent be guarded against in advance. For this purpose I printed a pamphlet, in which a scheme was sketched for the improvement of Belle Isle, giving reasons for its leading features, and explaining how they would hang together, and minor features grow logically and economically out of them. As a means to a soundly conservative public opinion, and of precaution against the hasty determination of the details of a plan in the future, I challenged and solicited immediate public discussion of this scheme.
The pamphlet being ready for issue, I called personally on the editor of each of the daily papers of the city, upon members of the council, officers of the city government, and other gentlemen of intelligence, stating its object, and asking their aid to secure the desired public discussion. Such aid was generally promised: the pamphlet was brought prominently to the attention of the public, it was gratuitously distributed in large numbers, and the substance of it widely disseminated by the newspaper press.
In due time afterward, the intended draught of a plan upon the lines foreshadowed in the pamphlet was completed, and the commissioners caused it to be exhibited publicly. Lithographed copies were also freely distributed. The members of the city council, and others likely to be especially interested in the questions at issue, were, by special note to each, requested [421] to give it their consideration. The commissioners brought in other citizens. Reporters of the press were daily present. That the essential characteristic features might be more plainly presented, and readily understood by all, the drawing was in black and white, and devoid of all ornamentation, pictorial quality, or taking detail. (A miniature of it is printed herewith). I stood before it for a week to answer inquiries, give explanations, and bring the whole scheme as far as possible into daylight. As to many considerations affecting the plan, — such as the currents of the river, the action of ice, requirements of shipping, the costliness of various operations, — I had been necessarily dependent on information from residents more familiar than I could be with the local circumstance. I hoped, and aimed in this discussion before the drawing, to have this information enlarged, and, if need be, corrected. The plan was distinctly entitled a “preliminary plan,” and held subject to immediate revision on any adequate ground for its reconsideration.
Could more have been done to secure general, intelligent examination, and a full understanding of what was proposed to be undertaken, before the work should begin? Could more have been done to guard against either hasty and inconsiderate, or insincere and specious, attempts to disintegrate the plan after the work should be fairly started?
At last, upon mature deliberation, the commissioners, with every assurance of public approval, agreed unanimously to adopt the draught thus exhibited, as the plan upon which Belle-Isle Park should be formed.
This having been publicly announced, can it be supposed that any citizens of Detroit having knowledge of serious objections to the plan, possibly overlooked by the commissioners, would have withheld it from the public or the city council? Can it be imagined that any good citizen should have wished the work to proceed for a year before showing that the plan of it rested, in certain respects, on mistaken grounds and erroneous calculations?
There was, in fact, no call at the time for a reconsideration of the plan in any respect, from any quarter. Neither through members of the council, nor the comments of the press, nor by private advice, did disapproval of the commissioners’ conclusion appear. The mayor gave official expression to his own and the general satisfaction with the plan, and congratulated the council on having obtained it; and, the council having voted supplies, the work was duly entered upon without a whisper of protest.
This was one year ago. Already the composition of the city government has considerably changed. There are, probably, gentlemen now in it whose attention was not called at the time to the circumstances above stated, or who have since lost sight of them. But half the commissioners remain, upon whose deliberations a determination of the plan last year depended.
To understand the motives and expectations with which the expenditure of the year has been mainly directed, it will be best to consider that the foremost feature of the plan as shown in the exhibited drawing, and that feature of it to which attention was more given in the conferences before it than [422]
“Belle Isle Park Preliminary Plan,” 1883
] 
View of Proposed Gallery on Belle Isle, 1883
] formed beyond the ladies’ ground, and in adjustment to it; and a canal was to be dug, the extent and location of which had been determined in part with a view to enclosing the entire group of arrangements connecting with the pier and gallery, and to economy in obtaining the material required for grading the sites for them.
