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 BUREAU Of GOVERNMENTAL RESEARU. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 +0 tiHRARY BUM DING
 
 /■
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 BUREAU OF GOVERNMENTAL RESEARCH 
 
 LIBRARY y 
 
 44 LIBRARY BUILDING
 
 Acknoivlcdgiiicjit is cordially tendered tn the iiuiiiy business houses and 
 indiz'iduals zi'ho by tlicir courtesy made this [publication possible. 
 
 The Commission is likezuise indebted to The William Graham Photo Co. for 
 the tine originals from zchieh tlie Los Angeles plates zverc made. 
 
 / 
 
 Piess of Times-Mirror Printing & Binding House 
 Los Angeles. Cal. 
 
 Plates from American Engraving & Electrotype 
 Company, Los Angeles. Cal 
 
 /
 
 {^111 
 
 ojc^u I ir u J^ 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 I shall waste no s])acc in a final 
 suniniino- up. All through the report 
 1 liave tried to show what I thought should be the 
 numicipal ideal toward which Los Angeles should 
 develop — the point of view that should be taken. Not 
 to be simply big; but to be beautiful as well. Not to 
 he content with narrow, crowded streets, with mean- 
 ness of aspect and a modeling after cities where lives 
 must be spent indoors : but to be spacious, handsome, 
 as a capital city, the streets alluring one out of doors, 
 and offering so many drives and giving one so much 
 to do that tourists will not pass through Los Angeles. 
 The\- will stay here, in a real "Paris of America," — a 
 .summer city, when the East is swept by wind and 
 snow ; and they will find a gay outdoor life wdiere 
 other cities are stamped with the grime and rush of 
 an earnestness that knows not how to play. It is a 
 '.cautiful, enviable role. It involves outside drives 
 as well as those within the city, but even the latter 
 develop into an admirable system and at amazirigly 
 low cost. Yet in all the development there will be 
 great gain if the city can obtain that authority which 
 the cities of Pennsylvania and Ohio have already 
 secured, and by which the great municipal improve- 
 ments of Europe and South America have been 
 tinnnccd — the right to acquire property on the edge 
 
 of a public improvement, in order to protect that im- 
 provement, and to recoup the cost of making it by 
 the resale of the property at the enhanced value which 
 the improyemcnt bestows. I refer you to the Phila- 
 delphia law in particular. It would be well, too. for 
 the city to make such contracts with the owners of 
 property abutting on the boulevards and parkways as 
 is made by the city of Cleveland with such owners. 
 And there must not be fear that the plans are too 
 elaborate, that Los Angeles will be doing too nuich. 
 .\s this is written, I received a report of the work in 
 Rio de Janeiro. A loan of $36,000,000 was negotiated 
 in 1903 for improvements ; in the construction of a 
 single central boulevard, five hundred and ninety 
 buildings were destroyed : twenty miles of other 
 streets were widened, and the parks connected by a 
 .system of boulevards. The redemption of Los An- 
 geles, its rebuilding on splendid lines — which we have 
 seen can be so easily accomplished — would be a far 
 better investment than that. It is estimated that in 
 Paris Americans alone spend $20,000,000 every year. 
 But there is a higher than financial argument for bet- 
 tering the city which is your home and which your 
 children will inherit. The one thing needed is some- 
 thing which Los Angeles is said to have, viz : Tliat 
 spirit which looks ahead, which grasps big ideas, which 
 is ready to |)ul! together for the city's good. 
 
 Respectfully sul)mitte( 
 
 No\EMBER, 1907. 
 
 CHARLES AR'LFORD ROBINSON.
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIF0RNL4 
 
 BEAUTY AND UTILITY OF PERMANENT HIGHWAYS 
 
 Good county liighways are an essential part of 
 any scheme for ci\-ic improvement of a cit\-. As 
 no man builds a tine home without priiper walks 
 and driveways leadiny to it — not dependinj^' on by- 
 paths and nuuldy trails — so no "city beautiful" can 
 really be such without permanently and perfectly 
 built approaches in the way of good rock highways, 
 for the country is the dooryard of the city, and must 
 be treated as such in a perfected scheme of civic 
 beauty. 
 
 Mr. Charles Mulford Robinson, the celebrated 
 civic architect, states that in his opinion the suljurban 
 roads are essential in carrying out such a plan, and 
 that their permanent improvement is imperative. 
 
 The citizens of Southern California are largely 
 recruited from the pick of the Eastern states. They 
 put up with the long journey and heavy expense of 
 coming here because they recognize that this is the 
 most delightful region on earth in which to live. 
 They know of the charms of ocean and mountain, 
 foothill and valley, ranch and villa and the joys of 
 life out of doors. They demand that these attractions 
 shall be put within their reach ; and only by a com- 
 prehensive system of permanent country highways 
 
 can this be done. The day of nnukh- or dusty trails 
 is gone by ; people of means and education demand 
 something better. 
 
 Europe long ago learned her good roads lesson : 
 supplied the best roads and scenic attractions and in- 
 vited the world to come and enjoy them. The flood 
 of tourists through Europe every year is constantly 
 growing and is a never-failing source of large revenue 
 and income, practically supporting some countries. 
 The tourist trade here is already immense, in spite 
 of the drawbacks of execrable roadways. With 
 smooth, mudless, dustless highways such as are "^o 
 common abroad, and with climatic and scenic attrac- 
 tions superior to any Europe can offer, what might 
 not this phase of travel become ? It only takes good 
 roads to make all the rest a certainty. 
 
 Los Angeles County has bonded itself for $3,500,- 
 000 to build 307 miles of macadam roads in Los 
 Angeles County. When this system of roads is built 
 there will be nineteen roads centering in Los Angeles 
 making it possible to reach every incorporated city 
 in the county over a beautiful macadam roadway. 
 
 The work is now well in hand, and will be com- 
 pleted probably within two years. 
 
 F. W. Bl-vnchard.
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 ^^HD 
 
 mo 
 
 COUNTY
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 BRIDGE CONSTRUCTION IN THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES 
 
 The Los Angeles River and its tributary, the 
 Arroyo Seco. are spanned 1iy bridges at all main 
 thoroughfares. There are at the present time lo 
 bridges built and maintained by the city over the 
 river, four over the Arroyo Seco. three over the 
 Arroyo de Los Posos. and others across water 
 courses in various parts of the city. 
 
 The earlier policy was to consider first cost alone 
 and construct the cheapest and narrowest bridge that 
 would serve the purpose. Then a few steel bridges 
 across the river were constructed, and these at the 
 time of erection were thought to be permanent. They 
 are of the truss or the girder type, which is inherently 
 unsisrhth-, and thev have also other shortcomings. To 
 
 At all main thoroughfares, however, when the old 
 bridge is outgrown, a new one is designed with three 
 objects in view — namely, to make it permanent, ade- 
 quate for possible future needs and, at the same time, 
 sightly. Its permanency is insured by building en- 
 tirely of reinforced concrete, which does not rot or 
 rust, costs nothing to maintain and grows stronger 
 with age. To provide for possible future require- 
 ments, the roadway is made of the same width as the 
 street and the superstructure designed for loads im- 
 probable at the present day. Very few concrete 
 bridges erected during the last few years in the 
 L'nited States or Europe are as wide as those now 
 being constructed in Los .Angeles. The aesthetic side 
 
 Biiena Vista 
 
 reduce the first cost — too often the governing factor 
 in the design of public works in small cities — the pos- 
 sibility of future growth was overlooked and these 
 steel bridges were made too narrow for present-day 
 requirements, so that the city now has some viaducts 
 which are inadequate and unsightly, but still too 
 serviceable to discard It is a matter for congratula- 
 tion that more "permanent" steel truss bridges were 
 not erected. 
 
 It is now the policy of the Board of Pul)lic Works 
 to recommend cheap wooden bridges only in outlying 
 districts and occasionally for more important cross- 
 ings where a temporary bridge can serve the purpose 
 until funds are available for a more pretentious 
 structure. 
 
 is tikcn care of by adopting the arch form and b}- 
 special treatment of the concrete surfaces. On each 
 side is built an ornamental stone balustrade with 
 lighting posts over the piers, and other architectural 
 ornamentation is employed in keeping with the char- 
 acter of the structure. Furthermore, as parallel 
 bridges at the same crossing are undesirable from the 
 aesthetic point of view, one structure is made to serve 
 both the city and the street railway company. 
 
 Three such bridges are now being constructed by 
 the city from plans prepared in the Bridge Depart- 
 ment of the City Engineer's Office, and a fourth will 
 soon be commenced.
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 The rirnoklyn-aveniK' liridsjc over the Arroyo de 
 Los Posos, fathered by Coiincihnan E. L. Blanchard. 
 replaces an old wooden trestle. It serves a large dis- 
 trict in Pioyle Heights and was built on such a line 
 and grade as to remove a sharp curve and dip which 
 had been the cause of accidents and loss of life. It 
 was paid for jointly by the city and the Pacific Elec- 
 tric Railway- Co. It consists of three arch spans of 
 concrete and is 264 feet long over all This bridge is 
 unique in being built on the steepest grade of any 
 masonry bridge in existence. To accommodate rail- 
 way tracks underneath, the piers are on a skew to 
 the street, and are consequently higher at one end 
 than at the other, so that there is scarcely a level line 
 or right angle in the structure. The total cost, ex- 
 clusive of the sum of $14,900.00 paid for land to 
 
 quate structure could be erected. It serves an im- 
 jxjrtant and growing district on the east side and will 
 carry both local and interurban cars. The river, 
 which is 300 feet wide, is spanned by three elliptical 
 arches. It will cost when completed $116,000. 
 
 The old East Main-street bridge has long been 
 insufficient for both street railway and highway 
 traffic, and the city and the Los Angeles Railway Co. 
 are now constructing a joint bridge at this crossing 
 to cost about $96,500. Its authorization is due to 
 Councilman Bernard Healy. The bridge will consist 
 of three 88-foot arch spans. To secure sufficient 
 waterwa}-, the arches are quite flat and abut against 
 massive steel hinges which are concealed from view. 
 Lights will be carried by concrete shafts over the 
 piers. 
 
 ■3ouTH ^LCVATIOry 
 
 Street Bridge. 
 
 / 
 
 straighten Brooklyn avenue, was $68,400. This ex- 
 penditure, which provided a structure that will be not 
 only permanent but an ornament to the city, was 
 justified by the fact that there is no bridge in Los An- 
 geles that will be seen each day by as many people 
 as will this one. In addition to the Brooklyn-avenue 
 cars, which pass over it, all Interurban cars to Pasa- 
 dena, Alhambra, Covina and other suburbs pass by or 
 under it. 
 
 Another concrete arch bridge is being constructed 
 jointly with the street railway companies across the 
 Los Angeles River at Seventh street. The old wood 
 truss bridge at this point was washed out five years 
 ago and a temporary trestle, placed north of the site 
 has been made to answer the purpose until an ade- 
 
 Tlie coiiiract will soon be let for the lUiena Vista- 
 street viaduct. This structure will be placed about 
 midway between the present Pasadena and Downey- 
 avenue bridges, and will extend from the Fremont 
 Gate entrance to Elysian Park across the tracks of the 
 Southern Pacific, Santa Fe and Salt Lake Railroad 
 Companies, and the Los Angeles River to Pasadena 
 and Downey avenues. These two thoroughfares will 
 be connected to the viaduct by means of new streets 
 80 feet wide, making a "Y" with the angle at the end 
 of the bridge on the east bank of the river. The Los 
 Angeles Railway Co. will run its Pasadena-avenue 
 and Downey-avenue cars on double tracks over the 
 new bridge, thus doing away with the long delays at 
 its present Buena Vista-street single track crossing.
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIF0RNL4 
 
 Seventh SrmzT Srjdse 
 
 The old highway and street railroad bridges on Pasa- 
 dena avenue, both of which are outgrown, will be 
 abandoned and removed. Buena Vista street will be 
 widened to 80 feet for its entire length, sharp humps 
 in grades and angles eased off and the half mile of 
 unsightly board fence along the railroad frontage 
 removed. 
 
 There will bejio more important or sightly avenue 
 into and out of the city than Buena Vista street when 
 these improvements are completed. It will be the 
 main route to the San Fernando Valley and to Pasa- 
 dena and outlying suburbs via darvanza and High- 
 land Park, and is one of the desirable improvements 
 emphasized by Charles Mulford Roliinson in his plan 
 for the City Beautiful. 
 
 The main feature is the Buena \'ista-street via- 
 duct, which was first urged four years ago by R. W. 
 Dronigold, the present Councilman from the First 
 Ward, who has shown an indefatigable interest in the 
 proposition and to whose efforts its consunmiation 
 will be largely due. Last year the City Council made 
 ,an appropriation therefor, but the work could not be 
 gotten under way because of the difficulties involved 
 in working out the details of easements with the rail- 
 road companies concerned, due partly to the obstinacy 
 of the City Engineer's department in insisting on ob- 
 taining room for piers in the railroad yards to permit 
 of an all concrete arch bridge instead of a long, ugly 
 
 steel truss span over railroad tracks, which was first 
 regarded as a matter of course. 
 
