NA 
 
 illiiiiSiiiiiPiiiiiiiiiii til iiiii iiiiii 
 Ill tllill lilllll IIIMI 
 
 35^ 3Mb 
 
Improvement of 
 the City of Detroit 
 
 Reports made by Professor 
 Frederick Law Olmsted, Junior, 
 and Mr. Charles Mulford Robinson 
 to the Detroit Board of Commerce 
 
 Detroit Board of Commerce 
 1905 
 
Introduction 
 
 Gentlemen: The Committee on Civic Improvement 
 respectfully report as follows: 
 
 Before the Committee was organized, the Board of 
 Commerce had secured a report on the improvement of the 
 City of Detroit from Mr. Charles Mulford Robinson, who 
 is well known in connection with the propaganda for civic 
 improvement, and whose writings on that subject have 
 wide circulation. 
 
 At the request of your Committee, the Directors in- 
 vited Frederick L,aw Olmsted, Jr., professor of Landscape 
 Architecture at Harvard University, to spend a week in 
 Detroit, and make a report on the various improvement 
 topics under discussion. Professor Olmsted was one of the 
 Washington Park Commission, and by President Roosevelt 
 has been retained in an advisory capacity in connection 
 with that work, besides having charge of the landscape 
 features of the Capitol grounds and the National Zoological 
 Park. His firm are also the consulting landscape archi- 
 tects of the Metropolitan Park System of Boston, of the 
 Chicago outer park system, and of the most important 
 park work in this country. The elder Olmsted made the 
 original plans for Belle Isle Park, and many of his sug- 
 gestions are still available among his papers. Subsequent 
 to his visit to Detroit, Professor Olmsted was called upon 
 to make a report on the improvement of the Huron River, 
 with special reference to the cities of Ypsilanti and Ann 
 
 227769 
 
Arbor, and there is good reason to believe that all of his 
 work in this portion of the country will produce tangible 
 results. 
 
 Both Professor Olmsted's and Mr. Robinson's reports 
 are submitted herewith, with the recommendation that they 
 be printed for the use of the members of the Board of 
 Commerce. 
 
 The Committee has held a number of meetings. From 
 the beginning it took strong ground against the location 
 of the new Belle Isle Casino on the site of the present 
 structure. The Commissioner of Parks and Boulevards, 
 who is a valuable member of the Committee, was heartily 
 in accord with his fellow members, and he afforded the 
 Committee every opportunity for a thorough study of the 
 entire subject of the casino. The Secretary of the Park 
 Commission, (Mr. Hurlbut,) also gave advice of great ben- 
 efit. The Municipal Art Commission, rescinding their 
 previous action, came to the support of the position of your 
 Committee; and as a result there is now a unanimous choice 
 of a site in substantial accord with the views expressed 
 by Professor Olmsted in his report. 
 
 The Committee also has had a number of conferences 
 with the architect selected to prepare plans for the casino, 
 (Mr. Schilling,) and they have reached an agreement as 
 to the character of the architecture, and the general objects 
 to be sought in such a structure. 
 
 On the subject of the improvement of the River Front, 
 the Committee have conferred with Mayor Codd, who has 
 promised that the City Engineer shall make soundings 
 and prepare estimates of cost in accordance with the sim- 
 plest of the three designs submitted by Professor Olmsted. 
 Until these plans and estimates are prepared, the Com- 
 mittee's work in this direction is at a standstill. 
 
 The Committee, at the request of the Michigan State 
 Agricultural Society, took an interest in the plan of the 
 grounds for the State Fair grounds, the location and char- 
 acter of the buildings, and the financial arrangements for 
 the erection of the structures built this year. While the 
 
time within which the work must be completed was short, 
 the general scheme of the grounds as planned was adhered 
 to ; and the improvements to be made during the coming 
 year should show results by the time for the next fair. 
 The buildings constructed are simple in design and per- 
 manent in character; and each is located in accordance with 
 the general plan. 
 
 In submitting this report of progress, your Committee 
 desires to express the hope that the suggestions presented 
 by Professor Olmsted and Mr. Robinson will be read and 
 carefully considered by the members of the Board of Com- 
 merce, so that each member may be acquainted both with 
 the nature of the problems with which the Committee is 
 called upon to deal, and also with the solutions that have 
 been proposed. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Charles Moore, 
 
 Chairman. 
 
 To the Board of Directors of 
 the Detroit Board of Commerce 
 
Improvement of the City of Detroit 
 Report of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. 
 
 GENTLEMEN: Having spent a week in Detroit 
 at the request of the Detroit Board of Commerce 
 Committee on the Improvement of the City of 
 Detroit, examining certain municipal problems to 
 which the Committee directed my attention, I beg 
 to submit the following report: 
 
 I understand that an opinion is desired from me 
 as to what action may best be urged upon the City 
 by the Board of Commerce in respect to the 
 following matters : 
 
 1. The Improvement of the River Margin. 
 
 2. The further Improvement of Belle Isle, with 
 particular regard to the need for a new and 
 better Casino Building. 
 
 3. The Completion and Improvement of the 
 Boulevard. 
 
 4. The Improvement of the heart of the City 
 Cadillac Square and its vicinity. 
 
 7 
 
I. 
 
 Improvement of the River Margin 
 
 A. The Central Section the Front 
 
 The river margin of Detroit is divided by con- 
 ditions of use and location into several distinct sections, 
 one of the most important of which is the central one 
 lying between the railroad frontages which border the 
 river east of Brush Street and west of Third Street. This 
 section, pre-eminently THE FRONT OF THE CITY 
 on the river, is mainly appropriated, not only by present 
 use but by the logic of its situation, to passenger and 
 local freight business. On account of its central location, 
 opposite the heart of the city where all the main streets 
 and car lines converge, where the financial and office dis- 
 trict is permanently centered, and whence the principal 
 retail districts are bound to radiate, no matter in which 
 direction they chiefly grow, this half mile has permanent 
 exclusive advantages for transhipping all the steamboat 
 passengers between Detroit and every point on the vast 
 river and lake system which Detroit commands. The 
 freight of such a locality, though large and certain to 
 grow, is not likely, if we may judge by the experience of 
 seaboard cities, to include a great volume of heavy staples 
 or manufacturing freight, but rather a miscellaneous class 
 of individually small shipments for local distribution. 
 
 As the city's inevitable and rapid growth continues, 
 and as time and enterprise develop the enormous possi- 
 bilities of the summer resort business of the Great Lakes, 
 it will become necessary to carry on upon this limited 
 frontage a volume of business in comparison with which 
 
the present lively traffic is a mere trifle. Through the 
 casual, haphazard development of the front by private 
 initiative, facilities have been provided which meet pres- 
 ent traffic requirements tolerably well, but in the future 
 it will be necessary to utilize every foot of this space to 
 its maximum capacity, a condition which cannot be met 
 except by intelligent co-operation between all the inter- 
 ested parties. These parties obviously are the steam- 
 boat concerns ; the merchants and manufacturers who ship 
 and receive freight by the vesesls; the passengers who 
 come and go by ferry, excursion and long-distance 
 steamer; the transportation concerns which take care of 
 the freight and passengers on the land side ; and finally 
 the city at large, which is dependent for its full prosperity 
 upon the economy, speed, convenience and general satis- 
 faction with which this business is handled. 
 
 On account of the vital interest of the city in provid- 
 ing for the upbuilding of this traffic along the most satis- 
 factory lines, and because of certain important incidental 
 benefits which the city might derive from the proper de- 
 velopment of the water front, if in planning it account is 
 taken of all public interests instead of only those which 
 would bring direct profit to the transportation com- 
 panies, it is highly desirable that the city should take the 
 initiative in bringing the various interests into co- 
 operation. 
 
 I would suggest that a strong commission be ap- 
 pointed to consult with all the interested parties and to 
 learn by patient inquiry and study what their needs are 
 likely to be not only in the immediate future, with which 
 alone the dividend-seeking companies are now concerned, 
 but in the more distant future to which the city as a 
 whole must look. Such a commission must have author- 
 ity and means to employ surveyors to ascertain the facts 
 as to existing structures, boundary lines, character of 
 
foundations, etc. ; conveyancers to ascertain the facts as 
 to land ownerships, leases, and the often complicated en- 
 tanglements of private, municipal, state and national 
 rights and powers which occur upon such a literal; and 
 such other competent experts as may be needed to reach 
 a thorough understanding of the problem. They would 
 then be in a position to direct the preparation of plans 
 and estimates of cost, to devise an equitable method of 
 distributing that cost, and propose to the City Council 
 and Legislature a suitable method of carrying out the 
 plans and meeting such portion of the cost as may equi- 
 tably fall upon the city. 
 
 The following project of a possible treatment of The 
 River Front is put forward, not at all as a solution of the 
 problem, because I have only the most superficial ac- 
 quaintance with the facts, but as a suggestion of the sort 
 of way in which the problem should be approached; 
 namely, with a single eye to meeting in the best possible 
 manner that is to say, in the way most permanently 
 profitable to the community the requirements of the 
 various parties which have an interest in the use of the 
 River Front. 
 
 Experience everywhere seems to show that the best 
 way of handling such freight is upon a broad, covered 
 wharf or quay, connecting on the water side with the 
 main deck of the steamers and on the land side with the 
 level of the streets used for teaming. 
 
 If adequate space can be provided either by getting 
 control of adjacent property on the land side or by build- 
 ing out into the stream, it is possible that it would be an 
 advantage to introduce on the same level a set of tracks 
 equipped with electric flat cars for local transfers of 
 freight from point to point along the quay and between 
 the vessels and the adjacent warehouses. If these tracks 
 should extend to the railroad yards further along the river 
 
/WAREHOUSES ETC,. 
 
 CONTINUOUS OPEN 
 PROMENADE,. 
 
 I T 
 
 FREIGHT & PAS&EN6 
 
 SECTION SHOWING TYPE OF CONSTRUCTION 
 ADAPTED To IMMEDIATE: REQUIREMENTS OF 
 RIVER FRONT 
 No.] 
 
 bank, these electric flat cars would also serve to transfer 
 the ordinary railroad freight cars back and forth for hand- 
 ling material that might be coming or going by railroad, 
 either between the railroad and the steamers or between 
 the railroad and warehouses back of the quay. Such 
 tracks at grade should not, of course, be used for trans- 
 ferring any considerable amount of through freight be- 
 tween the two railroads, and if that necessity should 
 arise a separate provision ought to be made for it, but for 
 local business the direct communication of such tracks at 
 grade with quay and street and warehouse basement 
 would seem highly valuable. 
 
 On the other hand, to mix up the passenger business, 
 with all the hurly-burly of freight sheds, any more than 
 can be avoided is extremely inconvenient and undesir- 
 able. Even the streets approaching the Front, passing 
 through a wholesale warehouse district and crowded as 
 they will be with heavy teams and rough teamsters, are 
 sure to be an inconvenient and disagreeable means of 
 approach for passengers, as such streets are in every city 
 
in the country. The device already employed by some 
 of the steamboat companies of building pavilions for the 
 use of passengers on the roofs of their freight sheds, is an 
 admirable one, and it would seem as though it might be 
 developed by giving means of approach for passengers at 
 this level and providing as far as possible for the waiting 
 rooms, ticket offices, etc., on this upper level, and for 
 landing the passengers here from the upper deck in case 
 of all steamers which can be adapted to the arrangement, 
 so as to care for the passengers independently of the 
 freight business. 
 