The larger part of the outlay made on the park the first year has been expended upon these arrangements. The site for the gallery has been, in one part, for some distance, cut down, and elsewhere filled up, to the intended grade of its floor. The beach before the gallery has been fully formed and gravelled. The sites severally of the annexes, of the road and walk, and of the ladies’ ground, have been brought to sub-grades determined in adaptation to the grade of the gallery. The match-ground has been in large part graded; and the canal, by which all these features of the plan were detached from the main body of the wooded park, has been dug, and opened to boats; and the approaches to the principal bridge crossing it have been formed.
Here the work stood, when, in March, I visited the city to aid the commissioners in determining the plan of operations for the coming year. It was an open question, whether the gallery should be included in it. It was determined that this should depend on the amount of the appropriation to be made by the council. With the president, I went before the council to give reasons why the appropriation might desirably be made sufficient to this end. I conversed with several members of the council individually about it. The question was discussed as a question of the rate of progress expedient to be provided for, and, slightly, of the order of advance, — not as a question of the merits of the plan, to which I did not then hear a word of objection.
I have but imperfect knowledge of what followed, until I was asked to consider what effect an abandonment of the pier and gallery would have upon the plan of other parts of the work. But the reason for this inquiry I understand to be, that, after I left, representations came to members of the council, by which they were led to question, not only the expediency of providing for the pier and gallery immediately, but whether the notion of ever doing so should be entertained. In the end, the commissioners were advised that the opposition to this part of the scheme seemed so strong that it would probably be better to drop it, — drop it for good and all.
To realize the position of the commissioners with reference to this suggestion, and especially of those of them who had not had part in the original discussion of the plan, it must be remembered that the more important work, other than that of the pier and gallery, which had been had in view for the coming year, was in continuation of work already done, the plan of which work done was largely dependent on the occupancy of the adjoining ground by the pier and gallery.
If, therefore, it was at all likely to appear necessary to the minds of new commissioners, or of the city council, at any time in the future, to compel a revisal of the plan in respect to the pier and gallery, it was evident that [426] the whole west-end plan would have to be reconsidered, and that probably much of the work to be done in the meantime could only be turned to account by some make-shift after-thought. It appeared prudent, therefore, at once to respectfully examine the objections made to the pier and gallery, and, pending the results, to hold parts of the work suspended, even if some advantages for economy of work were thereby lost.
The “pressure” against the pier and gallery having been informal, a precise responsible statement of the objections to it could not be obtained; but it was understood that that held most conclusive had been based on the alleged assurance of river-men, that the point in the river which would be the outer end of the pier would be accessible only to boats of light draught and small carrying capacity, and therefore of little public use. Before such large boats as those of the Windsor Ferry Company could be brought to it, a long and costly channel would need to be made by dredging; and, the bottom being sandy, the process would need to be often repeated, at great expense to the city.
To test the weight of this objection, a stake was set by the city engineer to mark the proposed point of the pier. The deepest of the Windsor ferry-boats was then run directly to this stake, and found to be lying in water of double the depth necessary to float her. She was then turned, and moved off abreast of the stake a distance of five hundred feet, finding no shallower water. The soundings indicated a bottom, not of sand, but of clay and small stones, corresponding with the subsoil of the island adjacent. It was apparent to the commissioners that the conditions were more favorable to the project than they had been supposed to be when it was first discussed.
The great advantages to be gained by landing visitors, under ordinary circumstances, on the drier and better-wooded American side of the island, rather than at the old pier on the swampy Canadian side (a pier extending into a channel often crowded by long tows of shipping), has not, I believe, been questioned.
As to the other objections considered by the commissioners, they were such as would naturally occur to intelligent men looking at the proposition for the first time, and as would naturally lead to such questions as had been put to me by the commissioners and by others, and which, before the adoption of the plan, I had often answered much in the way I propose to answer them now. By this, I mean not at all in an authoritative, peremptory, or pedantic way, but chiefly by stating the grounds of experience that had led me to think the advantages to be gained, by the proposition traversed, outweighed or neutralized these objections.
