UC-NRLF 
 
 e H S^B fiSl h^MJf '*-- ii *^^ 
 
 
REPORT OF 
 
 Charles Mulford Robinson 
 
 Jfnrl iiagn^ (Hunt ilm^niurm^nt 
 Aaanrtattnu 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 Fort Wayne Printing Compani 
 fcrt wayne. ind 
 
F 
 
OFFICERS AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
 
 3^ort Mayttr (Etwir ilmprotirmpnt Assoriattntt 
 
 Charles H. Worden. president 
 
 Dr. L. Park Drayer. vice-President 
 
 Robert B. Hanna, secretary 
 
 William H. Scheiman. treasurer 
 Rabbi H. F. Ettelson Samuel M. Foster 
 
 William E. Mobsman Louis D. Redding 
 
 Louis Fox 
 
 227772 
 

 
 i 
 
 rST as an artist is al)le to ('i-eate 
 a plan of a chureli or palace 
 that is perfectly adapted to 
 its i)iu-poses ; just as, in sueh 
 cases, it is liis task to work 
 with a conscientious regard 
 for all the demands imposed 
 hy necessity— so artistic city 
 planning is to be understood 
 as that wliicli does not work 
 according to systems, but 
 according to the specific (-on- 
 ditions of the case in hand. 
 Not art alone, but the appropriate development of all the 
 possible advantages, with due regard to the specific- pi-ohleui, 
 is the aim. The artistically creative city planner should 
 seek out all peculiarities of the site, and emphasize them 
 according to their individuality." 
 
 "Qerman City Planning," by Cornelius Gurlilt. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Introduction ------ *.* 
 
 The Problem - - - - - -11 
 
 The Business Streets ----- 15 
 
 The Official Quarter ----- 3(5 
 
 Approaches to the New Station - - - 40 
 
 An Industrial District - - - - - 48 
 
 Public ^iarket ------ 55 
 
 Residence Streets - - - - - - 58 
 
 Improvement of the Parks - - - - <38 
 
 River Drive and Parkway System - - - 0(1 
 
 Conclusion - - - - - - 121 
 
ALL FOR C3IME A^D 
 
 OI\E FOR ALL 
 SLOGAN 
 
 CIVIC REVIVAL 
 
 JUNE 2 TO 6 09 
 WHiT ISUIVIC REVIViL 
 
 ilntro&iutiun. 
 
 To the Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association, 
 Fort Wayne, Indiana. 
 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 Considered abstractly, the civic improvement problem 
 which is presented by Fort Wayne is exceedingly interesting. 
 This is for three special reasons : 
 
 It has the interest, first, of being representative of a group 
 of problems, for Fort Wayne is typical of a large number of 
 industrial cities that require readjustment. The population of 
 these cities is hard working and, in the aggregate, large. To 
 add to the beauty of one such city, to the opportunities it of- 
 fers for healthful exercise out-of-doors ; to make it in every 
 way a better place to live in without unreasonable municipal ex- 
 penditure, could not fail to be helpfully suggestive to other 
 similar cities and hence to perform a great social and econo- 
 mic service — social, because one would thus be brightening 
 many lives ; economic, because the result would be to increase 
 the efficiency of labor and to bring in and hold a high class 
 of labor. The probability of this double service is the second 
 reason why the proffered problem appeals. Third, it is inter- 
 esting because the conditions surrounding its presentation 
 were so unusual, the "Civic Revival" having been, in itself 
 and in its effects, a remarkable movement. 
 
 Without reference, therefore, to the local topographical 
 conditions, the problem demands one's best study. Because 
 those conditions lia])])en to prove exceptionally favorable, the 
 problem in concrete consideration becomes the more absorb- 
 ing. 
 
 As a result of mv slnd\', I have the honor to submit the 
 following" conclusions, recommendations, and suggestions: 
 
HE PROBLEM 
 
 Fort Wiiyiic has had no 
 niushi'oom growth. It is coiri- 
 paratively an ohl city, as cities 
 U'o in the Middle West, and 
 yet its popuhition now is only 
 abont 6-"),000. It is an ini- 
 poi-tant raili-oad center, and 
 the traffic facilities thns oifer- 
 cd, its pr*)xiniity to lai-geniai-- 
 kets, and its location in a ri(^h 
 trilnitary farming- conn try 
 liave united to canse a con- 
 sistently continnons groAvth, 
 and to determine lieyond (piestion the city's character, present 
 and fnture, as a mannfactnriiig and trading eommnnity. 
 
 The gradualness of the increase in population must have 
 presented, one might think, ideal opportunities for municipal 
 improvement. On the contrary, the very lack of spectacular 
 hooms to shock the civic consciousness into a realization of 
 tendencies and destiny, has invited, heretofore, a degree of 
 lethargy and procrastination. The streets are well paved, 
 good sidewalks have recently been laid, the pavements are 
 reasonably clean ; but there has been little evidence of civic 
 imagination. The community has now realized suddenly that 
 a future, long permitted to look out for itself, has at last ar- 
 rived ; that narrow streets are getting unduly congested, that 
 high buildings have gone up on sites that it might have been 
 civic wisdom to keep open ; that the beautiful rivers have be- 
 come dumping grounds ; that in the building up of vacant lots, 
 the children have lost their play space. It has paused, taking 
 account of these conditions, to learn what it can yet do to 
 correct the omissions of the past and to prepare for the as- 
 sured future. Thus is the problem concerned largely, but not 
 alone, with the present needs of Fort Wayne. It is, How can 
 the present city better adjust itself to the requirements of that 
 
12 
 
 Purl U'ayiic Cii'ic hiiprirc'ciiicnt AssDciatioii 
 
 business and ])o])nlati()n wliicli, in a now immiiKMit fuUire. lie 
 before it ? 
 
 Topogra])hioally, tlic cit\- is situated on a i)lain. 'i"he 
 main lines of the Pennsylvania and W'abasli railroads, euttinji^ 
 a broad swath through the city, practically bisect it. The St. 
 Mary's River flows north along" its western edge, until, about 
 opposite the center of the city, it turns northeastward and then 
 cast, to meet the St. Joseph, which comes out of the north. 
 The two form the IMaumee, and flow eastward along what 
 presently becomes tlie northern bomidary of the city. So the 
 city has rivers on two sides. 
 
 Railroads, Business Sireels (shaded) and Rivers of Fori Wayne— The City's Determining Lines. 
 
Fort IVayiic Civic Jmprovcmoit .Issociatioii 13 
 
 The meandering's of these streams have influenced the 
 street system less than might have been expected. Perhaps 
 this is because the g-eneral north and east direction of their 
 flcnv is so nearly in harmony with a compass-laid parallelogram 
 of streets. For example, the angle of divergence between 
 such streets as Jefiferson, that parallel the general course of the 
 eastward flowing rivers, and those which, in greater number, 
 parallel Lewis, is very slight. 
 
 The business of the city has long been done on Calhoun 
 Street, between the Nickel Plate road, which skirts the river, 
 and the Pennsylvania and Wabash railroads — a distance of 
 three-quarters of a mile. Necessarily business is now extend- 
 ing laterally from Calhoun Street. As yet such extension is 
 principally on Main and Berry Streets, between which, on the 
 east side of Calhoun Street, is the Court House, occupying a 
 whole block and of itself creating a centc*. The space between 
 the railroads is the oldest section of the city, and Calhoun 
 Street, the main business artery, has a width of only sixty 
 feet, from property line to property line. 
 
 It remains to be stated that agreement has now been 
 reached with the Pennsylvania and Wabash railroads for the 
 abolition of the grade crossing at Calhoun Street by an eleva- 
 tion of the tracks, and that, as a part of this work, a new 
 passenger station is anticipated ; that there have been accjuired 
 some tracts of land for parks, well distributed along the outer 
 fringe of the built-up section of the city; and that the only 
 public building now under consideration, unless market sheds 
 be so counted, is a Convention Hall. 
 
 It is obvious that a report now prepared on the possibil- 
 ities and duties of such a city as has been described must be 
 largely general in character. The report will point out the 
 municipality's opportunities and needs as definitely as possible, 
 but it will be the part of wisdom to reserve the detailed plan- 
 ning until the plans can be immediately carried out. In sub- 
 mitting my suggestions it has seemed well to group them under 
 the following heads : 
 
14 Port JWiyiic Civic Inipro^'ciitcnf dissociation 
 
 1. The Business Streets. 
 
 2. The Official Quarter. 
 
 3. Approaches to the New Station. 
 
 4. An Industrial District. 
 
 5. Public Market. 
 
 6. Residence Streets. 
 
 7. Improvement of the Parks. 
 
 8. River Drive and Parkway System. 
 
Fort JJ'ayiw Civic Tniproi'cmcnt Associafioi 
 
 T5 
 
 The Business Streets. 
 
 The first and most obvious need of Fort Wayne's busi- 
 ness district, in providing for the future, is the difficult one 
 of finding a way to increase the street capacity. Fort Wayne 
 is so compactly built that it is out of the question to attempt 
 any general widening of streets. Therefore, to clear the walks 
 as far as possible of obstructions ; to accelerate traffic in the 
 roadways, and to develop the convenience of parallel streets, is 
 nearly all we can hope to do. These things, however, count 
 for a good deal. Let us consider what they involve. 
 
 First, the sidewalks should be smooth and easy to walk 
 on. There is a great persistence in Fort Wayne of the old- 
 fashioned cellar traps that project above the walk, inviting 
 tripping and shunned by everyone who can possibly go around 
 them. Cellar traps should be required to present an even sur- 
 face with the walk. Second, the essential street furnishings 
 
i6 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 must be reduced to a niiniiuum. In this respect necessity has 
 made Fort Wayne, in its business portions, better than most 
 cities. Hut there is still room for improvement, for the ideal 
 would rid the streets of all teleg"ra])h and telejjhone poles — some 
 portions of the business streets are already freed from them, 
 in earnest of what all may be ; and such poles as must persist, 
 as trolley poles, would be made to perform the greatest possi- 
 ble service. They may carry the street lights — as in Denver, 
 and the street name signs ; the letter boxes, as they do ; and the 
 fire boxes, as they now do not. There should be no excuse for 
 other posts. As to putting the street lights on the trolley 
 poles, an interesting agreement on this subject was drawn up 
 a few weeks ago, in the neighboring city of Indianapolis, be- 
 tween the City, the Light and Heat Company, and the Traction 
 and Terminal Company. Under this agreement the Traction 
 Company was required to replace its light-weight poles, in a 
 certain specified district, with heavier i)oles, the Light Com- 
 pany furnishing the brackets and lamps in round glass globes, 
 and the city paying for the current. 
 
 Third, the walk should be cleared al)solutely of advertise- 
 ments, this including barber ];)oles. In many cities the streets 
 have been thus freed by the voluntary action of the merchants, 
 acting through the Board of Trade or other organization of 
 their own. But a city ordinance will cover the point. Finally, 
 sidewalk-encroaching show cases for the display of goods 
 should be prohibited. It is better for a merchant to have the 
 sidewalk full of people than to have a portion of it so clut- 
 tered with the signs, counters, bicycle racks or show cases of 
 his rivals that when practicable pedestrians take another street. 
 Yet every merchant who countenances sidewalk obstruction 
 chooses a walk of things instead of a walk of people. A 
 twelve-foot walk — that is the width, for instance, on Calhoun 
 Street — will accommodate a great many pedestrians, if it is 
 really twelve, and not nine or ten. I found it reduced in this 
 way to ten feet very often on Calhoun Street. 
 
Scene on Berry Street, just west of Calhoun. 
 
 The slreet should be cleared absolutely of advertisements. A twelve-foot v^-alk will accommodate 
 a great many persons if it be really twelve, and not reduced by advertisements, etc., to ten. 
 
i8 Furt JVayne Civic Iiii[>rovc)iieiif Assuciatiuii 
 
 As a rule, few articles, except photographs in wall cases 
 and food stuffs on stands, arc exposed, either for display or sale, 
 outside of stores. The latter are just the articles which the 
 dirt and dust of the street so injure that in some cities their 
 exposure on the walks is i)r()hihited on sanitary grounds. With 
 the walks cleared, to serve fully the ])rimary purpose for which 
 they exist, they will accommodate a good many more persons 
 than they now do. 
 
 The acceleration of traffic in the roadways can he accom- 
 plished through several measures. Good pavement kept in re- 
 pair is the first need. Then the car tracks should have grooved 
 rails, laid exactly flush with the pavement so as to offer no 
 impediment, instead of the present T-rails. This is one of the 
 changes that will not he accomplished right away; hut if there 
 he requirement that any new, or replacing, rails laid in the 
 business section shall conform to this character, the change 
 will be soon brought about without hardship. Then the whole 
 width of the road will be available. An increased radius in 
 the curb-curve at street corners — it may be made nine to twelve 
 feet — will facilitate the turning of traffic from one street into 
 another — a change that will not only count for much in the 
 movement of traffic, but that will confer large aesthetic im- 
 provement. A long curve fits harmoniously into the street 
 lines, and it does not get battered as does a short curve. 
 
 With the admirable alley system of Fort \\'ayne, there 
 may reasonably be requirement, further, that no loading or 
 unloading shall take place in the business streets, at least 
 within certain hours ; and within those hours heavy teaming 
 may be asked to take the side, or parallel, streets. ]\Iost of the 
 larger cities have now adopted traffic regulations, and these 
 mav be asked to take the side, or parallel, streets. Most of the 
 population is so balanced by narrower thoroughfares, that the 
 street congestion will soon be not dissimilar to that in great 
 cities. It is to be recognized in this connection that the bulk of 
 vehicular traffic in Fort Wayne moves in a north and south 
 direction ; and that owing to the barriers imposed by the river 
 
Fort JFoyiic Civic Iiiiprovcineiif Association 
 
 19 
 
 Fori Wayne's crowded business streets. 
 
20 Purl Wayne Ch'ic fin f^roi'ciiiciit Association 
 
 on one side and 1)\- the raiIroad^ on the other — and the latter 
 barrier will not be removed by a long snbway under elevated 
 tracks — all the general business of the growing city is bound to 
 be transacted in the short intervening space. Into this little area, 
 not only does all the surrounding cit\- ])our its business, but all 
 the steam railroads and tlie interurl)an trolleys deposit their 
 loads. The result, during l)usiness liours. is sure to be crowded 
 streets, and every heavily loaded truck that by slow movement 
 liolds up traffic there will take tribute of l)usiness in a consid- 
 eral)le lu>s of precious time. It need hardl_\- be added that to 
 re(|uire heavv teaiuing to use side streets in busy hours imix)ses 
 an oliligation to have on those streets smooth pavements that 
 are in good rei)air. 
 
 \\"\{h the elevation of the Pennsylvania and Wabash 
 tracks, it is proposed b_\- the railroads to erect a tine Union 
 vStation on the north side of the tracks at Calhoun Street. And 
 Calhoun Street, with its thirty-six foot road and crowded 
 walks, is already carrying about all the traffic it can bear. To 
 get the street widened, without expense, even from the tracks 
 to the bend at Lewis street, would seem almost too good t^ be 
 true, and yet it may be possible. On the east side of the sticet. 
 between those points, the structures are old and low. so in- 
 adequate to the demand which is sure in a few years to arise 
 for accommodations here, that every one of them is certain to 
 be replaced. A great deal of the new construction will come 
 ioon. 'i'o this condition is to be added the fact that the lots 
 are, as throughout I'ort Wayne, very deep. 
 
 Now in riiiladelphia a similar situation arose years ago 
 witli reference to Chestmit. Walnut and .\rch Streets. The 
 traffic that poured upon them became too great for their width, 
 and it was seen that they luust be widened. Yet to have done 
 this all at once, in any of the three cases, would not only have 
 paralyzed business on one of the i)rincipal streets of the city. 
 
Fort H'dyiic Ck'ic Iiiiprovcutciit Association 21 
 
 but, as here, would have been too expensive a proposition for the 
 city to consider. Accordingly there was passed an ordinance — 
 in 1884 for Chestnut Street, and in 1894 for Walnut Street, the 
 dates being- important as showing that it has now had oppor- 
 tunity to stand the test of time and of many actions — authoriz- 
 ing the Department of Surveys, which in Fort Wayne would 
 doubtless be the City Engineer's Office "to revise the City 
 Plan" so as to widen the street in question to a certain specified 
 width — as, for example, seventy-two feet for Arch Street. 
 The second section of these ordinances reads : "After the con- 
 firmation and establishment of said lines, it shall not be lawful 
 for any owner or builder to erect any new building, or to re- 
 build or alter the front, or add to the height of any building 
 now erected, without making it recede so as to conform to the 
 line established." With such an ordinance applying to this 
 portion of Calhoun Street, especially if its provisions were 
 strengthened by an ordinance requiring that building height 
 should bear a certain relation to the width of the street faced, 
 how long would it be, with the vigorous rebuilding which is 
 certain to be soon undertaken there, before Calhoun Street, 
 from the tracks to Lewis, was widened the designated number 
 of feet ? 
 
 I have investigated, for its bearing on the Fort Wayne 
 situation, the result attending the operation of the Philadelphia 
 enactment. For illustration we may take Chestnut Street be- 
 tween Eighth and Sixteenth, as its frontage is the most val- 
 uable business property afifected. In this distance approxi- 
 mately one hundred and fifty structures have been changed and 
 in the process set back in accordance with the ordinance. In 
 actions brought for damages, the city has contended that where 
 a building lot still has more than one hundred feet in depth 
 after the widening takes place, and where it has frontage not 
 only on the widened street but on a rear street or alley, there 
 is no damage occasioned; that is to say, a property 20x110 or 
 
22 Fort JVayiic Civic J})iprovcuicnl dissociation 
 
 more feet on a sixty foot street, with a rear entrance, is, in the 
 opinion of the real estate exi)erts called by the city of Pliihulel- 
 phia to testify in these actions, of the same, if not of greater 
 value than a property of five feet more depth on a street cor- 
 respondingly narrower.* 
 
 This Philadelphia method seems therefore to suggest a 
 reasonable way for promptly widening that portion of Cal- 
 houn Street, in Fort Wayne, wliicli is between the railroad and 
 Lewis Street, at little or no expense. In Fort Wayne there 
 might be advantage in putting all the widening on to the east 
 side of the street, since that side, being now the least well de- 
 veloped, is likely to be soonest rebuilt, and since to w^iden im 
 that side would open to view, as an architectural accent, the 
 tower of Cathedral Hall and would be to make available for 
 furthering- the work the space left open before the Hall and 
 the Cathedral. This would carry the widening in reality to 
 Jefiferson Street. If, by apportioning to the west side such con- 
 struction costs as may be incurred, since otherwise it would 
 have the benefit of the widening without payment, there can 
 be framed an ordinance that will be equally fair to both sides, 
 my preference would therefore be to see Calhoun Street, from 
 the railroad to Jefiferson, widened on its east side by at least 
 ten feet. 
 
 *Francis Fisher Kane, a prominent attorney of Philadelphia, 
 describes the case of the new Wanamaker store as one of the most 
 interesting and significant which came up. This property, he writes, 
 "has 250 feet on Chestnut Street and Market Street, and 489 feet on 
 Thirteenth Street and Juniper Street, and is the only Chestnut Street 
 property covering an entire block and having four fronts. Mr. Wan- 
 amaker's witnesses claimed that the loss of the strip of ground, 
 5x2,^)0 feet, occasioned a damage amounting to $93,950, which they 
 worked out at the rate of $75.00 a square foot. The city's witnesses 
 testified that no property in the city bore out their theory more 
 clearly than this, and that the market value of such a property with 
 four fronts, 484 feet deep on a 60 foot wide street, was equal in value 
 to a property 489 feet deep on a street 50 feet wide. Notwithstand- 
 ing witnesses who testified to the contrary, Mr. Gibbons, of the city 
 solicitor's office, won the case, and the jury took the city's view and 
 made no award." It should be added, however, that not all the cases 
 have been equally successful, some owners being allowed nominal 
 damages. 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 23 
 
 F/a. 1 
 
 Calhoun Street, as it now is, between the railroad and Lewis Street. With a vehicle on either 
 curb, through traffic has no space except on the street car tracks. 
 
 fo 
 
 y///////// '■ / . 
 