 Probably, for the immediate future at least, it may 
 be best to confine all the steamboat business (passengers 
 and freight alike) to the main wharf level, and simply 
 provide a continuous open public promenade on the 
 upper deck, which would be reached by steps from the 
 various streets, would connect all the different boat lines 
 in a convenient manner, and would afford at the same 
 time a most valuable public recreation place. This ap- 
 pears to be the present opinion of those steamboat men 
 with whom I have had the opportunity to talk. 
 
 Looking, however, to the more distant future, it 
 seems to be worth considering whether provision should 
 not be made at some time for bringing a loop line of 
 electric cars along the front to receive and deliver pas- 
 sengers from all over the city directly at the landing 
 place of every steamer, without having to walk even the 
 three blocks from Jefferson Avenue through streets 
 which are bound to be far more congested with heavy 
 freight traffic in the future than they have been in the 
 past. Such a line of tracks at the level of the second 
 deck, but far enough from the front of the quay to leave 
 ample space for passenger waiting rooms, ticket offices, 
 refreshment stands and perhaps a covered promenade 
 need not endanger or annoy the people using the Front in 
 
 13 
 
the least, while the cars would make it far more acces- 
 sible and popular than it would otherwise be. 
 
 That such an elevated track need not be a nuisance 
 has been demonstrated in Berlin, where the new electric 
 elevated railroad is so built and equipped, although re- 
 ported to have cost much less per mile than similar roads 
 in this country, that it is practically noiseless and the 
 property along the line of it has actually appreciated in 
 value following its construction, while the space under 
 the tracks has become a popular sheltered promenade. 
 If such tracks were provided for and kept under public 
 control so as not to give exclusive use of them to the 
 street car companies, it would be possible also to have 
 them connect at each end with the steam railroad tracks 
 and to have excursion trains hauled over them by electric 
 locomotives directly to the steamboat landings. 
 
 &* j L CONTINUOUS 
 
 L c E A C :H fs'HELTE^ PROMEMAD 
 
 ETC - _M 
 
 SECTION SHOWING POSSIBLE MODIFICATION 
 Or NO.I. PROVIDING FOR LOOPUNEOF 
 ELECTRIC CARS To CONNECT WITH ALL 
 STEAMBOAT LINES. 
 No.2 
 
 M 
 
In case such a project as the above should prove, 
 upon careful examination, to be feasible that is to say, 
 if it should be found either now, or ten or twenty or fifty 
 years from now, that the probable volume of business 
 would be sufficient to justify the necessary expenditure 
 for such a large piece of construction as I have outlined 
 such a project might be further supplemented by a con- 
 tinuous open promenade on the flat roof of this covered 
 second story at a level high enough to command the river 
 even over the decks of the steamers which will at times 
 form a continuous obstruction to the view of the river 
 from the lower levels. Again, looking to the distant 
 future, the electric car tracks also might be covered over, 
 if deemed advisable, so as to give an elevated driveway or 
 street, free from any annoyance of car tracks, not itself 
 interfering with the enjoyment of the foot passengers on 
 the promenade at the edge of the river, but high enough 
 to look over them to the view and affording a street 
 frontage for the land back of the quay land which is 
 now and must otherwise remain only back land. Of 
 course, in buildings to be erected on this land the street 
 floor on the river front would correspond with the third 
 floor on the side streets. 
 
 Such an elevated River Drive would be substantially 
 on a level with Jefferson Avenue, and would connect with 
 it by approaches at Woodward Avenue as well as at 
 Brush and Third Streets. At Woodward Avenue the 
 width of the street is so great that it would permit the 
 construction of an inclined approach in the middle of the 
 street without disturbing property at the sides at all, and 
 the grades are such that the central inclined roadway, 
 starting up from Woodbridge Street, would be high 
 enough by the time it reached Atwater Street to allow 
 the latter to pass under without interference. At Brush 
 and Third Streets there would seem to be no difficulty 
 
 15 
 
KJt 
 
 .WAREHOUSES ETC. 
 
 CONTINUOUS OPEN 
 PROMENADE 
 
 LIGHTS 
 
 ECTRIC WA) T|NG ROOMS COVERED 
 
 I JlREFRESHMEI^TS^ETC. PROMENADE. 
 
 II " 
 a FREIGHT | ROOMS. 1 
 
 SECTION SHOWING POSSIBLE ULTIMATE: 
 DEVELOPMENT OF RIVER FRONT. 
 No. 3 
 
 in securing adequate approaches to the raised drive and 
 promenade. 
 
 Assuming such a structure to be built in the most 
 economical manner consistent with durability and safety 
 from fire, there is no reason why it should not still be 
 admirably dignified in architectural character and form 
 a really noble front to the city. Built of concrete, in the 
 simplest and most straightforward manner, without the 
 least elaboration of applied ornament or architectural 
 gewgaws, all that is necessary to make it a noble work 
 of civic art is good proportioning of its parts. 
 
 A very important phase of such an improvement would 
 be its relation to adjacent property on the landward side. 
 For warehouses and certain kinds of light manufacture, 
 the central location with respect to the business district 
 of the city, when supplemented by the direct connection 
 of the basement story with the wharves and possibly 
 with railroad sidings, should render these sites exceed- 
 
 16 
 
ingly valuable if intelligently developed, and rentals of 
 the right of opening upon the tracks and quay, and also 
 of the right of opening upon the upper roadway, and 
 under cover to the electric car stations, ought to be suf- 
 ficient to pay the interest charges on a very considerable 
 municipal investment. Moreover, the convenience of the 
 location in respect to the passenger steamers and the 
 railroads, and the great interest of the southern outlook 
 over the water and the shipping, should make a location 
 on the improved River Front an admirable one for a great 
 hotel catering especially to the excursion and convention 
 business, for which the natural advantages of Detroit 
 have already given it such prominence despite the inade- 
 quate accommodations which have hitherto been 
 afforded. 
 
 But for whatever purposes permanent buildings 
 might be erected on The Front, there is no reason why 
 they should not be of substantial and dignified construc- 
 tion; and if the city, having taken a hand in providing 
 the facilities of The Front, were to give the use of them 
 to abutting property only on condition that building plans 
 be approved by the officers in charge of the improvement, 
 it would be possible to secure a consistent character in 
 the adjacent buildings which would make the whole com- 
 position one of the most dignified and striking city fronts 
 in the world. 
 
 As I said before launching upon the above descrip- 
 tion, it is nothing more than a pleasant dream based upon 
 an utterly superficial acquaintance with the situation, 
 and the chances are that the project which I have thus 
 outlined by way of example is quite different from the 
 result which sober, patient study of the conditions would 
 lead to; but I am absolutely confident that such intelli- 
 gent, patient, comprehensive study of the water front 
 problems will be able to evolve some method of treatment 
 
which will, if adopted and consistently followed, bring to 
 the community in the long run an enormously greater 
 return from the asset which it possesses in its central 
 river frontage than it is likely to get by letting matters 
 drift along under the impulse of diverse private initiative, 
 directed almost solely by a regard for immediate cash 
 returns. 
 
 In the long successful future of Detroit the possible 
 difference to the city between a wise and an unwise treat- 
 ment of the Front will be measurable in millions of 
 dollars, and the present investment of a few thousands 
 in a sufficiently thorough study to set matters moving 
 on the right path, is in the nature of an insurance pre- 
 mium at a rate so low that no business corporation 
 would hesitate for an instant to pay it out. Are the 
 people of Detroit so fixed in the short-sighted, hand-to- 
 mouth methods of business, which frontier conditions 
 once forced upon the whole American people, that they 
 cannot learn the lesson which the Trusts are teaching on 
 every hand that great and continued success in any big 
 enterprise comes from thorough and unstinted investiga- 
 tion, comprehensive plans, and then steady, unhurried, 
 but firm and undeviating pursuit of the adopted plan or 
 policy? 
 
 B. The Railroad Yards 
 
 For a distance of some half mile or more on 
 either side of the River Front proper the shore is bor- 
 dered by railroad yards, including the car-ferry slips and 
 wharves, where a small amount of freight is transferred 
 between rail and water. What the future of these sec- 
 tions is likely to be I have at present no means of 
 judging, but I would point out that any planning for their 
 best ultimate utilization is deeply involved with three 
 
 18 
 
other important problems; namely, the location of the 
 proposed tunnel under the river, the location and char- 
 acter of the future Union Station to which Detroit must 
 look forward, and the decision as to whether to undertake 
 the very costly elimination of the grade crossings all 
 along the present railroad approach to the Grand Trunk 
 Station from the north, or to abandon that station and its 
 yards in favor of the proposed Union Station. These are 
 large and complex questions about which the experts of 
 the railroad corporations probably have a much better 
 knowledge than anyone else, but the city is deeply con- 
 cerned in having them solved in a comprehensive way 
 and with due consideration for the interests of the com- 
 munity as a whole as well as for the interest of the 
 railroad stockholders. 
 
 If a commission is appointed to study the water 
 front problem, it would seem highly desirable to give it 
 authority and means to study also these railroad problems 
 and to consult with the railroad officials about their 
 solution. 
 
 C. The West Manufacturing Belt 
 
 Beginning at the end of the railroad yards not 
 far from the West Boulevard and extending far beyond 
 the present city limits, is the district which more than 
 any other seems destined to hold the great industrial 
 future of Detroit. The main railroad lines are far enough 
 back from the river to allow ample space for the develop- 
 ment of industrial plants of the largest size with docks 
 and wharves of any desired length, yet the distance to 
 the railroad is not so great or the space so much occupied 
 as to interfere with the ready construction of numerous 
 sidings; the river affords not only the opportunity of 
 cheap water shipments but an unfailing cheap supply of 
 
 19 
 
water for manufacturing purposes. It is to be confidently 
 expected that the greater part of this region will be 
 occupied by factories among a network of freight tracks 
 and with a great series of wharves and docks extending 
 for miles along the river. Private enterprise, following 
 the lines of least resistance, is shaping this region to the 
 purposes which it is best fitted to serve. 
 
 But there are certain problems which must be dealt 
 with here by common action, and the earlier they are 
 studied the more successfully and economically can they 
 be met. The success of the factories will be largely 
 dependent upon the economy, convenience, decency and 
 general satisfaction with which their working people are 
 able to live and go to and from their work. And two 
 factors having a very important bearing on those ques- 
 tions are, first, the arrangement of main highways and 
 street car lines in relation to the factories, to the network 
 of steam railroad tracks, and to conveniently located and 
 agreeable but cheap residence districts ; and, second, the 
 distribution of parks and other means of recreation, 
 including occasional shore parks or recreation piers. 
 
 Sooner or later, as this district develops, it will almost 
 surely prove desirable; for example, that the public 
 acquire some of the islands opposite Wyandotte and make 
 there a second and greater Belle Isle. 
 
 The highway problem is a complex one, and it is 
 about as sure as anything human can be that if a compre- 
 hensive skeleton plan with grades is not skilfully worked 
 out in advance, with due regard to the need for numerous 
 railroad freight tracks, the community will have to 
 shoulder a needlessly heavy burden in the future, both in 
 delay of traffic and loss of life due to unnecessary grade 
 crossings, and also in the cost of abolishing such grade 
 crossings when they become intolerable. 
 