 The final plans provide for seven arch spans vary- 
 ing from 104 to 119 feet long. The total length of the 
 bridge proper is 968 feet. The endeavor has been to 
 produce a monumental structure with appropriate arch- 
 itectural embellishment, but without profuse ornamen- 
 tation. On each side over the piers will be circular bays 
 projecting from the sidewalk and supported by Doric 
 columns. At either end of the viaduct will be two 
 lions in concrete. An ornamental concrete balustrade 
 will extend along the sides, carrying lighting posts at 
 the bays. The total cost of the improvement will be 
 about $295,000, which sum, however, the Los Angeles 
 Railway Co. will assume its just share of the expense. 
 
 The total cost of the four bridges will be about 
 $590,000. of which sum the street railway companies 
 pay approximately 30 per cent. All of these bridges 
 lie within view of railroad trains entering the city. 
 Thev will be daily crossed by thousands who live east 
 of the Los Angeles River, and will be an important 
 factor in helping to create the City Beautiful. The 
 City Council and Board of Public Works have shown 
 wise foresight in waiving the question of first cost and 
 providing for the erection of structures which will be 
 not onlv permanent an<l adequate, but also artistic. 
 
 Homer Hamlin, 
 
 Citv Engineer. 
 
 Main 3treet Dr.dse.
 
 ^ 
 
 REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MUNICIPAL ART COMMISSION 
 
 FOR THE CITY OF 
 
 Los Angeles, California 
 
 Made to THE MAYOR 
 
 THE CITY COUNCIL 
 
 THE BOARD OP PUBLIC WORK/ 
 
 BY 
 
 F. W. BLANCHARD, President 
 JOHN W. MITCHELL, Secretary 
 JOHN PARKINSON 
 MRS. W. J^ WASHBURN 
 MRS. SUMNER P. HUNT 
 
 Alumcipal Art Commission 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 WILLIAM J. PORTER 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 1909
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 SUGOESTIONJ 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES nULFORD ROBINSON 
 
 ROCHESTER, N. Y. 
 
 Author of Modern Civic Art, Etc. 
 
 Together With Plans and Pictures 
 Illustrative of His Subject 
 
 FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS FOR IMPROVEMENT/ 
 
 PROVIDED FOR AND CONTEMPLATED 
 
 GOOD ROADS AT THREE AND A HALF MILLION/ 
 THE AQUEDUCT AT TWENTY - FOUR MILLION/ 
 CIVIC IMPROVEMENTS AT OVER TWENTY MILLION/
 
 The Honorable, the Mayor, City Coiiiieil and Members of the Miiiiieipal Art Coniiiiis.tion, 
 
 Los Angeles, California. 
 
 Sirs : — In accordance witli your instructions, I 
 have examined the city of Los Angeles and have pre- 
 pared such suggestions and reconmiendations for its 
 improvement and beautification as were practicaljle in 
 the hmited time allotted. 
 
 It earl}- became evident to me that to give to this 
 advice the greatest possible value, it would be neces- 
 sary to restrict my investigation to those portions of 
 the city in which conditions were most rapidly be- 
 coming fixed. It was advisable to take up these, be- 
 cause liere improvements would atfect the greatest 
 number of people and delay would prove most likely 
 to be fatal to the successful carrying out of improve- 
 ment plans. Such portions of the city include the 
 business district and all the more thickly settled parts 
 of Los Angeles, When it is realized that these con- 
 tain four hundred and fifty miles of graded streets, 
 laid down at the whim of individual land owners and 
 absolutely without comprehensive system; that the 
 
 a unanimity of interest and a zeal in execution which 
 more diiTuse plans would not at this time have re- 
 ceived. And out of such study there should incident- 
 ally arise a more virile civic consciousness, a realiza- 
 tion of the oneness of interest in the improvement of 
 Los Angeles, a sense of cohesiveness rather than of 
 competition between the different parts of the cit\ , in 
 realization that what is done for any particular sec- 
 tion — if it be done in accordance with a broad and 
 comprehensive scheme — is done for all. It is not this 
 street nor that street, nor this ward nor that ward, 
 Init LOIS ANGELES for which we are to take our 
 stand, that it may be better planned and more 
 beautiful. 
 
 The financial phase of the problem is onlv second 
 in importance to the sentimental. I have been sur- 
 prised to observe that there has been an idea abroad 
 that I had set out to make plans the execution of wdiich 
 would cost a certain siuu. Xothing could have been 
 
 The Civic Center That Denver Is About to Realize. 
 
 topography is exceedingly \ariecl ; and that in ten 
 months more than ten thousand buililiug^ are erected 
 in the region covered, there is a])i)reciated the im- 
 mensity of the problem and its im])ortance, even 
 when thus restricted. It would have been tlesirable, 
 and more satisfactory to have been alile to include in 
 my survey a broad belt of surrounding country, that 
 the city's gri>\\t]i (i\-er it might In- plannecl for in 
 advance. 
 
 Yet the survey ami resulting suggestions here sub- 
 mitted will give to Los Angeles much to think of 
 and much to do. And because it does deal, not with 
 .)utlying districts in whicli the ])aramount interest 
 would be local, but with the city as a unit — with 
 tlinse portions which in a sense are the property of 
 all the citizens in comniDU, with business streets, and 
 connecting parkways and bnulewinls, it mav command 
 
 further from my pur|)ose. In case of sickness does a 
 physician undertake ti> .give only a certain number of 
 dollars' worth of cure? I set myself no goal in dollars 
 to be expended. 1 assumed that Los Angeles was big 
 enough and rich enough, and Ijrave enough, and had 
 enough confidence in itself, to do wdiat was necessary 
 and worth while ; and my study has been only this : 
 What does the city need, how can certain conditions 
 be best improved, and will the proposed remedy be 
 worth its cost ? 
 
 Xot all of the changes will he made at once. Some 
 of them will stretch over a term of many years, and 
 of them it would be foolish to estimate the present 
 cost, for before the}- are carried out values will 
 change. Others may be executed in the natural course 
 of development and will mean a saving to the city 
 rather than any additional cost, Finalh', I do nut pre-
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 sume to dictate when the work shall be done. I 
 simplv make a plan, submitting- the improvements 
 which I believe advisable and which would lift Los 
 Angeles into the class of progressive cities that are 
 developing themselves on modern lines. The time for 
 carrying out the plans rests with the business sense 
 and civic pride of the citizens of Los Angeles. 
 
 A word may be said, however, as to the profit 
 and loss in executing great municipal improvement 
 schemes. I know of no city in the United States 
 which has so much to gain by making itself civically 
 attractive. In most municipalities the direct gain to 
 the citizens, in their personal convenience and enjoy- 
 
 lish beautiful parks and has connected them by scenic 
 drives ; St. Louis and Denver are planning civic cen- 
 ters to cost millions of dollars, and outer systems of 
 parks and drives reaching miles into the country ; 
 Columbus is having worked out for it a scheme of 
 grandiose proportions ; Harrisburg and Cleveland are 
 already famous for the projects that with them are 
 under way — and what has St. Paul, St. Louis, Colum- 
 bus, Harrisburg or Cleveland to expect in resulting 
 profit compared to what Los Angeles would have ? 
 I shall not argue the matter further, I desired 
 in introducing my Report only to put three ideas 
 definitely before you. for the better understanding of 
 the recommendations. These are, that the sugges- 
 
 Plaiis of the Capitol Approaches Commission. St. Paul, Jlinii., Showing 
 the Great New Parkways To Be Opened Through the City. 
 
 ment, is the only consideration worth counting upon, 
 anything beyond that being more or less of a gamble. 
 With you, already the tourist metropolis of 
 the country, the indirect jirofit through the at- 
 traction and retention of outsiders is certain 
 and enormous. And you simply cannot afford 
 to stand still, — or, rather, with your increasing 
 population, to go from bad to worse, as you 
 would, in congestion, in city discomfort and ugliness, 
 and in paucity of municipal effectiveness. The travel, 
 for the most part coming from cities that are im- 
 proving themselves, would turn away. For other 
 cities are improving themselves : St. Paul is preparing 
 to create parkways and malls and a civic center on an 
 immensely ambitious plan, after it has already estab- 
 
 tions are restricted to the present city limits, not 
 through failure to appreciate the importance of 
 broader planning, but because with limited time it was 
 necessary to do the most important work first : that 
 there has been no effort to prescribe a cure which 
 would cost a certain number of dollars ; but to show 
 the city what could best be done, utilizing as much 
 as possible that which the city now has, to tie it to- 
 gether into a homogenous entity, more convenient, 
 more beautiful, more metropolitan and in line with 
 modern ideas of city building; and, finally, that to do 
 this, even at some slight immediate sacrifice, would 
 be abundantly worth the city's while. With these 
 thoughts in mind, we may take up our study.
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 * '■ 
 
 By Co\irtesy of the City Plan Commission, Grand Rapids. The Civic Center on Which Cleveland Is 
 Spending from Fifteen to Eighteen Million Dollars. The Large Structure at the Far End of the 
 Mall Is To Be the New Union Station. Nearly All the Ground for this Civic Center Has Been 
 Cleared; Two of the Great Buildings Have Been Already Erected, and Others Are Underway. 
 
 The Problem. 
 
 The problem offered by Los Ange- 
 les is a little out of the ordinary. Here 
 is a large center of population, which has at- 
 tained its importance quickly — almost suddenly. As 
 a consequence, it is not unlike a child who has out- 
 grown his clothes. The old garments are uncom- 
 fortably filled, crowding and cramping him, and be- 
 yond them he stretches out in long, sprawling legs 
 and arms. For miles around, plain and valley and 
 hill are laid out in streets, without system as regards 
 the city as a whole — sprawling, rambling, disjointed, 
 while, in the longer settled and central portions the 
 overcrowding is very great, the facilities inadequate 
 to the demands upon them by the traffic and giving 
 none of that civic eft'ectiveness which is looked for 
 in the modern city, and which a city so new as Los 
 Angeles is in fact, and so much a tourist Mecca, par- 
 ticularly needs. 
 
 But there are certain favorable factors, too. The 
 topography is varied and, with the natural splendor 
 of the city's environs, is adapted to give to it extra- 
 ordinary beauty, if only the opportunities be fittingly 
 
 availed of; the recentness of the city's growth has left 
 available to this time an unusual number of chances 
 for improvements at a cost which is low compared to 
 what other cities are paying for similar eft'ects ; the 
 exceptional importance to Los Angeles of making 
 itself attractive to strangers is a helpful factor ; and 
 best of all is the abounding faith of the citizens in 
 their city, their confidence of its future greatness, and 
 their courage to meet that future by adequately pre- 
 paring for it. It is a city that needs generous im- 
 provement plans, and that is abundantly worth im- 
 proving, and whose people are courageous. 
 
 In my study of the situation, I find suggestions 
 grouping themselves under three general heads. 
 These are : First, scattered general notes on what 
 can be done here and there to better the aspect of the 
 streets ; second, three large improvement schemes for 
 the business district, these involving considerable 
 street changes ; third, a parkway and boulevard system, 
 with some park suggestions. I will take uj) the groups 
 in the order given. 
 
 GENERAL SUGGESTIONS -THE BUSINESS DISTRICT 
 
 Beginning with the business streets, I lielieve is tlu' handsomest in the United States, 
 
 and postponing discussion for the pres- It is the one respect in which Los Angeles now 
 
 ent of large imi)rovement schemes, I takes in municipal development that foremost place 
 
 may jiroperly take up first the lighting system. This which it ought in nian\- ways to have. The lights 
 
 Street 
 Lights.
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIEORNL-1 
 
 are so fine, the effects on the streets so beautiful 
 and so rare in this country, that they deserve all 
 the protection and development you can give to them. 
 In substitution for the vivid and cheapening green 
 paint now used, the standards should be treated to 
 look like bronze. They should, also, be kept clean. 
 Dust i.s now allowed to lie thickly upon them. It 
 would be no great hardship for the merchants, who 
 already show so much public spirit in maintaining the 
 lights, to have their janitors dust off the standards 
 in front of their own premises every night; but the 
 better way would be for the city to take care of this 
 matter. After the streets are swept each evening, 
 one man could make the rounds, cleaning off the orna- 
 mental standards. Then the switch boxes of the 
 street railroad shoidd be raised a little, in order not to 
 break, as now, the long lines of lights, the perspective 
 
 view of many lights being, possibly, the system's most 
 beautiful feature. Incidentally, the switch boxes them- 
 selves should be of artistic design, harmonizing with 
 the light standards. I append a photograph showing 
 the type of switch tower used in Washington, a type 
 which could well be used here. Finally, the protection 
 of the beauty of the lights by the prohibition of flash- 
 ing and glaring electric signs across the sidewalk — a 
 prohibition in which Los Angeles is setting an ex- 
 ample of which it has great reason to be proud, should 
 by all means be continued. This ordinance and the 
 lights which it protects, are giving to the city a dis- 
 tinction at night which no other city in the nation has. 
 Effects elsewhere are cheap, gaudy and claptrap by 
 comparison. Broadway, New York, is as far behind 
 Broadway, Los Angeles, in this respect, as is the 
 Bowery jaehind the Champs Elysees. 
 