 -10- 
 
 F7G.2 
 
 With this part of Calhoun Street broadened to give a fifty-foot road — accomplished by adding ten 
 
 feel to the street's width and taking two feet from each sidewalk — '' would be possible 
 
 for a wagon to pass between a truck Q' fhe curb and a street car. The small 
 
 change would thus give two additional lines of traffic, so facilitating 
 
 greatly all traffic movement. 
 
 At all events, Calhoun Street could be widened five feet on 
 a side for that distance very quickly under the Philadelphia 
 ordinance, and this would be a result well worth getting for 
 nothing. A delay, however, will mean that new buildings, not 
 to be changed for a long time, will be constructed on the pres- 
 ent line. It should be added that the widening of this portion 
 of Calhoun Street is particularly necessary because from the 
 tracks to Lewis street its present width is only sixty feet, as 
 
24 i'ort Wayne Civic fiiiprovcniciit Association 
 
 compared with sixty-six further north ; and because in that 
 section the cross streets do not directly connect. As a result, all 
 cross travel here imposes an extra traffic burden. 
 
 North of Jefferson Street, the big buildings having been 
 already constructed, any widening is a serious problem. 
 Probably the only feasible method to obtain reasonably prompt 
 results would be to use arcades — as was so beautifully done, for 
 instance, on the Rnc dc Rivoli in Paris. In this case, the 
 street level of the buildings would be set back twenty feet, the 
 upper stories remaining as they now are but supported for 
 their front twenty feet on arches. Under these arcades, 
 sheltered from sun and storm, would be the sidewalks, and 
 the widened road would reach to the present building line. It 
 would make a beautiful and convenient shopping street, permit- 
 ting a nuich better circulation of traffic than now. Owing to 
 the great depth of the lots, the slight store space could be 
 well relinquished to gain the widened street, cs])ecially if upper 
 stories were not disturbed. 
 
 So perhaps, after all, realizing the present and growing 
 congestion of Fort Wayne's business district, we can hope to 
 supplement facilitation of traffic by actually widening Calhoun, 
 the busiest of the streets. For the delays and inconveniences 
 are not of today only. They arise from a structural defect, in 
 having made business streets too narrow for the business of a 
 city. And that structural defect, so long as it ])ersists, must 
 throttle and handicap the city, l)ec<^)ming from year to year a 
 greater impediment. 
 
 Before leaving Ihe business section, there are suggestions 
 to be made regarding its ap])earance. A city, it may be noted, 
 is very largely judged by its business (|uarter. Many a visitor's 
 sightseeing does not get beyond the s])ace between the station 
 and hotel, lie does not see the ])arks, or tine avemies, or the 
 interior of public buildings, but he forms his judgment from 
 the business streets. Moreover, this is the one section of the 
 city that is used in common by all the citizens. Parks so well 
 distributed as b'ort Wayne's, inevitabh- have a neighborhood 
 
Port U\i\'nr Ciric I iiipr<>:'cmcnl . Issuriiilloii 
 
 25 
 
 clientele. But into the business streets all the city comes all the 
 year around ; and in them is represented very much of the city's 
 wealth. There is, then, no impropriety in demanding that they 
 have at least the beauty of dignity. 
 
 The very first step which will <loubtless occur, most i^ro])- 
 erly, to every resident of h'ort Wayne, as it certainly will to 
 every visitor, is the cleaning" of the alleys. 'J^his will mean 
 some paving, and some paving repairs. The alleys of h'ort 
 Wayne are so conspicuous there can be no pretense of civic 
 beauty if they do not contribute at least cleanliness to the gen- 
 eral efTect. It is the general experience of cities that to pave 
 alleys in congested quarters with asphalt, which is easy to clean 
 and to keep clean, is the course most satisfactory and eco- 
 nomical. 
 
 Ifi .Uley inlerseclion half a block from Calhoun Street. This is fairly typical. 
 
26 I'ort Jl'ayiic Ck'ic fiii/^ro-rciiicii/ . Issnciatio)! 
 
 The proposed cleariiii;" of the street walks of unnecessary 
 appurtenances, and the ini])r(jvcments suggested to facilitate 
 traffic, will have incidentally a considerable effect in improving 
 the aspect of the streets. T spoke of ]nitting street lam])s on the 
 trolley poles. Ornamental lighting of business streets has now 
 become an accepted form of normal municipal imi)rovement. 
 The method of arch lighting in use for short distances in the 
 business section of Fort Wayne is the best of its kind I have 
 seen. It does not give the heavy, tunnel effect of the arches 
 used in Columbus, for example. Rut avoiding tliat fault, it slips 
 into another. On a street which there has hcen serious attempt 
 to free from overhead wires, there is created a seeming cob- 
 web of such wires. From the point of view of municipal aes- 
 thetics, there is no question that an ornamental standard is far 
 preferable to any arch system. Objection has been made that 
 a good standard would occupy useful sidewalk space. If the 
 trolley poles were jacketed for the purpose, this objection 
 would lose its force, and in any case the requirement would 
 be a small fraction of that made by such a pole as the one pho- 
 tographed — which is on Calhoun Street, in the ver}- heart of 
 the business district, across from the Court House. As long 
 as there is room for such a pole, nothing should be said about a 
 lack of room for beautiful light standards. 
 
 The signs on this pole bring up another very conspicuous 
 aesthetic short-coming of Fort Wayne's business streets. This 
 is the multiplicity of projecting signs. Projecting signs de- 
 stroy absolutely any architectural dignity. What inducement 
 has owner or architect to make a handsome facade if these 
 signs are to render im])racticable any sight of it ? Sometimes 
 the owners of a good office building prohibit any other signs 
 than window lettering ; but what use is that, if the tenants of the 
 structures on either side can thrust out wooden fences to hide 
 the good buildings? The signs destroy the street's vista, ruin 
 its proi)ortions. They get in each other's way, one blanketing 
 another, so that it becomes most difficult to enforce a merely re- 
 strictive ordinance. They distract the eye as a clamor of 
 
Port Wayne Civic Improvement Association 27 
 
 // has been objected that Calhoun Street sidewalks are too narrow for ornamental light 
 poles, but they are deemed wide enough for this. 
 
28 Fort Jl'iiync C'/r'/V fiiiprorciiicnl . Issociafioii 
 
 wrangling shouts distresses the ear, and lead only to confusion. 
 It is idle to talk about cit\- beauty, about ornamental street 
 lighting, about a united civic spirit, while the main streets are 
 given over to such puerile discordance. hVjrt Wayne will do 
 easily a big thing that will count for much in her municipal 
 improvement if there be enacted an ordinance prohibiting ab- 
 solutely the daytime projecting sign. 
 
 As to the projecting illuminated sign, it has more numer- 
 ous friends, because of its brightening of the way. I could 
 wish the same amount of light might be more artistically dis- 
 posed — in outlining cornices or stories for example ; but as 
 there is no natural vista of the street at night that can be 
 broken, no beauty of architectural ornament to be hidden by 
 signs that the darkness itself w'ould not conceal, gay night 
 signs can be suffered with a measure of equanimity. I'ut be- 
 cause at day time they are more hideous even than the lettered 
 signs of daylight, if left projecting across the walk, there should 
 be requirement that they be constructed to fold back, wdien not 
 in use, against the building. This is a perfectly practicable and 
 simple requirement, which has been made with entire success 
 in numerous cities. 
 
 May I quote from "Modern Civic Art" these lines, now 
 commonly accepted as expressing a correct ideal : "The street 
 at least civic art can claim as its own province, bidding" adver- 
 tisement stand back to the building line. No hindrance should 
 be offered to a clear path for travel by walk or road, no an- 
 nouncement should break the vista of the street, nor thrust 
 itself before the wayfarer by hanging over the walk or stand- 
 ing upon it at door or curb. The street should be a clear pas- 
 sage- — that is its object in the making ; and there is as true a 
 need that every inch of it be open to the sky as that the vista 
 of the way be unbroken. This means that civic art, turning its 
 attention to the furnishings of the street, would frown uix)n all 
 projecting signs; that it would prohibit all bulletin boards, 
 signs, and transparencies on the sidewalk or at the curb; that 
 it would have no banners hung" across the street, nor woidd suf- 
 
Fort IVaync Civic Improvement Association 
 
 29 
 
 Projecting Signs—Calhoun and Main Sireels. 
 
 ^^S 
 
30 Fort IVayiie Civic Iiiif^roz^ciiiciit .Issociation 
 
 fer any i)nblic utility or ornament of the way to be placarded. 
 It would sweep the street itself clean of advertisements from 
 building front to building front." 
 
 The smoke evil at Fort Wayne is very serious. Some 
 people, knowing that smoke represents business, point to it 
 with pride, or at least indulgently, and say that it means wealth. 
 But the thing it really means is waste. Mechanical smoke 
 suppression has not yet been satisfactorily perfected. The 
 fireman is in the main resi)onsible. If it were generally under- 
 stood that every ba»iner of black smoke advertises, as it does, 
 the carelessness and inefificiency of firemen, there would come 
 improvement. An ordinance imposing a fine on employer and 
 employe for the emission of black smoke for upwards of five 
 consecutive minutes at a time would help, if properly enforced. 
 
 Under the heading, "An Industrial District," I shall speak 
 of another phase of the'matter, perhaps giving better promise 
 of results ; and I approve a suggestion that in the heart of 
 the city there be marked out a zone within which the emission 
 of any black smoke shall be unlawful. 
 
 A shelter for waiting trolley passengers is a need at 
 "Transfer Corner." Eventually, the interurban trolleys will 
 need, and the municipality will properly insist that they have, 
 an adequate terminal station. There is no more reason why 
 they should be sufifered to use the public streets for station pur- 
 poses than that steam railroads should lie excused from pro- 
 viding station accommodations. Indeed, there is less reason, 
 since steam trains would stop on a private right of way, while 
 the trolleys, loading and unloading in the street, block traffic 
 on a public highway. So the station need will be eventually 
 met in Fort Wayne, as it has been in Indianapolis. But in the 
 meantime a shelter at "Transfer Corner" would be a genuine 
 public convenience. There is room for it on the broad walk 
 north of the Court House on Main Street, a walk forty feet 
 wide — and a light, artistic little structure could well be placed 
 at the northwest corner. I append photographs of one in use 
 at Washington, and of one on the public square in Cleveland. 
 It is as well that tlicre be no seals provided, as these might in- 
 
Forf JJ^aync Civic luiproTcmcut .Issocialiou 31 
 
 Sidewalk shelter for wailing trolley passengers in IVashington. 
 
 A trolley waiting station on the Public Square in Cleveland. 
 
32 I'ort U'dyiic Civic Iinprorc'iiicnf dissociation 
 
 vite louiii^iiii^-. The thinj;' needed is shelter from the sun and 
 storm. The city should select the desij^^n, and should compel 
 the companies to ])ay for the structure — as they would probably 
 be quite willing" to do if i^iven the place to put it. There 
 should be a distinct understanding, however, that the arrange- 
 ment is temporary only. 
 
 The matter of ornamentally lighting the business streets — 
 a work which, through the co-operation of the merchants, has 
 been successfully taken up in many cities — has been referred to. 
 lUit whether or not this be promptly done, the w^ide walks 
 around the Court House should have ornamental lighting. It 
 would seem hardly necessary to argue that point. There is 
 now being installed in Lincoln Park, Chicago, a simply de- 
 signed and beautiful standard, which, it seems to me, requires 
 little modification to meet the need of this location. The 
 standard is of concrete, cast in metal forms ; but the cement is 
 so mixed with granite and washed in acid that when complete it 
 has the color of granite. The cost is considerably less than 
 that of an iron standard, and on the wide stone walk, with the 
 background of the stone building, it will better harmonize with 
 its setting than w^ould iron. I suggest that it be investigated. 
 
 A Public Comfort Station is a need in the business por- 
 tions of cities that is receiving increased recognition in the 
 Cnited States, as it has long been recognized in Europe. The 
 underground toilet best satisfies American sentiment. One 
 might be arranged in connection with the suggested trolley 
 waiting station, a stairway at one end leading dow'n to the 
 men's di\ision, and a stairway at the other leading to the 
 w^omen's. This location would be exceedingly convenient. 
 Another excellent site, perhaps a better one if location at the 
 waiting station would duplicate facilities already offered in the 
 Court House, would be under some of the market space on 
 Barr Street, north of the City Hall. This would be con- 
 venient for the market men. and it would be close to crowded 
 business streets, while yet retired. I a]:)pen(l a photograph of 
 all that shows above ground of a comfort station at Toronto, 
 located on a site verv similar to this. 
 
fort Wayne Ch'ic I )iipvo\'ciiu'nl . Issocin/ion 33 
 
 lUit. when all is said, the aspect of the business quarter of 
 a city is more dclcnnined ])y the character of its commercial 
 huildini^s. and by the i)ro])ortion of their heit^'ht to the width 
 of the streets on which they front, than by any other thing". It 
 has been well remarked that these proportions are one of the 
 fundamental ])rinciples in the art of beautiful cit\' building. To 
 that art they bear, it has been noted, the same relation as do 
 the voids and solids in the elevation of a structure, or as do the 
 
 Entrance to a Public Comfort Station at Toronto. 
 
 lights and shadows of a pictitre. Incidentally, as w'as pointed 
 out by the experts who made study of Grand Rapids, these 
 proportions "constitute the basic principle of all sanitation, as 
 the open spaces (of the street) provide the necessary sunlight, 
 air and breathing spaces for the population surrounding them." 
 With the very narrow business streets of Fort Wayne, 
 there is the gravest danger that buildings will be erected of a 
 height destructive to the comeliness of the street, to its pro]ier 
 
34 /vT/ U'liync Ci7'ic hnprovciiiciif . Issociatinn 
 
 sanitation, and to its traflic capacity. For, on the latter point, 
 it is to be recalled that all tall buildings pour their population 
 into the street, and draw it out of the street, at a])proximately 
 one time. It would take few high buildings to congest Cal- 
 houn Street ; and buildings exceeding six stories in height will 
 very quickly convert it into the appearance of a canyon. It is 
 imperative, for the good looks of Fort Wayne, and for comfort 
 and healthfulness in its business district, that there be imposed 
 a restriction as to l)uilding height to the extent of proportion- 
 ing it to street width. In Europe there is common recjuire- 
 men that the height of buildings shall not exceed one and one- 
 half times the width of the street on which they face. Boston, 
 Chicago, and St. Louis are among the American cities that 
 have not been afraid to establish a maximum height limit. 
 
 While a proportioning of building height to street width 
 will put in your hands a strong weapon for securing the widen- 
 ing of Calhoun Street from the railroad to Lewis, there is this 
 also. to be considered: A limitation of building height is of 
 general benefit to property. Preventing the concentration of 
 the city's business into the short space occupied by a few very 
 high buildings, it extends the business section over adjacent 
 streets. The larger area absorlied by business displaces near- 
 business tenants. These locate a little further out, and so the 
 movement extends until everywhere there is increased demand 
 for property. In short, there is the effect of dropping a stone 
 into a pool, the surface being afifected to the furthest limits. No 
 holder of property outside the two or three most high-priced 
 squares of Fort Wayne but would directly benefit financially, 
 as well as in other ways, by a restriction of building heights. 
 
 ( )ne word more must be said. It seems to me exceedingly 
 likely that a secondary business district is going to develoj) on 
 South Calhoun Street. There is a very large poi)ulation on the 
 south side, and one that is steadily growing. The elevation 
 of the Pennsylvania and Wabash tracks will do away with most 
 of the danger of the crossing; but the long suljway will still 
 ])resent a barrier, which pedestrians will n(it be keen to cross. 
 
Fort ]]''ayuc Ck'ic IniprovcmciU .Issociation 35 
 
 This business, which of course will be distinctly secondary 
 to that north of the tracks, will probably center at the corner 
 of Calhoun Street and Highland Avenue, as there the cars con- 
 verge. It will not be so much an extension of the main busi- 
 ness district as a subsidiary development. This probability has 
 bearing on the City-Plan in that it invites inclusion of the small 
 designated area south of the tracks in the comments and sug- 
 gestions which have been made above for the district north of 
 them. 
 
36 Port JJ'aynr Ci:'ic fiiif^rorciiioit Associatinn 
 
 The Official Quarter. 
 
 Foit WayiK' has ali-eady 
 ail official ([uartcr ; foi- the 
 tlirec j)u])li(' ))uil(liii^s, 
 ivspecfcively rcpi-eseii tative 
 of coiinty, nation and city, 
 arc rangvd ak)ng' a .sinjj'le 
 sti'cet in a space of two 
 Ijlocks. Bnt the arrange- 
 nient is absolutely ineffec- 
 tive. The Court House has 
 the l)est site ; but the most 
 favoi-able view one can get 
 of it is through alleys, since 
 they alone center on its 
 dome. Without grounds 
 around it, sui-rounded by 
 narrow streets, where tall 
 buildings will soon seem to 
 place it in a little walled 
 courtyard, one cannot even 
 now get far enough away 
 to see it as a whole. The 
 two other buildings, oc- 
 cupying commonphice com- 
 mercial sites, ai'e hidden 
 from one another by inter- 
 vening structures. In the 
 aggregate there is i-epre- 
 sented a very hirge public 
 expenditui-c. One could almost throw a stone from structure 
 to stnictiwe ; yet there is no cunuilative effect. 
 
 To the problem of creating out of these adjacent l)ut dis- 
 tinct units a single civic composition that sliould make a Civic 
 ("enter, 1 have devoted a great deal of thought. The practical 
 
Fort JJ'ayue Civic hiiprovcmcnt Association 37 
 
 difficulties, due to important improvements and high property 
 vahies. are ahnost prohibitive. Yet values on Berry Street, be- 
 tween the Court House and City Hall, are not going- to diminish 
 or stand still. They seem as certain as any in the city to ad- 
 vance, and unless a plan embracing this property can be car- 
 ried out at once, it is not likely ever to be executed. Neither 
 can there be reasonably anticipated the building of a new Court 
 House and a new Postoffice on new sites. The one hope of a 
 Civic Center for many years lies in dealing with the present 
 situation. 
 
 The condition is a striking illustration of the value to a 
 community of getting a City Plan as early as possible. Fore- 
 seeing a big. costly Court House on its present site, there 
 might have been created, before the Foster and Elektron build- 
 ings were erected, a broad, beautiful Mall, leading directly 
 eastward to terminate in the l)luff at the bend of the ]\Iaumee 
 river, at IMonroe Street. An alley, on the axis of the dome, 
 now traverses the distance, and it would have been necessary 
 onl\- to widen this. From Barr Street to Clay there are only gar- 
 dens even now. It is a fair question whether for those two 
 blocks the Mall would not be more benefit than damage to the 
 property through which it would pass. The property between 
 Clay and Alonroe is shallow and not now expensive. The 
 costly part of the scheme today is only the block and a half be- 
 tween the Court House and Barr street. Of this the first half 
 block Avas once public property and should simply have been 
 kept as the Court Housfe vSquare. The block from Clinton to 
 Barr would have offered, on either side the ]\Iall, the appro- 
 priate sites for Post Office, City Hall, and Convention Building, 
 so greatly reducing the net cost. There would have been con- 
 ferred on the neighborhood, and on the city at large a great 
 benefit. Increased assessment values would long ere this have 
 paid for the improvement. And think what we should have ! 
 An opportunity to see the Court House ; and a Court of Honor, 
 the Court House at its west end, harmonious public buildings 
 flanking either side to Barr Street. Between them, for ve- 
 hicle traffic would have remained on !Main and Berry Streets, 
 
38 Fort JVayiie Civic Improvement Association 
 
 a broad grass ribbon with, on each side of it, a promenade, ex- 
 tending from the Court House Square to the river blufif, where 
 is opened an entrancing view. Here a flagstafif would have 
 stood, in honor of Wayne's stand, and at Old Fort Park, 
 which curving ends would have brought into the Mall scheme, 
 his statue might well have been placed. 
 
 Coming into Fort Wayne by the Nickel Plate train, or 
 standing at the little park at the eastern terminus of the Mall, 
 how fine a view of the Court Flouse would have been pre- 
 sented, how beautiful a civic picture ; what an impression would 
 have been gained of the city ! Or, turning to look north and 
 east, we would have had the meeting of the three rivers and 
 the view down the lovely Maumee. 
 