The objection is made, that there can be no need of such an extent of shelter as the plan provides at the locality designated. To this I reply, that it nearly always occurs, when any considerable part of a new public park is well finished, that the public use of it greatly exceeds the estimates of its promoters. Because of this, I have repeatedly seen work ripped up and done [427] over at excessive cost. They have, this year, been rebuilding the principal shelter of the Buffalo park, giving it double its original capacity. They are enlarging their picnic-ground and conveniences to four times the capacity to which (against my advice) they were originally limited. In New York, a part of the roads and bridges having, as a measure of economy, been laid out narrower than originally designed, in a few years it was found necessary to break them up, and rebuild them larger. Many similar experiences could be referred to.
But Belle Isle must be regarded as combining, with the attractions of an ordinary urban park, not a little of those of such suburban water-side resorts as are approached by steam-ferries from Portland, Portsmouth, Boston, Providence, New London, New York, Newark, Baltimore, and other coast-towns. It cannot fail to be greatly used in this way if properly prepared. It will be ill used more or less in this way if not properly prepared. Having this consideration in view, before studying out the plan of Belle Isle I visited several resorts of this class, that I might consider more closely than I had before the manner of their use, and what was needed to make it satisfactory. At different times I have visited more than thirty of them, and have everywhere found the most popular, useful, and, relatively to cost, the most profitable feature of their outfit, to be one of a character corresponding to the proposed Belle-Isle gallery. It is generally placed, as it is planned to be placed on Belle Isle, parallel with the beach, and between it and a series of apartments for refreshment, recreation, and retirement. The arrangement to which the grading of last year at Belle Isle was adapted, differs from that which is thus common, in that the annexed rooms (not shown on the plan) for various purposes are designed to be in a series of structures, temporary or permanent (tents or buildings to be put up, if preferred, by lease-holders), so separated as to leave openings for the breeze, and for outlooks eastwardly. These structures may thus stand at different elevations, so as to avoid the reduction of the adjoining ground to a uniform level, and allow its surface to play out gracefully. The notion I had of the number of these structures, for which space, under such an arrangement, could be disposed of profitably by the city, was partly based upon the incessant demands that have been addressed to me when in charge of established parks, partly upon observation at the water-side resorts referred to, and partly upon knowledge of the eagerness with which privileges, not to be compared in value with those to be thus offered for supplying the wants of visitors, had already been sought upon Belle Isle. As to the breadth of the gallery, it is on an average less than that of galleries recently built at several public resorts. It will, judging from the experience of these, be found cramped and inconvenient if made narrower; and a necessity will probably be found, in a few years, for its reconstruction at an economical disadvantage.
Among the considerations that lead to this conclusion are these: As a rule, it may be said, that, if fifty thousand persons visit one of the shore-resorts in a day (as often occurs), not a dozen of such visitors fail to spend [428] some time upon one of these galleries. It is a place of rest, and of cooling, after a ramble; it is occupied for the enjoyment of the view, and of the breeze from over the water; it is a rendezvous for meeting friends; and, when not too crowded, it is constantly used as a promenade. It is a place for all visitors to whom rest in the open air is more desirable than prolonged exercise. It is common to serve coffee, tea, and ices upon it. Even in a fair day, and with no unusual occasion for shelter, I have found, at more than one water-side resort, successive galleries (together many times as long as that proposed for Belle Isle), so densely occupied, that passage along them was much incommoded.
It may be said that these galleries are attached to hotels, and that they are used chiefly by lodgers in them. But I was advised in several cases by the proprietors that this was not the case, — often that not one visitor in a hundred spent the night at the establishment. Several of those built of late do not offer lodgings for visitors; and, where transit to the city approaches in convenience and frequency that from Belle Isle to Detroit, these are the more favored. They are the resort of townspeople who spend the night in their own homes, and of excursionists from a distance who come for a day’s recreation. The use of these houses is in no way different from that to which the arrangement proposed on Belle Isle is adapted. The difference between the two lies chiefly in the circumstance, that, in the establishments referred to, there is one continuous structure opposite the water side; while, in the Belle-Isle arrangement, there will be openings between the annexes. The objection to the complete closing of the gallery on the land side is the shutting off of the views that way, and the obstruction to the breeze which sometimes makes the seashore galleries, as at Coney Island, harbors for mosquitoes. It will be found, I apprehend, that, when it is impossible to escape mosquitoes anywhere else on the island, the open water-side gallery will be completely free from them.