 Broadway 
 
 Hill Street 
 
 Spring Street 
 
 Ocean Park 
 
 Jr 
 
 In Los .\ngelfs There .A.i'e Already Installed Six Miles of Ornamental Lamp Posts. These Posts .A-re Placed 
 Opposite Each Other on Either Side of the Street, 110 Feet Apart. Making Los Angeles the Most Beauti- 
 fully Lighted City in the World. The Plates Shown Are Reproduced by Courtesy of the Llewellyn Iron 
 Works. 
 
 Street 
 
 For the junction of JMain and 
 . 1 • • Spring streets, and of Broadwav and 
 
 Irregularities, gprjn^^ j here submit no plan.' But 
 as tile business district extends to include these 
 points, as it must very shortly do, they will become 
 of increasing importance to the city. It would be 
 possible for the municipality to treat them effectively, 
 and the far conspicuousness of the narrow gore to 
 persons approaching them from the south, makes them 
 well worth development in the city's beautification. 
 
 If left to private owners, they must either remain 
 practically unimproved, owing to their small area and 
 bad shape, or they will present an architectural knife 
 edge as unpleasant as that of the Flatiron Building 
 in New York. The city should acquire them. In 
 Paris such sharp corners are beautifulh' utilized in the 
 business districts by fountains, like the JNIoliere, and 
 when Los Angeles has the Owens River supply, it 
 might well make a feature of these. In fact, even 
 now there might be more use of water visibly than
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 Tlie Fontaine Mollere, Paris. Tills Has Been Placed in Such Acute 
 Angle. Formed at the Buikling Line by Converging Streets, as is 
 Illustrated in Los Angeles by the Convergence, for Example, of Main 
 and Spring Street,^. The Point Is One of Great Civic SignificancG. 
 
 there is, considering the attracti(]n of water in this 
 eHinate. There wonld be little waste in lettin.^- it flow 
 nut of a pipe into a basin, and then from the basin 
 into a pipe again for future use ; and that tlow from 
 ]iil)e to basin, whether it be a fall or a jet into the 
 air, can be made, in sight and sound, an exceedingly 
 altraetive feature on sunny streets. 
 
 The angle in Spring street, north of h'irst. is — as 
 all such angles are — needless and ugly, and it must 
 1ie hojjed that when a new building is erected there 
 the turn will I)e made in a curve. 
 
 Main street, at Jefferson, is suddenly narrowed. 
 The great length of this street, its fine development 
 further south, and its importance should make no 
 argument necessary for its broadening here to a uiii- 
 form width while there is yet opportunity, h'roin 
 .-u-ound the historic little Plaza, the drays, which now 
 form an almost impenetraljle barrier, shouUl be or- 
 dered elsewhere. 
 
 Beautifying 
 Intersections. 
 
 RESIDENTIAL STREETS. 
 
 What has been said of the gores 
 in the business section holds true in 
 great measure throughout the city. 
 The city of Washington owes very much of its 
 lieauty to ilu' de\elo[)ment of such spaces into little 
 parks. • There are large mimbers of them there — as 
 there are here — and when improved the\' bring a 
 beauty into the street system — which is to say into the 
 very structure of the city — which nothing else will do. 
 When Los Angeles sets seriously about the task 
 of making herself beautiful, as we must hope she is 
 preparing now to do, she will doubtless authorize a 
 readjustment of the municipal machinery as regards 
 the park commission, giving to it much more authoritv 
 than now (as other cities have successfully done) and 
 making membersiiip upon it a great honor. Then the 
 development of all such spaces, antl tiie acquirement 
 of them for such purposes, will be naturally looked
 
 LOS AXGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 after by the park commission. I have said 
 there were many spaces of the kind here. A few 
 e.xamples are the following, and there is need only 
 to think how great an improvement the beautifica- 
 tion of these would make to realize how important 
 a part they may play in a more beautiful Los Angeles : 
 The intersection of Pasadena avenue. Twenty-eighth 
 and Workman streets, passed every day by thousands 
 of people and by nearly all the tourists ; Alanitou ave- 
 nue, Albion and Twenty-first streets, where the junc- 
 tion is very awkward ; Boyle avenue and First street ; 
 ^^ermont avenue and McClintock, to go to the other 
 side of town ; West W'ashington and La Salle streets ; 
 Lake Shore avenue at First and Beaudry ; Main street 
 where at Thirty-seventh it makes the bend, or 
 Figueroa and California. 
 
 Everv one of these and many more such spaces 
 should be beautified, and to do this would be so well 
 worth while that the neighbors should undertake it 
 themselves, if the city will not. Where flowers grow 
 as luxuriantly as they do here, no heavy cost would 
 be involved and the shame of leaving neglected such 
 opportunities is the greater. Once improved by the 
 neighbors, it is very likely that the city would con- 
 tinue the work. But it would be altogether better if 
 the city, with its ability to secure good plans and to 
 adjust these to a larger scheme than merely the im- 
 provement of p neighborhood, should have control 
 of the work from the first. 
 
 The entrances to the tunnels should 
 also be taken in hand by the park and 
 art commissions ; and the city should lower the grade 
 of the Broadway tunnel, cutting it down at the south 
 end, even if California street had to be closed to 
 teaming at Broadway. The block to Temple is so 
 short that this would work no hardship which could be 
 com])ared for a moment to the city's gain. 
 
 shelter at Washington. Los Angeles should be keen 
 to avail herself of every helpful suggestion which 
 other cities can offer. 
 
 Tunnels. 
 
 A Trolley Waiting Station in Washington, liuilt Over the 
 Sidewalk — an Inexpensive and Artistic Shelter Which. 
 Properly Placed, May be an Ornament as Well as a 
 Convenience on the Public Way. 
 
 It would be a great convenience 
 
 if shelters were constructed at sunny 
 
 Waiting 
 
 corners, where street railway passen- 
 gers are many and the normal sidewalk traffic will 
 permit. They can be made attractive, sometimes wnth 
 tiled roofs and soinetimes of inconspicuous construc- 
 tion, as the example shown in the illustration of a 
 
 Lawn and Parking Treatment so Much Desired for Civic 
 Beauty. 
 
 Side 
 Parkings. 
 
 On nearly all the residential 
 streets the side parking, between 
 walk and curb, is too narrow. This 
 
 is one of the greatest faults of Los Angeles and one 
 of the most inexcusable. It is the one which detracts 
 more perhaps than does any other one thing from 
 the beauty of the city. The streets are amply broad 
 to permit more generous parking and in an all-the- 
 year-round simimer city, good parking would be a 
 great attraction. Parking that is a foot to eighteea 
 inches wide cannot be properly taken care of, and con- 
 sequently is not an ornament but a detriment ; park- 
 ing that is three feet to five feet wides does not allow 
 sufficient room for the healthy growth of trees, and 
 hears no proper relation to streets as wide as those of 
 Los Angeles. Finally, no impression of urban great- 
 ness and bigness is given by a roadway wider than 
 the traffic demands. The impression is nearer that 
 civen by a boy stalking about in his father's hat. 
 The roadway is not taken care of, only a meandering 
 strip of it is used, and the whole waste is dusty and 
 dirty. Aside from the efi'ect, the needlessly wide 
 roadway is costly to construct and costly to maintain. 
 Every argument, in short, is in favor of the widest 
 practical parking and the narrowest practical drive- 
 way on residential streets. Nor are these arguments 
 only aesthetic and financial. The change makes 
 equally for the comfort of pedestrians, whom the wide 
 parking saves from spattering mud and dust ; and it 
 makes for the householder's benefit in giving him 
 more front yard, his house a better setting, and in 
 removing further from the house the dust and noise 
 of the street. 
 
 As to the width of roadway necessary, a recent 
 SNiuposium of the engineers of some of the most prom- 
 inent cities in the country gave twenty-five feet as 
 ample width for all residential streets that were not 
 arterial or that were not reserved for boulevard use.
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 No Better Example of Lawn and Park Effect Can Be Found in Southern California 
 Than This Beautiful Street in Los Angeles. 
 
 This was siq-nificatit as adding- the testimony of prac- 
 tical city engineers to the conchisions that had been 
 independently reached by landscape architects. If on 
 all but the shortest streets of Los Angeles, still 
 barring out boulevards and arterial thoroughfares, the 
 width were decreased to even thirty feet, it is obvious 
 that the sixty and eighty-foot residential streets of this 
 city would allow much more space between lot line 
 and curb than is now generally devoted here to that 
 purpose, and that as a result the city would seem 
 much more up-to-date, as well as more beautiful to 
 the eye, than with the waste of roadway. 
 
 Fortunately, the extensive paving of residential 
 streets has very recently commenced here, and while 
 a good many curbs have been laid, it is not too late 
 to correct the mistakes and add immensely to the 
 pleasure of the street and to the beauty of the city 
 by widening the side parking. In many cases the 
 resulting saving in pavement construction and main- 
 tenance would pay the cost of relaying the curb. 
 Even on arterial streets, a roadway of fifty feet is 
 likely to Ix^ generous. I may name as types of streets 
 that should have their side parking increased. Hill 
 street in the High School neighborhood ; Harvard 
 boulevard, a street deliberately laid out to be beauti- 
 ful, and then marred by timidity as to parking ; Boyle 
 avenue ; and North Olive street at the hill. The lat- 
 ter is so steep that there is little traffic on it, and if 
 the road were here made narrow and the street lawn 
 on either side made wide, we should not onlv have a 
 stretch of street more sensible and beautiful in itself, 
 but one that would make a very delightful picture, in 
 
 contrast to the present slide of dust, when seen from 
 lower Olive street and from the streets which cross 
 that. And this thoroughfare, let it be repeated, is a 
 type. The suggestion is one of those of which the 
 execution does not cost money, but saves it. 
 
 I dislike to make a hard rule for the width of side 
 parking, as conditions vary slightly in different 
 streets, but it is an unusual sixty-foot residential 
 street in Los Angeles that will not bear at least an 
 eight-foot parking on each side. That would give a 
 thirty-foot roadway, eight feet of parking and a six- 
 fdcit walk put one foot from the lot line. And it is a 
 rare eighty-foot street, if it be not burdened with an 
 exceptionally heavy arterial traffic, on which the side 
 parking cannot be widened to at least twelve feet. 
 It must be remembered that this narrowing of the 
 drivewav is a verv different thing from narrowing 
 the street. Should there ever come such change in 
 the character of a neighborhood that the road became 
 inadequate, it would then be an ca.sy matter, involv- 
 ing no change of street width, to subtract something 
 from the parking. 
 
 _ Another unpleasant feature of Los 
 
 .\ngclcs residential streets, which 
 ought ti> have a beauty that would be the despair of 
 most cities, is the considerable jjcrsistence of the 
 fences in front of projierty and lietwcen lot lines. 
 This is a relic of other days and, in its idea, of other 
 lands. For probably the most nationally distinctive 
 contribution of America to the science of more 
 beautiful city building, is the abolition of fences on 
 residential .streets. To make one park of many, to
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIF0RNL4 
 
 A City Street .Made Beautiful by Broad Side- 
 parlving and Open Lawns. 
 
 give up a measure of privacy and individualism for 
 the greater good of all, is the .\merican ideal on the 
 street of homes. This leaves all lawns open as far 
 back as the building line, increasing the seeming 
 width of the street by just that much of garden on 
 either side, while from the building line back there 
 may be all the privacy anv one desires. With the 
 beautiful lawns and luxuriant flowers of Los Angeles, 
 a general co-operation in this respect would add much 
 to the beauty of the cit' . 
 
 Trees. 
 
 The trees, largely as a result of 
 the inadequacy of the reserved strips 
 between walk and curb, are very poor on the Los 
 Angeles residential streets. The recent a])pointment 
 of a city forester, however, is a hopeful step in the 
 right direction. He, with his real love of the tree, 
 may be depended upon to influence sentiment and 
 guide development in the right direction. The great 
 needs are more tree planting, more uniformity in the 
 kind of tree set out in different streets, and in their 
 spacing — even the small trees used here should be 
 thirty feet apart. Then there shuuld 1)e better trim- 
 ming. The peppers especially are allowed to hang 
 far too low. In recognition of these needs, which 
 are most tirgent, the forester should be given a greater 
 authority than he now has, and a considerably larger 
 appropriation. It would be worth while to make this 
 generous and give him a good force of men for .some 
 years, until present delinquencies have been made up 
 and the city started right. I may add, in response 
 to a request, that the palm is not in my estimation a 
 good street tree, except where a most formal ettect 's 
 desirable. 
 
 The school yards are inexcusably 
 Ixitl. From an architectural stand- 
 point, the school buildings also are 
 very bad as a rule, but it is less easy to change them. 
 The yards ought at once to be taken in hand, and it 
 will be possible to give a great deal of lieauty to them 
 
 School 
 Yards. 
 
 without trespassing to any extent on play space. 
 Progressive cities are turning their attention more 
 and more to the beautification of the school yards, be- 
 cause of the effect on the children and through them 
 on the homes, quite as much as for the improvement 
 of these pieces of public property. Stopping at 
 Dubuque. Iowa, on m\- way here, I found that a 
 landscape architect from Chicago had been brought 
 out there a few weeks before, for the sole purpose of 
 making artistic planting plans for the school yards. 
 Compare, for a moment, the wealth of Los .\ngeles 
 and Dubuque, the climatic conditions and the num- 
 ber of visitors whom this work in the respective 
 places would favorably impress. A good point of 
 beginning for the local work would be the High 
 School, of which the grounds have been lately con- 
 siderably enlarged. A useful and interesting plan 
 could be worked out there. Vegetation shoukl out- 
 line the boundaries, and fill the building corners. 
 p. J In the matter of children's play- 
 
 ^^ ■ grounds. Los Angeles is taking a 
 
 worthy position. With the sociological aspect of 
 these the present discussion must not concern itself. 
 It is necessary, however, to point out that as fast as 
 the facilities for pla\- — the first requisite — have been 
 provided, serious effort should be made to bring 
 more of beauty into the playgrounds. Beauty also 
 has a sociological work to do. In the designing of 
 the Field houses this has been kept well to the fore. 
 They are just what they ought to be, and the deco- 
 ration of the grounds should bfe brought up to their 
 standard. In doing this, the co-operation of the chil- 
 dren is to be enlisted. 
 