 Doubtless the plan will seem impossible now, for today 
 it would take a great deal of money. But the thought of how 
 effectuall}^ a comparatively small measure of construction has 
 l)locked so fine a possibility should give heart to do promptly 
 whatever still can be done. 
 
 We have to accept the three present public buildings, as 
 fixed points, so far as their location is concerned. A Conven- 
 tion Flail, however, is contemplated and there naturally would 
 be advantages in a central location. Either of two sites may 
 be, in my judgment, properly selected for it, according as it is 
 proposed to make it contribute to one scheme or the other. 
 
 For the development of a Civic Center, it might be put 
 on the north side of Berry Street, between the Elektron build- 
 ing and Barr Street. There is nothing which is very expen- 
 sive on this site, and its advantages for the purpose are many. 
 In its convenience, indeed, the site is all that could be desired ; 
 and the public building here would tie together the Post Office 
 and City Hall. Between the latter two there is already, in the 
 Post Office yard and the Majestic's open-air theatre, a good 
 deal of open ground. If it should be possible to throw it all 
 open — a fire, for instance, might easily clear most of the rest 
 of the ground — we should have three public buildings gath- 
 ered around three sides of a s.quare, and a very presentable little 
 
Fort JVayiir Civic linfTovciiiciit . Issocialioii 39 
 
 Civic Center ready made. Meanwhile, location here would fur- 
 ther emphasize the Q-roui)ing- of the public buildings. It re- 
 serves a bit of land that will never be less valuable, insuring a 
 safe investment ; and if a Mall ever were opened to the Court 
 House, in order that the latter might be revealed, a Conven- 
 tion Hall on this site would profit directly from the scheme 
 and would, in turn, enhance it. As to the possibility of open- 
 ing the Mall, there is no other side from which such an ap- 
 proach to the Court House can be made. The existing alley 
 is fourteen feet wide, and even the Elektron building stops 
 nine feet short of it. As there is nothing else of prohibitive 
 value on the plat, an approach thirty-two feet wide is blocked 
 today only by the Foster building. 
 
 To put the Convention Hall on this site, would be, then, 
 to secure an exceedingly convenient location ; to feel entire 
 safety regarding the investment value of the property ; to add 
 somewhat to the official quality which the neighborhood already 
 possesses ; and to be ready for a fine civic effect should either, 
 or both, of two possibilities eventuate in the municipal devel- 
 opment of the surrounding land. It is the one chance for fur- 
 ther developing and accentuating the present official quarter. 
 
Fort JJ'ayiic Cii'ic liiipro-c'cmriif Association 39 
 
 Civic Center ready made. Meanwhile, location here would fur- 
 ther emphasize the grouping" of the public buildings. It re- 
 serves a bit of land that will never be less valuable, insuring" a 
 safe investment ; and if a Mall ever were opened to the Court 
 House, in order that the latter might be revealed, a Conven- 
 tion Hall on this site would profit directly from the scheme 
 and would, in turn, enhance it. As to the possibility of open- 
 ing the Alall, there is no other side from which such an ap- 
 proach to the Court House can be made. The existing alley 
 is fourteen feet wide, and even the Elektron building stops 
 nine feet short of it. As there is nothing else of prohibitive 
 value on the plat, an approach thirty-two feet wide is blocked 
 today only by the Foster Ijuilding. 
 
 To put the Convention Hall on this site, would be, then, 
 to secure an exceedingly convenient location ; to feel entire 
 safety regarding the investment value of the property ; to add 
 somewhat to the official quality which the neighborhood already 
 possesses ; and to be ready for a fine civic effect should either, 
 or both, of two possibilities eventuate in the municipal devel- 
 opment of the surrounding land. It is the one chance for fur- 
 ther developing and accentuating the present official quarter. 
 
40 Port JJ'ayiic Ck'ic Iinproi'cmcut .'Issnciatioii 
 
 Approaches to the New Station, 
 
 T said there was an alternative site for the Convention 
 1 lall. This other site would hrini;- it into the Station I 'Ian. 
 
 Very clearly the building of a new and costly station, 
 which is to be much lart^er than the old, and not improbabl)- 
 a Union Station, develops a civic opportunity which amounts 
 almost to an obligation. If the railroads have a faith in Fort 
 Wayne that leads them to do so much, the municipality should 
 show a like confidence and arrange to the new station an ade- 
 quate approach. 
 
 Two practical considerations, as distinguished from the 
 sentimental one, urge promptness in such action. First, the 
 improvement is likely to result in the rapid rebuilding of the 
 neighborhood, with the consequence that conditions will be- 
 come fixed, and values largely raised. When the station has 
 been opened to business, it will be too late to change street 
 lines unless heavy expense can be incurred. Second, it is ob- 
 vious that a large new station, which will soon be the point of 
 arrival and departure for many more trains and many more 
 passengers than the little station of today, is going to create 
 a great increase in the traffic of the streets leading to it, and 
 for such increase there is now no provision. Finally, the ap- 
 pearance of a city when one comes out of the station makes the 
 first, and therefore the most lasting, impression upon strangers. 
 The station is the door of the city, and the space before it is 
 the city's vestibule. This is much better understood abrc^ul 
 than it is with us; but the great plaza in front of the beautiful 
 new station in Washington, the magnificent station ai)proaches 
 ])lanned in Chicago and San Francisco, under the iiurnham 
 plans, in lUitTalo, Cleveland and Los Angeles, under the i)lans 
 made b)' other authorities, and the beautiful station plaza 
 which for years has made Frovidence, R. L, famous, are suf- 
 ficient indication that the good sense of Aiuericans is leading 
 them to a like conclusion. We are beginning to appreciate that 
 
Fort JJ'iiyitc Civic fiiifTO'c'ciiioif Associafion 41 
 
 the station exit and entrance is a focal point, that here the 
 convergence and distribution of traffic demands larger space, 
 and that the improvement of no other one point in town pays 
 better, from the artistic standpoint, than does this. 
 
 I think it may be taken for granted that the new station 
 will be located, not on the present site, but west of Calhoun 
 Street on the north side of the tracks. The Pennsylvania rail- 
 road has acquired a long frontage here. The present station 
 site would be extremely cramped for an improvement, per- 
 mits no long platforms — a thousand feet is not unusual in new 
 stations on main lines — and it could be utilized for an exten- 
 sion of the present freight house, or for a railroad office 
 building. On the assumption that the new station will be 
 placed west of Calhoun, and probably extending well beyond 
 Harrison, I make the following suggestions : 
 
 1. That the company be granted the permission, which 
 I fancy will be asked, to construct the new building on the two 
 blocks from Calhoun to Webster ; but that, instead of closing 
 Harrison Street between liaker and the railroad, they be re- 
 quired so to bridge it, that it ma\- still be used for subway pas- 
 sage to the south side of the tracks. This will impose no un- 
 reasonable obligation on the company, for the main part of the 
 station will in any case be at the track level. But it will give to 
 the city an additional subway where it is much needed, and will 
 make an additional direct connection between the station and 
 the southern part of town. 
 
 2. That a plaza be formed in front of the station. This 
 the city can now do at little cost, for this is still a section of 
 narrow brick sidewalks and inexpensive detached dwellings. 
 While a square would be the most natural form for the plaza, 
 this particular shape is by no means necessary. Some irregu- 
 larity — should property owners be unreasonable — need not be 
 feared, so long as there be given ample room for cabs, car- 
 riages, automobiles, omnibuses, mail and baggage wagons. 
 
 3. That Harrison Street be widened, from sixty feet to 
 eightv feet, for the three blocks to Lewis, where it makes its 
 
42 Purl W'axnc C'vi'ic I iiiproi'ciiwii/ . Issocinlidii 
 
 slii>lit turn and wlicrc now its widlli hccnnK's sixty-six feet. 
 This can hardly he done too soon, for ah"ead\- the Stults apart- 
 ments, mider construction in this section of the street as the 
 Iveport is written, are hcinc;- huiU Ihrsh wilh t!ie walk. With 
 that e.xce])tion, however, the houses now stand hack from the 
 street line, leavin,^' clear as yet the s])ace required. Idiere 
 is no douht that wilh the location of the station, the character 
 of this part of the street will chan.i^e, that much rehuilding will 
 take place, and that a widcnin,n- of the street will confer on the 
 pro])ertv a henefit close imleed to the loss that would he occa- 
 sioned h\- niovint;' the ficntaL^e hack ten feet on a side. 
 
 To he sure the street is paved, h'or the present this pave- 
 ment need not l)e disturhed. Railroads do not move as fast as 
 do their train-., and it is likely to he a numher of years he fore 
 the track elevation and new station are completed. Mean- 
 while, and initil the traffic actually demands wider space, the 
 addition to the street's width mav he thrown into parkiui^'. 
 That there w'll eventually be need of a wide street here, i)ar- 
 alleling' Calhoun, no one who believes in h^M't Wayne can doubt. 
 We have seen that the conditions which lead to cong'estion on 
 Calhoun Street are fundamental and ])ermanent : and that the 
 street has nearly reached now its maximum c:u,xicity. As that 
 point is approached, diversion of traffic is necessary. This 
 luust ultimately throw on Harrison street an addititMial burden, 
 beyond that imposed by the station travel. If city-i)lanning- is 
 worth anythini;', it must look forward to that time and so en- 
 able you to ])repare for it. 
 
 Doui^las Avenue, which is a block south of Lewis Street, 
 marks the crest of a slight rise. Next to a bad pavement 
 nothing is more abhorrent to service traffic than is a grade. If 
 we are to fit Harrison Street for business, and exi)ect to divert 
 to it the excess traffic that would otherwise crowd upon Cal- 
 houn Street, we shall do well, when the time comes for relay- 
 ing" and wddening the Harrison Street pavement, to cut down 
 the grade. The fact that this has been done only on Calhoun 
 Street has certainl)- been no slight factor in the business de- 
 
Port Wayne Cli'ic liiif^rorciiiciif .IssDciafion 43 
 
 velo[)nient of that street. The rise is not so eonsiderable that 
 the cost will intiict damages on property which is being re- 
 built, in response to the transformation of a residence street 
 into a business one. 
 
 There will be, however, further advantage in cutting the 
 street down. With a beautiful station fronting on a plaza, 
 and closing the southern vista at this part of Harrison Street, 
 and with the broadened street — the one wide, stately, modern 
 street in Fort Wayne — leading into this, we shall have, look- 
 ing south from Lewis, a very fine effect, if the grade be so lev- 
 eled that no intervening crest breaks the view. And coming 
 from the station and looking across the plaza and down the 
 broad, handsomely proportioned approach, there will be otTered 
 a very stunning first impression of the city, if a leveling of the 
 way shall make it possible to see as far as Lewis Street. 
 
 At that point the street makes slight bend to the left and 
 even though the street were widened to a further point, the 
 vista would be closed. This is a point, then, to emphasize and 
 dignify; a point to be given as distinct and interesting an accent 
 as, at the other end of the short, handsome way. the station 
 will aft'ord. Therefore, I suggest, (4), that here be placed the 
 statue or monument to Anthony Wayne, for which the lew 
 in the taxes is gradually creating a substantial fund. What 
 more dignified and splendid setting could be found for it, what 
 location more appropriate, than that which, at a three blocks' 
 distance, will crown the imposing street that leads away from 
 the station? The traveler's first view of Fort Wayne, as he 
 sets foot upon the city, would include as the focal point of the 
 picture, as the terminus of his perspective, the monument to 
 the soldier for whom the city is named. 
 
 5. And fronting also upon the statue might be the Con- 
 vention Hall. For this the northwest corner of Harrison and 
 Lewis Streets seem to me admirably adapted. The property 
 is inexpensive ; it gives frontage on two streets ; it is centrally 
 located; it is within short walking distance not only of all 
 hotels but of the railroad station, from which, indeed, it could 
 
44 
 
 I'Dii Udyitc Cl'i'ic finf^rorcincjil .Issociiilimi 
 
 l)c seen, and willi which it wonld Iiavc sucli ni)l)le connection 
 as could not fail to impress. This is the alternative site I had 
 in mind in s]K'akin<; of the ( )fficial Quarter. On one of these 
 two sites, it seems to me, the liall should certainl\- he ])laced. 
 
 But even these suggestions do not reveal the whole of my 
 station-api^-oach plan. ]w>t north of Lewis Street, an alley 
 
 leads east t'l-oin Hai-rison 
 to Calhoun, and one of the 
 slender t\\ in si)ii-es of the 
 CatlK^divil looms liii(dy at 
 its end. Suppose the space 
 between Lewis and this 
 alley, now containing no- 
 thing of large value, were 
 ac(piired and transfoi-uied 
 into a l)eautiful formal gar- 
 den, the street and some- 
 what widened alley forming 
 a double i-oadway on either 
 side of this middle garden. 
 Thei-e would b:' opened a 
 n()l)le view of the Cathedral. 
 There Avoidd be opened 
 from Calhoun street a view 
 of the Wayne statue and of 
 the ( 'ouveutiou Hall. There 
 would be aeijuired at a 
 strategic, and yet comiiara- 
 tiv(dy iuexpensixc, point, 
 the oidy o])en si)ace in the 
 business district of Fort 
 AVayne. Thei-e W(»u]d be 
 otferfMl to the Coincntion 
 Hall a lo\'(dy on t 1 ook . 
 There would be established 
 between the imposing sta- 
 
 Present view of the Cathedral from the Alley {XoW appVOach aud CalholMl 
 
 north of Lewis Street. 
 
 r 
 
 J 
 
 ^^^^^^^^M^l 
 
 1- '■ ' 
 
 1 liLHZ^M 
 
 ■'m m 
 
 M^~^ 
 
 m^mm^-m 
 
 
 ^ 
 
Port Ji'ayiic C'/r/r hiiprorciiiciif . Issociafioii 
 
 45 
 
 street an iuterestiiig' and Avortliy coiiiiectioii.* There would 
 be created big vahics for the property, which is now 
 of litth^ value, on the south side of Lewis street and 
 on the north side of the alley, ])ecause it would front on 
 this park, and the increased assessable value of this property — 
 permanent and growing' — would soon pay the cost of the im- 
 provement. In a little while you could say you had got this 
 centrally located park for nothing. It is my belief that all these 
 gains make abundantly worth while the acquirement of that 
 
 Calhoun Street property opposite the Cathedral and the extraordinary opportunity it presents. 
 
 little half block of poorly developed property. You certainly, 
 then, in the complete carrying out of this scheme, would have 
 a notable improvement; and people would begin to talk of 
 Fort Wayne as a handsome and beautiful city. 
 
 *It is worth while, perhaps, to note that tlie form of this little 
 central PLACE satisfies ideal requirements for such construction. 
 Though it is so accessible, the streets would lead to it in such in- 
 conspicuous fashion that the breaks would nowhere be obvious, the 
 eye being carried over tliem along the border walls. That is to say. 
 the conditions offer that sense of enclosure which is one secret of 
 the artistic success of picturesque squares in old Eurouean cities. 
 
46 Fort U'ayjic Civic I luf'rovciiiciit Association 
 
 If so much is to be done for the approaches to the new rail- 
 road station, to the end that arrival and departure there shall 
 be made convenient and that travelers who enter Fort Wayne 
 by it shall be well impressed, every efifort should be exerted 
 to make the station truly a union one. Only so will the pro- 
 posed improvements confer the largest possible benefit. By 
 "union," I mean that it shall be used by trains of every road 
 entering" the xity. So far as trackage is concerned, this is 
 entirely feasible. 
 
 In closing this discussion of ])lans for suitable station ap- 
 proaches, it is perhaps necessary to emphasize once more the 
 point that there is no proposal that the whole improvement 
 be made at once. It will be enough for the present to acquire 
 the necessary land. Any delay as to this may make the whole 
 plan impracticable. The city has already lost one great chance, 
 that should teach a lesson, in its failure to provide in time for 
 a Civic Center. A combination of circumstances happily of- 
 fers now such another opportunity in connection with station 
 development — a chance to create the best station approach, as 
 far as I know, of any city of its size in the United States. It 
 can be foreseen, too, that the property involved is destined to 
 change rapidly in value and character. The city must act at 
 once, or assume the grave responsibility of denying to the fu- 
 ture Fort Wayne the opportunity for any large and fine civic 
 effect here. It is possible that to secure the plan the property 
 owners on Harrison Street would donate the small frontage re- 
 quired for the street's ultimate widening. Certainly they could 
 aft'ord to do so. In such case a comparatively small bond issue 
 would buy the lots needed for the station plaza and the half 
 block for the park. The development and improvement of the 
 purchased property, when the time came for that, could be 
 properly assessed on the frontage. 
 
 With reference to tlie track elevation, as the city is to pay 
 twenty-five per cent, of the cost of the overhead crossing at the 
 street it has very properly required that tiie company submit 
 
Fort Wayne Civic rinprovemcnt Association 47 
 
 to it the plans and estimates for the work. This gives to the 
 municipality the opportunity to insist that the bridges, con- 
 spicuous as these will prove in the street view, shall be of pleas- 
 ing design, ornament and color. On this point there should be 
 unmovable insistence. 
 
48 I'ort Jl'aync Ci''i^i(^ fiiif'ni-T'cnu'iif .-Issociafioii 
 
 An Industrial District. 
 
 Fort Wayne is an industrial cit}-. The primary reason 
 men live liere is because there is work to be done, and the 
 bulk of the workers are not tradesmen or clerks, but operatives. 
 
 The city's industrial character must influence all our plan- 
 ning". \\'e have considered thus far onl}- the show places and 
 the places where the citizens trade. The j^laces where they 
 work, wdiere they live, and where they shall play are of vital 
 importance in the l)uilding of the better l-Y^rt Wayne. And 
 these three places, however intermingled, must be correlated 
 in a city plan. Each must be located with a view to maximum 
 of efficiency, and of non-interference with the others. Inter- 
 ference is easy. Lor example, the use of high-class residence 
 property for the creation of a picture-park is extravagant to 
 the point of waste, or the location of a factory in the midst 
 of a quiet residence district is an uneconomic intrusion. If 
 the factory is so distressing to the senses of hearing, or smell 
 and sight, as to be a "nuisance," the courts will intervene to 
 prevent the intrusion. If it fall short of such extreme un- 
 pleasantness as a neighbor, it may still depreciate the value 
 of surrounding proj^erty, and municipal waste results. In 
 scientific Germany, cities and towns are now laid out in distinct 
 sections, for trade, for manufacturing, and for different classes 
 of dwellings. Without going so far as that, we yet may con- 
 sider in what sections a community will most properly encour- 
 age manufacturing or residence. 
 
 The Packard Company, located on I-'airtield Avenue, has 
 made its grounds lovely with planting". \'er}" striking, too, 
 are the remarkable neatness and attractiveness of the grounds 
 of the Wabash roundhouse, lower down, on the same street. 
 This is good work, sociologically as well as aesthetically, and 
 is everywhere to be encouraged. But even an assurance of 
 such develo])n"ient will not justify, in a scientific city plan, the 
 placing of a factory in a high class residence district. A dog 
 
Fort U'a\nc Ck'ic hiiproi'ciiicnt . Issociaficii 
 
 49 
 
 is out of place at a cat show, even tlnnii^h he does wear a rih- 
 hon around his neck. 
 
 One particular reason for (Hshke of a factory in a resi- 
 dence district is the smoke emitted from it. If the factories 
 of a citv are so k:)cated that under usual wind conditions their 
 smoke is blown across the residence and trading portions of the 
 town, there is done on a great scale the injury that one factory, 
 when erroneously placed, does on a small scale. In Fort 
 
 A bit of the Packard Grounds. 
 
 \\'a\-ne the prevailing wind is southwest. The location of fac- 
 tories southwest of the city, or even in the rolling mill district, 
 is therefore, from this point of view, unfortunate. 
 