D. The East Manufacturing Belt 
 
 East of the present Grand Trunk Railroad yards 
 the river is followed by a collection of industrial plants 
 the location of which was probably determined for the 
 most part by the presence of the City Transit Railroad 
 and the Belt Line. From hasty examination of this dis- 
 trict it would seem as though no important interests 
 would be seriously affected by the public control of this 
 water front and the ultimate construction of a properly 
 designed embankment adapted to permit such use of the 
 river by the factories on the landward side, as is cus- 
 tomary in connection with the public quays of so many 
 important river towns in Europe. If this should prove 
 to be feasible, it opens up the possibility of a continuous 
 connection along the river from the center of the city to 
 Belle Isle Bridge and the Boulevard, a possibility so de- 
 sirable to keep open that it is worth the most careful 
 scrutiny. 
 
 E. The Belle Isle Section 
 
 Near the bridge, and extending for some dis- 
 tance up-stream, the shore is utilized for a miscellaneous 
 lot of summer amusements provided by private enter- 
 prise and looking on the whole rather shabby and down- 
 at-the-heel. Such establishments serve a very good pur- 
 pose, only they fail to serve it as well as could be desired, 
 and the community would be better off if they were given 
 a certain amount of intelligent supervision and encour- 
 agement to improve. There is plainly no reason why a 
 public shore drive and promenade could not be worked 
 out in connection with a lot of popular amusements of 
 this sort, as has been so successfully done at some of the 
 
great beach resorts of the Atlantic Coast, often under far 
 more difficult circumstances. 
 
 Going further up the shore, there lies on both sides 
 of the water-works a region which is apparently likely 
 to develop into the most attractive residence district of the 
 city. With its rapid transit facilities on Jefferson avenue, 
 with the easy possibility of a broad rural parkway laid 
 out along the now unoccupied river bank, with no steam 
 railroads on that side of the city to bring in factories or a 
 factory population, there seems to be every reason to 
 suppose that a prosperous and remarkably beautiful resi- 
 dential suburb will develop in this direction ; and the land 
 owners could well afford to meet the city half way in 
 establishing along the shore a liberal strip of park. 
 
 In view of the comparative ease with which such a 
 parkway could be provided for between the Boulevard 
 at the present Belle Isle Bridge and the Water Works 
 Park, I wish to express my unqualified opposition to the 
 construction at any time of a second bridge to connect 
 the Water Works Park with the upper end of the Island. 
 Aside from its cost and its needlessness, such a bridge 
 would inevitably create a popular clamor for various con- 
 veniences and attractions at the easterly end of the Island, 
 and sooner or later, item by item, would force the intro- 
 duction of features which would in the long run entirely 
 destroy the very essence of the quality that makes the 
 east end of Belle Isle such a precious possession for a 
 large city namely, the sense of remoteness from things 
 urban which one feels in passing into those peaceful and 
 unembellished woods. 
 
II. 
 
 Belle Isle Park 
 
 The principal immediate question in connec- 
 tion with Belle Isle Park is that of a better casino. The 
 present building I understand to be somewhat inadequate 
 in size and defective in its accommodations, and it is 
 plainly not a very dignified or agreeable work of archi- 
 tecture. Its material and construction are such that after 
 a comparatively short life of usefulness it has become 
 decidedly shabby, and this shabbiness, taken with the 
 rather poor service which I am told is accorded by the 
 casino when it is running, make it much less useful and 
 attractive than such a building ought to be. It appears 
 to be generally accepted that a new casino, better built, 
 more conveniently arranged, larger and of superior archi- 
 tectural design ought now to be erected, and the imme- 
 diate question is as to the general character of such a per- 
 manent casino building and its best location. 
 
 I beg to point out, however, before taking up this 
 question, that the real usefulness and attractiveness of 
 such a building as a place of refreshment is far more 
 dependent upon first-class housekeeping and catering than 
 even upon the excellence of the building itself, and that 
 no expenditure of money, or of ingenuity and good taste 
 in the location and design of the new casino building, 
 will bring satisfactory returns to the community unless 
 steps are taken to secure the best possible management 
 of the casino. The matters of the highest importance are 
 its daily, weekly and annual maintenance in the best 
 of repair and the highest state of cleanliness and neatness, 
 and the provision of such kinds of food and service as 
 will not merely suffice to meet the actual demands of the 
 
 23 
 
general run of people who resort to the park, but keep 
 always a step or two in advance of those demands not 
 in the way of elaborateness or costliness of fittings, of 
 food or of service, but in keeping such simple variety of 
 fare as may be offered up to the very best standard of its 
 kind. The problem is not an easy one. It is a distinctly 
 more difficult problem in catering and housekeeping than 
 is offered to the steward of most clubs, or to the man- 
 agers of most hotels, which are apt to cater to a much less 
 varied class of patrons than those who ought to be able 
 to resort with satisfaction to the casino in Belle Isle 
 Park, and unless the difficulty and the absolute import- 
 ance of securing just the right kind of management in the 
 casino is fully recognized and adequate steps are taken 
 to meet it, the expenditure of much money on a large 
 and elaborate permanent building would seem essentially 
 extravagant. 
 
 In considering the location of the new casino it is 
 to be noted that the special beauty of Belle Isle Park 
 consists chiefly of two landscape elements the forest and 
 the river. The beauty of the forest is best to be enjoyed 
 by passing through the forest itself, not by looking from 
 a building against the wall of foliage or palisade of 
 trunks which it presents when viewed from any fixed 
 point of view. The beauty of the river, on the other 
 hand, with its endless, changing flotilla of shipping, pre- 
 sents an almost ideal scene for an outlook from a struc- 
 ture in which many people are assembled for rest and 
 for refreshment. It seems to me, therefore, that there 
 can be no doubt of the advisability of so placing the 
 casino that it shall command the river to the best advan- 
 tage a condition which is utterly neglected in the loca- 
 tion of the present building. 
 
 In the original plan for the development of Belle 
 Isle, adopted by the Park Commission in 1883, this prin- 
 
 2 4 
 
ciple was recognized in the allotment of a location along 
 the shore to a great covered promenade and shelter con- 
 nected with a casino building, with the expectation that 
 such a great veranda for the people would become an im- 
 mensely popular place to sit and rest and take refresh- 
 ment, as well as a refuge for crowds of people in case 
 of sudden rain storms. This long veranda-like structure 
 was designed to connect with the pier, so as to serve in 
 part as a waiting-place for the steamers and so as to afford, 
 close at hand, without the long, hot, sunny walk which 
 now confronts them, a comfortable place where women 
 bringing their babies to the park might enjoy the breeze 
 and the outlook both upon the river and upon the park, 
 leaving them free at their leisure to stroll ,on as far from 
 this safe base of operations as they might feel able to do. 
 
 The more I have considered the present condition of 
 the park and the problem of the casino, the more I have 
 been convinced that the fundamental purpose which this 
 arrangement was designed to serve was a sound one, 
 whatever might be said of the particular manner in which 
 it was proposed to realize it. 
 
 In the general plan adopted by the Commission at 
 that time, it was the intention to develop the main center 
 of popular attraction close to the westerly end of the 
 island near the pier in the region marked "A" upon the 
 accompanying diagram ; that is to say, in the most acces- 
 sible part of the island ; and the location for the casino and 
 the accompanying stretch of verandas or covered prome- 
 nade and shelter was along the shore at the westerly end 
 of the island facing down the river. 
 
 It has happened, through force of circumstances, that 
 the development of the park has taken a somewhat differ- 
 ent turn and the main center of popular attraction is now 
 in the region marked "C" upon the diagram somewhat 
 unfortunately removed from the steamboat landing. This 
 
 25 
 
DIAGRAM OP BELLE ISLE PARK 
 
 new center of interest is so firmly established by popu- 
 lar habit and by a considerable number of permanent 
 improvements that it would seem unwise to attempt to 
 revert to the original plan, and I am therefore inclined to 
 recommend that the permanent casino building, with 
 ample verandas and connecting sheltered promenade, 
 should be placed near the meeting point of districts A and 
 C upon the diagram, and that the landing pier for the 
 steamers from the city be changed from the northwest 
 corner of the island to the southwest corner, near the 
 point where a former pier existed. Such a situation 
 would have the advantage of proximity to the most 
 popular picnic groves and it would admirably command 
 the procession of ships passing up and down the main 
 channel of the river. It is true that it would be a little 
 further from the bridge than the present casino location, 
 but the great majority of those who approach the park 
 
 26 
 
by the bridge come in some kind of vehicle, and having 
 traversed the distance from the Jefferson Avenue cars, 
 can just as well go a few hundred yards further. The 
 vast majority of those who must depend upon their feet 
 alone to carry them about the park come by steamer, and 
 it seems highly important that the casino with its asso- 
 ciated resting places should be closely connected with the 
 steamboat landing, as would be the case in the situation 
 proposed. 
 
 The type of structure suitable for the proposed casino 
 building is, of course, directly dependent upon the site 
 selected. If my recommendation is followed in regard 
 to this site, it occurs to me that a comparatively long 
 and narrow building stretching along the shore would 
 be the most reasonable type to adopt. Such a building 
 would be much more open to the summer breeze drawing 
 through it back and forth than would be a broader struc- 
 ture. It would give a pleasant outlook to a much larger 
 proportion of people using it. Moreover, it would lend 
 itself better than any other type of building to gradual 
 extension for meeting increased demands and would lend 
 itself readily to division into successive sections for cater- 
 ing to different classes of patrons. One section, for in- 
 stance, might be of the lunch counter type another sec- 
 tion offering cheap, light refreshment at small tables ; an- 
 other offering a more expensive and substantial meal. All 
 of these successive sections would probably be united 
 by a common veranda or covered terrace on the water- 
 side, while the cooking, and as much as possible of the 
 service business, would be provided for in the second 
 story, so designed as to fit well into the roof, permitting 
 the building as a whole to be kept relatively low, in har- 
 mony with the long level lines of the island. 
 
 Whatever material and whatever architectural style 
 may be adopted for the building, it would seem that two 
 
 27 
 
fundamental requirements of plan should be borne in 
 mind first, the building should be capable of indefinite 
 extension without injuring its architectural quality, the 
 service department extending along with the extension 
 of the seating capacity; second, the building should be 
 designed so far as possible in its permanent parts as a 
 simple shell, consisting of outer walls, roof and floors, 
 while the interior subdivisions should be of a simple and 
 comparatively temporary sort, so as to make possible at 
 small cost any re-arrangement of the interior which may 
 be necessitated by the unforeseen developments of use. 
 All of these conditions seem best fulfilled by a building 
 of the type I have suggested, placed in connection with 
 a new steamboat pier and riverside promenade along the 
 southerly shore of the island near its western end. 
 
 The fact above mentioned that a center of popular 
 attraction has been developed in a different locality from 
 that originally proposed, and not conveniently related to 
 the landing pier provided in the early days of the park, 
 leads me to call attention to certain fundamental ques- 
 tions of park policy. 
 