 The River '^'^'' river presents a very serious 
 
 l)rol)lem. and one which cannot be 
 solved with entire aesthetic satisfaction. The 
 great depth of sand seems to make impracticable 
 any scheme of dams for holding the water, and a 
 river bed that for the most of the year is drv and that 
 has on both of its banks a railroad is not an attrac- 
 tive object. But this at least should be done: The 
 removal of sand should at once be organized on a 
 business-like basis, so that the work shall be done 
 
 tlMi\,iii^ ihe Soutlit'iii C'aliforuia Sentiment for 
 tlie Live Oal;.
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 A Los Angeles Street Showing Natural Tree Growth. 
 
 htiiiiaiiely as respects the teamiiiij, orderly, evenly 
 and with due respect for city property. Tlie bed of 
 the river should be cleaned of its rubbish and kept 
 clear ; and along the banks there should be planted 
 willows and sycamores. These would probably do 
 well and would make a varied and beautiful screen 
 of verdure. Finally, the bridges are now about as 
 ugly as they can be. As these are replaced, hand- 
 some structures should be substituted. The bridges, 
 especially over a stream of this character, should 
 seem as little as possible like bridges when one is 
 upon them and as much as possible like improved bits 
 of street. To that end, they should be luade of uni- 
 form wiilth with the street, thev should be well 
 ])aved and lighted and they should be freed of over- 
 head braces. The concrete arch now makes prac- 
 ticable a bridge that is beautiful at no more cost than 
 the old ugly iron bridge of the railroad type. In the 
 l)tiilding of these new bridges, the grade crossings of 
 the railroads, arc, of course, to 1)e eliminated. 
 
 There nnist lie one wnrd more of 
 gent'ral comment. The portion of 
 tile cii\ wliicli might be most lx;auti- 
 ful and piclures(nie — all that northern section with its 
 chain of rolling hills — is being utterl\- ruined through 
 the mistaken greed atid ignorance of real estate spec- 
 ulators. \\\\\\ the exce])tion of a very few tracts, on 
 which are laid out beautiful winding roads that fol- 
 low the contour, there is a ruthless slashing into hill- 
 sides, a strai)])ing of them down by absunl "--treets." 
 
 Street 
 Platting. 
 
 which mount over the top in straight lines of impos- 
 sible grade, and a filling and cutting that would make 
 even a railroad blush for the destruction of scenery. 
 It is little wonder that po])ulation has been so largely 
 driven to the flat and uninteresting plain at the south- 
 west, rather than to these ruined hills with their 
 beautiful views, bracing air and lovely cai'ions. San 
 Francisco, jirobably the worst exaiuple in the world, 
 has been taken as the model ; there are attempts to 
 put Chicago-like gridiron street systems on a strik- 
 ingly picturesque landscape. The speculator has 
 chosen to try to sell a few lots more than to 
 sell a few less at a better price ; he has sought quan- 
 tity rather than quality, disregarding the lessons of 
 Philadelphia, Boston, New York in its Jersey and 
 r)ronx suburbs, and Cincimiati — in all of which charm- 
 ing subm-ban residential districts, where the streets 
 follow the contour, curving and winding with the 
 natural to]3ography, and where vantage points are 
 preserved to the public, and art supplements nature, 
 have been the most fashionable and speculatively 
 profitable of all residential districts. Yet not one of 
 them offers such views as may he hail here. As to 
 ])raclical remedies, jierhaps protest, sentiment and iir 
 struction will do more than anything else: but the city 
 can exert a powerful influence to check the tendency 
 by declining to accept henceforth any streets which 
 exceed a certain grade, (ir which contain cuts of more 
 than a certain length and dejith. Such a stand should 
 ciTt.-iinlv be taken.
 
 LOS- ANGELES. CALIF0RNL4 
 
 IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS 
 
 Comino- now to the larger questions involved m a 
 replanning of the older part of the city, that it may be 
 made worthier its site and destiny, we find problems 
 of verv interesting appeal. They demand breadth of 
 view, and not onlV breadth but an honest recognition 
 of the existing situation, with a daring, based on faith 
 in Los Angeles, to meet it. The plans, that is to say. 
 should not onlv correct present shortcomings, but 
 must look into the future, to the city that is to be If 
 we are to be picavune in our projects and timid in 
 suo-°-esting changes, our justification must be doubt as 
 toihe future of Los Angeles, a fear that it will never 
 be greater than it is todav. If, on the other hand, 
 VOu\elieve in it, if vou have faith that a really great 
 city is to rise here, or even a city that will permanently 
 hold the large population now gathered withm its 
 borders, the plans and enterprises resulting from them 
 must be on a scale commensurate with that belief — by 
 your works men will judge of your faith. 
 
 What is the situation? Here, frankly, is an en- 
 lightened community which has outgrown its early 
 limitations in a swift and unsystematic expansion. 
 With a site extraordiinrily beartiful in topography, 
 and lavish in extent, it has permitted the business of 
 the city to be jammed and crowded into narrow streets 
 that are unrelieved by open spaces or imposing 
 development, and the residences to sprawl clumsily 
 over a vast territory of hill and plain. There have 
 been reserved some beautiful park tracts, but they 
 have not been converted into a system; in the city 
 most sought in the United States by pleasure lovers 
 there are" no fine drives. The private building has 
 outstripped the public: and on streets that might be 
 those of a little town are rising commercial structures 
 so splendid and imposing and numerous that they 
 insistentlv demand a metropolitan provision for them. 
 Finallv, the railroad entrances to the city are through 
 inadequate little stations in mean and shabby parts 
 of town. 
 
 Whatever the dreams for Los .Angeles, such, then, 
 are the present realities : they show the stuff of which 
 the dreams must be made if the city is to realize the 
 destiny that is believed to be in store for it. They 
 show 'where we must plan, and indicate with what 
 courage of conviction, with what breadth of view, and 
 with what public, as distinguished from private, spirit 
 
 we must act. 
 
 A convenient point of beginning 
 is the railroad entrance. Practically 
 all the visitors to Los Angeles — 
 tourists, investors, future residents — 
 come bv the steam railroads, and at 
 the station and ride thence through city streets they 
 receive their first impression. It is an impression that 
 is lasting, coloring, justly or unjustly, their future 
 thought of the city. It would be well, if for no other 
 reason than more worthily to impress strangers, to 
 make such an entrance dignified and splendid: but 
 it so happens that the existing condition is exceedingly 
 unpleasant to the citizens themselves. One of the 
 arterial streets of the citv, .A.latneda — broad. <lirect. 
 
 A Union 
 Railroad Sta- 
 tion and Its 
 
 Approach. 
 
 iOS MMSr^XS 
 
 PROPOSED PLAN 
 
 UmON STATIOM 
 
 ^^ APPROACH -i- 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 ■— - CAt. 
 
 ato&fev
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 A Railroad Station in Berlin. The Sui^gested Colonnade Forming an Arc. With the Station Behind it, Would Be 
 More Imposing; but Imagine Even Such a Structure as This at the Foot of Fifth Street. 
 
 fairly level — is abantloiietl to a railroid, which, in 
 semblance of old village days, passes along it at grade, 
 crossing at grade all tlie intersecting streets. Three 
 or four blocks east are two other railroads, and all 
 three have separate stations — the latter two inconven- 
 iently located, and none with an adequate approach. 
 
 It is obvious that there ought to be a Union Sta- 
 tion. In locating this and planning approaches to it, 
 we have to seek the inaxiinum of effect at the min- 
 imum of expense, and must do this by making use of 
 all which is good in the present situation. The loca- 
 tion of the Arcade station is good, if it be suitably 
 developed ; the tracks on Alameda street are bad. and 
 if possible must be given up; the location of the 
 tracks of the Santa Fe and Salt Lake roads is. per- 
 haps, as little objectionable as possible. We have, 
 then, a basis on which to work ; and it must be recog- 
 nized that there nuist be both give and take, as between 
 the railroads themselves and as between the city and 
 the railroads, to obtain a result that will be to the 
 advantage of all. 
 
 My recommendation is that the L'nion Station be 
 located on the land now occupied bv the Arcade Dc]5ot 
 and its surroundings ; that the Southern Pacific aban- 
 don the use of Alameda street by through trains, thence- 
 forth collecting anrl delivering freight to such plants 
 as are reached by the sidings from that track, in cars 
 propelled by electricity : and that in return for this 
 reliiKiuishment of Alameda street, the Southern Pacific 
 be given a right of way directly east frdin the ]M-esent 
 
 Arcade Deijut to th^' present freight vards of the 
 Santa Fe. From that point the roads can be depended 
 upon to work out their own trackage arrangements. 
 The Santa Fe and Salt Lake should be allowed track- 
 age facilities over the new right of way, and the trains 
 of the Southern Pacific should then enter and leave 
 the city along the line of the river. As the Salt Lake 
 road now does this, and is allied with the Southern 
 Pacific, and as the latter w'ould still have, near the 
 Piuena Vista street bridge, convenient access to its 
 extensive yards, this plan would seem to involve no 
 serious difficulties in view of tlie advantages to be 
 derived. For it is to be remembered that in economy 
 of administration, in convenience to its passengers, 
 and in the transfer of baggage and mails, a LTnion 
 Station is of advantage to the railroads as well as 
 to the public : and that in the present instance there 
 is practically no local competition in passenger traffic 
 between these roads. The short stri]) through which 
 it is proposed that the city give a right of way, in 
 return for the restoration of Alameda street, now con- 
 sists of vacant lots, of frame cottages and shacks, and 
 of unimproved streets. The city could well afford 
 to m.ake such a change. 
 
 r.iU the city, in re(|uiring these changes and the 
 construction of a splendid Union Station, should im- 
 prove tile opportunitv to ])rovide a worthv approach. 
 This can be done easily and eft'cctively. as shown in the 
 diagram, by widening and straightening Fifth street. 
 Placing the new station on the present Southern
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 Pacific holdings at the Arcade Depot and nut to Cen- 
 tral avenue, the drawing suggests a big terminal sta- 
 tion built on the modern plan — mail, express and bag- 
 gage taken care of in a long building at the side, into 
 which run tracks for the loading and unloading of 
 cars, while the passenger cars stand between esplan- 
 ades that terminate, at the end of the main station, in 
 a wide concourse, onto which opens the waiting room. 
 The building is placed on the axis of Fifth street, 
 centering on it, so as to give a fine effect, closing the 
 vista of the street. The effect is further heightened 
 by the suggested peristyle, a colonnade describing a 
 long arc across the structure's front. Fifth street is 
 widened to i92i/4 feet, from Cdadys avenue to Los 
 Angeles street, and is straightened, so that it leads 
 straight away from the broad plaza planned in front 
 ot the station to the heart of the business district. 
 
 A very remarkable effect can be secured here at 
 relatively little cost. For the four blocks from Cen- 
 tral avenue to Crocker street, a 12]/^ foot alley runs 
 jiarallel to Fifth street at a distance of only lOO feet 
 to the south. By widening the street on this side to 
 include the alley, there is obtained thus the whole 
 broad sweep desired. For the block beyond Crocker, 
 the allev has not been cut through, and the strip to 
 be acquired is iz^A feet wider as a consecjuence. Then 
 comes the street's present awkward turn, which is 
 remedied by taking such decreasing amount on the 
 south side and increasing amount on the north, as to 
 maintain the straight lines. From] Wall street to Los 
 Angeles street the taking is all on the north. For the 
 whole of this distance, a half mile stretch from the 
 station plaza, there is not a single building of impor- 
 tance to block the improvement. Much the greater 
 number are small frame structures, often of only one 
 storv. How long such a condition may continue can- 
 not be said. It is undeserved good fortune that it has 
 lasted as long as this. 
 
 Any student of the map or of the street itself, will 
 be struck bv the advantage of continuing the widening 
 all the way to Hill street, where this broad boulevard 
 would connect with the improvements at Central Park, 
 of which I shall speak later. I stopped the widening 
 at Los Angeles street, not because unconscious of this 
 advantage, but because at that corner there is met, in 
 the new King Edward Hotel, the first substantial 
 building to oppose the boulevard's prolongation ; and 
 beyond the King Edward, one gets at once into "close 
 in"' business property of perhaps as much value as any 
 in the city. Yet it may h& observed that on the north 
 side of Fifth street, on which all the widening would 
 here take place, there is not for the four blocks from 
 Los Angeles street to Hill street, any building of such 
 cost as to make the scheme impracticable for a big 
 citv determined to do a grand thing grandly. Only 
 four structures are as much as three stories high ; 
 the average height is not over two. This is the more 
 remarkable, since several very large and immensely 
 expensive structures have risen on the street's other 
 side. There should be considered, also, the great gain 
 to the city in having, through the congested business 
 district, one very wide street rvmning east and west. 
 This gain would be primarily to traffic. Its value as 
 
 a preventive to the spread of fire, however, should also 
 be kept in mind. This will be considerable in even 
 the half mile proposed, but it would be of yet greater 
 value through the business district. 
 