 But the residences must not interfere with the factories 
 any more than the factories should interfere with the resi- 
 dences. If no equally good site for manufacturing can be 
 found, or created, that high-class residence section which is now 
 established on West Jefiferson, Washington, \\'a\ne and Berry 
 
50 
 
 Port Wayne Civic fiiiprorcinciit .Isscciatioii 
 
 Streets will have to move, leavinj^- its place for the homes of 
 operatives. Generally speaking, it is easier to move dwell- 
 ings than factories. The action is more or less automatic, and 
 may be witnessed today in operation in scores of cities. Fac- 
 tories make a neighborhood un])leasant ; those residents who 
 can afford to do so move away, and the character of the neigh- 
 borhood is quickl}' transformed. This is a very serious mat- 
 ter, however, for the many whose ])r()pert}' is affected. If the 
 future is going to see smoke-belching factories congregated in 
 numbers in the rolling mill district, the health, comfort and 
 
 The well kept turf of the Wabash Roundhouse offers an example lo many a fronl yard. 
 
 ha])])iness of all the citizens of Fort Wayne will be strongly 
 aft'ected. and the whole character of the city's development 
 will be changed. 
 
 In a cit}- such as lujrt Wayne, where the topogra])hy is 
 practically level and where no natural power is generated, rail- 
 road facilities more than any other one thing determine the 
 availability of a manufacturing site. The excellence of these 
 in the rolling mill district is the strongest invitation to indus- 
 trial development there, h^or the present, no serious harm has 
 been done, Dut in locating the future factories of the city, a 
 
Fort ]]'a\nc Civic f iiiproz'cmciit .Issocialioii 51 
 
 matter under eonsideralile eontrol, a very serious condition 
 confronts the community. If there be desire that a distinctively 
 manufacturing- section be not developed southwest of an exist- 
 ing business and a high-class residence district, equal or better 
 railroad facilities must be elsewhere provided. This, in an 
 American city, is a matter for private or associated effort 
 rather than for municipal action. 
 
 In my judgment there exists an extraordinary opportunity 
 for developing such a section where it will do no harm. 1 
 refer to the triangular area east of Walton Avenue, between 
 the Pennsylvania and Wabash railroads. This is east of the 
 city, with no settlement northeast of it which the smoke could 
 injure. It is bounded on north and south by the principal 
 railroads that now enter Fort Wayne, and the Nickel Plate 
 lies only a half mile away, across a practically level country cut 
 by no intervening river. If, as is desirable, the Nickel Plate 
 makes use of the new l^nion Station for passenger service, it 
 will build across that half mil^-. In any case, so short a space 
 of easy road construction would offer no obstacle to the com- 
 pany. The Lake Shore would enter the section on the Nickel 
 Plate tracks. An interurban road now passes through it. 
 As to distance from the center of the city, the tract lies at the 
 same air-distance from the Court House as does the rolling 
 mill ; in directness and ease of communication, however, it is 
 better off. Further, as a civic advantage, the teaming does not 
 traverse a high-class residence district ; and, as a labor advant- 
 age, the section is adjacent to a large, firmly established, and 
 as yet only partly developed laborers' cottage district, lying 
 just west and southwest of it and having already convenient 
 street car service. The region itself is almost virgin terri- 
 tory, a great deal of it being open and farm-like. 
 
 As this proposed industrial area is situated beyond the 
 present city limits, no immediate obligation can be assumed by 
 
52 Fort JJ'ciyiic Cii'ic Improri'iiiciil . Issaciiilioit 
 
 ihc inunici]);ility in its development. New Haven Avenue, 
 however, which makes in its western end a very convenient 
 and valuable diaL;()nal. should, after enterinj^' the city, he ex- 
 tended to at least Lillic Street. This is only a block, but it 
 would save nearly two blocks' travel, and it would have the 
 advantage of carrying; the teaming beyond — that is. west of — 
 Walton Avenue, which, as the only unbroken north and south 
 street on the east side of tiie city, has great driving im])()rtance. 
 The block tlu-ough whicli tlic extension would pass is now va- 
 cant property. The few streets which have been laid out in the 
 proposed section are fairly well placed — New Haven Avenue. 
 Chestnut Street and Wayne Terrace are almost ideally situated 
 for arterial service. ]^>ut the streets are inadecjuatel}' narrow — 
 Chestnut, for instance, is forty feet from lot line to lot 
 line, and carries the interurban track. If, for wdiat it would 
 mean to Fort Wayne, there is to be a serious attempt to de- 
 velo]) this tract as the industrial region, the city should take 
 it promptly into the corporate limits, to the end that super- 
 visory control over street widths and .street location may be 
 exercised. A'ery likel}' this would prove in fact a needless pre- 
 caution, for the civic spirit and the enterprise that would un- 
 dertake so great a scheme would jirobably ])lan well. Hut 
 there should be assurance that it will. There would he the 
 advantages of favorable toi)ogra])hical conditions, of a nearly 
 virgin field, of the i^resence and interest of great railroad cor- 
 porations. The land would he laid out not in the usual house 
 lots, but in manufacturing ])lats ; and to serve these at the 
 mininuun ex])enditure of time and effort the streets and >iding> 
 would be planned. In these respects, the trad could acluall\- 
 be made second to none in the United States in its convenience. 
 
 There is thus the possibility of develo])ing a great manu- 
 facturing section, making it contribute to the wealth and 
 numl)ers and prestige of the city without exacting the toll 
 
Fort U'axuc Ck'ic Inipyo-i'oucuf . Issociafioii 53 
 
 which its location to the west would exact. Left, as the mat- 
 ter must he, to private enterprise, there is recjuirement of cour- 
 age ; but the conditions are such as to make courage worth 
 while. It may be said on this ])oint that ever\' item in the cost 
 of receiving' or shi]^ping freight which it is possible to elimin- 
 ate, and good planning of this section could eliminate many, 
 correspondingly extends the distance to which the products of 
 Fort Wayne can be shipped with profit, and increases the profit 
 on sales in the radius already reached. There should of course 
 be no delay in developing this industrial section, if the largest 
 success is to be secured with economy. 
 
 I have said that the development of this section will prob- 
 ably have to be left to private enterprise, the city exercising no 
 more than a supervisory control through its authority to accept 
 or reject streets, allow sidings, and so on. The sympathetic 
 interest of the railroads may properly be anticipated ; but their 
 active co-operation, especially as between themselves — which 
 would be necessary to complete success — is not as easily 
 gained. To that end it may be found advisable to form a 
 freight terminal company, in which the railroads, or their 
 ofificials, shall be stockholders jointly with the realty and indus- 
 trial interests, and shall have with the latter a share in the 
 management. 
 
 As to making street i)lans for the district, there is no ad- 
 vantage in attempting to include these in the present Report. 
 It is enough here to urge the advantages, civic and economic, of 
 developing for Fort Wayne a distinct manufacturing section, 
 and of locating it on the opposite side of the city from the 
 point where it now seems likely to develop. One further sug- 
 gestion may, however, be ofifered. Assuming this section's in- 
 dustrial development, the Wabash, and even the Lake Shore 
 road, might well construct a semi-lxdt line that, running south 
 (-)f the citv, windd connect the \'ards and sidings lierc with the 
 
54 Port Wayne Ch'ic Improvement Association 
 
 main lines west of the St. Mary's river. The advantage to the 
 raih'oads would be the substitution of a short haul for freight 
 traffic instead of the present roundabout three-sided loop 
 through the city. The advantages to the municipality woidd be 
 the freeing of the tracks that cut through the center of the city 
 from numerous freight trains, with the danger, noise, delay and 
 smoke that every such train involves. The location and grade 
 of the line would have, however, to be carefully worked out. 
 
 This possibility of a new manufacturing section, developed 
 on modern lines, is in my judgment one of the most important 
 possibilities now before the city ; one of great economic promise 
 to capital and labor, and of immense significance in the city's 
 improvement. 
 
Fort JJ'ayiie Civic Improvement Association 55 
 
 Public Market. 
 
 By virtue of a public-spirited citizen's deed of gift, Fort 
 Wayne has for some years had a public market, extending 
 more or less informally south from the City Hall. With the 
 growth of population, the original narrow strip dedicated to 
 market purposes has proved inadequate, and now the wagons 
 overflow into streets all around the public building. There 
 is presented the necessity of enlarging the market space, of 
 giving to it a greater dignity that shall be in keeping with its 
 present surroundings, or of finding a new place for the market. 
 
 To enlarge the present site would involve exceedingly 
 heavy expense, and the act would be of doubtful civic wisdom, 
 for the best market, if it be large, is difficult to keep clean, is 
 unpleasant to traverse, blocks traffic, and is not the most de- 
 sirable neighbor to high-class property — business, official, and 
 residential. Yet here is a small property distinctly dedicated to 
 market purposes, of little other real use, and undoubtedly very 
 convenient to many people. 
 
 I recommend that by ordinance the use of this market 
 be restricted to genuinely retail garden produce business, and 
 that an architect be retained to make plans for an artistically 
 designed covered walk, with stands on either side, that shall 
 be an ornament to the neighborhood, in keeping with the city's 
 official quarter, and worthy of the municipal proprietorship. 
 With little white pillars and a red tiled roof, for example, it 
 could be made very attractive ; and by the free use of concrete 
 exceedingly easy to keep clean. Such a walk would make a 
 not unpleasant promenade, after market hours, on stormy, or 
 hot sunny days, from the City Hall to Washington Street. 
 
 As to the cost, the city has the land, with no need 
 at present to use it for , other purposes; the one-story 
 shelter would require little capital to build, and the rental 
 of the stalls should pay the interest, and a profit besides. 
 As to size, I think that in cities the retail public market has 
 
56 Fort Wayne Ck'ic Juiproi'cinoil . Issociafioii 
 
 seen its best days. 'I'his has l)ecn tlic experience of more than 
 one munici]:)ahty — the use of the teleplione, the relatively low 
 prices offered in larg-e private markets, the Inisier lives of 
 women, tlie distance which wage earners are now likely to live 
 from the market, liaw all, no doubt, proved contributing" fac- 
 tors to this result. I dn not l)elieve that it would be wise to as- 
 sume heavy munici])al expense for the ])rovision of a large re- 
 tail ])ublic market. 
 
 The bulkier and wholesale public market business, how- 
 ever, continues as a trade necessity. If it can be located within 
 a reasonably convenient distance of the business section, and 
 yet not directly in its path, there is very great advantag'e. 
 For the accommodation of this I suggest the gradual prepara- 
 tion of the land, which is already city property, on the north 
 side of the St. Mary's river, across the Van Ruren Street 
 bridge. A pumping station occupies a few square feet, and all 
 the rest of the large area is now vacant.' 
 
 There may be immediate objection that the tract is too far 
 away and that it would be an admirable park site for the north 
 side. With reference to the latter point, the section north and 
 east of it is less than half a mile from T.awton Park, which has 
 been already developed as a park, which can be very much 
 better developed than it now is, and which, being of larger 
 size, is far preferable as a park. 1"he section southwest and 
 northwest of the tract is within a half mile of Swinney Park, 
 regarding which the same comments apply. The subway be- 
 neath the Lake Shore tracks would be as useful an approach 
 to the market as it could be to the park. The city cannot turn 
 all its property into parks, and when we come to discuss the 
 general ])ark ])ossibilities we shall see why other pieces of 
 property are preferable to this for additional park purposes. 
 
 As to market availability, other cities have found a con- 
 siderable advantage in locating such a market on a railroad line, 
 as this site is. In distance, it is only three-quarters of a mile 
 from the Court House, which, for the suggested wholesale 
 business, is close enougli to the center of the city, excellent 
 
Fort Wayne Ck't'c Fiiif^roT'CDiciif .Issocialion 57 
 
 streets connecting it. Bounded by railroad and river on two 
 sides, its location is such as not to injure the neighborhood. 
 It is most accessible to leading coiuitry highways north and 
 west, and is as readily reached by all other country roads as 
 is the present site ; and as there naturally would be included in 
 it a provision for enough retail business to satisfy the local de- 
 mand, it is worth while to note that the proposed location is in 
 the sort of a home section that would be most likely to value 
 a public retail market. In short, this site would locate the 
 market where there never can be a neighborhood objection to 
 it, on a site sufficiently convenient to the merchants, who would 
 be its principal patrons, on a site of good size, and on one 
 publicly owned, and for which other equally good public use 
 cannot readily be found. 
 
 The preparation of this site, if undertaken all at once, 
 would be costly, liut a beginning will not cost nnicli, and after 
 that the work can go on gradually, liefore this Luul can be 
 put to use for anv purpose — i. e., before the city's considerable 
 investment here can be made to give returns in any way — a 
 dyke will have to be built. Common business sense suggests 
 that this be done. When the dike has been constructed, the 
 city can throw the ground open for dumping, and in a wonder- 
 fully short time the site will be found ready for the market. 
 With its development for that purpose, and the growth of 
 population in its neighborhood, there is no question that a local 
 retail business in garden produce would be done there. /\nd 
 to such extent as it is done there the present market will be 
 relieved. 
 
58 Forf JVayiic Civic Improvement Association 
 
 RESIDENCE Streets. 
 
 Fort Wayne's residence streets are better than its busi- 
 ness thoroughfares. This does not only mean that they are 
 pleasanter to see, as should be expected, but tliat they arc bet- 
 ter adapted to their purpose. The poor rule of ])l:itting- nearly all 
 streets to a unif(jrni width, regardless of the traffic they are 
 likely to carry, has persisted with them as it has elsewhere ; 
 but it does less harm in the residence section than in the busi- 
 ness. This is because for residence purposes the streets are 
 almost always wide enough from lot line to lot line, while by 
 means of parking— that is, putting grass between walk and 
 curb — the roadways can be narrowed as much as desired. 
 
 Generally speaking, the city's residence streets are well 
 paved and their pavements are kept fairly clean. The recent 
 activity in sidewalk building has given them good walks, 
 though a mistake has been made in constructing" walks that in 
 many cases are too wide. On West Jefferson Street, for 
 instance, a six-foot walk — which is the walk of usual width 
 for a residence street — would have been sufficient. Some 
 
 An interesting photograph of a street in Toronto, in which on one side the walk is given a strip 
 
 of parking and on the other is next the curb. Though in the picture the perspective is 
 
 misleading, the distance from lot line to curb is the same in either case. 
 
 IVhich side of the street is handsomest ? 
 
Fort Wayne Civic hnprovcuicnt Association 59 
 
 A sample of tree-lopping on a street in Fort Wayne 
 
6o fori Jl'iiyiir Civic hiipro^'einciif Association 
 
 money could tluis have been saved and a better looking street 
 would have been secured. It is a rare residence street that 
 needs a paved sidewalk of more than six feet width, (jn 
 Jackson, and a few other streets, the walk has been laid next to 
 the curb, and such space as was left for street lawn has been 
 thrown into lot lawn. This is a mistake in jnds^ment that one 
 rarely hnds nowadays. The aesthetic loss must be obvious to 
 anybody who compares such a street with one havint;" a rib- 
 bon of greensward along each curb. lUit objection to the ])lan 
 is not based on a])pearance alone. The walk's location next to 
 the curb leaves pedestrians with no i)rotecting barrier from 
 mud and dust; and the addition which is seeminglv made to 
 private i)ro])erty is subtracted from public propertv. With the 
 exception, however, of these faults, the parking strips on the 
 residence streets of Fort Wayne are excellent. I have not often 
 been able to dismiss them with so little comment. 
 
 Idle trees are, and ought in even larger measure to be, the 
 glory of a city's residence streets, lint in I'^ort Wayne they 
 show the want of responsible and consistent care. For the best 
 street etTect they should be evenly and generouslv 
 s]iaced, they should on any clearly defined street 
 unit be of a single variety; they should have that 
 l)rotection from linemen, advertisers, disease and pests 
 which only niunicii)al control and expert knowledge 
 can insure. One of the most important actions Fort Wayne 
 can take, to make the city better to live in and to look at, is to 
 secure a comix-tent forester. He may act under the Board of 
 lAiblic W^orks, under the Park Commission, or in a separate 
 bureau ; but in any case his position ought to be absolutely 
 divorced from politics. Ordinances, it may be added, will not 
 save the trees, unless there is an official fearlessly and wisely 
 to enforce the ordinances. 
 
 The residence streets are marred by multitudes of poles. 
 ( )f course to considerable extent this must be exjiected. but 
 in Fort Wayne there is not much need of it. The cit\'s alkw 
 system is so complete and excellent that llie wires can well 
 
Fort U'iiyiic Cii'ic Tiuf^roi'cincut .Issocidtioii C)\ 
 
 be carried throui;li tlicni. Tf this liad no other advantage, it 
 would at least save the street trees. Many trees of slow but 
 beautiful natural growth have been ruined by topping, in order 
 that they may not interfere with wires. But in the life of the city 
 the wires strung over the streets on poles present a temporary 
 condition, and it is foll\- to destroy the relatively permanent 
 Ijcauty of trees that the convenience of the moment may be 
 satisfied. Further, the side parking, in its prevalence and very 
 excellence, gives opportunity, even where there is no alley, for 
 burying" wires at relatively little cost, since it becomes unneces- 
 sary to rip up pavements. The southern section of Fairfield 
 Avenue in particular is a noble street, so handsomely paved and 
 curbed, and so enriched with beautiful lawns representing heavy 
 private expenditure, that it is absurd to allow it to be marred 
 by great poles burdened with countless wires. Incongruous, 
 too, on this street is the cheap and flimsy method of suspending 
 the street lights. They should have good standards. 
 
 Private lawns contribute particularly to the beauty of 
 Fort Wayne streets because of the general absence of front 
 fences and a considerable absence of line fences, in front of the 
 dwelling line. This is one of the charms of the city and is 
 to be encouraged and made even more universally the rule. 
 Omission or removal of fences is a simple thing for the house- 
 holders, saving rather than costing money, and in the act lies, 
 in American cities, one of the secrets of beautiful street and 
 city making. The humblest homes, even though lawns be un- 
 planted save with grass, gain a certain simple dignity that is 
 pleasing", if they be set back from the walk and left unenclosed 
 l)y fences. Back of the front building line, there may be all the 
 privacy one wants : and with Fort Wayne's deep lots quite as 
 much garden as most city dwellers have inclination and time 
 to care for. 
 
 It is a pity that with deep lots the houses are so often put 
 close to the street. On some of the older thoroughfares they 
 are almost at the walk line. Apart from the greater comfort 
 and attractiveness for those who live in the dwelling, if it be 
 
62 
 
 I' art Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 located well l)ack from the street, there is the greater beauty 
 imparted to the thoroughfare by the increased width such ac- 
 tion seems to contribute to the street ; and the appearance of 
 greater size and consequent value given to the property itself. 
 For when the house is close u])on the street the passer is prone 
 to assume that shallowness of lot is the explanation. 
 
 This setting- of houses forward when lots are deep is not, 
 however, an unusual phenomenon. And it has had always the 
 same meaning, which is one of sinister import to the city where 
 it is fotmd. It means a tendency to use for additional housing 
 
 Simple homes dignified by a selling of unenclosed fronl lawns. A sireet in Fori Wayne. 
 
 the back of the lot with alley frontage. Tenement and slum 
 conditions have their worst development under such circum- 
 stances, as the investigations lately made in Washington and 
 St. Louis conclusively prove. The beauty of the one city and 
 national interest in its development, and the unusual civic 
 pride and spirit of the other, were no i)roof against the creation 
 of breeding spots of disease and crime in the houses on the 
 backs of lots. Removed from the cleansing glare of pub- 
 licity, they become difficult to watch and control. 
 
Foi't JVay>ic Civic Improvement Assoeiation 63 
 
 So long- as alleys are used for legitimate alley purposes — 
 that is, for what may be briefly summarized as the backdoor 
 service of street-fronting houses and buildings — they are a 
 valuable feature of the city plan. When dwellings are con- 
 structed to face on them, they become a serious menace. The 
 President's Homes Commission, reporting on Washington's 
 alley conditions to President Roosevelt, said : "By far the best 
 way to do with alley houses is to do away with the alleys by 
 converting them into minor streets." The commission calls at- 
 tention not only to the difificulty of supervision, but to the dan- 
 ger of having "scattered through the heart of the city" and 
 "really in very close contact with the best residences of the 
 city," the sort of population that is most likely to be found in 
 alley dwellings. As to the means of converting alleys into 
 minor streets, the legal and economic aspects of the question 
 and the examples of England and Germany in handling a like 
 problem, I shall do best to refer you to the long report of the 
 Homes Commission — to be obtained free on application — with 
 its full discussion. The danger may not seem to you serious 
 yet in Fort Wayne ; but it threatens and is sure to develop if 
 not checked. 
 