There is, I think, no reason to doubt, that, even looking only to such a use of the gallery as is constantly made of these to which I refer, it would be in the highest degree popular, and would prove none too large for the comfortable use of those who would resort to it.
But the gallery is intended to serve another purpose, as to which the experience of these water-side resorts is hardly more than suggestive. Whenever a shower occurs; or when, near the close of the day, friends who have been separated desire to return to the city together; and when (the boats being crowded) there is likely to be some delay in obtaining conveyance, — then these galleries become extended waiting-rooms, and are often suddenly filled to their capacity.
Now, Belle Isle is to be much more than a water-side resort. At times, when large numbers of people are widely scattered over the park engaged in various forms of recreation, there will be — because of a threat of rain, or a [429] shift of wind, or the rapid approach of nightfall — a sudden impulse to move toward the boats. Then, for various reasons, many will be compelled, and others disposed (having arrived within sight of the boats), to linger a little before leaving the island. Large numbers of people cannot often be concentrated at any point on a park, without much discomfort to themselves, and destructive effects on trees and turf, unless special arrangements, not of a rural character, are provided for them. The gallery is intended to provide adequate and suitable arrangements for these contingencies; and it is not larger in plan than, after a close observation of experience elsewhere, must, I think, be concluded to be necessary. It should be remembered, that, on most parks, there are numerous places of outlet, and, generally, extensive railroad stations, to which resort can be quickly had when desired. There are, for instance, ten gates, widely distributed, in the New-York park, and seven in the Brooklyn park, at which visitors leaving can step directly into steam or street cars. There are several others, from which railroad stations can be reached in a walk of two minutes. The case is still better at Philadelphia. There are three railway exits from Buffalo park. Public carriages ply through most parks at low rates of fare; and there are numerous structures (twenty in one case, over forty in another), at each of which from a hundred to a thousand people can obtain shelter. Nevertheless, I have seen crowds so pressing out from a park at times, that the roads and walks were inadequate for their passage; and great destruction resulted from the irresistible overflow upon the shrubberies. I have seen several thousand people soaked by a shower under these circumstances.
The number coming to Belle Isle may be comparatively small, but the rush will often be all toward one point.
It was observed in the preliminary pamphlet, that, following the completion of suitable park arrangements, customs before unknown are apt to grow up spontaneously. Of the bearing of the anticipation to which this observation leads upon the question in hand, one or two illustrations may be given.
In Brooklyn park, there is what is called the May Festival. I assisted at the modest beginning of it fourteen years ago. It has been growing since; and when last held, a month ago, it is reported that fifty thousand children were gathered at once upon the greensward near the principal entrance to the park, and a great concourse of people came to enjoy the sight of them.
Suppose, that, on some similar occasion, a quarter as many should be assembled on the green now preparing at the lower end of Belle Isle. Consider what, if a thunder-squall should suddenly come up, the rush toward the boats would be. Imagine excited parents seeking stampeded children. Think how easily some accident would precipitate a panic; and, if this could be avoided, how hard it would be to maintain such order as would be necessary to secure little ones from serious injury. The vague apprehension of what [430] might occur until an apparently adequate place of temporary shelter had been provided, will prevent such a charming custom from growing up, and, by so much, limit the value receivable by the city from the park.
In New York, at the same season of the year, another custom has grown from a like impulse. It is that of independent Maying parties. They commonly consist of from ten to twenty children, wearing wreaths of flowers and gayly dressed. Each party asks a place to itself on the greensward, where it sets up its pole with garlands and ribbons, and crowns its May Queen. These parties come every fair day, but the larger number on Saturdays. I remember marshalling the first of them when the ground was in a condition of progress toward a park that Belle Isle is now. They have been increasing since; and it is said that one day this spring they came in five hundred distinct processions, — as pretty a sight as anyone could wish to see. No such custom can prudently be allowed to grow up on Belle Isle, unless you have, between your greensward and your boats, some sheltering place, much larger than would be imagined to be necessary, from any use that has yet been made of the island, or of any place of resort near Detroit.