 It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the sine 
 qua non of the most successful park management is a 
 consistent adherence to one controlling policy and gen- 
 eral plan, year in and year out. In respect to economy 
 and in respect to the value of the results, it is even more 
 important that a given policy should be consistently ad- 
 hered to year after year than that the policy should itself 
 be the best that could have been devised. Vacillation 
 between two or three different purposes no matter how 
 good those purposes may be in conducting the improve- 
 ments and the ordinary maintenance work of a park is 
 far less profitable in the long run, both as to money cost 
 and as to park results, than consistent adherence to a 
 single policy, even though it be a less admirable one. 
 
 28 
 
For example. In 1883 a considerable amount of 
 money and much thoughtful consideration were expended 
 in preparing a general plan for the future development 
 of Belle Isle and a written definition of general policy 
 for guiding the development of the park and such modi- 
 fications of the general plans as the needs of the future 
 might necessitate. When the Commission, after much 
 deliberation and public discussion, had adopted such a 
 policy and general plan, it began constructive work, and 
 considerable sums of money were then expended in im- 
 provements the full value of which would only be at- 
 tained when certain other improvements then contem- 
 plated should in the course of time be carried out. I am 
 informed by the Secretary of the Department today that 
 he has been unable to find in the files of the Department, 
 or elsewhere, any copy of the plan or any copy of the 
 written programme the Constitution, so to speak which 
 the Commission set up in the beginning as a guide for 
 the detailed legislative and executive work required from 
 year to year. In the absence of any information of this 
 sort as to the ultimate purposes which were in view in 
 conducting certain of the earlier improvements of the 
 park, later Commissioners have been unable to utilize 
 the earlier improvements to their full value, and have 
 been forced to ignore and to waste much of the result 
 of earlier expenditures. 
 
 The fundamental importance of adherence to a con- 
 sistent plan and policy in park work I cannot bring out 
 any better than by quoting certain passages from the 
 report of 1882, of which I find a single copy on file among 
 the papers of my father, who was the Landscape Archi- 
 tect consulted by the Commission at that time: 
 
 "In several of the town parks of Europe, formed 
 from one to three hundred years ago, no material modi- 
 fication of general design, or enlargement of scope, has, 
 
 29 
 
from the beginning of them, been made. The popula- 
 tion using them has increased several fold ; it has changed 
 its forms of government, its forms of society, in some 
 cases its forms of religion; it has changed its forms of 
 building; it has widened, and lengthened, and sewered, 
 and paved, and lighted most of its streets; it has demol- 
 ished its most solid constructions in walls and fortresses. 
 In nothing else has so little change of general design 
 occurred as in its parks; in nothing else so little been 
 done, beyond the unnoticeable removal and repair of 
 the results of decay, and wear and tear. While most other 
 costly constructions have been losing in fitness and value 
 for present use, the parks are recognized by all to have 
 been, on the whole, gaining. In nothing else, then, that 
 the people of one generation can leave behind them for 
 others, is the economy of a steady pursuit of well-con- 
 sidered ends better established than it is by long experi- 
 ence in parks. 
 
 * * * The same principle of economy that leads 
 to the keeping of parlor furniture and kitchen utensils 
 in different divisions of a house, will lead to certain gen- 
 eral, though less abrupt and definite, divisions in the 
 planning of a park. 
 
 "* * * A park is less fittingly compared to a 
 dwelling than to a great public hall, attached to the main 
 apartment of which there are several dependencies, ves- 
 tibules, ante-room, cloak-room, refreshment-room, a coun- 
 ter for the sale of fans, lorgnettes, photographs, books of 
 the music and so on. 
 
 "What is the great room that gives the whole this 
 name of 'park'? What is the difference between the 
 entertainment to which it should invite us and that of 
 a concert-hall or an opera-house? It is a place in which 
 to enjoy, instead of musical story-telling, dramatically or 
 otherwise, the harmony and melody and poetry of actual 
 
 30 
 
nature; and it is just as important in the one case as the 
 other to avoid bringing fussy, disturbing business into 
 the main hall. 
 
 "Every great park is valuable in proportion as it is 
 the realization of an idyllic poem. As far as other ob- 
 jects are entertained upon the ground, economy requires 
 that they shall be so pursued as to avoid disturbances, 
 interruptions, and discords of the poetic theme." 
 
 And the full value of such an ideal park refresh- 
 ing tired city poeple far more than they realize at the 
 time almost like the unexciting refreshment of pure air 
 itself is not to be obtained except by a keen watchful- 
 ness for continuity of policy and consistency of aim in 
 all the little things that shape from year to year the 
 ever-changing landscape. Beautiful as Belle Isle is, it 
 ought to be far more so after the twenty years of skillful 
 care expended upon it, and would be so if that care had 
 been more consistently applied to certain clearly defined 
 and practically attainable poetic aims. It is to be hoped 
 that greater consistency to such large purposes may 
 guide the development of the park in the future. 
 
 3 1 
 
III. 
 
 Completion and Improvement of the Boulevard 
 
 Of the Boulevard I have been able to make 
 only a most cursory examination at a time when all the 
 details of improvement were buried in snow, and I can 
 therefore report merely in regard to two matters. 
 
 The short break in the construction of the West 
 Boulevard at the Michigan Central tracks seems most 
 unfortunate. There is no way of crossing the tracks even 
 at grade, and the only connection between the completed 
 portions of the Boulevard which are thus severed is a 
 circuitous one by way of narrow streets. The result is 
 that the large investment made by the community in the 
 completed parts of the West Boulevard, both in land and 
 construction, does not begin to return its full value be- 
 cause of the lack of this one piece needed to make the 
 connection. Without the data for estimating the cost 
 of construction and planting, including the expense of 
 carrying the railroad over the Boulevard, and without a 
 better knowledge of the city's financial condition in re- 
 spect to parks, I cannot venture a positive opinion that 
 the immediate increase in value of the Boulevard as a 
 result of completing this missing link would justify the 
 immediate expenditure of putting it through, but I ant 
 strongly inclined to think it would. , 
 
 I would point out, however, that the line of the un- 
 constructed part of the Boulevard is a very awkward one, 
 involving two of the bad right-angled turns, of which 
 there are far too many in the Boulevard already, and 
 involving also a long diagonal crossing under the rail- 
 road tracks at a point where the two sets of tracks have 
 
 33 
 
already begun to diverge from each other. Such a cross- 
 ing under the tracks would not only be costly to con- 
 struct, but when completed would be relatively ugly and 
 unpleasant, because of the length of the tunnel or subway 
 and its unsymmetrical shape. If the present location 
 were to be abandoned and a new location purchased or 
 condemned from the end of the completed section south 
 of the tracks in a direct line, at right angles to the rail- 
 road, to an intersection with the completed portion north 
 of the tracks, not only would the cost of construction be 
 materially diminished but the final result would be far. 
 better for the city, securing a good line for the Boulevard 
 and a short, straight crossing under the tracks at a 
 point where they are close together. The intervening 
 property has no improvements of any considerable value 
 upon it, and as the route is shorter it would take less land 
 than is included in the location now held by the City, 
 which later could then be disposed of or might be ex- 
 changed in part for land on the straighter route. 
 
 Some legal difficulties would undoubtedly arise in 
 making such a change and some enabling legislation 
 would perhaps be required, but the advantages are so 
 obvious that they should not be foregone without a de- 
 termined effort to face the difficulties and overcome them. 
 
 I have referred above to the bad corners and breaks 
 in the alignment of the Boulevard at certain points. 
 Everyone who has ever gone over the line must be familiar 
 with them, and it should not take a fatal accident, like 
 that which occurred last year on one of these corners, to 
 emphasize the need of improvement. Some of the "jogs" 
 can be very readily overcome with only minor changes 
 in the lines of the roadway by the exercise of a certain 
 amount of ingenuity in planning; but in certain cases 
 no radical improvement can be made without some small 
 additional land purchases, and it is highly important that 
 
 34 
 
the land needed at such points should be determined and 
 secured before buildings erected upon it shall perma- 
 nently block the possibility of improvement. 
 
 In several cases the best way to handle these awk- 
 ward problems would probably be in connection with the 
 establishment of small local parks or squares, a consider- 
 able number of which ought to be distributed in an equi- 
 table and systematic manner in those parts of the city 
 where provision has not yet been made for them. 
 
 It is interesting to note in this connection that 
 Chicago by its recent purchases of small parks appears 
 to have adopted the sound policy enunciated by the recent 
 Special Park Commission of that City; viz., "Playgrounds 
 and small parks should be so placed that no one could 
 live more than one-half mile from some one of them." 
 The accompanying diagram indicates the amount of areas 
 in Detroit which are more than half a mile from the near- 
 est park. Although I am tempted to discuss this subject 
 further, it lies somewhat aside from the problems directly 
 presented to me and to go into it thoroughly would lead 
 so far afield that I must dismiss it with this brief refer- 
 ence. 
 
 35 
 
IV. 
 Heart of the City 
 
 The questions which have arisen in connection 
 with the neighborhood of Cadillac Square are of two 
 kinds questions of detail, such as those in regard to 
 the location and character of monuments and decorations, 
 the arrangement of car tracks, etc.; and questions of 
 general plan affecting the property lines and the general 
 disposition of the permanent building masses which are 
 in the future to close in and give shape (or deformity) to 
 the important public open spaces which here mark the 
 business center of the city. 
 
 To worry over the first class of problems while there 
 is any possibility of making changes in the general plan 
 would be like starting to paint and decorate an old house 
 at the very time of considering its reconstruction, and I 
 shall therefore refer only to the larger questions of gen- 
 eral plan. 
 
 The city is fortunate in having in the Campus Mar- 
 tius and Cadillac Square a considerable area of public 
 open space at a point which is definitely and permanently 
 fixed by the convergence upon it of a great series of 
 thoroughfares as a municipal center of dominating im- 
 portance. Whatever direction may be taken by different 
 classes of urban development, there is not the least ques- 
 tion that the region near the Campus Martius will remain 
 peculiarly accessible from all parts of the city. It is 
 therefore a peculiarly appropriate location for all the gen- 
 eral municipal offices and other public and quasi-public 
 buildings with which the whole community is concerned. 
 Within this region and to the east of Woodward Avenue 
 there is a large but curiously shapeless ramification of 
 
 37 
 
public open spaces, partly in streets and partly in so-called 
 "squares," together with one great permanent public edi- 
 fice, the County Building. Intermixed with this public 
 area are several irregular blocks of private land, rela- 
 tively low in value considering the proximity of the 
 financial and retail centers and occupied in large meas- 
 ure by very second-rate buildings. 
 
 The situation of the City Hall and the County Build- 
 ing in this region is eminently appropriate, but the utter 
 shapelessness of the area or congeries of areas upon which 
 these two buildings face makes the relation of each to 
 the other and to its own immediate surroundings very 
 far from satisfactory. 
 
 This condition has been so fully recognized that a 
 number of projects have been urged for bringing the re- 
 gion into a more orderly condition by cutting off certain 
 projecting pieces of private land and thus piecing out 
 the public open space to more shapely outlines, which 
 would relate in a dignified manner to the County Build- 
 ing. The most promising direction for further study ap- 
 pears to be that pointed out in the plan advanced by Mr. 
 Scott and in the bolder plan of Mr. Scripps, both of which 
 aim to secure a distinct new square in front of the County 
 Building, linked with the Campus Martius by a part of the 
 present Cadillac Square. 
 