 Turning from the general to the particular, I shall re- 
 serve most of my suggestions for special residence streets to 
 that portion of the Report which will deal with the parks and 
 their connections. The jog in Lewis Street, where Hanna 
 crosses it, is unsightly and even dangerous ; but can be quite 
 easily corrected if action be taken promptly. The jog in Fair- 
 field Avenue at Brackenridge crossing is very unfortunate, a 
 long handsome street seeming to terminate as one goes north, 
 in the hideous brick wall of a two-story building. If one gets 
 around the corner of that building the avenue stretches at- 
 tractively on again. Such instances as these should give back- 
 bone to city officials in refusing to accept, in the new additions, 
 streets that do not properly connect with existing thorough- 
 fares. The beauty and convenience of the community as a 
 whole should be recognized as paramount to the profit of in- 
 
64 r'ort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 dividual landholders. The more progressive cities are now, in 
 the better appreciation of city-planning, quite commonly tak- 
 ing such a stand. But this only applies, I should hasten to add, 
 to streets, as that term is usually understood. It does not apply 
 to those semi-public "Places" that, in their very informality 
 and picturesqucness, may lend charming distinction to a resi- 
 dential section. 
 
 At the intersection of East Creighton and South Hanna 
 Streets, the location of the Lutheran church is very fine. The 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 
 ^^^VC3H^^^^^^^^0^H 
 
 
 :, -., 
 
 -^., 
 
 
 A church [in Massachusetts' that has tittle garden space, but has made that little beautiful 
 with planting. 
 
 view through Creighton Avenue of its slender spire is one of 
 the best things in Fort Wayne. It conveys a suggestion that 
 has wide application and should be heeded. But generally 
 speaking, the churches of Fort Wayne have not that attractive 
 landscape setting which usually can be given to even the sim- 
 plest church on the commonplace lot, and which ought to be 
 given if our religion means anything. 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 65 
 
 The school yards, too, should be better developed. They 
 are scattered throughout the residence district and, as the 
 most numerous and most widely distributed bits of public 
 property, should set an example of adaptation to purpose, of 
 neatness, and of so much beauty as is compatible with their 
 use for play. In area, most of the Fort Wayne school yards are 
 too small ; and it should be reflected that if they are not large 
 enough to g'ive play space to the children, they are hardly worth 
 their cost. Economy would suggest, in such case, their elimin- 
 ation altogether — a backward step in popular education which 
 no city, however poor in purse or spirit, now considers — or 
 making them adequate. Just as authorities have determined 
 the minimum amount of cubic air per pupil which a school 
 room should provide, so it is agreed that at least thirty square 
 feet per pupil should be given in the school grounds. The 
 compactness with which Fort Wayne is built, comprising as it 
 does a general playground argument, makes particularly neces- 
 sary the adequacy of the school yards. 
 
 In the more outlying districts, the school yard should be 
 large enough for school gardens. A great deal is being done in 
 this direction, often under conditions less favorable than at 
 Fort Wayne ; and a great deal of helpful material has been 
 printed on the subject, including publications by the United 
 States Department of Agriculture. In fact the Association of 
 City and Town Superintendents of Indiana issued some years 
 ago a pamphlet on the subject which is full of suggestion. 
 
 Not only should the school yards as a class be larger, but, 
 I have said, they should be pleasanter to look upon. The fine 
 High School, for instance, is a striking example. What citizen 
 would put up a house of such value, or even a good looking 
 factory, and not improve the grounds? There should at the 
 very least be shrubs on the Lewis Street corners, and on either 
 side of the Lewis Street entrance. I append photographs giv- 
 ing an idea of the setting of a high school in Cambridge, Mass., 
 and this is a fair example. 
 
66 
 
 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 In Chicago, $150,000 is being expended tiiis year simply 
 in the adornment of schoolyards. Flowers and shrubs are 
 placed around the borders and against the building, where they 
 trespass on no play space. But it may be added that the work, 
 which has been in progress there for years, is exceedingly 
 popular with the children themselves, a rivalry in beauty of 
 grounds growing up among the schools that have been thus 
 improved. That there is set an example and stimulus to the 
 
 High School Grounds, Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 neighborhood, that the school becomes an inviting center and 
 that the child unconsciously learns to appreciate beauty, are 
 facts that need no telling. It is a curious circumstance that 
 among the smaller public buildings of Fort Wayne the fire- 
 houses are set in more attractively-kept lots than are the schools 
 — though the latter are supposed to stand for and to raise the 
 comnuuiity's ideals of culture. 
 
Fort ]]'aync Civic Improvement Association 
 
 67 
 
 Very beautiful is the residential tract developed east of 
 Hoagland Avenue, between Pontiac and Killea Streets. Here 
 a lovely grove was not ruthlessly cut down, that bare lots 
 might be created, and characterless streets put through to be 
 ])lanted laboriously with stripling trees. But with only a little 
 thinning the grove was left to make for city homes an ideal 
 setting and to offer in its beauty and success an example to 
 owners of other such tracts. To an inspiring but almost dan- 
 
 High School Grounds, Cambridge, .Mass. 
 
 gerous extent the development of the City Beautiful and 
 Pleasant lies with the owners of such residential tracts, as 
 from time to time these come into the market. That they 
 should do as was done in this case, and as seems now to be 
 promised in the new Lakeside district, cannot be too strongly 
 urged. In fact, the charming curving way, with its varying 
 play of light and shadow — now so little known in Fort Wayne 
 — cries out for development. 
 
68 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF THE PARKS. 
 
 Discussion of P'ort Wayne's parks, playgrounds and park 
 approaches, may properly be divided into two sections. In the 
 first we will consider the improvement of what Fort Wayne al- 
 ready has in this line ; in the second, the additions that are 
 needed in order to develop out of the present isolated units a 
 system. 
 
 It is well to recognize at once the two-fold function and 
 character of this kind of city property. Most persons will say 
 that a park is designed to be beautiful. So it is, but its purpose 
 is also actively to serve. Passive beauty alone must not be the 
 end sought in the system as a whole, and in an industrial city 
 particularly — much more, for example, than in a capital city — 
 there is need that the park system furnish recreative facilities. 
 So the "improvement" of existing park lands ought not to deal 
 simply with their landscape development. 
 
 Moreover, in presenting many suggestions as to the latter, 
 I would have it understood that these are not to take the place 
 of a carefully worked out landscape design. That is a neces- 
 sity for every park, however little or however large. The 
 smallest and least expensive park in Fort Wayne occupies land 
 worth a considerable sum of money. No intelligent citizen 
 would consider the construction of a house having the money 
 value of one of the parks without first securing from an archi- 
 tect a plan to build to. Yet it were better to do that than to at- 
 tempt to make a park without a competently ]irepared design. 
 For the house might have to satisfy only himself, while the 
 park should satisfy the best taste of the whole community ; and 
 if a door, or window, or partition in the house proved unsatis- 
 factory, it could be more quickly changed than can a great 
 tree, or a lake, or forest or meadow land. Finally, in a score or 
 so of years the house might be replaced ; the park is built for 
 centuries. To create a landscape is as technical a process as to 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 69 
 
 build a house ; and if one does not attempt the latter in happy- 
 go-lucky fashion, even for himself, one certainly should not 
 thus attempt the former for his own and following generations. 
 The suggestions I shall make have as their purpose, then, the 
 showing that present conditions are not by any means ideal, 
 that it isn't unnecessary and isn't too late, to secure careful 
 study and expert design, which may guide for many years to 
 come. 
 
 Sheep and shepherd on a park meadow. 
 
 Beginning with Swinney Park, and approaching it by 
 Washington Boulevard, the entrance is disappointing and un- 
 worthy. You are driving out a beautiful residence street 
 which is to terminate, you are told, in the principal park. 
 Suddenly the fine street is blocked by some trees and bushes, 
 which grow directly across it and only partially hide the view 
 of a stretch of low waste land beyond the practically invisible 
 river. As you search for the park, you see a road that leads 
 
70 Fort Wayne Civic luiprovcment Association 
 
 off somewhere to the left, and surmise that thither may He the 
 way. But the fact is, you are ahxady in Swinney Park. You 
 ought to know this and dehght in it. A dreadful suggestion 
 has been made that an electric sign be thrown across the end 
 of the street at this point, with the words "Swinney Park"— 
 why not, rather, "This Is It," with a pointing hand? — so that 
 one may know it. P>ut tlie right thing to do is to create there a 
 beautiful park-landscape, picture, that will not require a label. 
 
 That waste land across the river, flooded every spring, 
 has almost no other value than as a background to such a pic- 
 ture. The city should get it, should make of it a park meadow 
 — browsing sheep would add life and interest to it in the sum- 
 mer and would keep the grass cut for nothing a year — and with 
 wildllower border the meadow and river could meet. Then 
 there would not be need to block Washington Boulevard with 
 an ineffectual screen of shrubs. There would be at once a sense 
 of openness and spaciousness, a real park scene, at the street's 
 end. And two tall trees — spruces, perhaps — standing on either 
 side of the boulevard terminus, would frame the picture and 
 mark the entrance. Then the road that curves away to the 
 left would not seem, as now, an insignificant by-path ; but 
 would take its rightful place as obviously a park drive. 
 
 Further within the park, the lake, which ought to be a 
 landscape feature of great beauty, fails now to please. What I 
 shall say of this lake applies as well to that in Reservoir Park. 
 Did you ever see their like in nature — or anywhere outside a 
 barnyard? A pool with canal-bank shores is not the proper 
 landscape ideal — not even with an island in it. I have seen 
 children make a sort of mud-pie island in the middle of a 
 water-filled excavation in the seashore sand, and then stick a 
 few twigs on the island, with an effect quite like that at Res- 
 ervoir Park. Now, the Park Commissioners are not the ones 
 to blame. They are serving the citizens with self-sacrificing 
 interest, and undoubtedly in their study of the parks have al- 
 ready made to themselves the criticisms here submitted. But 
 they are not landscape architects ; their lives have been given 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement dissociation yi 
 
 to other subjects; their duties are properly administrative. 
 The people have no right to hold them responsible for land- 
 scape failings if they are not given the money with which to 
 retain expert advice and with which to make the purchases 
 needed to round out park properties. A shore line, of which 
 the irregularity shall be emphasized by the planting; where the 
 neatness of water lapped greensward shall alternate with the 
 charming forgetfulness of wading iris, and with the shadows 
 of willows and overhanging shrubs — such a shore line, broken 
 
 A natural looking shoreline in one of the parks of Boston. This has all been planted. 
 
 by bays that are pictures in themselves, and with an island that 
 speaks of romance and seclusion, these are not things that suc- 
 cessful business men can create offhand with the aid of day 
 labor. Trustees of a library are not expected to write, even 
 though granted stenographers, the poems which the public go 
 to the library to find. 
 
 One of the purposes of a park is "to provide relief and re- 
 pose to city-wearied senses." Yet at the south end of Swinney 
 
72 
 
 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 Park, the trains that arc constantly thundering past are uncon- 
 cealed. And not only that, but they are on an embankment 
 which has the effect of placing them on a stage, and so of 
 making them an even more dominant feature than they other- 
 wise would be. This is destructive to "relief and repose." 
 Neither railroad nor park is to be given up, but the railroad 
 can be hidden by planting. At Edgewater Park in Cleveland, 
 precisely a like condition was presented, and I append a photo- 
 graph to show how it was met. There is no necessity that the 
 railroad should be seen from Swinney Park. 
 
 How the railroad is effectually screened at Edgewater Park in Cleveland. 
 
 At the north end, where, in the shadow of big trees, the 
 murmuring river in its sweep around three sides resistlessly 
 calls one to the shore, the view presented is of a near oppo- 
 site bank cluttered with rubbish and outhouses. If one goes 
 across the river to investigate conditions, he finds that the 
 most unsightly of the properties front on Main Street, and are 
 lots of such shallowness that better development could hardly 
 be expected, while the money value of the narrow, steeply 
 sloping strip of land must be relatively slight. To acquire and 
 
Fort Wayne Ck'ic hnpvoveinent Association 
 
 73 
 
 make beautiful that river bank would, therefore, confer benefit 
 in more than one direction. It would substitute beauty for 
 wretchedness in a park outlook, it would redeem a section of 
 Main Street for which there is no other hope, and it would 
 bring the park into touch with Alain Street. 
 
 In general, it may be said that the opposite bank of a park 
 bordered stream as narrow as the St. Mary's river is scenic- 
 ally just as important as the near bank. It is the frame to the 
 picture — indeed it. more than the park in which one stands, is 
 the picture, the open stream putting it in clear view and making 
 
 An island in Wade Park, Cleveland, that is a tangle of wild rose and other bloom. 
 
 it the thing one looks at. Setting out to create a beautiful gal- 
 lery, one would not think that the lovely rug under one's feet 
 would excuse bare or hideously daubed walls. The hanging of 
 the walls with beautiful pictures is certainly no less import- 
 ant than the rug. So in a park, not the place on which one 
 stands so much as the thing one looks at, counts. Yet at 
 Swiimey Park there seems to have been little thought of the 
 outlook. For the park's sake, to preserve to it the beauty which 
 
74 
 
 I'oji H'ayiw t'ivic Iiiiprovcniciil .Issocialioti 
 
 is its riglit, the park boundaries should lie over the crest of 
 the further shore, not where Main Street alone is border, but as 
 far as the river circles. For the most part, such addition 
 would now cost very little. 
 
 A mean little iron-girder foot-bridge leads from the grove 
 to the opposite tableland. From a section of West Main 
 Street from which one could almost throw a stone into Swin- 
 nev Park, one must now, if he would enter the park by vehicle, 
 drive a full mile. 1^) a ra])i(ll\' (k'vcl()])ing section of the city. 
 
 The frame of a Iandscape_picture, Swinnetj Park, Fori Wayne. 
 
 this is not the degree of accessibility which the park invest- 
 ment warrants. If one will walk, he can enter the park at 
 closer distance by the iron foot-bridge — and in so doing fancy 
 that he is crossing a moat to enter a dungeon. But such is not 
 the impression which a park entrance ought to convey. That 
 a new bridge, and one which is wide enough for driving, is 
 needed here, is manifest. A suggestion that it might be of 
 concrete, I cannot endorse with enthusiasm. Concrete bridges 
 are essentially architectural compositions and any formalism 
 
Port Wayne Civic Improvement Association 75 
 
 here, where one terminus would be a quiet residence street 
 and the other a shadowy wood, could be only a false note. 
 The required length is not great, and a rustic-seeming wooden 
 bridge is practicable and probably would blend better with the 
 environment. 
 
 With good city planning a few years ago, the streets at 
 the end of the foot-bridge, in the bend of the river south of 
 West Main Street, would have been given high-class residen- 
 tial development. Even now the conditions will no doubt be 
 greatly improved with the building of an attractive and ade- 
 quate entrance here to the park, with the acquirement for park 
 purposes — as proposed in discussing the Washington Boule- 
 vard approach — of the low land at the apex of the triangle, 
 and with the development of Bluff Street. For, with the little 
 tract thus park-bordered on three sides, protected absolutely 
 from encroachment of any unwelcome kind, it will become 
 a natural extension to the high-class residence section to the 
 east of the river. That section is already finding itself cramped 
 and needing such place for overflow. This tract, too, is in 
 convenient touch with a business street on which is a direct 
 car line to the center of the city. With the suggested changes 
 the tract should furnish home sites that will be greatly 
 esteemed. 
 
 As to Swinney Park, we should note what a bridge ade- 
 quate for driving will mean to the park, if placed here. It will 
 mean that persons entering the park by Garden Street or 
 Washington Boulevard and circling through the grove will 
 not need to leave it as they entered, simply retracing their 
 steps. There will be created a loop drive. Having taken the 
 present park circuit, they can cross the bridge, turn south 
 again, via Mechanic Street, to the suggested low meadow, 
 skirt its northern edge by a short link to be constructed, and 
 so join Blufif Street which, bordering the river and almost a 
 parkway already, joins West Main at the west end of the 
 bridge. As a drive is now being developed on the river's east 
 bank, from Washington Boulevard to Berry Street — one of 
 
76 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 the best things ever done in Fort Wayne — and is almost sure 
 to be carried as far as Main, both banks will here be protected 
 and a complete park-loop drive thus established. 
 
 With all these changes, Swinney Park would be quite re- 
 made from a landscape point of view. Rut its function is not 
 simply to be looked at, nor to give pleasure only to those who 
 drive. It has, or ought to have, an active recreative function. 
 There are two admirable playground sites. One is at the 
 south end of the park, near the Garden Street entrance. This 
 is bright and sunny ; the tract is an independent composition, 
 so that no apparatus placed here would be an intrusion on the 
 shaded picture in the river bend, and the location is very close 
 to the homes— the latter point an important one in providing 
 for little children. Here, too, there are admirable sites for 
 tennis courts. The grove also presents a playground possi- 
 bility ; but m}' suggestion would be the encouragement there 
 of a quieter and less artificial kind of play. For example, the 
 outdoor gymnastic apparatus, the popular chute, or slide, for 
 little children ; even, in my judgment, the sand boxes, should 
 be relegated to the south end site. But what a place is this for 
 luncheon under the trees, for games of Prisoners' Base, or 
 Hide-and-go-seek among one's friends, for listening to stories 
 of fairies or robbers, for confidences, for reading, for solitary 
 walk ! I-'or these delights the grove presents a unique and 
 unusual attraction. 
 
 I suggest, then, that the equipped and directed playground 
 be located at the southeast end of the park ; and that in the 
 grove there be constructed a rustic refectory, which will har- 
 moniously blend with the surroundings. The building might 
 be so constructed that the piazza, or a section of it, would on 
 occasion constitute a bandstand, and speaker's stand, the tall 
 trees in the surrounding grove being columns of a natural audi- 
 torium and their interlacing branches its vaulted roof. The 
 refectory would serve as shelter in sudden storm ; the lights, 
 suspended from its exterior walls, would make possible the 
 removal of the hideous pole which now serves as standard; 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association yy 
 
/S Fort JVaync Civic Improvement Association 
 
 the toilet facilities of the building would eliminate other of 
 the park's objectionable features, and the plain wholesome 
 food, the hot tea and coffee, the cool temperance drinks, would 
 simplify picnics, and thus increase their number. The rental 
 of the concession should pay at least maintenance and interest 
 charges on the building. This being so, all the convenience 
 and comfort the building brings would cost park and public 
 nothing. 
 
 My conception of the use of this part of the grounds is 
 that many a family picnic would gather here ; that thither 
 would come, from tlie formal playground, children tired of ex- 
 ercise, to eat their lunch, play in the shade and listen to stories ; 
 that children from the West Main Street section — to whom 
 this portion of the park would be much nearer than would the 
 playground proper — would find here opportunity for play in 
 the old-fashioned sense, with no great walk to the parallel bars 
 and giant stride if they sought for exercise. This would be the 
 place for other moods than those to which sunshine, bright 
 flowers, and moving apparatus appeal. For young and old, to 
 come here would mean, not getting tired, but getting rested ; 
 and even in their play the children here would scatter rather 
 than crowd, while the older folk would assemble in small 
 groups. As we study the parks of Fort Wayne we shall note 
 their unusually excellent distribution, such that none is obliged 
 to serve the whole community, catering to far gathered thou- 
 sands, but each can pre-eminently draw from and serve its 
 own neighborhood — as this plan suggests that Swinney Park 
 should do. 
 
 I have spoken of Swinney Park at greater length than I 
 shall discuss the other reservations. It is larger than any other, 
 has been the most developed, and is the most popular, and so it 
 has served well to illustrate in its shortcomings and possi- 
 bilities of a greater usefulness, the universal need of expert 
 planning. Some of the things said of Swinney Park apply also 
 elsewhere; but L shall make a few specific suggestions, 
 
 Lawton Park, which is next in size and completeness of 
 
Fort IVayiie Civic Iin[>rovcuicnt Association 79 
 
 development to Swinney, is, I consider, more radically wrong. 
 The adopted plan of development is the most expensive that 
 can be given to a park. No city but a very large and rich one 
 could afford to transform forty acres into a garden and ade- 
 quately keep it up with bedding plants. Yet that is the goal 
 which Fort Wayne, with its meagre park allowance and great 
 park needs, has set itself. Necessarily there is failure. 
 