Another objection to which I have been asked to reply takes form in questions.
Will not the gallery interrupt the view from the island down the river?
It will, to a considerable extent; but this view can be much more readily enjoyed when sitting in its shade, than from the open ground.
Will not the gallery screen the island from view, in approaching it from down the river?
From a distance nothing is seen of the island but a mass of foliage. The height of the gallery, on an average, is about a third the height of the trees forming this mass. It would obscure less than a quarter part of them. On nearing the island, from the upper deck of a steamboat a space of open ground is to be seen before the woods. It is true that the gallery will obscure the most of this space.
Might not trees be planted, by which in time the shore-walk would be shaded?
Yes: but these trees, when of serviceable size, would interrupt the view over the island from the river more than will the gallery, and would be useless as a shelter from rain. They would meet but imperfectly only one of the various purposes with reference to which the gallery is designed.
The question remains, —
Giving all the weight that may be desired to the objections thus recognized, do they outweigh the advantages to be secured by the gallery?
Upon this question of compensations, it is supposable that intelligent men might, after thorough discussion, be found to honestly differ for a hundred years to come; and, if it were a question to be settled by the votes of all concerned, the majority might be found on different sides every alternate year.
[431]
It is only to be said now, that those to whom the question was given for final decision, by the city, did not neglect a consideration of these objections. The question of injury to the view over the end of the island was first studied with the aid of photographs taken expressly for the purpose. The conclusion represented in the plan was by no means carelessly adopted. Is it not possible that those who have most objected to the pier and gallery have looked upon it as if it were an affair by itself? May they not have regarded the plan of the park as they properly might the plan of a city if they were considering a question of the removal or alteration of a particular store, shop, dwelling, or stable, which might be taken out, and replaced with a building of a different character and capacity, without in the least lessening the value of the adjoining buildings, still less of buildings more distant?
How much otherwise sound judgment must be used in discussing the several features of a park-plan, as far as the neighborhood of the pier and gallery are concerned, has been sufficiently suggested. There yet remains, however, to be considered, the more important relation of outgrowth and dependence of the whole group of arrangements devised in immediate connection with the pier and gallery with the central motive of the entire plan.
With a view to overcome as far as possible the peculiar difficulties of the site in respect of a water-soaked soil, of mosquitoes, and the danger of malaria, as well as to take advantage of its promising growth of wood, the leading idea of the plan of Belle-Isle Park is that of a large body of open forest, free from undergrowth, except of such close, fine herbage as is necessary to avoid a dusty surface; free to currents of air; and penetrable, in all its parts, by the rays of the sun through openings among the trees.
Starting from this central idea, it was shown in the preliminary pamphlet, that the plan must be further fitted to certain details of management, of which the most important, from its comprehensive bearings on the entire design of the park, may now be shown, through a single year’s experience of practical management, better than it could be when the plan was first submitted to discussion.
Let the ground be examined that was cleared of undergrowth in the first work done upon it, and it will be seen that a new undergrowth is springing up, which will soon be thicker, more obstructive to the breezes, more protective to mosquitoes, more prolonging of dampness, and more interruptive of passage, than that which has been taken off. How can this be avoided, without going every year to an excessive expense? Only by causing the young undergrowth to be closely browsed.
The plan of the park, then, and the scheme of management for it, must be devised throughout with a view to the necessity of keeping flocks and herds upon it, in a manner that will be profitable.
It follows, that the range of ground to be expensively worked over by the mower and roller, lawn-fashion, must be compact, of limited extent, and little open to inroads from the woods.
[432]
Tracts for this purpose, to be of the largest value to visitors using them, must be conveniently accessible from the boats, and in close connection with lavatories, shelters, and places of rest and refreshment. They must be better drainable than most of the island, and their preparation must not require the uprooting of many fine trees.