 But while all of the projects which have been called 
 to my attention concern themselves with the immediately 
 apparent evils presented by the bad relation of the County 
 Building to its surroundings, the problem as seen from 
 the distant point of view of a stranger appears much 
 larger than these plans recognize. 
 
 For example, the relation of the outline of the 
 Campus Martius to the City Hall and to the streets and 
 spaces which lead into it is also far from satisfactory. 
 The old rectangle of the Campus Martius, although set 
 
 38 
 
eater-cornered with Woodward Avenue and other im- 
 portant streets, had a certain shapeliness and must have 
 had a corresponding dignity, which was all thrown to the 
 winds when the City Hall was built within the limits of 
 the Campus and at an awkward angle with its boundaries. 
 
 It is not enough therefore to consider the relation 
 of these open areas to the County Building; their relation 
 to the present City Hall or a future City Hall on the same 
 or an adjacent site must also be considered ; and taking a 
 still larger view, it is the part of wisdom to consider their 
 relation to the sites of other public and quasi-public build- 
 ings for which sites must be found somewhere in the 
 future and for which this locality is peculiarly appropri- 
 ate. To mention only two instances, the time cannot 
 long be delayed when Detroit will build a new and wor- 
 thier public library, and on or near the site of the Russell 
 House private capital is likely soon to erect a modern 
 fireproof hotel which should be worthy to take its place 
 in a group of monumental public buildings if only a 
 proper place is provided for it instead of allowing it to jut 
 awkwardly out in front of the City Hall, all askew with 
 its surroundings. 
 
 If to the inevitable and unceasing increase of build- 
 ing space needed to accommodate the development of 
 City, County and Federal business in a great manufactur- 
 ing center, be added the requirements of museums, the- 
 aters, halls for concerts and conventions, and similar quasi- 
 public purposes, a very little thoughtful consideration 
 of the rate of increase in such buildings which accompan- 
 ies the growth of a modern city in population and wealth 
 will convince anyone who believes in the future of Detroit 
 that even the next generation will erect enough buildings 
 of this class to form a very imposing group, provided that 
 they BE grouped provided that shapely and convenient 
 spaces be provided for them to face upon so as to bring 
 them into agreeable architectural relationship. 
 
 39 
 
The situation is this : In the region between the City 
 Hall and the County Building lie a certain number of square 
 feet of land distributed in ill-shapen squares and street 
 intersections and occupied by improvements of a certain 
 value, such as paving, parking, monuments and street 
 car tracks; and also a certain number of square feet of 
 building land distributed in more or less irregular lots and 
 occupied by comparatively inexpensive and outworn 
 structures. It is evident that apart from the value in- 
 vested in these improvements a great deal better results 
 could be secured for all concerned if all this land could 
 only be pooled and then redivided into squares, streets and 
 building land of better shape and better arranged. 
 
 The following alternatives seem to confront the city 
 here: 
 
 First, the matter may be allowed to drift without 
 change in the street lines, in which case private capital 
 will from time to time replace the present buildings with 
 others of a more costly and permanent sort, the city and 
 various semi-public bodies will purchase lots from time 
 to time at increasing prices and invest large sums of 
 money in new buildings, but the whole region will remain 
 a comparatively ineffective jumble, and the money which 
 is sure to be spent in attempting to beautify both the 
 buildings and the "Squares" will bring a relatively small 
 return. 
 
 Second, the city may improve the outlines of the 
 open area by making certain street extensions and widen- 
 ings, as has been proposed, cutting through many lots, 
 paying practically the full value of every building affected 
 even though but a small piece be taken, and leaving the 
 new frontage occupied in part by ill-shaped remnants of 
 lots which will not afford inducements for the erection 
 of desirable buildings in part by the newly exposed backs 
 and sides of existing buildings, and in part, at the best, 
 
 40 
 
by what is to be seen there today, and then the usual 
 process of hap-hazard development will take place, and 
 Detroit will have acquired at large expense shapely 
 squares with a hodge-podge of buildings around them. 
 
 Third, the city might make a carefully digested plan 
 for the best utilization of the whole region, and might 
 then acquire under mortgage so much of the property 
 abutting on the present squares as may be necessary in 
 order to give it the power to effect on its own land the 
 desirable changes in street and lot lines and in order to 
 control the needful sites for future public buildings, and 
 it might then take its time and make the actual changes 
 in street lines just so fast as a reasonable regard for the 
 value of present improvements will permit, in the mean- 
 time leasing such of the property as need not be vacated 
 at once either to the present occupants or in the open 
 market. 
 
 By readjusting the outline between the open space 
 and certain parts of the adjacent building land (thus 
 brought under one control), it should be possible to 
 reach excellent results without a great increase in the 
 total area devoted to streets and squares, whereas if the 
 city does not itself acquire and hold any building land 
 to meet its future needs, it can improve the shape of the 
 open space only by the elimination of so much additional 
 building land an economic consideration of considerable 
 weight in a region so near the heart of the city. 
 
 I would urge, therefore, that the Board of Commerce 
 consider most carefully whether some means cannot be 
 devised for thus controlling, in a large, far-sighted and 
 conservative manner, the future improvement of Cadillac 
 Square and the adjacent building land, so as to get out 
 of it the largest possible returns both direct and indirect. 
 
 But even if the Cadillac Square problem be ap- 
 proached in this broad and far-sighted manner, it should 
 
 41 
 
not be considered independently of other parts of the 
 downtown district. Woodward Avenue, as the backbone 
 of the city, connects in close relation with the Campus 
 Martius two other focal points of great importance 
 Grand Circus Park and the center of the River Front at 
 the foot of Woodward Avenue. 
 
 About the part which Grand Circus Park is to play 
 in the development of the heart of the City, and the rela- 
 tive importance of the plainly desirable extensions and 
 developments of the series of radial streets which impinge 
 upon it, I cannot venture an opinion upon such a super- 
 ficial knowledge as I possess, but plainly it involves ques- 
 tions that ought to be taken up at the same time with 
 those of the Campus Martius and Cadillac Square. With 
 them, too, is involved the rather dubious possibility of 
 bringing the Federal Building into relation with either 
 or both of these centers at a reasonable expense, and here 
 also ought to be considered the possibility which is now 
 opened up since a railroad tunnel can burrow as cheaply 
 under one part of the city as another of placing the pro- 
 posed Union Station somewhere in this general locality 
 near the focus of all the street railways instead of remov- 
 ing it to a distance. 
 
 It is hard to realize, under the conditions of today, 
 what part may be filled in the city of the future by the 
 foot of Woodward Avenue. As the culminating point in 
 the line where the traffic of the City meets the commerce 
 of the Lakes, as the terminus of that broad avenue upon 
 which all the city's ways converge, and as the middle of 
 the City's Front, this spot is plainly marked as the site 
 for some great tribune, from which enthroned Detroit 
 shall review the vast procession of the ships in the cen- 
 turies to come. Not even the towering mass of Gibraltar 
 itself has stood guard over such pageant as must here 
 salute its mistress, and the day will surely come be it 
 
 42 
 
soon or late, be it approached with wise foresight or by 
 devious and wasteful courses when Detroit will here 
 erect a great and monumental structure dominating all 
 the aggregated buildings of the city and typifying to 
 the traveler from afar the City's own dominion. Rising 
 from the base which will be formed by an orderly and 
 dignified treatment of the River Front and spanning the 
 axis of Woodward Avenue, such a structure will be not 
 merely what a Water Gate was to the mediaeval city, it 
 will be also what the proposed peristyle and its colossal 
 column were designed to be for Detroit, and in a site 
 far more appropriate for the culminating architectural 
 accent of the City ; and further, if my forecast is not mis- 
 taken, when the time comes for designing this great 
 structure it will be not merely something which shall 
 inspire the beholder but something which the people shall 
 use. 
 
 There is no haste about the realization of this dream. 
 Detroit has all the ages before it, with time and means 
 to accomplish things far beyond our poor conception. I 
 speak of it only to point out that in the treatment of the 
 Campus Martius, of Cadillac Square, of the Grand Circus 
 with its radiating streets and of other problems in this 
 locality it should be borne in mind that time will surely 
 bring forth at the Water Gate some soaring structure that 
 will demand a recognition of unity throughout the heart 
 of the City. 
 
 It is for the citizens of Detroit today to see to it that 
 mere lack of deliberate, broad foresight and patient in- 
 ventive study today shall not compel your successors to 
 throw away and reconstruct the results of your efforts as 
 you must do to some extent to the work of your predeces- 
 sors if you are to make a success of Cadillac Square. 
 
 43 
 
Report of Charles Mulford Robinson 
 
 GENTLEMEN: In accordance with your request, I have 
 examined the City of Detroit with a view to pointing out 
 in a general preliminary report such civic improvements 
 as seem to me desirable. In the selection of these I have 
 tried to restrict myself to those that are really practic- 
 able, as otherwise the report would have no more than 
 an academic interest and value. The duty of today is 
 not to dream of an impossible Carthage on the shore of 
 the Detroit River; but taking the city as it is, and with 
 due regard to the rapid increase in its population and 
 wealth and the rise of its civic ideals, to suggest the pos- 
 sible changes that are best worth while, that will count 
 for most and are most essential to make it seize the 
 chance which is at its hand and to realize its opportunity 
 for civic beauty, convenience and stateliness. 
 
 This will cost something. There is nothing good that 
 doesn't cost. But if you have faith in Detroit, even the 
 faith in it that is had by the outside world, you will not 
 be afraid of some expense. In nothing that we do, are 
 we building so surely for the future as in the development 
 of our cities. If, now, in any proposed change that is 
 within the bounds of financial reason an immediate and 
 certain advantage is added to the future good, that 
 change should thereby become practicable. The faint- 
 hearted will be reassured and you will have ready an 
 answer for the selfish who derisively ask what posterity 
 ever has done for them forgetful of their own inheri- 
 
 45 
 
tance from the past. So your committee understands, I 
 am sure, that "practicable" means more than so simple 
 as to be done today and tomorrow or so cheap as to be paid 
 for out of current expenses. It means that a faith and 
 courage, justified by past and present, is the wise basis 
 of the planning. 
 
 In looking over a city to determine what may be 
 done to make it grasp its civic opportunities, I think we 
 have to remember that not remodeling, but development, 
 is to be desired. Cities have as marked an individuality 
 as people, and whatever charm and separate attractive- 
 ness they have lies in those peculiarities which stamp 
 them with personality which, for example, cause Detroit 
 to be Detroit, and not Buffalo or Milwaukee. To per- 
 ceive these and to develop them as Athens developed (too 
 narrowly) the Acropolis, or Rome the Forum, is to insure 
 the city's interest and distinctive charm, for they are the 
 things that make cities remembered. 
 