 Finally, it should be remembered that the improve- 
 ment from the station to Los Angeles street will 
 almost certainly pay for itself, in making very valuable 
 a frontage now little esteemed, while between Los 
 Angeles and Hill streets, the boulevard's assurance of 
 exceptional light for all office buildings abutting on 
 it, would pay some of the cost by the increased assess- 
 ments perpetually coming from the benefitted property. 
 All this is aside from the spectacular effectiveness, 
 which would be very great. I much wish that Los 
 Angeles may do the whole thing, as it ought to be 
 done. But if this cannot be compassed at present, the 
 complete scheme should be kept in mind, so that if the 
 misfortune of a great fire should ever, imhappily, dev- 
 astate a portion of the property required, the chance 
 might be grasped to put through the improvement. 
 
 Returning now to Los Angeles street, and assum- 
 ing that the widening of Fifth street stops at that 
 point, at what may be termed the iiiinicdiatcly practi- 
 cable terminus of the improvement, we have a street 
 1923/2 feet wide, leading a half mile directly to the 
 station. Los Angeles street would curve into it on 
 either side, so making a wide space, and at the other 
 end the street would terminate in a broad plaza in 
 front of the station. Detailed plans for the develop- 
 ment of this plaza should await detailed architectural 
 plans for the station ; but there will obviously be 
 space for carriage stands, for street car facilities, 
 and for the criss-cross travel of the existing streets, 
 and all this with dignity and spaciousness of effect, 
 while incidentally this plaza will offer such setting for 
 the station as to inspire the architects to their best 
 achievement. 
 
 From the Station Plaza west to Los Angeles street, 
 the surface development of the broad way may reason- 
 ably be anticipated. My conception of it is that it 
 would be a great traffic highway, that as the formal 
 entrance to so large and busy a city as Los Angeles, 
 the softer graces of abundant vegetation would here 
 be out of place, that its beauty should consist mainly 
 in its dimensions, its proportions, its vistas, and its 
 utilitw Nothing upon the surface of this boulevard 
 would be so important or so interesting as the stream 
 of traffic flowing up and down upon it. Mv recom- 
 mendation, therefore, is as follows : On each side a 
 broad paved sidewalk — fifteen feet wide ; between 
 the walk and the curb a strip of parking — /. c. turf — 
 sixteen feet wide. In determining this, the great 
 width of the street must be considered. Beyond the 
 curb, on each side, a twenty-seven foot driveway, re- 
 served for the slow-moving vehicles ; beyond this 
 drive, on each side and nearer the center of the street, 
 a drive of similar width for rapidly moving, or light 
 passenger vehicles ; in the middle a double car track. 
 The only trees should be placed in the side parking, 
 between walk and curb. They should be formal in 
 character and uniform in variety and spacing. I 
 would suggest the jacaranda at intervals of at least 
 thirty feet. To separate the two driveways on each
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 side, there should he a curb, like a low coping. Upon 
 this, but placed on the longitudinal axis, and ccm- 
 structed without the cross-bar, I would like to see 
 the ornamental lights that are so pleasant a feature 
 of )-our business streets. Each of these uprights 
 would then carry one large and two small globes. In 
 the parking, along the sidewalk, I would have at 
 frequent intervals, standards carrying single globes, 
 these lights showing prettilv beneath the trees. The 
 trolley wires should be suspended from ornamental 
 center poles, standing between the tracks and carrying 
 cross arms that would stretch over the tracks. All 
 other wires should, of course, be in conduits, for 
 which there would be ample space in the side j^ark- 
 ing. 
 
 The advantages of such development arc. I think, 
 pretty evident ; but it may be pointed out that the 
 ■function of this street is necessarilv its provision for 
 through travel, that the opposing streams of traffic 
 would be separated and then further sub-divided into 
 the swift and slow moving, time being a consideration 
 in traffic to a railroad station. The trees would be in 
 lovely purple bloom in spring, but this would be a 
 natural feature, giving no sense of inappropriateness, 
 and the lines of trees and lights and center trolley 
 poles would emphasize the length of the street, while 
 the center would be left clear for unobstructed vista 
 in either direction. To the east, this would be to 
 the facade of the station, with its curve of great col- 
 umns ; to the west it would be to an isle of safety 
 carrying a tall shaft. For immediate efifect this might 
 be an electrolier ; but I should hope that the wealth 
 of Los Angeles would soon raise at this conspicuous 
 point a column surmounted by an angel, as la Colonne 
 dc Juillct. in the Place de la Bastilc in Paris; or such 
 as the column on the BeUe Alliance Plats, Berlin. 
 When this street is thus developed, I know of only 
 two cities in the United States that will have such a 
 splendid entrance. One will be Cleveland, where, at 
 a cost of fourteen million dollars, the work is already 
 under way': the other will be \\'ashington. Los 
 Angeles, with so much more to gain, ought not to 
 hesitate where Cleveland dares. 
 
 It will be observed that for the six hundred feet 
 from Wall street to Los Angeles street, the north 
 side of the broadened way runs very close to Winston 
 street. This thoroughfare, making a long curve to the 
 south, leaves for a distance of a hundred feet a space 
 of less than twenty-five feet between its south line and 
 broadened Fifth street's north line. Even at the re- 
 motest ends of the arc, the distance between the two 
 is only about seventy-five feet. It is an interesting 
 situation. 
 
 Thus to reduce the private holdings for this dis- 
 tance would be almost to confiscate them, and from 
 the standpoint of pul)lic interest, the continuance of 
 such a strip in private hands would seriously menace 
 the effectiveness of this ])art of the avenue, for it 
 could never be adequately improved. Rut the city, 
 by securing the slight additional area which, fur this 
 block, would carry the im])rovement to Winston street, 
 would thus obtain the addition of the width of \\'in- 
 ston street. — in itself an addition of fortv feet — and 
 
 would substitute on the tax rolls a frontage that would 
 be immensely valuable, in place of one almost worth- 
 less. For its own profit, therefore, the city at this 
 point should carry the improvement to Winston 
 street. 
 
 In the development of the tract, the straight line 
 of the avenue should be continued. The brief inter- 
 vening space can be utilized in various ways, the pre- 
 ference depending on the development that accompa- 
 nies the making of this wide avenue. It would make a 
 convenient cab stand, where, out of the wav of the 
 regular traffic, waiting cabs could always be found. 
 For this purpose its proximity to the business district 
 and location on the line to the station well adapt it. 
 Or, it could be parked. At its narrowest point there 
 might be a fountain, and on either side — with turf, 
 trees and flowers — seats whence the ceaseless pano- 
 rama of the street could be observed. If this plan 
 were carried out. the acquirement of a similar space 
 on the opposite side, balancing it, would much add to 
 the efiPectiveness, and we should have here a trulv 
 Parisian arrangement. In this connection it mav be 
 noted that the ideal to be kept in mind in developing 
 Los Angeles, while the municipality must have an 
 individuality of its own. ought to be much nearer that 
 of a Continental city in Europe than of the typical 
 American city. As in foreign capitals, there should be 
 provision for a large class of pleasure seekers of mod- 
 erate means, and for enjovment of the sunshine and 
 fresh air. In other words, there should be ample 
 facilities for sitting out of doors. A third scheme of 
 development, which could well be combined with the 
 second, would include the acquirement of tlie abutting 
 property on Winston street, with its handsomely curv- 
 ing front, as a public building site. It might be the 
 site of the important branch of the postoffice. which 
 will probably be needed at this end of town, or it 
 would make an admirable location for that municipal 
 building which in a few years will doubtless be re- 
 quired for the water department, or for any other pub- 
 lic structure. In private hands, the location would ijc 
 an almost ideal one for a fine city hotel. 
 
 Rut to go back to the avenue, we should probably 
 find such travel as was ultimately going to the north 
 or south, avoiding the congested business streets by 
 turning to the right and left at Los Angeles and San 
 Pedro streets. Both are good streets ; and if Towne 
 avenue, already broadly laid out and to the south well 
 planted, desired to catch some of the considerable 
 south-bound travel, it could probablv do so by in- 
 creasing its attractiveness. It has not yet been paved, 
 and when improved a slight narrowing of the roadway 
 to give wider side jwrking strips — say ten-foot ])ark- 
 ing on each side — would do much to tlraw travel to it. 
 
 The travel that turns north might some of it 
 proceed west by the Third-street tunnel : but the 
 greater portion would doubtless proceed to the old 
 Plaza. The historical significance of this site makes 
 it deserve a greater emphasis and better setting than 
 it has yet received in the Los Angeles street plan. 
 But this is part of the Civic Center jiroject — the sec- 
 ond great fruit of better city building in which I find 
 Los .\ngelcs most lamentablv lacking.
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIF0RNL4 
 
 "Proposes s^s 
 
 ^Administrative (Fntefj--^- 
 
 <»'^ TbcGlTYofLOSi^NGEIsES 
 "' ■ • ' Califr » 
 
 
 An Adminis- 
 trative Center. 
 
 In the County Courthouse, superbly 
 situated on its mound; in the new 
 
 Federal building, under construction, 
 diagonallv across from it ; and in the need of a new 
 City Hall, yet to be located, there are furnished the 
 sufficient ingredients for a very imposing Civic Cen- 
 ter. If I had been called upon a few months ago, T 
 could probably have planned with comparative ease a 
 grouping here of public structures that would hive 
 given fine conventional effect. But now the tall, slim, 
 costly structure of the International Bank is rising 
 directly in front of the Postoffice, as if slapping it in 
 the face, completely screening a broad view of the 
 structure, and from Main street hiding even the Court- 
 house. It stands on exactly the land that would 
 most naturally have been utilized for an open space 
 around which the public buildings shotdd be grouped. 
 But since it is not my desire to present plans that arc 
 beyond reason, I have not for a moment considered 
 suggesting that it be purchased and removed. I have 
 accepted it as one of the fixed conditions ; and it has 
 at least the merit of rising like a warning finger aver 
 the low structures all around it, as if to caution the 
 citizens of Los Angeles that if they desire to gain big 
 effects and to do big things in the building of their 
 city, it is not safe to delay the acquirement of the 
 necessary land. 
 
 Accepting, then, the International Bank building, 
 I have worked long over the problem of adequately 
 
 connecting the public buildings and giving to them 
 the centralization which properly belongs to them. 
 Happily, from a geographical standpoint, the site is 
 excellent. My plan contemplates, first, the extension 
 of Aliso street in a straight line to Main. Aliso street 
 in itself is not attractive, but it is a broad, arterial 
 thoroughfare, carrying a heavy traffic, particularly by 
 street car, to the east side and to Pasadena. The pro- 
 posed change will straighten the street, which will be 
 a convenience to the travel, and will mean a shorten- 
 ing of the distance, and it will open an interesting view 
 of the new Federal building, which will show for a 
 long distance down it. As Aliso street's direct ex- 
 tension will bring it just to the north corner of Com- 
 mercial street and Main, there can be given to it at 
 that point a wide curving entrance which will emplia- 
 size its importance as a highwav to the east side. On 
 the diagram, I have indicated that there would be 
 room here for a drinking fountain ; while a block 
 further away, where the straightened Aliso leaves the 
 street's present line at the crossing of Los Angeles 
 street, there would be left a triangle that would make 
 an admirable site for one of those Public Comfort 
 Stations, which all our large cities are finding it ad- 
 visable to erect, as the cities of Europe did long ago. 
 The location would be an exceedingly convenient one, 
 and the site is large enough to make practicable some 
 planting of shrubs around the building.
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 The little area between the Postoffice and the Jail. 
 about half of which is now a street, I recommend 
 opening^ as a plaza, to give the Federal building bet- 
 ter setting and, especially, to open to view its north 
 facade from New High street, whence now only a 
 corner can be seen. 
 
 As a third change of street, I advise the prolong'i 
 tion of New High street to Broadway. The simpler 
 way to do this would be to make a curve ; but far the 
 better way, if practicable, and I hope it may be made 
 so, will be to carry it straight through, so that it shall 
 meet Broadway at First street. This will open from 
 Broadway a striking vista of the Postoffice, will bring 
 the latter into that connection with Broadway which 
 it already has with ^lain and Spring streets, and so 
 will much enhance the effectiveness of the site. Then 
 Spring and Broadwav will seem to focus to it and 
 Main will only just miss it. Further, the direct ex- 
 tension of New High street will be a convenience to 
 traffic, afTnrding a more direct and obvious short cut 
 than the curve would do. Finallv, since the Court- 
 house property is to be extended to Franklin street, 
 it would be well if the small triangle between Broid- 
 way, Franklin and the extended New High street 
 should be obtained, to give to the new county building 
 a dignified and fitting setting and to open it to a bet- 
 ter view from Broadway. This space would afford 
 an excellent site for the White statue. With these 
 several changes the existing public buildings will 
 seem much better placed and will be bro"ght into an 
 ■ improved relation with the city's street system. The 
 problem, however, of properly locating a new munici- 
 pal building remains. 
 