Better than anywhere else, these conditions may be combined upon the open ground at the west end, between the gallery and the canal.
An economical management of Belle Isle will never be possible if the necessity is forgotten, in discussions of its plan, of considering the relations of every feature to the purpose of maintaining the larger part of it, congruously, in the condition of a great, unencumbered, open-wooded, sun-penetrated, and breeze-swept pasture.
If more ambitious motives of design are entertained, or a more desultory, make-shift, scattering, and happy-go-lucky policy drifted into, the result will be a very unhappy one for the tax-payers.
I speak of more ambitious motives; but in truth, even from the artist’s point of view, a motive of nobler ambition cannot be found than that of a forest, the elements of which shall be so ordered, that, through the silent persuasion of nature, it shall for centuries be growing, year after year, richer in sylvan picturesqueness and sylvan stateliness. It is a motive to command the devotion of a Salva tor or a Turner.
A noble effort is now being made to found a gallery of art in Detroit, and prominent among the motives urged in behalf of the enterprise is that of the educational advantages to grow out of it. It is probable, that, among the first fifty pictures that may be secured for it, there will be the work of an artist, who, going abroad to study his profession, has found his theme, and with it high means of cultivation, in the pastured suburban forest of Fontainebleau. Hundreds of painters from all parts of the world resort to it. But their favorite scenes in Fontainebleau differ not in character from, and are in no respect more beautiful or fitting to the service of art than, such as may be easily offered to every citizen of Detroit by a suitable treatment of the woods of Belle Isle.
There are many who will say they care little for what may be accomplished by a prolonged course of treatment. They want results that they can themselves enjoy, and as soon as possible. Come, then, to the lower motive. Is there any course of management, other than that to which this higher ambition would lead, that, once economically set out upon, can be followed at as little cost? Is there any other that will quickly give more pleasing results?
Let anyone who carries well in the mind the general effect of the western woods of the island two years ago, walk through them now, and, considering the slight cost of the little that has been done, answer these questions.
Then, let those who are sensible of an added pleasure, through the results of the preliminary steps of improvement of the woods, reflect whether that particular kind of pleasure is likely to be augmented, or otherwise, by [433] allowing what are called “decorative” structures, for all sorts of purposes, to be built here and there within the forest, as shall be thought, upon each occasion when permission for the purpose is sought, to be most fitting to the particular end at the time in view. An answer may be assisted by observing a few modest premonitions of such structures, now to be found along the southern skirt of the wood. Do they make the wood more stately, more impressive, more rurally recreative? The commissioners have often received applications for ground for others. They are to be found in every large public park, and at every water-side resort. They are a source of income; they are a source of pleasure of a different sort from, and incongruous with, that given by forest scenery; and it is not to be supposed or desired that Belle Isle shall be kept free from them. Where shall they be allowed? Under what rule or principle shall their sites be determined? Under what restrictions and regulations shall land be leased for them? How shall these restrictions and regulations be cheaply and effectually enforced? How shall needed supplies be brought to them, and their offal and wastage be removed without inconvenience, offence, or danger to the public?
Propositions to modify the plan of the park are to be often urged in the future, without the slightest regard to questions like these. Many times, the results of them will for a time seem to be cheap and satisfactory; yet, with gradually increasing use of the park, they may prove to have been most inconsiderately devised, costly, embarrassing, and burdensome.
In this, as in the former pamphlet on the same subject, I have had but one object. Having the honor to be called in counsel in behalf of the good people of Detroit, present and to come, I have wished to urge the importance of looking upon the propositions that will in the future successively be brought forward for tinkering the design of the park, from a more comprehensive point of view than I have elsewhere found apt to be taken. I would urge the importance to genuine economy, in the discussion of these propositions, of deliberation, candor, good nature, and a certain regard for the lessons of experience, even though, for a time, these need to be drawn from older and less thrifty cities.
Frederick Law Olmsted.