 The Street Plan 
 
 Now there are two features of Detroit that are pe- 
 culiar to it and especially distinctive. These are the 
 river, with its vast even flow of pure water, and the street 
 arrangement that has resulted from the Governor and 
 Judges' plan. In making any change in street topog- 
 raphy, I think it very essential that respect and consid- 
 eration should be shown for that plotting which not only 
 is an essential and interesting characteristic of the city, 
 but which is the very frame and skeleton on which local 
 history is hung. In making street changes, you should 
 cherish the spirit of the old plan, developing it and fitting 
 it to new conditions, but not slashing it right and left as 
 regardless as if you had only the colorless checkerboard 
 of the usual city map on which to work. 
 
 46 
 
Nearly all the most serious mistakes of Detroit's 
 past have arisen from a disregard of the spirit of the 
 Governor and Judges' plan. If the plotters of the farms 
 had had respect for that, instead of each going his own 
 way, the streets beyond Cass and Brush would not have 
 had the jogs they now hav, and Detroit would have had 
 a better chance for beauty and harmony, to say nothing 
 of the added convenience and economy for its citizens in 
 getting about. The same thing has been true as regards 
 the plotters of the suburban tracts just beyond the stead- 
 ily advancing city line ; and it was neglect of the spirit 
 of that plan that placed the County Building where it 
 now stands, as it was indifference to the fine topographi- 
 cal provision of civic centers that put the Federal Build- 
 ing almost out of sight. Even the City Hall would not 
 have stood just where it does, had the plan been fully 
 respected. 
 
 But to think of correcting all these errors and to 
 devise a new and splendid modern city on a careful and 
 accurate development of the original plotting is not the 
 problem of the hour, because it would not be practicable. 
 We may note, for instance, taking them one by one, that 
 Grand River Avenue ought to be matched by another 
 splendid diagonal between Gratiot and Woodward, 
 which would cut an extension of Grand River at right 
 angles, offering direct communication to the residents of 
 the northeastern section of the city. If this could be 
 made a parkway, as Philadelphia is now building a splen- 
 did diagonal parkway, and could be connected with the 
 boulevard, so much the better. But unless the ill-fortune 
 of a fire, such as recently devastated large areas in other 
 cities, should chance to lay bare that portion of Detroit, 
 it will not be practicable to cut the avenue through, be- 
 cause with the other needs the demand for this will not 
 justify the expense. We may only keep the thought of 
 
 47 
 
it in mind, to be ready should opportunity offer. Simi- 
 larly one can wish that Griswold Street might be some- 
 time extended at its full width to the river. 
 
 Again, there are innumerable jogs in the streets that 
 run east and west, and much perfectly justifiable com- 
 plaint concerning them ; but it is out of the question to 
 remedy all of these now. I observed that in a great many 
 cases, however, it is feasible to work an immediate im- 
 provement by the substitution of a curve for the present 
 double right-angle. In these cases it is simply a matter 
 of curbing and plotting, involving the purchase of no 
 additional property. In yet other cases, the acquirement 
 of no more than ten or fifteen feet from the corners of un- 
 occupied lots will render possible a change by which a 
 curve, making a really delightful street variation, could 
 be substituted for the present awkward, annoying, dan- 
 gerous and retarding "jog." As fast as opportunity of- 
 fers, these changes ought, of course, to be brought about ; 
 and little by little there would thus be wrought a very 
 great and very practical improvement in the city plan. 
 I would recommend the appointment of a sub-committee 
 to act in this matter. It should represent the Board and 
 should make it a duty to watch for these chances and to 
 see that they are availed of by the city to rectify present 
 conditions. Unless some committee relpre/senting the 
 whole city is thus on the watch, they are too likely to be 
 overlooked or to have only the weak advocacy of the 
 local neighborhood. The work is important to the city 
 at large, and by the suggested committee much good can 
 be done. 
 
 Coming to the matter of the irregular plotting of 
 suburban areas, it is remarkable that with so many ex- 
 amples of the evil consequences which result from lack 
 of a comprehensive scheme, there is still permitted a con- 
 tinuance of inharmonious plotting. An immediate and 
 
obvious remedy would be the extension of the city line. 
 It may properly be argued that when the urban popula- 
 tion has reached so near a certain tract as to make worth 
 while its division and sub-division into streets, the time 
 has come for the city to exert over the tract that super- 
 vision which it is supposed to exercise over all the land 
 within its boundaries. It is not as if the new areas were 
 to be always a frontier, their sins to be forgiven as those 
 of a frontier. With the wonderful increase in rapid 
 transit facilities, the onward march of the city is no less 
 certain than is its gain in population, and streets that are 
 on today's frontier may tomorrow be arteries of heavy 
 travel. In thus extending the city line also, in riling a 
 "city map," and in demanding adherence to its lines in 
 the new plotting, Detroit would be only following the 
 precedent of other cities. 
 
 The location of Public Buildings 
 
 As for the location of the public buildings, it has 
 been resolved to postpone, for some years at least, the 
 erection of a new City Hall, while the location of the 
 Federal and County Buildings is to be now accepted as 
 fixed. Not to deplore the loss of an exceptional oppor- 
 tunity, but to make the best of the situation, is the pres- 
 ent duty. 
 
 Consideration of these buildings necessarily involves 
 consideration of the Campus Martius and of Cadillac 
 Square, which are in the very heart of the city, and of 
 which the former was a striking feature of the Governor 
 and Judges' plan. As the city has developed, and great 
 buildings have clustered around the Campus instead of 
 around the Grand Circus, this has become in fact the most 
 conspicuous feature of the plan as unique in the possi- 
 bilities of its civic function as in the name that has clung 
 
 49 
 
to it. Properly to develop this, to make it for Detroit 
 what the Place de la Concorde is to Paris, to throw the 
 emphasis of civic improvement effort upon this space 
 to which center each of the four greatest streets of the 
 city and so to bring out and ennoble the most promi- 
 nently persistent feature of the Governor and Judges' 
 plan this will do more for Detroit than any other one 
 thing, save the reclaiming of some of the river bank, and 
 it will be to the enhancement not the loss of the indi- 
 viduality of the city. 
 
 Unhappily the problem has lately become extremely 
 difficult. The first and most obvious necessity is the re- 
 moval of the buildings fortunately still cheap two and 
 three-story structures that are on the north side of 
 Cadillac Square, and that screen half of the County Build- 
 ing from the City Hall and Campus. The action, which 
 should of course be taken immediately, seems to be abso- 
 lutely essential, and it will be folly for Detroit to pretend 
 to any regard for the principles of civic aesthetics while 
 this blot remains. It would seem, however, that the 
 county might well bear half of the expense, since the pur- 
 pose is to reveal the County Building, and so to give a 
 return on the large investment which it has made in the 
 structure's dignity and beauty. 
 
 The buildings run back a hundred feet to a twenty 
 foot alley, and with this addition to its area a remodeling 
 of Cadillac Square will become necessary. It will be 
 then a splendid plaza three hundred and twenty feet 
 wide, and will invite a rearrangement of the civic sculp- 
 ture monuments and fountains now scattered some- 
 what promiscuously about Campus and Square. 
 
 I have given a good deal of thought to the problem, 
 as it will be thus presented, and my personal feeling is 
 that it may be advisable to purchase one other, compara- 
 tively small, piece of real estate, regarding which there 
 
 50 
 
seems at this time to be no hurry; that it will then be 
 possible to rearrange the car tracks in the Campus 
 Martius, without detriment to traffic, and to erect an Isle 
 of Safety, that will serve also as a waiting place for pas- 
 sengers who desire to board the trolleys, and that will 
 be ornamentally lighted, making it a handsome, approp- 
 riate and useful feature of the new development. Some 
 Isles of Safety are already very much needed on the 
 Campus ; but in view of the necessity of remodeling the 
 whole space now an insignificant jumble of trolley cars 
 and stray statuary plans for these may well be held in 
 abeyance. The possibilities of the space are so fine, and 
 its noble development will add so much to the appear- 
 ance of Detroit, that I urge you with all the force I have 
 to summon to the solution of this complex problem a 
 commission that shall include an architect, a landscape 
 architect, and a city designer. You should not trust it to 
 one man. His success or failure at this point means too 
 much to you; and it is deserving, both in its difficulty 
 and in its reward for success, of the combined judgment 
 and knowledge of several experts. All that I can attempt 
 to do in this report is to bid you see that the structures 
 on the north side of Cadillac Square now screening the 
 County Building be purchased, and then, putting my 
 finger on the Campus Martius, to say, develop that to its 
 utmost, and for this purpose call to your aid a commis- 
 sion of experts. 
 
 The Federal Building is so isolated by its site that 
 the problem is to bring it into relation with the other 
 public structures, for the day has gone by when it is nec- 
 essary to present to such a committee as yours any argu- 
 ments for the apparent grouping of the public buildings. 
 You fully appreciate that in the creation of a Civic Cen- 
 ter (already nearly realized), through the bringing of 
 these buildings into a single comprehensive scheme, De- 
 
 51 
 
troit would take its place among the beautiful cities of 
 the world. And the distance between the Federal Build- 
 ing and the County Building, much of which is already a 
 public open space, is no more than that between the most 
 distant structures which the city of Cleveland is now 
 bringing into a splended Court of Honor. 
 
 To connect the Federal Building with the central 
 scheme, the row of buildings still, happily, unimport- 
 ant on the north side of Fort street, between it and the 
 City Hall, ought to be removed. This space should not, 
 then, be thrown into the street to become part of a broad 
 Plaza, as will be done at Cadillac Square, but it should be 
 given a distinct development that will frankly indicate its 
 exact purpose, and it should even be shut off from the 
 street by a line of ornamental columns that will carry on 
 the building line. 
 
 These changes mean altogether a considerable ex- 
 penditure and the acquirement of a good deal of prop- 
 erty; but once the land is purchased its development, 
 which can wait if you desire, will not be expensive. The 
 sale of the material may fully care for that. And I know 
 of no other city in the country where the purchase of so 
 little and, so inexpensively built up, would give so large 
 a public tract before and around the public buildings, and 
 would offer so splendid an opportunity in the very cen- 
 ter of the town. This work is practicable today, but it 
 may not be in six months or a year from now. Any day a sky- 
 scraper may begin to rise on one of these plots, and then 
 Detroit's opportunity will be forever lost. You have a 
 chance a rare, great chance and I beg that you will 
 grasp it, in appreciation of what your decision will mean 
 to the future of the city. 
 
 I have presented the opportunity in its simplest form 
 because I want you to see how clear the present duty is. 
 If the work were to be done in almost any city of Europe, 
 
the municipality would purchase much more land than 
 that directly required for the improvement: first, that 
 it might have appropriate sites for other public buildings ; 
 second, that it might control the private buildings which 
 would face on the new plaza ; and third, that it might re- 
 coup itself for some of the original expenditure by the 
 sale of building lots at the advanced value which should 
 result from the development. It is hardly necessary to 
 go into the matter in detail. You are the best judges 
 whether such a plan would be at all feasible in Detroit, 
 whether there would be the requisite public confidence in 
 the integrity and business acumen of the administration ; 
 whether it could be better managed by an officially ap- 
 pointed commission of representative citizens ; or whether 
 it will be best to follow the commoner American method 
 of adopting the direct and simplest course and buying for 
 the municipality only what the municipality will immedi- 
 ately use. My plea now is simply that the work be under- 
 taken the work that would give to your Board a place 
 in local history beside "the Governor and Judges." 
 