 For the site of the new City Hall I have selected 
 the plat between Spring and Alain streets, now occu- 
 pied by the BuUard Block, together with Market 
 street, which bounds this on the north, and with so 
 much of the land abutting on the north side of Market 
 as may be necessary to give to the site the breadth 
 required. As mv plan in its entirety contemplates the 
 acquirement of all of the triangle between Market 
 street and the intersection of Main and Spring, the 
 latter addition will not increase the scheme's cost. 
 In selecting this site, of course, many considerations 
 other than the financial must have wei.ght ; but it 
 mav be remarked that while the Bullard Block is of a 
 better type than most of the buildings in the neigh- 
 borhood, the extra cost thus involved is balanced by 
 the fact that here the city gets free the fifty feet of the 
 building frontage which is in Market street; and in 
 Court street, an open space at its back. 
 
 Further, in making choice of this site, it is as- 
 sumed that, ideally desirable or not, the new building 
 is likelv to be tall and not differing much from the 
 connnercial, or office type. This fact has made it ad- 
 visable to select a site which, while not requiring that 
 sort of structure, could bear it, without detriment of 
 effectiveness. This the proposed site will certainly 
 (In. The cleared gore, extending to the south front of 
 the Federal building, only about 200 feet away, will 
 bring the City Hall into close grmijj-relatioi, with the 
 latter, towaid which it will trrn an nrnanKutal facade. 
 
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 HHI^BHRMHSaBUIIUIHUl 
 
 A Terrace in Charlottenburg. This Is a Suggestion 
 for the Terraced Garden Proposed Between the 
 Court House and the City Hall. Flights of Stone 
 Steps Might Rise Curvingly from the Base of the 
 Retaining Wall to the Balustrade on Either Side, 
 the Walks to Them Joining, in the Foreground, a 
 Central Walk. Above. Where in the Picture Are 
 the Trees, Would Be the Court House with Great 
 Palms Before It. 
 
 My conception of the (levelo]5ment of the gore space 
 requires strict formality — a space paved in figures 
 and set off with lines of lights and formal trees — such 
 as bays. At the point marked "A" on the diagram, 
 just within the east sidewalk line of Main street at 
 its intersection with Temple street, 1 would ])lace a 
 \'enetian mast carr\ing a flag. 
 
 To unite the City Hall with the Courthouse, it 
 is recessary to develop another scheme, on another 
 axis, which, while actually independent of the former, 
 will yet seem to be in connection with it bv intersect- 
 ing it. At the point of intersection should rise the 
 City Hall, which, as a large structure, could make the 
 necessary angle while disguising it. This sought con- 
 nection is attained by acquiring so much of the shal- 
 low block, now poorly improved, that lies between 
 Main and New High streets, as is directly in front of 
 the east facade of the Courthouse. L'pon this tract 
 the west facade of the City Hall would center. There 
 are left private buildings to the right and left of the 
 cut. The value of these sites will be greatly increased 
 by the improvements to take place about them, and 
 there can be no doubt that lioth plats wmdd be 
 promptly covered by costly structures of tlic Interna- 
 tional Bank class. On the north, this change would 
 conceal the unadorned back of the bank building, and 
 with that structure would handsomely build up the 
 s])acc between the cut and the Postoffice, making a 
 notable, and it is to be hoped, worthy addition to the 
 architectural ciisrinblc. The building that would rise 
 on the south, taken in connectimi with these and the 
 public structures, would throw a high and unusual 
 frame about the little ctit. 
 
 In the area thus cleared, there will be a fall of 
 several feet, and I |>ro]iose that tile space, in connec- 
 liiin with the grounds of the C'onrthouse, be develo[)ed
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNL-i 
 
 ill terraced gardens. There would 1_ie no driveway 
 here from Spring to New High, as tliere is none now 
 through the block, but pedestrians might take a path 
 that would wind a bit. with a few shillow steps in it 
 now and then, and balustrades at corners. The whole 
 would make a verv lovely surprise, as one came along 
 Main street and suddenly found between tall buildings 
 these terraced gardens, down which it could, perhaps, 
 be arranged that a stream should fall, when the Owens 
 river project has been realized. And looking from 
 the Courthouse to the City Hall ; or from City Hall 
 to Courthouse, there would be such a setting to a 
 ]Hiblic building as one looks for in Europe rather than 
 in America. Its very irregularity would be a merit. 
 Nearly all of the best "places" of Europe, from the 
 renaissance on, have had the charm of picturesqueness, 
 and of curious angles, as this would have. Indeed, 
 the whole project would work out better, I am very 
 sure, in the reality than it does on paper, and the im- 
 prof\-ement as a whole would redeem and make wor- 
 thily splendid an end of the town that now offers no 
 proper surroundings for the Administrative Center 
 of such a city as Los Angeles is and is to be. 
 
 The expense involved would be considerable, but 
 an imposing part of it — as in the extensions of New 
 High and Aliso streets — would make so directly and 
 largely for the convenience of travel that the cost could 
 not all be fairly charged to aesthetics. But even were 
 the cost of these changes counted, the scheme would 
 require a comparatively small expenditure compared 
 to what other cities are contenijilating, or actually 
 spending, to group their public buildings in a worthy 
 administrative center. 
 
 
 it ^ ^11^ 
 
 ^'^■r . V- '*■'''. 
 
 3i 
 
 The Capitol Terrace at Washington— Another Sug- 
 gestion tor the Terraced Garden Between 
 the Court House and City Hall. 
 
 In taking up the Civic Center discussion, I sakl 
 that a i)art of its function would be to dignifv an.I 
 emphasize the historic old Plaza. How this is done, 
 except as it is accomplished indirectly, by the creation 
 of a new attraction within close proximity to the Plaza, 
 I have not yet explained. Such aid is important; but 
 there is proposed more intimate assistance. 
 
 Fort Hill lluena Msta street, running from 
 
 Park. the Temple-street front of the Court- 
 
 house, climbs a steej) hill, and then on the north side 
 drops very abruptly down the bluff to the level of 
 Sunset boulevard. As a route for through travel, this 
 portion of it is practically useless. It happens that in 
 climbing the face of the hill to its brow, before drop- 
 ping down, the street so cuts into the bank that on 
 one side the few houses are high above it, on a precipi- 
 tous terrace, and on the other, or east side, even before 
 the big retaining wall has been passed, are below it, 
 becoming at last like cliff dwellings to be reached only 
 by descending flights of steps. From Temple street 
 to the hill top. where this part of the street prac- 
 tically ends, is two blocks : and the steep bank which 
 separates P>uena Msta street from New High, though 
 it is only a block from Main street, is so little occu])ied 
 by dwellings that it is still enough covered with verd- 
 ure to make a wall of inviting green. But Buena 
 Msta street, rising to the summit, justifies its name 
 in offering an interesting view over the older portion 
 of the city, and away to the hills that lie beyond the 
 many miles of roofs. 
 
 At the beginning of what may be termed the other 
 end of the business district of Los Angeles, is Central, 
 or "The Sixth Street" Park, for the further develop- 
 ment of which I shall suggest some plans. At this 
 north end there is nothing except the quaint little 
 Plaza, with its radius of about a hundred feet. This 
 is overcrowded all the time. Thus there is need of 
 further park space in this section. 
 
 Fort Hill, on its east, or Buena \'ista street side, 
 and on its north side, when properly developed and 
 made accessible, oft'ers a park site which is convenient, 
 picturesque and inexpensive. It is worth considera- 
 tion, in this connection that with the exception of 
 Hollenbeck, far over on the east side, every one of 
 the developed small parks of the city is practically 
 flat — and that in a beautiful rolling country. The 
 Buena \'ista. or Hillside. Park, would thus afford an 
 interesting aiul attractive variation ; its upper portions 
 would invite the residents of the level streets below 
 into a higher, and cleaner atmosphere, giving to them 
 a broad outlook and a pleasant shade ; while to the 
 residents on the high land that stretches west, it would 
 give that public vantage point to which their choice 
 of residence there entitles them. Once secured and 
 cleared, and neither of these operations would be ex- 
 pensive, since the public holdings need be only a 
 fringe on top of the hill, the tract would require no 
 costly development. It should be well planted in trees ; 
 the walks should be only paths, or trails, winding up 
 the hill : and its cquii:)ment would be completed with 
 plenty of benches inviting rest and enjoyment of the 
 view. r)n the north frontage, upper Broadway and
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 upper Hill street will give access to its higher parts, 
 as will the park trails: while the summit, as the point 
 where Fremont planted his guns, is one of the few 
 historically significant sites in town, and as such should 
 he treasured. The hluff is so steep that it is valueless 
 for huildings other than little shacks, and just west 
 of the tunnel's north entrance it seems, as this is 
 written, to have attained its maximum of civic useful- 
 ness — as a site for billboards ! — until the city does 
 acquire it. Then it can be freed of them and the 
 shacks can be made beautiful with planting, and at 
 the top developed with outlook points — a couple of 
 pergolas, covered with vines — whence the view will be 
 not unlike that from the heights of the San Miniato 
 drive in Florence. 
 
 From the Courthouse my idea would be to con- 
 tinue the present Buena \'ista street road as a park- 
 drive to its upper portion — and it will make from the 
 business district the most attractive approach to the 
 homes on Fort Hill — but the principal functions of the 
 park would be three : As a delightful neighborhood 
 park, with all which that implies ; a factor in the 
 boulevard svstem, as will be described later on; and on 
 
 the east face as a link establishing a scenic connection 
 between the old Plaza and the Administrative Center. 
 To realize this function, New High street from the 
 Federal building to Republic would be utilized. On 
 the one side of it would be a park, the retaining wall 
 or. the park's further side made beautiful with creep- 
 ers : on the other side, with Main street before them 
 and the park behind, there would rise a better class 
 of buildings than at present ; and at Republic street, 
 used as a nucleus of a broadened way, it would widen 
 and make a swinging curve, that from Main street, 
 would open a fine view of the bluff, and firoceed 
 directly to the Plaza. 
 
 In this connection it may be well to note the fire 
 guard which this park would throw around the 
 old Mission church, and to speak again of the neces- 
 sity and appropriateness of providing in Los Angeles 
 more facilities for open air enjoyment. That there is 
 demand for this is shown by the condition of Central 
 Park and the Plaza, which all day the year round are 
 as crowded as are the open spaces in lower New 
 York in summer. 
 
 /i/rr sMiteKY. 
 
 
 
 . ..y 
 
 'i«;e .«.«■#'» ft. »:•) 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 MtL 
 
 PROPOSED Site for 
 
 'public iObrar/"' ^rt Giallery, 
 
 '"'"*' j^PPROACHES. 
 
 Charles Mulford f?obinsori 
 
 I have .>|)iiken of Central Park as 
 fcirniing a center for a further scheme 
 of im])r()venient. 'I'his is in accord- 
 ance with my wish to make the utmost 
 use possible of what the citv alrea<lv 
 has. Central I'ark. however. Iia^ the further and ver\ 
 
 Central Park 
 
 and the 
 
 Crown of 
 
 Fifth Street. 
 
 great advantage of being dincth in line of the sug- 
 gested imprcrvement for l''ifth street. If the widening 
 of that thoroughfare, which I have advocated for a 
 I'nion Station approach, were carried as far as Hill 
 street, it would come directly to the beginning of 
 Central Park. .\t worst, there will In- onl\- four short
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 blocks of narrower streets between the broad concourse 
 leading down to the station and the developments at 
 Central Park. The intimate connection of these with 
 the plans for a handsomer I^os Angeles is thus sug- 
 gested. But the situation is strategic also in respect to 
 the boulevard system. 
 
 The present conditions as regards Central Park 
 are as follows : An exceedingly valuable block of 
 ground has been reserved as a park. In common with 
 all the blocks in this section its longer axis runs north 
 and south, and it is twice as long as it is broad. A 
 flat tract, it has been laid off in walks and planted in 
 trees and grass and flowers. In the center an ugly 
 frame structure serves as a covered deck for women 
 and children, and on occasion as a band stand. Ba 
 degrees very important buildings are rising around 
 the park. ()n one side are the California Club and the 
 immense and beautiful Auditorium ; on two other 
 sides are important churches ; on yet other abutting 
 sides tall and costly buildings are rising. The park 
 is not large enough now to accommodate the people 
 who crowd into it : but there is a demand for a better 
 band stand and for better provisions for concerts. To 
 the west of the park, on a plat similar in area, but 
 at its northwestern corner sloping up to a higher 
 level, there are now no important improvements ex- 
 cept on the south half. Beyond this tract, and on a 
 hill that gives to it a very commanding site, making 
 the terminus and crown of Fifth street, rises the Nor- 
 mal School. Its building is visible far down Fifth 
 street, and the State has announced a readiness to sell 
 the whole big plat at a price that seems to be reason- 
 able. The conditions are favorable for an immediate 
 and stunning effect. 
 