 The railroad, which a hedge of poplars, planted six or eight 
 feet apart on the west side of North Clinton Street, would 
 easily hide, is in full sight ; the three driveways are laid as 
 straight as engineering could make them, with no grace of 
 curving line, no suggestion of loitering, no invitation to note 
 the border — only the unworded but positive injunction, "Watch 
 the road, and get out of the park as quickly as possible ;" the 
 small iron bridge that crosses Spy Run is almost as bad as is 
 ])ossible ; the rockery, which is designed to be an accent at 
 the end of the bridge, is hidden by untrimmed trees ; and even 
 Spy Run is neglected, to appear according to season as an 
 unfortunate ditch or as a roistering intruder. Nor, finally, is 
 the adopted style of development, even though perfection were 
 attainable, that which would best serve the neighborhood. 
 
 Lawton Park ought to be replanned, on an entirely differ- 
 ent scheme. A loyal and public-spirited citizen, having the 
 means and inclination to benefit his fellows, could hardly do 
 for Fort Wayne a better or more popular thing than to make 
 possible the sort of development Lawton Park ought to have. 
 It is trite to say that in so doing he would build himself a mon- 
 ument to which the years would add only worth and beauty. 
 
 The first thing to be done would be to extend the area 
 of the park to the river, from Spy Run Avenue to North Clin- 
 ton Street. In the seeming this would bring the park very 
 near to the center of the city, for entrance could then be ar- 
 ranged at almost the ends of the bridges on Clinton and Spy 
 Run Avenues, doing away with the necessity of traversing 
 those unattractive and narrow streets in order to reach the 
 park. North of the river, those streets have a width of only 
 
8o Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 fifty feet — too little for the normal traffic of such thorough- 
 fares, and totally inadequate to bear pleasure driving besides. 
 The extension of the park to the corner of Clinton and Fourth 
 Streets, adding a block only three hundred by one hundred 
 and fifty feet, is indeed so prime a necessity, even if there be 
 no change in the park's style of development, that the city 
 ought to do this whether or not there be dream or possibility 
 of better things. The acquirement and addition to Lawton 
 Park of that little block is to be counted, in fact, one of the 
 most obvious of Fort Wayne's civic improvement needs. 
 
 But with the addition of the low, flooded, marshy lands 
 that now lie between the park and river — lands to which only a 
 long lapse of time or large expense can give commercial value 
 — there would open an alluring possibility of many isled 
 lagoons, of a beautiful and unusual, and withal most central, 
 people's park, lovely at every hour, but a veritable dream of 
 beauty on a moonlight night. What other Indiana city would 
 offer to its people such a pleasure ground, and with what rea- 
 son Fort Wayne could then make claim to the title of City 
 Beautiful ! 
 
 The lagoons of course involve a dam in the river just be- 
 low. This would be of the adjustable type— such, for example, 
 as the beartrap, the needle, etc. — which, lying on the river bed 
 at high water, can be lifted when it is desired to raise the 
 water's level. There is no serious difficulty as to that. And 
 with the park extended to the river, there would virtually be 
 added to its area not only the river area, in itself a large and 
 useful addition, but the tract of land which the city already 
 owns on the east side of Clinton Street, across from the ball 
 grounds, for very little expense would extend the latter hold- 
 ing to the river. Thus would Lawton Park be brought within 
 almost a quarter of a mile of the Court House, and made useful 
 and beautiful. 
 
 Regarding the land which the city now owns east of 
 Clinton Street, its greatest civic usefulness would lie in its de- 
 velopment as an athletic field. Two other uses have been pro- 
 
Fort JVayjie Civic Improvement Association 8i 
 
 posed : As a market site, for which purpose I understand that 
 it was bought, and as a children's playground. For the latter 
 use it seems to me unfitted by location. Most of the children 
 would have to be sent a considerable distance to reach it, and 
 the journey would lie through streets from which children are 
 best kept out. Those approaching it from the south would 
 have to cross the railroad, while children coming from the 
 north — to whom Lawton Park would be much more accessible 
 — would have to skirt a railroad and cross the river. At Des 
 Moines, a plat very similarly situated — but much more at- 
 tractive with its big trees, and fully equipped by the city with 
 apparatus and with an unusually good rest house — has now 
 been abandoned because, owing to such location, the children 
 would not, or could not, go to it. For the market purposes 
 the tract's location is better adapted. But no railroad touches 
 it ; to place the market here will be to draw into the now con- 
 gested business streets that sort of teaming which most im- 
 pedes traffic and most litters highways ; it will be to add seri- 
 ously to the congestion on fifty foot North Clinton Street, and 
 on a bridge that is too narrow now for sidewalks, and thus to 
 impose a greater barrier to the general use of Lawton Park. 
 It will mean, too, the abandonment, for the sake of a market, 
 of the idea of that larger, more beautiful, and more useful 
 park which would include the river. 
 
 But the development of municipal athletic grounds on this 
 tract is unaffected by these several objections to other uses and 
 has much to recommend it — especially, as I have already sug- 
 gested, the circumstance that this use would practically annex 
 it to Lawton Park, should the latter be extended to the river. 
 In an industrial city, provision for healthful outdoor exercise 
 for employees is a real necessity, advisable for economic and 
 social reasons as well as for those affecting health. With the 
 increased specialization of labor, which is more and more lim- 
 iting employees to piece work, in which throughout the long 
 day a single group of muscles is exercised by the worker, there 
 is great need of a chance for mechanics, clerks, and workers of 
 all sorts to play baseball and other games, and to use the sim- 
 
82 I'ort Ji^ayuc Civic Improvement Association 
 
 pier g-yninastic apparatus, that may bring all muscles into play. 
 'i1iey should not only be able to do this freely, but to do it 
 without sense of obligation to any philanthropic association or 
 sect. In the aggregate these men, many of whom own their 
 homes, pay directly or indirectly a considerable sum in taxes. 
 These go for all kinds of purposes, some of which little affect 
 them, and they can properly demand that from the park ap- 
 propriations a share be set aside to provide expressly for their 
 needs. This demand employers might well endorse, for there 
 results from such provision, with its social and moral as well 
 as muscular benefits, an unmistakable increase in the efficiency 
 of labor. 
 
 Indeed, there should be consideration of the growing and 
 significant frequency with which manufacturers, in seeking lo- 
 cation for their plants, now add to the subjects of their in- 
 quiries a question as to the municipality's provision of parks 
 and recreative facilities. In more than one case a city has 
 gained a great establishment because it made better showing in 
 this respect than did its neighbors. If such a recreative field 
 is to be developed by Fort Wayne, as it certainly ought to be. 
 there manifestly could be no more conveniently and harmlessly 
 central a site for it than on this ground, which the city already 
 owns, east of Clinton Street. 
 
 With reference to Lakeside Park there is little to say, 
 since it still awaits development. The most serious immediate 
 problem is the location of the street car line, in its proposed 
 extension to Walton Avenue. My judgment is that 
 the line should be extended directly out Columbia 
 Avenue. In doing this, a ])retty concrete bridge, with 
 sidewalk provision, should re])lace the present structure. 
 The plan of thus extending the tracks reduces to a 
 minimum the cutting of the park ; it involves one curve in- 
 stead of two — an advantage which is not to the company alone 
 — and it leaves free, for parkway development, the portion of 
 Lake Avenue which extends from Crescent Avenue to the 
 projected boulevard, one hundred and twenty feet broad, that 
 
Port ll'ayiic Civic Iinprovciiiciil .■Issocicifioii 8:^ 
 
 the owners propose to dedicate from Lake Avenue to the Driv- 
 ing' Park. If the Lake Avenue hnk be kept free from car 
 tracks there can be developed a fine parkHke drive — a mile 
 long — from the Columbia Street bridge via Edgewater, Cres- 
 cent and Lake Avenues, and the new boulevard, to the Driving 
 Park. 
 
 That drive, which now requires the doing of so little for 
 complete realization, is an end worth striving for. The Edge- 
 water Avenue section of it constitutes, or should be prompt- 
 ly developed to constitute, a parkway approach to Lakeside 
 Park. As such it will practically be an extension of the park, 
 carrying it to the Columbia Street bridge. To this end the 
 dyke bank should be sodded, as now has been done much of 
 the way; the corners of the avenue rounded into sweeping 
 curves ; and on top of the dyke the walk or promenade made 
 readily accessible and given here and there a seat. The whole 
 effect, both on and below the dyke, is Holland-like and very 
 beautiful, and is one of the most charming features of Fort 
 Wayne. As it is proposed to deed to the Park Board land 
 lying on Lake Avenue, between the present park limits and 
 the projected boulevard, the whole course, from Columbia 
 Street bridge to the wide boulevard, will lie through park 
 lands. Concrete plans for Lakeside Park will of course include 
 bathing facilities. 
 
 My opinion has been asked regarding the park availability 
 in this connection of the Driving Park tract. With the de- 
 velopment of Lakeside, and the extension and replanting of 
 Lawton — which seems to me a great deal more important than 
 the acquisition of new and independent areas — this section of 
 the city would have such admirable park provision that there 
 would be no real need of an expenditure for additional parks. 
 Of course a gift of the tract might, on the other hand, be 
 gratefully accepted, as providing for a future when streets and 
 homes are likely to fill the field now north of it. The vacant 
 ground inside the track might be put to use as golf links, but 
 that development could perhaps be arranged while the park 
 
^4 For/ IVayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 85 
 
86 
 
 Port Wayne Civic I>iif^ro:'ciiiciit Association 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 87 
 
 is still in private ownership. As the property is comparatively 
 "close in," and can be reached by a five-cent fare, the attempt 
 would be worth making. 
 
 Around on the south side of the city is the newly acquired 
 Weiser Park. This also is undeveloped. It is a beautiful grove 
 of twenty-two acres, well located in respect to the homes, and 
 admirably adapted for development as a neighborhood park. 
 Here the family, as distinguished from the individual, from 
 the crowd, or from the class, should be deemed the iniit to be 
 served. The park needs extension to the line of the street 
 north. To stop short of the street, as now, means leaving on 
 the intervening strip a row of houses which, facing the street, 
 present only their back yards and back doors to the park. 
 That is not the right sort of a park boundary. If this extension 
 be not made, people will be telling in a short time how cheap- 
 ly it could have been obtained at the beginning, which is now, 
 and will marvel at the short-sightedness that failed to act. 
 Development of the park for neighborhood service involves, 
 among other things, the provision of opportunities for making 
 fires and simple outdoor cooking. The safest, least expensive, 
 and most dehghtful way to provide for this is by means of lit- 
 tle stone or concrete ovens. It will also involve, in time, the 
 establishment here of a small supervised playground. 
 
 The matter of children's playgrounds is an exceedingly, 
 even an unusually, urgent one in Fort Wayne. There are two 
 reasons for that fact. First, the remarkable compactness with 
 which the city has been built. One rarely finds a city which, 
 with population as small as Fort Wayne's, contains so few 
 vacant lots in its inner sections. Indeed, very few cities with 
 a hundred thousand population are built as closely. This 
 means that the bulk of the children of Fort Wayne have little 
 opportunity for play except in the streets — and almost no op- 
 portunity for group-play, with all the social and educational 
 benefit that confers. The second reason that playgrounds are 
 an unusually urgent need in Fort Wayne is the circumstance 
 that most other cities of equal size already have well organized 
 
88 
 
 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 playground systems. In this respect Fort Wayne has been 
 lagging. 
 
 I recommend that an effort be made to secure the estab- 
 Hshment ultimately of an equipped and supervised playground 
 in each of the larger parks. And if in any case there must 
 be choice between supervision and equipment, I would advise 
 you that the former is the more important. 
 
 Considerations that make the parks of Fort Wayne favor- 
 
 Where picnickers boil their coffee. Stove in a park "I Des Moines. 
 
 able locations for playgrounds are, first, their admirable dis- 
 tribution and their comparative nearness to the homes. Not 
 one of them is remote. Swinney on the west and Lakeside on 
 the northeast are on the one mile circle that takes the Court 
 House as center. To the north, Lawton is a quarter mile nearer 
 still; to the south, Weiser, though two miles from the Court 
 House, has, like the others, many houses directly at its bound- 
 ary. In the belt of residences that surrounds the business por- 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvcinciit Association 89 
 
 tion of the city — a belt that averages a mile and a half in width 
 — the eastern section alone is not provided with park and play 
 space. Earnest effort should be made to secure a site there. 
 The second consideration is that, owing to the compactness 
 with which the city is built, it would be very difficult to obtain 
 other adequate play space except at heavy expense. Not only 
 are the large parks just where playgrounds are needed, but 
 it would be difficult to find other places for playgrounds. 
 Third, the parks are already publicly owned and the money 
 saved through not having to purchase sites can go into equip- 
 ment and supervision. Nor is the saving only in purchase of 
 land. A playground, frequented by many children for long 
 hours, must have toilet facilities, which must be sanitary, and 
 it should have a shelter. These are the most expensive items 
 in playground equipment. But in the development of the parks 
 these will be taken care of. Finally, the spaciousness of the 
 parks provide, also, for expansion when this is needed. 
 
 I have recommended, and shall yet recommend, a large 
 expenditure for the parks of Fort Wayne, that they may be 
 brought up to the standard of usefulness they ought to have, 
 and which such a city as Fort Wayne needs and deserves from 
 its parks. If, with these expenditures, the commission is un- 
 able also to develop playgrounds, I suggest that private phil- 
 anthropy can find in the economical provision of playgrounds 
 an object that will not want for friends. As has been done in 
 many cities, the Playground Association can probably obtain 
 from the Park Board permission to create and maintain a 
 children's playground at a designated place in each large park. 
 Eventually, when the success of the experiment, its popularity, 
 and the need for such provision have been proved — and the 
 proof never fails — the city may take over the cost of main- 
 tenance. The growing municipal custom is to put the control 
 of playgrounds in charge of the Board of Education, on the 
 theory that the playgrounds are supplementary to the school 
 system, rounding out the training of the child, developing its 
 lungs, heart and muscles as the school develops his brain, and 
 
oo Port IJ^ayiie Civic })>iprovcment Association 
 
 joining with the school in the development of character and of 
 social consciousness. 
 
 Far to the west of the city, in the rolling mill district, 
 there is a fine grove of some twelve acres, known as Rockhill 
 Park, though at this writing not formally received by the city 
 as a park. It would constitute a good one in a good place ; but 
 if the city is going to make a jnirchase in this region, a better 
 tract to buy, in my judgment, is that bounded on the west by 
 the Lake Shore railroad, on the south by the Pennsylvania, and 
 on the east by the St. Mary's river. The railroad boundaries 
 are objections, and the geographical relation of the tract to 
 the rolling mill is unfortunate ; but neither of these drawbacks 
 is as serious as the bare statement suggests. The railroads are 
 on a considerable embankment that can be pierced by a subway, 
 to obviate grade crossing for entrance. This embankment will 
 make a clearly defined and, when screened by planting, not 
 necessarily unattractive boundary, and one which will effectu- 
 ally shut out any industrial developments that may take place in 
 the neighborhood. From the north the tract is directly ap- 
 proached by several pleasant streets. 
 
 The positive advantages are conclusive. The purchase of 
 the tract for park purposes will preserve the beauty of the river 
 bank opposite the west side of Swinney Park, just as we have 
 already contemplated its preservation on the north. It will sub- 
 stitute for two parks close together, and the more important 
 one with an unprotected boundary, one good sized, adequately- 
 defined pleasure ground that will serve exactly the same popu- 
 lation as would the two, and serve them better. For in parks 
 as in business, consolidation often means, as it certainly in this 
 case would mean, economy of operation, improvement of pro- 
 duct, and a larger public usefulness. Moreover, the tract itself is 
 well adapted for park development. The contour is irregular, 
 the greater portion of it is timbered with fine old trees, while 
 at the extreme northwest corner — at the very spot to be chosen 
 for the purpose — there is a cleared plain, where a well-worn 
 baseball diamond indicates the ideal purpose for which it is 
 foreordained. 
 
Port ll^'ayiic Civic Iiiipruvcinciit dissociation 91 
 
 Backwater from the river overflows the tract's lower por- 
 tion at flood seasons, bnt the higher portions are probably not 
 often affected and a hig-li ledge extends along the tract's south 
 end quite to the river bank. A foot-bridge should be thrown 
 from here over to the present Swinney Park. This will great- 
 ly increase the accessibility of Swinney Park to the west side, 
 as well as making one pleasure ground of the whole. My 
 thought is that the driving should be confined to the limits of 
 the present park, while across the bridge one would be free 
 from the dust and danger of vehicles and at liberty to follow 
 footpaths among flowers and ferns, seeking and finding there 
 a naturalness and romance which Swinney now can never 
 offer. 
 
 Of the remaining parks of Fort Wayne, nearly all are 
 small. The largest is Reservoir. This is in a choice residence 
 district and is dominated by the high and very steep embank- 
 ment of the reservoir, which occupies perhaps a third of the 
 total area. On the west half there is a lake to which may be 
 applied the comments respecting the lake in Swinney Park. In 
 fact, the greater conspicuousness of this and the considerable 
 dependence of the park upon this feature for its landscape 
 beauty, should add emphasis to former criticism and sugges- 
 tion. It would be proper also, in the case of Reservoir Park 
 lake, to enhance its evening beauty with the witchery of lights. 
 The park is really, with its near border of streets, only a city 
 square, where a touch of the formal and artificial will not vio- 
 late good taste. Incandescent lamps on ornamental little 
 standards, with wires in conduits, may be placed near enough 
 the water to be reflected in its surface. The park needs as a 
 whole very careful expert planning. It has admirable possi- 
 bilities — in fact, it is capable of being made one of the most in- 
 teresting parks of its kind in the United States, for one does 
 not often find in a single city square a good sized lake, contain- 
 ing an island, and then a high hill with an unlimited supply 
 of water at the top of it. 
 
 For the present, pending the preparation of a careful gen- 
 eral plan, it is enough perhaps to advocate the beautifying of 
 
92 
 
 Fori Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 the margin of the lake, the removal of the thronging poplars, 
 the more artistic lighting of the whole park — this need not ])e 
 an expensive nndertaking— and the correction of the walk sys- 
 tem south of the reservoir, hy taking u]) the present walk which 
 parallels the street and placing it where the well worn diagonal 
 l)ath "ivcs unmistakable hint that a walk is needed. 
 
 investment value to the money 
 
 Hayden and McCidloeb 
 Parks are little ornamental 
 squares, properly developed 
 wdth multitudes of flowers. 
 There would be saving- of 
 expense, however, and no 
 loss of beauty, if perennials 
 aud flowering shrubs were 
 used to some extent instead 
 of quite so many annuals. 
 As the latter require re- 
 placing every season thej' 
 result, l)y their deinands 
 on labor and stock, in the 
 costliest kind of parks. 
 Parks of this character are 
 necessarily s h o av y , but 
 there should be effort to 
 give a relatively permanent 
 expended on them. 
 
 These "city squares," as such ornamental open spaces arc 
 usually called, are a delightful kind of park, but they are also 
 the most expensive kind. For more important that the cost 
 of maintenance is the circumstance that through their existence 
 many valuable building lots are taken from the tax lists. The 
 added value of abutting property seldom restores the whole of 
 this loss. But if, in the improvement of a closely built industrial 
 city, we must forego the ideal of many such open spaces, we 
 should the more eagerly seek the opportunity to create these 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 93 
 
 where, at no sacrifice of precious building land, they may yet 
 perform a similar ornamental service, and perhaps a larger 
 social service. 
 