 So much for the correction of the most prominent of 
 the mistakes that have arisen from disregard of the spirit 
 of Detroit's historic plan. There remain some considera- 
 tions concerning its adaptation to modern conditions. 
 
 Interior Boulevards 
 
 Washington Avenue, a street of the splendid width 
 of two hundred feet and parked down the center, stops 
 abruptly within a block of Lafayette Avenue, which you 
 have now added to the boulevard system. By extending 
 it the one block and giving it a slight curve, that would 
 not be inappropriate in a parked street of such width, you 
 can connect it with the boulevard, you can offer it the fine 
 terminus of the Federal Building and tower, and you can 
 
 53 
 
open the Federal Building on that side. It would seem 
 that the advantages were sufficiently numerous and im- 
 portant to make this worth while. It may be said, of 
 course, that the fine and beautiful thing to do would be 
 to extend Washington Avenue at its full width to the 
 river, where it would come out just at the depots ; but, 
 with the other more pressing expenditures, I have feared 
 that this would not seem practicable. 
 
 With the great length of Grand River Avenue and 
 the rapid increase of population, the matter of an ade- 
 quate outlet for its growing traffic has become pressing. 
 The question is one of municipal convenience more than 
 of civic aesthetics. At the point where Grand River 
 narrows from 100 to 60 feet, Cass Avenue loses also 24 
 feet of its width, and the point is where the heavy travel 
 of these long and busy streets converges. With the city's 
 growth congestion here must become steadily more seri- 
 ous unless relief is offered, and the cost of relief must 
 constantly increase. I think the best plan now is to 
 widen Grand River Avenue on its south side to its inter- 
 section with Washington Avenue. This is broad enough 
 to facilitate the distribution of the traffic. An ampler 
 plan, but one involving more expense, would be to widen 
 Grand River as suggested and continue it to Capitol Park ; 
 but I believe that the advantage over the Washington 
 Avenue terminus, with its proffer of two thoroughfares 
 to Woodward Avenue, would not be great enough to com- 
 mend the added cost. 
 
 On the other side of Grand Circus Park there is an 
 opportunity for a noble bit of municipal planning by the 
 extension, at its full width, of Madison Avenue east to 
 Raynor Street, intersecting Gratiot Avenue, and opening 
 Clinton Park. This improvement would be most con- 
 spicuously aesthetic. 
 
 54 
 
Other street changes could be suggested, for I think 
 the great lesson which Detroit has to learn, as regards 
 topography, is that it is the duty of a street to lead to 
 something; that its function is not alone to collect and 
 carry traffic ; it is quite as much to disperse it. But I 
 have pointed out as many changes as are likely to prove 
 "practicable" in this portion of the city ; and, while retain- 
 ing its original distinctive character, they are the changes 
 that will do most to increase the efficiency and effective- 
 ness of its highways and to add to the beauty and con- 
 venience of the business section. If you do these things 
 and nothing more, you will have done much to give to 
 Detroit that air of spaciousness and scientific planning 
 which is the charm of the beautiful modern city. 
 
 But there is one more need to which, fortunately, the 
 people of Detroit are awakened, that is essential to their 
 own fuller enjoyment, to the good impression that the 
 city should make upon strangers, and to an appearance of 
 public spirit and wise planning. This is the reclaiming 
 and betterment of a part of the water front. The thing 
 of which you all are proudest is your noble river, and it 
 is the thing which the city seems to treat most con- 
 temptuously. 
 
 The Water Front 
 
 If a map of the city were held at a little distance and 
 a stranger were asked to indicate the portion of the 
 water front which he thought should be reclaimed, he 
 would point to that part nearest to the center of the city 
 and toward which the great streets converge. If now 
 the map were brought a little nearer, and he was shown 
 that the railroads and large manufactories occupied the 
 river front from Brush Street almost to Belle Isle bridge, 
 and from Third Street as far in the opposite direction, he 
 
 55 
 
would reiterate his former judgment and would congratu- 
 late you on the good luck which exempts from the rail- 
 road's steel grip the very portion most to be desired. 
 Suppose now the map were brought so near that he could 
 study it, and he should see a splendid avenue, 120 feet 
 wide, and the backbone of the city, brought in a straight 
 line to the river at about the center of the plot he had in- 
 dicated; suppose he were told that a little portion of the 
 land on one side of the avenue and within the chosen 
 strip were already public property, where a tiny bit of 
 green sward accessible by an alley was pathetically called 
 a "park," and that on the other side, but still within the 
 narrow strip, there was another bit of green sward which 
 private enterprise had secured, would not his judgment 
 be emphatically confirmed? It is really a remarkable 
 combination of circumstances that have conspired to 
 make available for public water front improvement the 
 little space between Third and Brush Streets. Whatever 
 may be thought of the advisability or possibility of con- 
 tinuing the work up or down the river, there can be no 
 two opinions as to where you should begin. To secure 
 this all parties should concentrate. 
 
 For my own part, I shall not recommend a thought 
 of extending the work in a continuous form, for some 
 years at least, beyond the limits indicated. The dirt and 
 noise of railroads and factories would make unpleasant 
 the land side of the suggested promenade, even if it were 
 practicable; and if once you get the ten blocks or so of 
 river bank in the center of the city and make all you 
 might of that, you will find it accommodating a multitude 
 of people, while there will be many other ways, of which 
 much has been already pointed out, in which the public 
 moneys can be more effectively expended. But if not 
 recommending further continuous construction at just 
 this time, I do not wish to be understood as advising neg- 
 
 56 
 
lect of the water front beyond the chosen strip. I shall 
 indicate in the termini of the boulevard some specific 
 points at which special improvement can be made, and I 
 would urge the utmost vigilance to grasp any opportu- 
 nity that may arise for a pleasant public space on the 
 shore. It would be well to have a society making this 
 its particular care. And I would urge that as far as pos- 
 sible every street which comes down to the water's edge 
 should be suitably finished as a municipal vantage point, 
 whence any one may watch, with safety and enjoyment, 
 the wonderful panorama of the river traffic. If you im- 
 prove the street ends and the ten blocks in the center of 
 the city, you will have restored the river to the people, 
 and then the city will not seem to have turned its back 
 to the stream, but to be facing it. 
 
 A word now about the character of the improvement 
 between Brush and Third Streets. It ought to be sub- 
 stantial in appearance and to be given its main and 
 strong emphasis at Woodward Avenue. There has been 
 some talk about the Antwerp promenade offering a good 
 model for Detroit, and in certain particulars its hints are 
 of value ; but the Antwerp promenade is distinctly disap- 
 pointing in its lightness of construction. Any seeming 
 flimsiness on the shore line is out-of-place, for its appar- 
 ent purpose is to arrest the mighty tide. If you make it 
 orderly, strong, imposing, as Paris, London, Rome and 
 smaller Italian cities do, you at once dignify the aspect 
 of the city, and magnify the power of the stream. More- 
 over, in Detroit very large and strong steamers will tie 
 up before this water front improvement. If they were 
 to be the small pleasure craft of an ordinary river, there 
 would be less incongruousness in setting them beside a 
 lightly built esplanade; but you do not want it to look 
 as if with a single sigh from their great stacks and a 
 single restless turn of their propellers they would pull 
 
 57 
 
the whole construction into the river! Whatever you 
 do, make the improvement look worthy of the meeting 
 place of a great city and a great river and make it seem 
 strong enough to hold the largest vessels that may tie 
 there. For these reasons I do not favor the "Board 
 Walk" idea, nor even the likeness of the Atlantic City 
 walk which is a board floor on a light steel frame. By 
 all means have the light steel frame, but give it a con- 
 crete floor and give to it at least in the seeming piers 
 of masonry or of concrete made to look like stone. And 
 have no gas pipe railing along its edge ; but an orna- 
 mental and substantial one unless you will build a para- 
 pet and punctuate it at near intervals with stout light 
 standards alternating with masts for flags. 
 
 Begin the work at Woodward Avenue, treating that 
 as a water-gate the official entrance to the city. And 
 it should be that, the place where distinguished guests are 
 received. There never was a spot more clearly and splen- 
 didly marked for the purpose than this broad avenue lead- 
 ing straight up to the public buildings. The terminus of 
 the street already belongs to the city, so that you can do 
 what you like with it. There is a good illustration in 
 Bordeaux's harbor treatment; but I would like to see it 
 modified a little for your case. I would suggest twin 
 towers, connected very high up (so as not to break the 
 fine vista of the street) by a graceful span of steel, making 
 a lofty promenade. Beads of light, outlining the arch on 
 the landward side, would take the place of the string that 
 now flutters across the avenue, in very weak recognition 
 of the civic import of the spot. On the river side the 
 arch itself would be lost in darkness at night, but lights 
 would blaze from the summit of the towers. Supple- 
 mentary to the towers, and carrying the scheme into the 
 city, I think there would be wanted standards at the top 
 of the gentle ascent, where Jefferson Avenue crosses 
 
 58 
 
Woodward. On the other sides of the towers, away 
 from the street, where the ferry piers for Windsor and 
 Belle Isle are now, architectural bays would support a 
 broad esplanade without necessary detriment, and even 
 with advantage, to the present business. From these 
 points the promenade, steel frame on seeming piers of 
 stone and grown somewhat narrower (unless you found 
 it feasible to adopt the plan of Algiers in which ware- 
 house and promenade are combined) could stretch away, 
 coming down to the level of the ground by a broad flight 
 of steps where the municipal lighting plant and the re- 
 served space at the Wayne Hotel give opportunities for 
 little parks. The whole cost of this improvement would 
 be small indeed considering the pleasure it would give to 
 the people and the betterment of the aspect of the city; 
 and it is a well conceived idea that at the lighting plant a 
 public bath and wash house, making use of the exhaust 
 steam, could be inconspicuously added to the scheme. 
 
 The most distinctive features of Detroit, the river 
 front and Campus Martius, have been now considered 
 the features upon which the special emphasis is to be put 
 in developing its civic possibilities. There remain a group 
 of undertakings that concern the convenience, comfort and 
 pleasure of the residents of the city more particularly than 
 its guests that may count much with the citizens, but 
 not greatly with the general impression which Detroit 
 would make upon strangers. These include the problems 
 connected with the parks and boulevards and the general 
 care of the city. 
 
 A New Bell Isle Bridge 
 
 Beginning with Belle Isle, a unique and splendid 
 pleasure ground, the horrible bridge that connects it with 
 the mainland is too much of a calamity to make possible 
 
 59 
 
a restriction of its effect to the citizens alone. Nobly 
 dedicating the great reserve to public enjoyment, you 
 have made its approach the semblance of a railroad bridge 
 of the ugliest type. A new bridge here cannot be long 
 delayed, and when it comes it should be made monu- 
 mental and beautiful, of full boulevard width, and in ap- 
 pearance as well as in fact a part of the boulevard. On 
 the island itself, the sheds at the lower end should give 
 way as doubtless they soon will to something worth- 
 ier. Detroit has outgrown that first phase of civic art 
 when fine things are done in a shamefaced, makeshift 
 way, and there is no need now of a professional advice 
 to correct the error. 
 