 The Normal School pro])crty should be acquired 
 for the city. There is no other equally large, central 
 and advantageously situated tract that will come on the 
 market. A public building, erected on its height, will 
 command Fifth street and occupy a superb position 
 in the building up of the Los Angeles City Beautiful. 
 On this site I would place the Art Gallery and Public 
 Library, which the city must soon have. The details 
 of the' structures can be left to the architects. Per- 
 haps it will be possible to combine them in one splen- 
 did building, or it may be better to construct separate 
 pavillions, connected by open colonnades, the white 
 columns showing from below against the blue Cali- 
 fornia sky, for I should hope that the effect would be 
 Grecian. Than the designing of this construction, 
 with the view of it from the business section, with 
 the view of it looking north from Hope street, or 
 south from Hope, no architect who loves Los Angeles 
 could ask a more congenial and delightful task. Cer- 
 tainly it must inspire him to his best achievement, for 
 his would be the task of designing the acropolis of a 
 great city. Nor would it be this in the seeming only. 
 With art and literature on the hill, the Auditorium at 
 its foot stands for music, and the churches for the 
 spiritual, and so there is created here a cultural center 
 of which any city might well be proud. 
 
 Obviously, to complete the realization of the op- 
 portunity, there must be a connection between Central 
 
 Park and the Normal School property. To secure this, 
 the north half of the short intervening block — and by 
 rare good luck the most costly part of it is still vacant 
 property — must be acquired and added to the park. 
 Sociologically, there is need for it, as shown by the 
 overcrowded condition of Central Park ; but scenic- 
 ally, and from the standpoint of civic development, 
 it would be little short of a crime for rich Los Angeles 
 to let slip — and let slip now, it is gone forever — the 
 chance to create the "center" here described. 
 
 \Mth this half block obtain.^d and added to Central 
 Park, there should be a radical rearrangement of the 
 present square, definite landscape design taking the 
 place of the present haphazard planting. The motif 
 of the design would be found in its introduction to the 
 buildings on the hill. The whole plan would lead up 
 to them, and thev would crown the vistas. In sim- 
 plification of the design, and to obtain happier propor- 
 tions, I sugeest that the tract be cut into two distinct 
 problems. The one would be a parallelogram, occupy- 
 ing the south half of the present Central Park. This 
 would be practically complete in itself. The other 
 would be a long parallelogram, fnim Mill street to a 
 rectangular plaza at Grand avenue. It would con- 
 stitute the forecourt, or park approach, to the struc- 
 tures on the hill. 
 
 In carrying out the plan for this Mall, the trees — 
 good as they are — which are planted between the walk 
 and the curb on Fifth street, in front of the park, 
 would best be remo\-ed. It is important that there be 
 given a broad view of the front facade of the build- 
 ing. Mv scheme would also take out the south side- 
 walk on Fifth street from Hill to Grand, and 
 w<nd(l widen the Fifth street roadway to the present 
 park line. An advantage of this is thit it would seem 
 to add to the width of Fifth street as an approach, for 
 the line of trees now appear to cut off the street at 
 the curb line on that side, and that -it would make 
 am]3ler provision for the Auditorium carriage traffic. 
 
 Within the park bounds — the present bad, sinuous 
 walk which runs close to the stieet sidewalk having 
 been taken out — I would put a broad, straight walk, 
 leading up to the buildings on the hill. This prome- 
 nade would be thirty feet wide, and would be sepa- 
 rated from the curb by fifteen feet of turf, on which 
 would be planted roses. On the other side of it there 
 would be another line of roses, and beyond the roses — 
 the grass strip here being thirty feet wide — a row of 
 eucalyptus, planted thirty-five feet apart. These, and 
 a similar row beyond, would define the drive. The 
 rest of the space would be tree-dotted lawn, and here 
 nearh- all of the better trees which are now within 
 the park could be retained. There would be benches 
 along the walk, and in time, at this cultural center, 
 along the rose-bordered promenade, there may be 
 erected sculptured memorials to litterateurs, musicians 
 and artists. Walk and drive would merge into Hill 
 street bv arcs of circles. The tall eucalyptus would 
 produce the south building line of the Library, fram- 
 ing with the tall buildings on the north side of Fifth 
 street the intervening space and distinctly defining the 
 forecourt, or apprmch, while the Inw roses would [jre-
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 The Treatment of a Part of the Arroyo Seco in 
 Private Grounds, Showing Preservation 
 of Live OaliS. 
 
 serve the unbroken view up to the hilUop structures, 
 and from them would make a lovely picture — a ta[''>s 
 vert, lined with roses — to look down upon. 
 
 As to the plan for the south half of the present 
 park site, which I said should constitute a distinct 
 desitjn, my idea would be to put here the new band 
 stand. The little sketch sug,c;ests how this plat could 
 b.; developed. The band stand would be made in 
 shell shape, the back of it screened by tall planting. It 
 should be some little distance inside the entrance, 
 and face in, so that the auditors would be removed as 
 far as possible from the street noises, and that the 
 music might be thrown into the park. I have sug- 
 gested a somewhat formal entrance at Sixth and Hill 
 streets, that would serve as a vestibule, and the sepa- 
 ration of the concert ]iark from the Mall Ijy a good 
 deal of grou[), or mass, ])lanting. Under the stage of 
 the band stand, there would be storage room for the 
 excess of chairs and benches, and thus when concerts 
 were not being given here, the space would be avail- 
 abU- for ordinary park uses, a sufficient number of 
 scattered seats being left, and there being enough 
 trees to cast a shade. Diagonal paths would cross the 
 park, as now, to offer short cuts. 
 
 At the upper end of the Mall, T would suggest 
 an open space to give setting to ihe buildings when one 
 
 is near them. In the perspective view from the lower 
 end of the scheme, this would not be seen, and in the 
 view east from the buildings one would look over it. 
 The drive, it will be observed, makes a curve at the 
 west end of the Mall, and proceeds through the parked 
 grounds of the Library, at the base of the hill, around 
 the buildings and to Figueroa street. All this has 
 something to do with the boulevard system, of which 
 I am next to speak. It is sufficient to note here that 
 the grade by which Fifth street reaches Grand avenue 
 ii. by this means avoided ; and that, by a ])ark road, 
 reserved for pleasure driving, free from street cars 
 and at even grade, one will be able to pass from Hill 
 street to Figueroa — a great desideratum. If, now, the 
 broadened avenue which is to lead from the station to 
 Los Angeles street were continued the four short 
 blocks to Hill, swinging in at an angle to joiti with 
 the Mall, what a drive would be oiTered from the sta- 
 tion to the residential sections ; what an impression 
 of Los Angeles wotild be received by arriving stran- 
 gers ! It ought to be done. When Los .'\ngeles has 
 a million peo])le, such an east and west artery wottld 
 be of incalculable benefit : but it will be too late then 
 to get it.
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 77f S/L y£/? LJt/fs/fese^yw^ 
 
 Pr oposed Bo uleva rds 
 lgsangeles 
 
 INSIDE THE CITY LIMITS. 
 
 SO; 
 
 Charlas fDi/lford i^obinsoa. 
 
 jK^tftfu.owpi^r^
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 PARKS, BOULEVARDS AND PARK- 
 WAYS 
 
 A citv's boulevards serve tw-o purposes. They con- 
 stitute, or ought to constitute, on the one liar.d. a 
 system of pleasure drives. In the performance of this 
 function they should so connect the different parks 
 that tiic parks will themselves be links in the chain ; 
 thev should, if practicable, oft'er scenic attractions in 
 themselves ; they should be varied — carefully avoid- 
 ing the monotony of urban uniformity that would re- 
 sult from a continuously broad way ; and in some 
 portion, if possible, they should possess a stateliness 
 and even magnificence of their own. On the other 
 hand, one of their purposes is utilitarian, to the ex- 
 tent that thev are to furnish convenient and easy 
 access between the various residential sections, and be- 
 tween these and the business section. Of course, any 
 good boulevard system combines the two purposes. 
 
 In Los .\ngeles there is now no boulevard system 
 whatever, and in attempting to create one there is the 
 almost constant obstacle of a double car track on every 
 street of considerable breadth and easy grade. 
 
 THE WEST SIDE CIRCUIT. 
 
 T,. To this rule Figueroa is, happih', 
 
 J? to some extent an exception. .a 
 
 cross-town street, eighty feet wide, 
 traversing the city from end to end. with car 
 tracks on barely half of it, arterial to well 
 developed and "close in" residential sections, and 
 for a long distance lined with expensive houses 
 in ample grounds, it at once suggests itself as 
 an important link of the chain. To the south it comes 
 within a few feet of the proposed Agricultural Park ; 
 to the north it connects with Sunset boulevard, at only 
 a few blocks from an entrance to Elysian Park. Sun- 
 set boulevard, bridging this distance, is to be widened 
 to a hundred feet. 
 
 But Figueroa, to be the worthy boulevard its geo- 
 gra]ihical position suggests, needs some things done to 
 it. It ought not to be difficult to have the car tracks 
 removed from the little 300-foot block between Boston 
 street and vSunset boulevard ; and it might he possible 
 to get them off a good deal of the rest of the street, 
 if the tracks of Flower street could be made use of. 
 It would be worth mnking a strong and united eft'ort 
 to this end, if Ijy so doing one broad, fine cross-town 
 street could be reserved for driving without the annoy- 
 ance and danger of tracks and cars. Then there is a 
 bad hill, where Figueroa ri.ses to the grade of First 
 street at that thoroughfare's intersection, and as ab- 
 ruptly falls again ; and in this region and beyond an 
 luiimproved hillside abuts on it, and the street itself 
 is lost in a road that wanders from side to side of the 
 platted riglit of way. I append a ])hotograph, which 
 shows the condition and the opjjortunity. There 
 should be a little more cutting into the hill, and then 
 a short tunnel imder First street, to maintain fur ilio 
 boulevard an even grade. This tunnel is so short that 
 the benefit would l>e far beyond the cost. Then the 
 stee]) hillsi<le. which is of so little use for other pur- 
 pose-;, -luinld l)e acquired and made Invelv with plant- 
 
 ing, and for the little space here, where nothing has 
 been done, much can be done, to make the boulevard 
 attractive — a stretch of it in park-like road. 
 
 The southern portion of Figueroa — say, south from 
 Washington — is fairly good, as a street link of a future 
 boulevard system : but its pavement is not in such con- 
 dition that a speedv renewal may not be anticipated. 
 When the repaving is done, it would be well for the 
 jjroperty owners to give up ten feet on each side, 
 that the boulevard might be made a hundred feet 
 wide. As the houses stand back from the street in 
 considerable groimds, the subtraction of garden space 
 would not be serious — the less so. since the whole re- 
 sulting addition to street width would go into street 
 parking, and so virtually be added again to the lots, 
 while making the street far handsomer. In return 
 for this relinquishment by the property holders, the city 
 should agree to take care, through the park depart- 
 ment, of the whole planting strip between walk and 
 curb. There would then be a broad and fine north and 
 south boulevard through the heart of the city. The 
 present drivewa\- and walks are wide enough and the 
 increased ten feet on each side, added to the present 
 parking, developed on a single comprehensive scheme, 
 and kept in uniformly good condition, would certainly 
 make a beautiful street. It seems to me there can be 
 no question that the property owners would profit by 
 the change. Their frontage would not be reduced, 
 and the slight lessening in the depth of the lots would 
 be more than balanced by the change of their loca- 
 tion from that on an ordinary tvpe of residential street 
 to one on a boulevard which in some respects would 
 have no equal in the city. As it would carry a cease- 
 less stream of carriage travel, it would necessarily 
 become a show drive, and I would have seats at inter- 
 vals along the wide side parking, in furtherance of the 
 purpose to facilitate the city's outdoor life. What is 
 the use of coming to a Southern California city to 
 live, if the street is to be only a crowded, narrow, run- 
 wav from house to house ? 
 
 With Figueroa street thus transformed, as with 
 the right sort of spirit can be done for practically 
 nothing, think what Los Angeles would have for its 
 own pleasure and comfort, and to imiiress strangers, 
 in the way of a distributing artery of traffic. From 
 the Union Station up the avenue of broarlened Fifth 
 street, through the "Mall, with the buildings on the 
 hill that crowns it gleaming against the sky, by the 
 parkway that is to wind through the garden at its 
 base, and so to Figueroa boulevard, which in its sev- 
 eral miles would take most of the world near home. 
 
 . . To the south, Figueroa, at the in- 
 
 ^Sp'^"^"''^ ter.section of Santa Monica avenue, 
 comes to an open s])ace which is only 
 a few feet from the proposed .\gricultural Park. T 
 cannot over-emjihasize the imnortance of extending 
 the paik. for its whole length if practicable, to Figue- 
 roi street; lint cerfiiuly :\\ its northeast corner by a 
 s])ace large enough to make this the main entrar.ce 
 to the park. It does not seeiu to me to lie worth while 
 to make any development plan for the park which 
 does not assmne that this will be done, and as to ex-
 
 LOS AXGELES. CALIFORNIA 
 
 The Charm of the Curving Residential Street, in 
 
 Quarters Where Sharp Corners and Long 
 
 Straight Lines Are a False Note. 
 
 tending the park for its whole length to Figtieroa. it 
 is a safe rule in urban park making to make public 
 streets, not private property, the boundary. In this 
 particular case, where the proposed park is the only 
 one in a very large, very populous and fast-growing 
 district, and where there is every evidence that from 
 the first it will be overcrowded, the increase of acre- 
 age which woaild result from extension to Figueroa 
 is especially important. For the plan of development 
 which has been so carefully worked out, much good 
 can be said : but it needs modification to the extent 
 of making the main entrance from Figueroa. 
 