 In Fort Wayne there exists a remarkable opportunity for 
 doing this. I refer to the possible creation of pleasant little 
 outlook points overlooking the river on the dead ends of those 
 streets that cross East Wayne — as Francis, Harmer, etc., all the 
 way to Coombs. All these terminate in the bluff, which gives 
 to them a commanding view up and down the Maumee, and 
 across to the dyke, while one of them has itself big trees and 
 is beautiful now. No land will have to be bought. It is a 
 question simply of a little less paving, or a little less mud or 
 dust, and of providing some benches, and now and then a pic- 
 turesque shelter — the thatched outlook at Robison Park is a 
 suggestion ; of adapting a now perfectly useless bit of public 
 property to community service, by transforming a dead end 
 of street into a neighborhood park, where one may enjoy the 
 view, get fresh air and watch the sunset. Only a little space 
 would be occupied, but the eye would travel far. It is a city's 
 turning to account such opportunities as these that give to it 
 a distinctive charm and make it loved. 
 
 With reference to Harmer Street, there is some chance 
 that its end will be needed as an approach to a bridge, to be 
 thrown over to the Lakeside section. That bridge ought to be 
 concrete and, in such setting, of beautiful design. About 500 
 feet east of its line is the old crossing where took place that 
 historic massacre of Harmer's Ford, to which, I am informed, 
 the city really owes its origin. The Daughters of the American 
 Revolution are contemplating a suitable marking of the spot. 
 If a beautiful bridge be constructed, I suggest that the chapter 
 be invited to place the tablet upon it, where it can easily be 
 seen, and that in recognition of such marking the structure be 
 known as the Memorial Bridge — so still more increasing the 
 interest in this locality. 
 
 This is not an easy chapter to sum up, for every park pre- 
 sents a separate problem. But out of the discussion I would 
 
94 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 have these facts stand out with emphasis: i. Swinney, Liiw- 
 ton and Weiser Parks need additions of area to correct their 
 boundaries. Happily, the needed lands can be obtained at this 
 time very cheaply. 2. The further development of all the 
 parks should be in accordance with carefully made plans. 3. 
 Playgrounds are much needed, but for the present there will 
 be advantages in developing these in the parks, even if this 
 has to be done by private initiative. 4. The best ideals of 
 landscape beauty and social service should obtain in park 
 development. By no other means is the higher side of the 
 public life touched so easily, so pleasantly, and in so many 
 ways. 
 
 With reference to the latter point, music may be and 
 should be made a great feature in the parks. In Rochester 
 the popular taste has now been so developed that rag time 
 has been eliminated and 30,000 people gather for a strictly 
 classical program by the park band. Vocal music also, by the 
 singing societies and massed choirs, is practicable and pop- 
 ular. In Hartford, park employees are trained to act as do 
 attendants in a library, calling the attention of visitors to in- 
 teresting trees and shrubs and birds. In yet other parks, water 
 fetes and illuminations are a feature ; in yet others skating and 
 coasting in winter and kite flying, etc., in summer, offer enter- 
 tainment, while always there remains, as the peculiar park at- 
 traction, beauty, calm, and silence, to rest city-tired nerves. 
 
 The financial aspect of the question of course demands 
 attention. Some help may be expected from public-spirited 
 individuals ; but for the most part the improvements described 
 in this chapter will have to come, sooner or later, from the com- 
 munity. In this connection, I would call your attention to three 
 facts: First, one can hardly conceive a more legitimate pur- 
 pose for a bond issue than is the purchase of park land. In 
 land the bond has a security which is steadily increasing in 
 value ; not wearing out as do the school houses, public build- 
 ings, water works, sewers, pavements, bridges, and other 
 things for which municipal bonds are issued. As the bonds ap- 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 95 
 
 proach the end of their life, the land that was purchased with 
 them will not only be doing a larger public service than at 
 the beginning, but will be of much greater intrinsic value than 
 when they were issued. Second, in no municipal expenditure 
 do taxes seem to the people to give such direct and measurable 
 returns as in the parks. Third, the effect of adequate park 
 development on contiguous property is such that through in- 
 crease in value the city soon receives in taxes more than it 
 pays for the parks. Consequently, the parks are to be proper- 
 ly considered as investments. Within a few months, an inves- 
 tigation of this matter has been made in Madison, Wis. Mem- 
 bers of the Common Council there questioned the advisability 
 of some appropriations desired for the parks, and a committee 
 was appointed to investigate the claim that a city's parks are 
 really a municipal investment. No study was made of the work 
 the parks do, of the effect they have on the public health, of 
 the vistors or new residents they draw to the city. The study 
 dealt with tax figures only, and there were some local condi- 
 tions that made it probable that the showing would not be as 
 favorable as it might be in many cities. The painstaking study 
 with its quantities of figures has been published in a pamphlet. 
 The conclusion, however, may be briefly summarized as fol- 
 lows : Twelve and one-half per cent, is a low average of the 
 proportion of increase in assessed values which, in the judg- 
 ment of the committee, has been directly caused by the estab- 
 lishment of parks, drives, playgrounds, and open spaces in 
 Madison. At the current tax rate, this increase is now bring- 
 ing annually into the city treasury almost exactly twice the 
 annual cost of the parks — this cost including, in the calculation, 
 not only maintenance appropriations but interest on the invest- 
 ment. 
 
96 I'ort Wayne Civic I mproi'cuioit Association 
 
 River Drive and Parkway System. 
 
 It was interesting and not a little significant to observe 
 in the course of my investigations that the improvement of Fort 
 Wayne was popularly interpreted to mean the j^lanning of a 
 river drive. But this Report will have failed in its purpose if, 
 in the many pages it has covered before reaching that subject, 
 it has not shown that comprehensive improvement of the city 
 must mean a great many other things as well. There should 
 not be inference, however, that the other things are more im- 
 portant than the drive — some of them are not as important. 
 For in parking the river banks, and putting drive and walk 
 along their edge, Fort Wayne will be turning to account its 
 greatest natural asset, and developing its own proper individ- 
 uality — in which, so far as this is gracious, rests the charm of 
 every town. 
 
 If I may quote once more from one of my own books, 
 "Modern Civic Art" describes, as a rule so common as to be 
 almost generally accepted, the principle that the stream hanks 
 of a community should be reserved for park development, if 
 their legitimate commercial use permits. Such acquirement 
 "is nearly sure to be picturesque, potentially if not in fact, 
 and has certainly the relief of variety ; it is quite likely 
 to be distinctive ; and it is frequently, until thus taken 
 charge of, a menace to the health of the community, for 
 it is probably made a dumping ground, if not an open 
 sewer, for the neighborhood. On this account, also, while 
 possessing perhaps the district's greatest chance of beauty, 
 it is a source of ugliness until redeemed. But the ridges 
 of its rising banks are likely to furnish a convenient nat- 
 ural boundary to frame a landscape picture to be here cre- 
 ated, while the trans-water view, which is always charm- 
 ing, adds the width of the stream to the apparent park 
 area without removing an equal tract from the slender 
 tax lists of the town or from the habitable area of the 
 crowded city. The reservation affords, too, public access 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 97 
 
98 Port Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 to a sure current of fresh air, and possibly to a place for 
 water sports. In short, no inland space cciually contracted 
 is likely to serve well so many ends." 
 
 This presents the general argument. Strong as it is, con- 
 ditions in Fort Wayne add weight to it in the local application. 
 For a drive and walk along the river — that is, the parking of 
 the strip of river bank — would connect the three principal 
 parks, Swinney, Lawton and Lakeside. Precisely as is the 
 result in a grouping of public buildings, each of these public 
 reservations would itself gain from a connection with the 
 others. Secondly, the parking- of a strip of river bank would, 
 if carried far enough, bring park acreage and park entrance 
 close to a long stretch of the city, and some of it would be near 
 the business section. It would throw half way around the city 
 — from its southwest corner, just above Broadway bridge, to its 
 northeast corner, at Walton Avenue bridge, a band of green, in 
 realization of that parkway ideal which is such a feature of 
 modern European city planning. Only there the old dry moats 
 of city walls are utilized, while here the course would be beside 
 beautiful living streams. Even Washington — where, in 
 plans to beautify the capital, the nation is now undertaking 
 river front redemption — has not such a chance as yours. 
 
 If the plan is practicable, financially and commercially, it 
 is certainly desirable. Let us see just what would be re- 
 quired. 
 
 Suppose we begin with the little pumping station, just 
 south of the Broadway bridge over the St. Mary's river. 
 There is here a small bit of public property, sodded, and com- 
 manding a lovely view upstream. There is nothing between 
 the pump house and the bridge except grass and trees — one tree 
 in particular is a noble one — with the stream on one side and the 
 street on the other. There is no reason why the city holdings 
 should not at slight cost be extended to the bridge, with the 
 result that the trees would not be cut down or have advertise- 
 ments nailed to them. The drive would take the street, and 
 so much of the park is easy. 
 
Fort IVayiie Civic Improvement Association 99 
 
 At the bridge a street car track comes on to Broadway 
 and the highway's adaptabiHty as a good park drive departs. 
 But it happens, too, that the street gradually swings away from 
 the river, and therefore would be denied parkway honors in 
 any case. Between the thoroughfare and the river there are 
 buildings, which some day Fort Wayne will try to get cleared 
 off; but for the present Broadway might be used for the two 
 short blocks to Hartnett Street. Hartnett leads to the river 
 bank, and in a moment one is back to the trees and wild growth, 
 with the St. Mary's dancing — as never saint-named river ought 
 to dance — below in the sunshine. From here there is a long 
 stretch, of a mile or slightly more, to Swinney Park, with no 
 streets near the river. There is ample room here for a park- 
 way drive. It would pass back of the greenhouses, and under 
 trees and through patches of woodland nearly all the way to 
 the crossing of the Wabash railroad. At times the strip would 
 be narrow; again, as in the fine grove just above the railroad, 
 it would widen out. The driveway itself should not be more 
 than twenty feet — a boulevard would ruin the effect desired — 
 and at the strip's narrowest points there would need to be on 
 its east side only land enough to make possible a good screen 
 of growing things. On its west side, the strip would include 
 all the land to the river's edge, and between road and river a 
 romantic footpath should wind in and out among the trees. 
 The grove south of the railroad, with its thin sprinkling of 
 heavy timber, possesses park availability for a section of the 
 city which now has no park near it, but does have many peo- 
 ple. 
 
 The railroad, one might expect, would impose an obstacle ; 
 but it is on an embankment so high that the drive can pass un- 
 der it by a subway with no difihculty whatever. A dyke will 
 be necessary probably to keep out flood waters, and there 
 will be other places where it may be needed ; but Fort Wayne 
 would show poor spirit, if, with such a chance for a drive, it 
 hesitated at the cost of an occasional dyke — which need not be 
 built until the city is ready to build it. Below Taylor Street 
 
lOO 
 
 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
Fort JVayiic Civic Improvement Association loi 
 
 private property owners have already attempted to save the 
 bank with a concrete retaining wall. It would not cost much to 
 make this look as strong as it probably is, its present appear- 
 ance doubtless belying its strength. 
 
 From here to the Pennsylvania tracks, the way is clear 
 along the top of the dyke. The drive at this point need l)e no 
 more than a drive, and as such it is likely — with its connections 
 and lack of railroad grade crossings — so to open up and give 
 value to the considerable building tract, that the owners should 
 find it good policy to give the right of way. Happily, the Penn- 
 sylvania road also is on an embankment, similar to that of the 
 Wabash, at the point of crossing; and in like fashion the park- 
 drive can go beneath the tracks. The elevation here is not 
 quite as great ; but the clearance to the top of the rail seems 
 to be about ten and one-half feet, just east of the railroad 
 pumping station. Thus there would be required a dip of only 
 three feet. Emerging from the short subway, one would be in 
 Swinney Park. 
 
 As we have seen, the drive from this point to West Berry 
 street has been already made, and as this is written its exten- 
 sion to West INIain is probable. Indeed, this can be so easily 
 accomplished that its execvition may reasonably be assumed. 
 With its construction there will come, of course, the redemp- 
 tion of that little triangle, of which the glaring billboards make 
 — or seem to make — the terminus of Alain Street. The street 
 leads up to them. Before them the city has cleared a space by 
 providing a flat triangle, and therein has even put a bench that 
 one may sit and study them. Behind them, there is the beauty 
 of leaf and flower and sparkling river — but all that they hide. 
 The site is strategic, for the beauty that can be given to this 
 spot will shed its influence far down a traveled thoroughfare. 
 
 It is remarkable how far and with what ease the imag- 
 inary park drive can be built. From the pumping station at 
 the city line to West Main Street, by the course suggested, is 
 well above two miles, and a two-mile park drive on the edge 
 of a city and penetrating into its built-up sections is a very 
 
I02 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 103 
 
I04 r^ort Wayne Civic Iiiiprovcincnt Association 
 
Fort Wayne Civic hnprovcmoit Association 105 
 
 extraordinary and enviable possession. One would have to 
 seek many cities to find the opportunity's like. But even this is 
 not all, though for a space beyond West Main Street the course 
 is not as easy. If, however, for a short distance here there are 
 real obstacles to overcome, there should be recollection that 
 the value of this part of the drive far transcends any import- 
 ance it can have of itself alone — considerable though that would 
 be. Its great value is as a connecting link, tying together the 
 river drives, and making one beautiful and extensive system of 
 the whole. Its cost is properly to be spread over that of the 
 whole drive — so absurdl}- inexpensive apart from this. The first 
 difficulty is with regard to the Nickel Plate crossing, the width 
 of the trackage here making a subway extremely undesirable, 
 even were there no other objections. I propose that the drive, 
 crossing West Main Street, shall begin to descend, reaching 
 below the first bridge a point that would give to it a twelve-foot 
 clearance beneath the bottom chord of the bridge. As it 
 descends it is to swing into the riverbed, where it will proceed 
 by concrete arches on properly supported steel cross-girders, 
 with brick pavement, until the second bridge has been passed. 
 Then it will turn up the bank again. At the low level, it would 
 be beneath high water. On the water side, I would therefore 
 have a solid concrete coping, three and one-half feet high. 
 This will not shut out the view, and yet it will be high enough 
 to preserve the drive from overflow except under such unusual 
 conditions of high water as may be expected to occur not 
 more than once in a dozen years, and then for only a day or 
 two. To dispose of the water on such an occasion, rare though 
 it would be, there ma\- be left in the coping, if desired, a hole 
 with a removable plug. 
 
 As the idea of this drive involves serious questions in en- 
 gineering, I called into consultation Mr. Charles Carroll 
 Brown, of Indianapolis, a consulting engineer of national repu- 
 tation, to advise me with reference to the effect of such con- 
 struction in raising the water level, etc. Mr. Brown personally 
 visited the place, and in a written statement expresses the 
 
io6 Fort IVayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 opinion that, even if the drive is built on a soHd fill, the back- 
 water of the river under flood conditions will be raised by it 
 only a fraction of an inch.* It may be added that the Thir- 
 tieth Street bridge, over Fall Creek, in Indianapolis, has been 
 so constructed as to permit the carrying out of an exactly sim- 
 ilar scheme there, when a contemplated boulevard shall be 
 constructed. It may also be remarked that at Fort Wayne the 
 .\ickel I'late railroad, far from opposing such a plan, is likely 
 to welcome its execution because of the further protection thus 
 given to the bridge abutments. Finally, we should note how 
 pleasant a way of going this will offer — its openness, as dis- 
 tinguished from a subway; and the delightful variety lent to 
 the drive by descending for a brief space below the bank, after 
 long continuance on its top ; getting close to the water, after 
 seeing it from above ; and an entire forgetfulness of the rail- 
 road, in the interest and novelty of the new view that will be 
 opened. 
 
 Beyond the railroad's second bridge, where the drive 
 turns up on the bank again, the way is comparatively clear for 
 a short distance. The drive would enter a roomy backyard, 
 would cut off the end of a twelve-foot public alley, and so. fol- 
 lowing the river bank for six hundred feet, reach the alley 
 that leads from Van Buren Street to the river, just north of 
 Superior Street. This would be widened into a park drive, the 
 distance being about fifty yards, and all the present improve- 
 ments being of very cheap character. There is nothing here 
 that should cause a progressive city to hesitate for a moment, 
 considering the result that will be attained. 
 
 At Van Buren Street the way is once more open, the city 
 already owning the beautiful large tract enclosed in the bend 
 
 *He figures the maximum discharge of water at the bridge at 
 l.'),000 cubic feet per second. Computing the area of the cross sec- 
 tion at 3,6.50 square feet, he finds the proposed drive, if made solid, 
 reducing this nearly twenty per cent. The high water velocity, 
 which he had figured at a little more than four feet a second, is 
 thereby raised to slightly over four and three-quarters feet a second, 
 but he finds that to produce this velocity, the back water is in- 
 creased only part of an inch. 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 107 
 
 of the river east of this point. My sugg-estion is that the ih-ivc 
 cut across the southern end, practically following the arc of 
 Michaels Avenue. Up to this point, it will have proceeded 
 so far along the river bank that the variation of brief retire- 
 ment from the bank will be a pleasant change; thereby, too, 
 the route will be shortened, and the expense of construction re- 
 duced. But the main advantage is that the broad meadow 
 will then be left free for use as a children's playground. For 
 this purpose it is admirably adapted. Its location close to 
 homes where play space is limited is ideal, while yet it is so 
 isolated that the shouts of play can never disturb the neigh- 
 borhood. In any city, it would be hard to find a space more 
 perfectly adapted for playground purposes, from every point 
 of view, than is this. 
 
 From Ross Street I would have the drive, for the present, 
 make use of existing Ross and Superior Streets. Happily the 
 house on the northeast corner of Ross and Superior is so well 
 set back that a graceful turn can be substituted for the present 
 acute angle of street intersection, by cutting off the corner 
 with a curve. As this would considerably increase the attrac- 
 tiveness of the location of the house, apparently putting it at 
 the entrance to a park drive, such action should be welcomed 
 rather than opposed. 
 
 As the lots become shallow, beyond Fulton Street, the 
 houses naturally become smaller and less expensive. For the 
 most part, beyond Fulton Street, they are one-story frame 
 houses that, even so, have seen their best days. The ultimate 
 and logical development will be the city's acquirement and 
 parking of all this space, amounting to two and one-half blocks, 
 between Superior Street and the river. Then at Ewing Street 
 the drive would swing in close to the river. But with all that 
 Fort Wayne has now to do, my judgment is that this part of 
 the work can well wait. No such enhancement of values can 
 be anticipated for these lots as to involve much loss in so do- 
 ing, and the use of only three blocks of Superior Street as a 
 link in the river drive will not seriously detract from the drive's 
 
loS fori Wayne Civic Iniprovcnicnt Association 
 
 attraction. But at Webster Street, the river being now a con- 
 siderable distance from the street, the drive ought to turn n(jrth 
 on the highway to regain the bank. The lot on the east side of 
 Webster Street is very narrow at that end, so that but little 
 private property will have to be crossed to reach Wells wStreet. 
 and that little is the back of the lot, with nothing more formid- 
 able than an old lumber shed to present an obstacle. Beyond 
 Wells vStreet, between Wood Avenue and the river, there is 
 a little frame dwelling, a coal yard, and a lime, cement and 
 stone yard — the first industrial occupation of the river Ijank 
 yet encountered. This will have to be cleared out, and the 
 drive carried right across to Harrison Street. Thence we 
 have the aid of Eureka Avenue. The narrow strip between 
 the avenue and the river should be acquired and cleared, as 
 should the balance of the tract, to Calhoun Street. The rapid 
 encroachment on the stream bed which is here taking place, 
 through filling" in, is an interesting and instructive example of 
 the unsightly and menacing operations that may be looked for 
 if such property remains in private hands. Not only would 
 this dangerous work be thus efifectually stopped, but the drive 
 would by this means be brought around to Calhoun Street, 
 whence it can easily be swung along the river through the 
 vacant land of the one remaining block before Clinton Street 
 is reached. So would be completed the drive on the right bank 
 of the St. Mary's. 
 