 Having toured the island on a November morning, 
 I shall make no attempt to discuss its interior develop- 
 ment beyond remarking that here, as also in Water 
 Works Park, the canal borders should have better plant- 
 ing. In a natural park especially, these canals, an ex- 
 cellent feature, ought to have the semblance of placid 
 streams with the hard lines of their edges broken by vege- 
 tation. The willows give a beautiful start in securing 
 this effect. 
 
 At the upper end of the island, but with great cir- 
 cumspection in the accompanying planning lest the wild 
 beauty of the natural forest be broken, I would have a 
 bridge distinctly secondary in importance to the main 
 approach thrown over to the Water Works Park. This 
 will create a circular drive always a desirable feature 
 in park development, since it makes possible a return by 
 another route than that which was used in coming and 
 will bring Water Works Park into the park system. 
 Further to do this, to complete the circle and incidentally 
 recognizing the city's growth, I would recommend that 
 Cadillac Avenue be included in the boulevard system as 
 far as Kercheval Avenue. It leads with absolute direct- 
 
 60 
 
ness from Water Works Park, is the broadest of the 
 north and south streets near it, and the Water Works 
 Tower closes its vista very picturesquely as one ap- 
 proaches the park. Reaching Kercheval Avenue and 
 turning towards the city, I would include that in the 
 boulevard system until the woods on the right hand side 
 are reached. They comprise a fine growth of large tim- 
 ber, covering a parallelogram strangely matching in size 
 and situation Clark Park on the other side of the city. 
 I think a very strong effort should be made, while these 
 trees are still standing, to add the tract to the park sys- 
 tem. If this can be done, the new boulevard can then 
 lose itself with pleasant variation in a park drive through 
 the woods, emerging at their further end to connect di- 
 rectly with the present boulevard. I hope this will cer- 
 tainly be brought about; but should efforts to obtain the 
 woodland fail, the route could continue along Kercheval 
 Avenue to the boulevard. The alternative is distinctly 
 less desirable, but there is no other better route, and 
 while there are already car tracks on Kercheval Avenue, 
 the distance is not great. The track can be put at the side 
 of the road, more or less planted out, and turf between the 
 rails will lessen dust and noise as has been successfully 
 done on Beacon Boulevard, for instance, in Boston. The 
 completion of this new boulevard circle would prove, I 
 believe, a very desirable and popular addition to your 
 system. 
 
 The Boulevard 
 
 Taking up now the existing boulevard, with a word 
 of praise for the courage and foresight that dared to estab- 
 lish and develop it, we may begin at the Belle Isle bridge. 
 
 There seems to be a chance, on both sides here, for 
 the city to obtain water frontage ; and it ought to do so, 
 
 61 
 
if for no other reason than to hold off at arm's length 
 such industrial plants as the neighboring Detroit Stove 
 Works, which, whatever are their merits, are not ap- 
 propriate boulevard ornaments. At the crossing of 
 Gratiot Avenue the boulevard takes a jog which is un- 
 necessarily bad. By a very little care in replanning it 
 can be given a graceful curve. Again, the subsequent 
 turn, as in the case of its almost every turn, is sharper 
 than desirable. At McDougall Avenue I think the boule- 
 vard should take a double turn, going not only to the 
 right but also to the left, boulevarding McDougal the 
 short two blocks to Ferry, whence a pleasant drive would 
 be offered into the very center of the residence district. 
 Continuing on the established boulevard, there are 
 reached, after the third turn, the railroad crossings. I 
 note that the boulevard is being carried, very properly, 
 over one of the sets of tracks and I hope the plan is, as it 
 should be, to continue it on a viaduct until both series of 
 tracks are passed. This would add very little to the ex- 
 pense, would be much pleasanter than, having risen over 
 one set of tracks, to fall abruptly to the level and then to 
 rise over the next, and it would tend to conceal from this 
 park road the manufacturing plants that are gathered 
 here. I think, too, that by virtue of the latter's position 
 at the side of the boulevard, ampolopsis might be planted 
 against their walls. 
 
 Of the rest of the boulevard it is hardly necessary to 
 speak with the same detail, the problem being generally 
 similar throughout, but in making the circuit it occurred 
 to me that there were long stretches where a bridle path 
 might so pleasantly be included that I wondered it had 
 not been demanded. A bridle path, it may be added, is 
 almost as unfailing a source of enjoyment to those who 
 watch the riding as to those who ride. At the western 
 end of the boulevard, the lack of a terminus is notable 
 
 62 
 
and striking. Having come twelve miles around this 
 noble drive, with the river in sight again, it fritters into 
 nothing. It should be carried over the tracks and 
 brought to the water's edge, and here, at the elevation 
 gained in crossing the railroad, a turn should be made 
 whence the panorama of the river may be seen. There 
 is a good chance here for a necessary bit of water front 
 improvement. 
 
 In the boulevarding of Lafayette Avenue, an oppor- 
 tunity is offered to bring Clark Park into the system, in- 
 stead of permitting its continued isolation as if a giant 
 dray bringing some of the country into town had dropped 
 this off the back. Lafayette Boulevard should not stop ab- 
 ruptly at the playground; but even at the risk of losing 
 some playground space or at the cost of its redistribu- 
 tion the road should be brought gracefully around to 
 lose itself in the devious ways of the park. 
 
 So, with a report already much longer than I had in- 
 tended, we come to some general considerations, affect- 
 ing the city as a whole. 
 
 You have fine trees, but they ought to be taken care 
 of, and I would earnestly recommend that the street 
 trees be put in charge of the Commissioner of Parks and 
 Boulevards, or that the office of city forester be created. 
 Better results are obtained, as a rule, in having a separate 
 officer who has made a special study of street trees, who 
 is an expert in their care, and who alone is responsible 
 for them, than in putting them in charge of a Park Board 
 
 You have also an exceptionally good system of alleys, 
 speaking topographically; but they are badly treated. 
 The alleys ought to be paved, preferably with asphalt, 
 throughout the business section, because it is easiest 
 to keep clean. Cobblestones are properly considered now 
 a relic of urban barbarism in Baltimore the laying of 
 them is treated legally as a crime. And whether the al- 
 
 63 
 
leys are paved or not, an ordinance should require that 
 all rubbish and ashes be put into receptacles which will 
 be emptied by the city as certainly as the garbage is so 
 collected. You cannot have clean streets while you have 
 dirty alleys ; and ill-paved alleys mock well-paved streets. 
 The trolleys are necessarily a very important feature 
 of modern city life. They seem to be exceptionally so in 
 Detroit, and local conditions having fastened upon you 
 the overhead system for an indefinite future, you should 
 see that it serves as far as possible the ends of civic 
 beauty. In the business district at least certainly on 
 Woodward Avenue between the Water Gate and the 
 Grand Circus Park and on the re-made Campus Martius 
 and Cadillac Square you may properly demand some art 
 and beauty in the trolley poles. These are conspicuous 
 street fixtures which in Europe are made frankly orna- 
 mental ; and I am glad to say that the movement has now 
 reached America. Photographs of castings for a really 
 ornamental base and cap to a trolley pole have lately 
 been sent to me by the Phoenix Iron Works Corporation, 
 of Hartford, Conn., and it is surprising how cheaply these 
 can be added to the poles and with what good effect. The 
 matter is well worth your looking into. It is a chance to 
 make a distinct improvement in the appearance of your 
 streets without expense to the city. 
 
 Small Parks 
 
 One other general matter to which I would call your 
 attention is Detroit's paucity of small parks, when the 
 topography of the city lends itself singularly well to their 
 development at street intersections. Here they will be- 
 come part of the street system and can occupy ground 
 which, owing to the narrowness of the lot or its tapering 
 character, is good for so little else that it must be always 
 
 64 
 
an eyesore until it is thus developed. The plan of De- 
 troit, with very good reason, suggests that of Washing- 
 ton, and you all know how important a feature of that 
 city's beauty is the number of its ornamental circles, tri- 
 angles and squares. Of course, you cannot put these 
 all over the town at once, but I would suggest that De- 
 troit adopt the general plan of New York City so much 
 less happily placed in this respect where a certain sum 
 is set aside for expenditure each year in securing open 
 spaces. In Philadelphia a strong association of private 
 citizens the City Parks Association has interested it- 
 self in the matter. The streets are laid out on the grid- 
 iron plan so that there any park reservation usually means 
 loss of good building land, as it would not mean here. 
 Yet the 1904 report shows that in the sixteen years of the 
 Association's life, twenty new open spaces have been 
 actually secured and improved, that five more are now 
 being improved, and that nineteen others have been al- 
 ready plotted or given, but have not yet been developed. 
 This is a total of forty-four new open spaces, against a 
 total of twelve secured in all the long previous life of the 
 city. And a surprising and encouraging feature of the 
 movement is the number of spaces that have been pre- 
 sented to the city. In the suburban plotting, outside the 
 present Detroit city limits, there should be no need of 
 such an opportunist policy, but the parks should be ar- 
 ranged for in the street planning. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 As I look back over the recommendations of this 
 report, it seems as if I had given too many suggestions, 
 as if I had so scattered the emphasis as to dissipate it and 
 leave no clear conception of precisely what to do. But 
 it was your wish that I should cover the whole city, and 
 
 65 
 
in a place the size of Detroit you cannot concentrate upon 
 any one thing with a hope of making the city beautiful. 
 You must seize this opportunity and that opportunity; 
 there must be a change here and a development there; 
 there must be a dwelling upon specific details in one 
 part of the city and in another. But when all is done, 
 the City Beautiful will emerge the city made conven- 
 ient, stately, dignified, obviously conscious of its oppor- 
 tunities, sure of its future, its every advantage grasped. 
 
 And after all, the recommendations once grouped, 
 are not so many as to confuse nor is their total imprac- 
 ticable. There is the suggestion of a sub-committee to 
 handle the matter of the street jogs; there are certain 
 definite pieces of real estate to be acquired ; there is to be 
 an extension of the city boundaries or the adoption of a 
 metropolitan map ; there is to be advocated the appoint- 
 ment of a commission of experts to deal with the Campus 
 Martius and Cadillac Square problem ; there is to be the 
 water front improvement; there are the park and boule- 
 vard recommendations, to be considered by the Commis- 
 sioner of Parks and Boulevards; there is the suggestion 
 that a City Forester be asked for, that the alleys have bet- 
 ter care, that an improved trolley pole be obtained in the 
 show parts of the city, and that there be begun an effort 
 to secure more small parks at street intersections. De- 
 troit is fortunate among American municipalities in hav- 
 ing already secured a good and abundant water supply, 
 good sewage and good light. It may now reasonably 
 turn to the amenities of life, and with the courage, faith, 
 public spirit and broad view that has made the city what 
 it already is, it may take up the task of making itself more 
 beautiful and the life in it pleasanter, and of grasping the 
 heritages that are rightfully its people's. 
 
 In closing the report I have only one more word to 
 say. It is to express my appreciation of the courtesies 
 
 66 
 
of the Committee and of the ready co-operation of every 
 member. You made a task that must in any case have 
 been exceptionally interesting so great are Detroit's op- 
 portunities one also of exceeding personal pleasure. 
 
RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 UCLA 
 
 TFDMRDADV 1 J l A 
 
 
 ,' .' n IOA 
 
 M Ay - 
 
 
 m} 8 1974 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 LD 21-327n-3,'74 General Library 
 (R7057slO)476 A-32 University of California 
 Berkeley