 For at Clinton Street the river should be crossed. The 
 concrete bridge is here, and though this falls far short of what 
 it ought to be, it is the only attempt as yet to give Fort Wayne 
 a beautiful bridge. It needs light standards and sidewalks, 
 and its width from parapet to parapet is only about thirty-six 
 feet — or no more than the road itself ought to be. For here 
 the road carries not only the park traffic but the street traffic 
 of an important thoroughfare. However, the sidewalks can 
 probably be swung out on wrought iron brackets with no bad 
 effect, and the bridge — given better approaches — made very 
 presentable and serviceable. But quite apart from the fortun- 
 
Fort Wayne Civic hnprovcmciit .Issociatioii 109 
 
 ate chance of the presence of a concrete bridge at CHnton 
 Street, this is the natural point for crossing. Here the pro- 
 posed river drive reaches, in the athletic field and suggested 
 extension of Lawton Park, one of the main parks, of which the 
 greater portion is on the further side. The drive should not 
 enter the athletic field, and beyond that field the plant of the 
 Fuel and Lighting Company practically blocks further progress 
 on the south side. Thus there is not only the pleasant means 
 of crossing here, but it is desirable to cross here, and there is 
 no other way of continuing the drive. 
 
 With Lawton Park's extension and improvement, as al- 
 ready discussed, the drive, having crossed the bridge, sweeps 
 into broad park lands. It issues from the park into Spy Run 
 Avenue, whence a boulevarded street should carry it to the 
 edge of the St. Joseph river. Here the land is all open, and the 
 continuation of a drive along the bank, in southern extension 
 of that part of Spy Run Avenue which skirts the bank, is not 
 only easy and desirable, in removing pleasure driving from 
 crowded Spy Run, but will open up the property, tying to- 
 gether the several cross streets which now have connection by 
 Spy Run only, and in its construction removing the danger of 
 overflow. The relief it would give to Spy Run Avenue is 
 much to be desired, the street being only fifty feet wide from 
 property line to property line, and having a car track. It is 
 already dangerous. This drive would take one to the State 
 Street bridge, and so across the river. 
 
 On the east side St. Joseph Boulevard now extends nearly 
 the whole way along the river bank. Eventually it should be 
 carried beside the river the entire distance to the bridge, and 
 far up stream above the bridge. This will come with Port 
 Wayne's larger population and demand for long country 
 drives. But for the present it will be no hardship for one to 
 continue along State Street to the State Institution, and then 
 turn south on the boulevard. This connects now with 
 Egdewater Avenue — of which the development was outlined 
 in the previous chapter — and so is completed the long river 
 
no Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 drive to Walton Avenue. Easily secured though it is, the 
 parkway as proposed is one that the finest city in the world 
 might envy. It will cost so little and it will yield much. 
 
 Before turning from the rivers, to consider Fort Wayne's 
 further possibilities, a word should be said regarding the 
 greater use of the streams. With popular recognition that the 
 rivers ought not to be utilized as open sewers, and that to les- 
 sen their channels by using the banks as dumps is to invite 
 flood damage, they tend — their waterpower being valueless — to 
 become only objects to be looked at. This is good as far as it 
 goes, for doubtless the persistent and quiet influence year by 
 year of a beautiful municipal possession is a potent force for 
 good in the community ; but it does not exhaust the rivers' pos- 
 sibilities. There is still a potential social usefulness which, if 
 availed of, would not only cause them to give active pleasure 
 but through such service would greatly increase their benefi- 
 cent civic influence. 
 
 For social use of the rivers by boating, three things are 
 necessary: i. The water must be comparatively pure — which 
 means that the city's sewage must not enter it. On the popu- 
 lous south and east sides the sewage is now intercepted and car- 
 ried below the point where boating would begin ; but even this 
 is not enough. Under the laws of the State, the State Board of 
 Health may at any time declare that the pollution of the Mau- 
 mee is a nuisance and menace, and must be stopped. The 
 sewage of the growing north side is discharged into the river 
 within the city limits, creating conditions that must soon rob 
 the Edgewater Avenue dyke of its charm. It is at once nec- 
 essary to plan for some other disposal of that sewage, and it 
 will be the part of wisdom not to adopt the makeshift of an in- 
 tercepting sewer — on whichever side — that will simply carry it 
 further down stream. True civic economy suggests a com- 
 prehensive study of the whole situation and the adoption of a 
 modern disposal plan, which will obviate expenditures for a 
 system which the State Board of Health may at any time order 
 undone. 2. The rivers must have in summer a sufficient depth 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association iii 
 
 of water ; and, 3, the Ijeauty of both banks — not of one alone — 
 must be preserved. The latter requirement is essential, indeed, 
 to the scenic attractiveness of the proposed drive. Fortunate- 
 ly, the conditions in this respect are such — assuming the recom- 
 mended extension of Swinney Park to be secured — that there 
 need be little anxiety on this score, if the drive is constructed. 
 Perhaps the most serious danger to be apprehended, if, the 
 city controlling the land opposite Swinney Park, building- 
 operations have not to be dreaded, is that bill boards will be 
 placed on those banks which are not controlled. The adver- 
 tiser is not usually a respecter of natural beauty, and the board 
 to which I have already referred — at the east end of West 
 Main Street bridge — or the board which one passes on the 
 lovely bank of the old canal en route to Robison Park, 
 should give warning to the municipality of the importance of 
 safeguarding any investment it may make on one bank by 
 securing control of the opposite bank. I note that under State 
 law (Section 149, Chapter 129, Laws of 1905) the park com- 
 missioners have power "to prevent the deposit or maintenance 
 of unsightly or obnoxious material in or along" rivers and 
 streams, and to "provide for the protection of the banks there- 
 of." This would seem to bestow the needed authority. In the 
 case of the St. Mary's west bank, from Bluffton Road to 
 Swinney Park, where as yet the land is all undeveloped, a strip 
 should be reserved for a balancing park drive. 
 
 The maintenance of a sufficient water level in the rivers 
 during the dry season might seem a difficult problem, owing to 
 the torrential character of the streams. But folding dams will 
 accomplish this readily. The lower of them — if there be more 
 than one — should be at some favorable point between the 
 Columbia and Walton Avenue bridges. As I said in discuss- 
 ing Lawton Park, several varieties of such dams are made, all 
 of which will lie prostrate in the river bed, allowing the flood 
 waters to pass unobstructed over them ; while, when the water 
 is low, they can be lifted — in whole or in part, as the case may 
 need — to raise the water level. With this done the rivers will 
 
112 
 
 Furt li'dyiic Ci'i'ic Improvement Association 
 
Fort IVayne Ck'ic Improvement Association 113 
 
 be available for canoes, if not for larger boats ; Swinney and 
 Lawton Parks will be still more closely knit together in social 
 usefulness — indeed, a motor boat line may be established be- 
 tween them ; and there will be added a j^owerful new factor 
 to the pleasure and healthfulness of life in Fort Wayne. 
 Think what it will mean to you who live in Fort Wayne, to be 
 able to use the rivers, and to have them sweet and beautiful! 
 
 Feaving- now the rivers and turning southward, W^alb^n 
 Avenue, to which the river drive has brought us, is the only 
 through cross-town thoroughfare east of Clinton Street. This 
 is an unfortunate condition, not easily to be corrected, 
 and it is going to throw so heavy a trafific upon 
 Walton Avenue that the avenue will not be well adapted 
 to serve as a park connection. But as a matter of fact, the 
 distance from the north bank of the Maumee to Weiser Park 
 is so great, and Weiser will be so slightly developed for driv- 
 ing, that there will not be much strictly park travel between 
 the two. Such as there is, however, would naturally take this 
 one direct way; and the street, which has some elements of 
 unusual interest— in crossing the river and passing the grounds 
 of Concordia College — and which is still all undeveloped, 
 should be treated with its destiny in view. That is to say, to 
 exceptional degree Walton Avenue ought to be developed with 
 thought of its community value, rather than as a local thor- 
 oughfare. Such consideration involves special regard for its 
 paving, for its tree-planting and parking, and for the prompt 
 abolition on this street of the railroad grade crossings. Its 
 distance from the center of the city gives no just indication of 
 the degree of usefulness it will have. 
 
 I have said that Weiser Park is not likely to be a driving- 
 attraction. Most of the pleasure driving will turn west from 
 Walton to the residence section. If it uses Pontiac Street it 
 will pass the beautiful quarter just east of Hoagland Avenue, 
 and so on to Fairfield. 
 
 There is need of a connection that shall be direct an 1 
 beautiful between Fairfield, in this portion the town's show 
 
114 ^ort JVayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
Fort JJ^ayiic Civic Iiiif'roirniciif Association 115 
 
ii6 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 residential street, and the system of drives and parks that be- 
 gins at the St. Mary's river, only half a mile away. In Nutt- 
 man Avenue the opportunity for this is offered with extraor- 
 dinary ease. West from Fairfield, the avenue skirts a bit of 
 beautiful woodland ; at Beaver Avenue it makes a jog, contin- 
 uing west from there on a line some forty feet south of the 
 line the other portion of the avenue has followed. For its 
 whole extent Nuttman Avenue ])asses through territory that is 
 still practically virgin. By extending the northern section 
 west on its own line, and the more southern section east on its 
 line, we shall create a parkway enclosing between its divided 
 roadways a broad parking strip covered with beautiful trees. 
 If the width of this parkway were 120 feet, the space might 
 well be divided as follows : Two feet from the property line a 
 six-foot walk, then eight feet of greensward ; a twenty- 
 four foot road, and a middle park strip forty feet wide ; beyond 
 this the divisions balancing those already named. This would 
 make a beautiful and worthy connection between the river 
 drive and Fairfield Avenue, and there is no reason to doubt 
 that there would result a demand for the property abutting on 
 it that would at once give to the property a value easily paying 
 for the improvement through its larger tax returns. 
 
 With the proposal of this parkway there is completed the 
 circuit of the city — and a very noble and beautiful circuit it is. 
 and attainable now at strangely little expense, considering how 
 close it lies around the built-up portion of the city. It is an 
 opportunity well calculated to inspire the citizens to accomplish- 
 ment, as I believe that it is doing. 
 
 It is to be hoped that while the community will construct 
 the links needed to secure this river drive, private beneficence 
 may come forward to bestow, on a city which would thus be 
 jiroving itself so worthy of assistance, the great country drive 
 and park that lies at its door waiting utilization. This would 
 stretch along the St. Mary's river, continuing southward the 
 city drive — widening here and there to enclose wooded picnic 
 groves, canoeists' goals, bird rendezvous, and lovers' shelters — 
 
Fort ll'ayiic Cii'ic hiiprovcmcnt Association 
 
 117 
 
 up one side and down tlie other, from the pumping station above 
 Broadway bridge to Stellhorn's bridge, under noble oaks the 
 whole way. It \vould be a unique and beautiful attraction, of 
 ever growing" interest and value. It offers, at no prohibitive 
 expense, an opportunity to some philanthropist — or philanthro- 
 pists, for the drive on each side might be given by a different 
 citizen — a chance to erect to himself a monument that would 
 increase in beauty and popular appreciation with the lapse of 
 time ; to do a really great thing for his city, that would make 
 his name forever loved and remembered there; and, if it 
 chances that he has made his money in F"ort Wayne, to do for 
 the community as it has done for him and his. 
 
 In the shadows of Birdland Drive. A park on the river bank '" Des Moines. 
 Note the beauty of the name as well as of the scene. 
 
 The provision of parks and drives through jirivate benefi- 
 cence, is an increasingly popular expression of civic spirit, but 
 not often are the conditions for it so favorable as in this par- 
 ticular case. But let me add a word of suggestion, if any one 
 contemplates this gift. The donor should make it during his 
 
ii8 
 
 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
Ri-fei-fivcos 
 
 HI. Polk ;lCo 
 
 <f,At/.'/f/tiiii llXJ\>t/rJth. 
 
 polkas "" 
 ^I» OF 
 
 CI TY OF 
 INDIANA. 
 
 Existing Buws &- Drives 
 
 Proposed River Drives 
 
 6- Park Additions 
 
 PrOP05EdBoII1EVARD ^NNECnONS 
 
Port ]\'aync Civic Improvoncul Associaliun 119 
 
 life, that he may have the joy of developing it, and the pleasure 
 and reward of watching the happiness its use will bring to all 
 classes of citizens. To wait until he dies before making the 
 gift available, would be greatly to rob himself. 
 
 Fifteen or twenty years hence the drive may even be ex- 
 tended further — but that will be another generation's chance. 
 It is enough today to dream of such a round-trip six-mile drive. 
 To simplify the making of the gift, the Park Commission 
 should secure the authority, unless it already has it, to con- 
 demn property outside the city limits for park purposes. This 
 would be a reasonable request on the commission's part and it 
 may well do all it can to make easy such a gift. 
 
 In the other direction, down the Maumee, there is now 
 a beautiful drive, which well illustrates what that up the St. 
 Mary's may be. 
 
Port Jl'ayiic Civic ImprovcmciU Associatiu)i 119 
 
 life, that he may have the joy of developing it, and the pleasure 
 and reward of watching the hai~)piness its use will bring to all 
 classes of citizens. To wait until he dies before making the 
 gift available, would be greatly to rob himself. 
 
 Fifteen or twenty years hence the drive may even be ex- 
 tended further — but that will be another generation's chance. 
 It is enough today to dream of such a round-trip six-mile drive. 
 To simplify the making of the gift, the Park Commission 
 should secure the authority, unless it already has it, to con- 
 demn property outside the city limits for park purposes. This 
 would be a reasonable request on the commission's part and it 
 may well do all it can to make easy such a gift. 
 
 In the other direction, down the Maumee, there is now 
 a beautiful drive, which well illustrates what that up the St. 
 Mary's may be. 
 
T20 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 
 
 5*ajN#^ 
 
 /I J(7 0/ //le (/we beside the Maumee. 
 

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Fort ]Vaync Civic Improvement /Issociation 121 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 There is temptation to add a few words in snmniary, for 
 there has been unfolded a long program of diverse undertak- 
 ings. It is no small matter to recast a city — readjusting it to 
 its higher destiny, and shaping it for a greater trade and in- 
 dustry and larger population than had been foreseen. But the 
 very need of so doing is inspiring and calculated to give cour- 
 age ; and today, in the competition of cities for a wholesomer 
 civic life, and the better community spirit that goes with better 
 living, the city that dares is the city that wins. 
 
 In Boston, an all-embracing movement has been started 
 with the purpose of making Boston by 191 5 just what Boston 
 ought to be. It is called the 191 5 movement, and a program 
 of achievement has been mapped out for each of the preceding 
 years, so that each one shall surely see the goal appreciably 
 nearer. The leaders of finance, of business, of labor, and of the 
 professions are shoulder to shoulder in the effort. That is a 
 good thing to do, and yet I would caution you against setting 
 your gaze too far ahead. There must be insistence on the op- 
 portunity of the present, on the achievement of this month and 
 year — of Nineteen Hundred and Now, as Edward Everett 
 Hale expressed it. Fort Wayne cannot do at once all the things 
 herein suggested ; the Report does look years ahead. But 
 there should be realization that each month's delay means 
 greater difficulty in accomplishment ; all that can be done should 
 be done quickly. Speaking generally, the most urgent work is 
 the acquisition of needed lands. Development, as already in 
 the matter of your parks, can follow more slowly. 
 
 Financially, Fort Wayne is exceptionally well able to act 
 quickly and with energy, in order that she may make real the 
 new dreams of a better future. I have been looking over the 
 financial statements of a selected list of cities, having popu- 
 lations of between 50,000 and 65,000. Included in the list — the 
 figures being those of 1906 — are such typical and far scattered 
 
Fort f Fay lie Civic Improvement /Issociation 121 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 There is temptation to add a few words in summary, for 
 there has been unfolded a long program of diverse undertak- 
 ings. It is no small matter to recast a city — readjusting it to 
 its higher destiny, and shaping it for a greater trade and in- 
 dustry and larger population than had been foreseen. But the 
 very need of so doing is inspiring and calculated to give cour- 
 age ; and today, in the competition of cities for a wholesomer 
 civic life, and the better community spirit that goes with better 
 living, the city that dares is the city that wins. 
 
 In Boston, an all-embracing movement has been started 
 with the purpose of making Boston by 191 5 just what Boston 
 ought to be. It is called the 19 15 movement, and a program 
 of achievement has been mapped out for each of the preceding 
 years, so that each one shall surely see the goal appreciably 
 nearer. The leaders of finance, of business, of labor, and of the 
 professions are shoulder to shoulder in the effort. That is a 
 good thing to do, and yet I would caution you against setting 
 your gaze too far ahead. There must be insistence on the op- 
 portunity of the present, on the achievement of this month and 
 year — of Nineteen Hundred and Now, as Edward Everett 
 Hale expressed it. Fort Wayne cannot do at once all the things 
 herein suggested ; the Report does look years ahead. But 
 there should be realization that each month's delay means 
 greater difficulty in accomplishment ; all that can be done should 
 be done quickly. Speaking generally, the most urgent work is 
 the acquisition of needed lands. Development, as already in 
 the matter of your parks, can follow more slowly. 
 
 Financially, Fort Wayne is exceptionally well able to act 
 quickly and with energy, in order that she may make real the 
 new dreams of a better future. I have been looking over the 
 financial statements of a selected list of cities, having popu- 
 lations of between 50,000 and 65,000. Included in the list — the 
 figures being those of 1906 — are such typical and far scattered 
 
122 Fort Wayne Civic Improvement Association 
 
 municipalities as Schenectady, N. Y. ; San Antonio, Texas ; 
 Evansville, Ind. ; Waterbury, Conn. ; Salt Lake City ; Harris- 
 burg, Pa. ; Tacoma, Wash., and Holyoke, Mass. In this 
 prepared list of prosperous and progressive municipali- 
 ties, there are named only two cities that have funded debts 
 of less than two million dollars — the smallest debt re- 
 ported is $1,825,000 — and there are several in which 
 the debt exceeds four millions. Fort Wayne, with a 
 larger population than any of them, has a funded debt of only 
 $589,900, and against that has $91,000 in the sinking fund! 
 Putting the matter another way, and turning to the Census 
 Report for 1906, in which every city is given, I find that the 
 city with population nearest at that time to Fort Wayne's, was 
 Holyoke, Mass., it having about a hundred and fifty fewer 
 people ; that the per capita debt obligation, less sinking fund 
 assets, amounted then in Fort Wayne to $16.68 — it is less than 
 half of that now — and in Holyoke to $51.30 ; that of the eighty- 
 seven cities of the United States with a larger population than 
 Fort Wayne, only four had as small a per capita debt as her's, 
 and that of the first twenty with a smaller population only 
 two did not have a larger per capita debt. As compared with 
 rivals, Fort Wayne is thus in a position to do a great deal. 
 The per capita debt of Kansas City, Kas., at that time was 
 $39.32, "which," says a statement issued by the business men's 
 club of that city, is "less than most cities of the same class." 
 The total debt was then over one and a half millions, and is 
 now about $2,175,000, as compared with the half million in 
 Fort Wayne ; but the bulletin of that energetic organization 
 prints with approval, after the debt statement, these words; 
 "Every time we improve our city we help to increase its popu- 
 lation. I believe that as a business proposition a judicious out- 
 lay of three or four million dollars for improvements in this 
 city would be a splendid investment." That is the spirit that 
 brings things to pass. Kansas City, Kas., is a type of a large 
 class of cities that are in competition with you, and that, with- 
 out half so favorable an opportunity financially as has Fort 
 Wayne, are daring and doing more. 
 
Fort Wayne Civic Improvcmoif Association 123 
 
 I have spoken of the money aspect of the question of im- 
 proving Fort Wayne, because it was sure to be broui^ht up. 
 But the more important consideration is not financial at all. 
 It is the question whether the people who live in Fort Wayne 
 have the wish, the grit, the love for their city and faith in it, 
 to make of it what it can be made so easily — the workshop, con- 
 venient and wholesome, facilitating and drawing business ; the 
 home, affording opportunities for healthful exercise and pleas- 
 ure, and bringing beauty into the common life — whether, in 
 short, the community really means what it says, and puts heart 
 in its slogan. 
 
 Fort Wayne With Might and Main. 
 
 In the recently submitted Report of the Metropolitan Im- 
 provements Commission for Boston, there is this true state- 
 ment: "The mental attitude of the citizens of any community 
 towards its growth and future prosperity is an element of no 
 mean importance in the shaping of its destiny. Confidence 
 and civic courage have frequently ha^l the power to achieve 
 that which doubt and hesitation would have rendered an im- 
 possibility." Respectfully submitted, 
 
 CHARLES MULFORD ROBINSON. 
 Sept. 28, 1909. 
 
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