 South Park. 
 
 In this connection it may be noted 
 that what was said of the advisability 
 of extcnfling Agricultural Park to Figueroi street, 
 applies with almost equal force to the extension of 
 Soutli Park to Forty-ninth street. This should cer- 
 tainly be (lone, and the fact that it is now under con- 
 sideration, after soine houses have been erected on 
 the intervening strip, should furnish sufficient argu- 
 ment for the timely extension at Figueroa. 
 
 q . Now proceeding north by Figueroa 
 
 •D„ 1= -_j street, we come, through a narrow 
 
 Boulevard. ^ ^ ■ <. u ■ a ■ ^ n 
 
 ]iark .'■.tn]5 to be acquired, just north 
 
 of First street, to Sunset boulevard. My conception 
 
 of this street is that within the citv lirnits, at least. 
 
 it can never be a real boulevard in the common sense 
 
 of that term — which would require its restriction to 
 
 light pleasure driving. I think it will carry a very 
 
 heavy travel, and will be an exceedinglv important 
 
 thoroughfare, and for the street as a whole, the 
 
 boulevard conception is not, I believe, practicable. 
 
 Nevertheless, Sunset's desirable location, and its 
 
 breadth of a hundred feet, invite a use of short 
 
 stretches of it as boulevard connections. In the city 
 
 limits the principal stretch to be so used is from 
 
 Figueroa street to an Echo Park entrance. 
 
 This is an excellent part of the street. It passes 
 
 the Sisters' Hospital, commandinglv situated in large 
 
 grounds: it touches the Elysian Park entrance drive; 
 ar.d it passes the fine wall of rock which rises on its 
 south side just east of Portia street. This wall of 
 rock is so precipitous and high that building on the 
 top is hardly to be thought of, and as blasting out for 
 a site at street level would be very costly, it ought to 
 be easv property to acquire. In its natural state it is 
 a picturesque and stunning attraction to this section 
 of the street : but some signs are now being posted 
 over it and it seems not unlikelv to become an eye- 
 sore that will degrade the neighborhood. The city, 
 desiring to make use of this section of Sunset boule- 
 vard as a link of the encircling chain of drives, 
 would do well, therefore, to obtain the rock wall and 
 keep it beautiful. Mnes against it would heighten 
 its picturesqueness. 
 
 .1-,, . I • have said that Elvsian Park en- 
 
 p^ , trance drive is passed. With some 
 
 improvement, a widening of the nar- 
 rower parts and a bettering of the turns, this could 
 be made a pleasant park entrance — though the city 
 should insure the preservation of its beauty by own- 
 ing it all, and a fringe of land on either side of it. 
 Once in the park, the seven-mile drive could be used 
 as a loop in various directions — as back to town, 
 through the Fremont Gate, or to Griffith Park, by way 
 of the ravine and Los Feliz road, or back to Sunset 
 boulevard bv Portia street. 
 
 The Palm Drive, Buenos Aires — The Beautiful Avenue, 
 Several Miles Long. Is the Place Where the Fashion- 
 able Equipages of Society Are Seen— It Is Lined With 
 Comfortable Seats, and Is a Constant Attraction to 
 Tourists and Residents, in Its Invitation to Life Out- 
 of-doors.
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 ilauy Such Parkings Are To Be Seen and Should Be Encouraged by Our Citizens. 
 
 The construction of good approaches to Elysiaii 
 Park will very greatly increase the park's popularity 
 and usefulness ; but such change is even more needed 
 along purely democratic lines. The park should be, 
 a.; in fact it is. the one great People's Park of Los 
 Angeles, and should be utilized and enjcr\-ed to the 
 full. It ought to be the popular place for picnics. 
 Uncc the people learn to go there, to feel its intimate 
 association with their own lives, there will be no diffi- 
 culty about securing large appropriations for its de- 
 velopment and care. It will be easier then to employ 
 a himdred men in its improvement and maintenance 
 than it is now to get twelve. But people never will 
 use Elysian Park in this way until it is made acces- 
 sible for them, and to this end I strongly favor the 
 admission of a car line. It is possible to so "plant 
 out" the car t"".cks that thev will not seem to intrude, 
 and the resul'.iig convenience to the public will justify 
 the privilege. Finally, it should not only be made 
 easy for the people to get to the ]iark, but at first they 
 must lie taught to want to go there. The cars would 
 probably enter by the Chavez Ravine. Beyond the 
 nursery, and near where the road crosses the ravine, 
 there is an opportunitv for the construction of a nat- 
 ural amphitheater, which could be used for Irnid and 
 other concerts. This ought to be an immenselv poj)- 
 ular feature in Los .\ngeles, both with residents and 
 with tourists: and it is one of the things which the 
 city, as a great pleasure metropolis, boastful that 
 "every month is June," o\ight to provide. .\s to the 
 importance of the city's acquiring the jirivately-owned 
 
 hill which now juts into the park holdings in such a 
 way that it has even been necessary to put a portion of 
 the park drive upon it, there is hardly required a word 
 of mine. That is obvious. 
 
 The shortest loop through the park, if one entered 
 bv the Elysian Park drive, would be to pass out by 
 way of the entrance near Portia street, and so back 
 to Sunset boulevard. The grading of Portia street 
 looks as if it had been expressly designed to discour- 
 age such use of the street, for rather than veer the 
 least particle from a straight line, it goes to the top 
 of the hill by the steepest and worst course, and then 
 compels the traveler to go two sides of a triangle, 
 when a short hypothenuse would have lowered the 
 grade and have been direct. In creating the boulevard 
 svstem of Los Angeles it will be well to construct the 
 few hundred feet of that iiypothenuse. A slightly 
 longer loop through the park would take one out by 
 Morton avenue, and thence to Sunset. To make this 
 route attractive, a deeper cut must be made at the jiark 
 lir.e. as it can be easilv and iiiex])ensively. 
 
 _ , Tj ■ Returned to Sunset boulevard, a 
 
 h.cho Hark. ,^j^^,^. ^^ ^^^.^ ^^^^^^ p^^.^;^ ^.^^^^^ 
 
 brinu's one op])osite Echo Park. The natural entrance 
 to that at present is by Echo Park drive. The sug- 
 gestion has been inevitably made that Echo Park 
 ought to be extended to Sunset boulevard. In addition 
 to the general arguments for such cxtcr.sion, it may 
 be noted that the slightly irregular topography of the 
 intervening land would lend itself well to park de- 
 velopment, ^'et T am not ]ircpared to urge the exten-
 
 LOS AXGELES, CALIFORXIA 
 
 sion. If Sunset boulevard develops as a semi-busi- 
 ness street, neither park nor street woujd gain much 
 by the juxtaposition; and in any case there are other 
 adcHtions of territory to Echo Park which seem to me 
 much more important. But a broad boulevard en- 
 trance from Sunset would be desirable if the land for 
 this purpose will be given. 
 
 The other territory which 1 have in mind as a 
 desirable addition to Echo Park is the hillside on the 
 east. And that on the west is hardly less important. 
 I'hese frame the picture which the park makes. It is 
 impossible to get awav from them, and as long as they 
 remain in private hands, the beauty and charm of the 
 park is in jeopardy. The tops of those hills are the 
 ])ark"s natural boundaries : their slopes can make it 
 or mar it ; they may be made beautiful with planting, 
 or thev may — if not acquired — be covered with glar- 
 ing billboards, or otherwise so used as to ruin the park 
 picture. Simplv to safeguard the present investment, 
 those hills should be accjuired. 
 
 rp , Proceeding along the edge of the 
 
 o . lake and past the playground, which 
 
 I should like to see outlined 
 with a hedge, the boulevard drive of the imier 
 west circuit reaches Temple street. Though this 
 thoroughfare carries car tracks and is likely 
 always to be the weakest link in the chain, 
 it has not yet been improved ; and when its 
 improvement is planned, there should be remembrance 
 of its necessity — for its directness and easv grade — as 
 a driving connection between Echo Park and Occi- 
 dental boulevard. For Occidental, or one of the rival 
 roadways just east of it, ought, certainly, to be con- 
 tinued through to Temple street. 
 
 In spite of its flowers and its width 
 of 1 20 feet, there will never be much 
 point to Occidental boulevard, nor 
 justification for the name boulevard, until it is cut 
 through and given adequate connections. A city 
 like Los Angeles should be ashamed to have a 
 boulevard that starts out with so much pretension, and 
 stops in a couple of blocks or so, in a ciil dc sac. The 
 extension would not necessarily have to be made in a 
 straight line. It could be accomplished, if desired, 
 without platting a new street, for the slight jog, if 
 made in a graceful curve, would not be an lUipleasant 
 feature on a pleasure drive. When the boulevard has 
 been extended, the electric lights, now hung from tem- 
 porary wooden poles through the center of the street, 
 should be put on permanent standards that mav be 
 placed in the middle of the circular beds. 
 
 ( )ccidental boulevard terminates to the south in 
 Simset Park. Thence one may turn east on broad 
 Wileshire Ijoulevard. and in a few hundred feet reach 
 Westlake Park. From there either Sixth or Seventh 
 street takes one directlv back, by a ji'easant way, to 
 Figueroa : and the inner western circuit has been 
 completed. 
 
 A longer circuit will take one from Elvsian Park 
 to Griffith Park, and thence back by the Silver Lake 
 reservoir to Sunset boulevard and Echo Park; and 
 
 Occidental 
 Boulevard.
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 yiiowiug Entrance to the Host Civically Beautiful Memorial Park in the West.
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 The Landscape Effects Pussibk 
 Civic Art 
 
 iu Southern California Should 
 to Great Endeavor. 
 
 Encourage 
 
 Los Feliz 
 Road. 
 
 a longer circuit still would lead one from Griffith Park 
 to Vermont avenue, and so directly scruth to Agricul- 
 tural Park. It is clear that in either case the connec- 
 tion between Elysian and Griffith parks is important, 
 as the drive imiting the two largest parks would in 
 any event be. 
 
 I have spoken of the Los Feliz 
 nnd as the eisiest pnd most natural 
 connection. Following the general 
 course of the river, it takes the low hnds, but offers a 
 noble view of the mountains. For the entire distance, 
 from Elysian to Griffith, it should be made a jjarkway. 
 
 This does not mean that it should be verv broad — 
 any "boulevard" effect here wcndd be out of place ; but 
 it does mean that the city should acquire a broad 
 enough strip on cither side of the road to insure the 
 preservation of the beauty of the drive, making pos- 
 sible such continuitv of park effect that in driving 
 from Elvsian to Griffith, one will not be conscious that 
 
 the park has been left. The treatment should be nat- 
 ural, rather than formal or decorative; and the 
 width of the holdings may vary according to local 
 conditions. Often, it is to be hoped, they would ex- 
 tend to the river's further shore. 
 
 My idea would be a carriage road, with automo- 
 biles restricted to a low speed limit, for the whole 
 scheme here should be restful, . tranquil and lovely ; 
 and then, separated from the carriage road by a strip 
 planted in shrubs and low trees, and not always ex- 
 actly paralleling the carriage road, a bridle path. 
 
 In Griffith Park itself there should 
 be many bridle trails. Of this park, 
 perhaps the most apt expression I have heard is that, 
 "It can be left very beautiful." This indicates what 
 is likely to be the park's greatest danger — a danger 
 which is less evident now than it may be later, viz, 
 that it will be over-improved. It ought to be allowed 
 to remain a beautiful, natural, mountain park. As 
 sfch it is a unique and priceless possession for the city. 
 
 Griffith Park.
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 A Los Angeles Residence Showing Sunken Gardens and the Beautiful 
 Effect Possible in Private Landscape Gardening. 
 
 A Hill Drive. 
 
 Without injtiring this effect, it would be possible in 
 some of its broad extent to establish a valuable 
 arboretum. 
 
 While the Los Feliz road is much 
 the easiest from Elysian Park to 
 Griffith Park, a connection of extraordinary gran- 
 deur can be secured by takino- a hig-h level drive along 
 the top of the hills, until the valley of Silver Lake 
 reservoir is reached. This would make a magnificent 
 scenic route, well worth the city's construction in con- 
 nection with the parks. From Elvsian Park, such a 
 drive would wind down through the ravine north of 
 Cerro Gordo to Avon street. Thence it would get 
 over to Landa street, which is virtuallv a continuation 
 of Echo Park road, and twist around the north side 
 of the hill, opening superb views, and bv a high rus- 
 tic viaduct cross the valley and Glcndale railroad to 
 the saddle between the wooded hills to the west. From 
 there it would pass down to the reservoir site. As the 
 city possesses i6o acres here, of which ion are in the 
 reservoir lake, this will, naturally, be parked in time, 
 and would make in itself a sufficient goal. P>ut it is 
 on the way. by this route, to Griffith Park. So if one 
 desired to go further, a sliort and pleasant drive north 
 would bring one to Los Feliz road. 
 
 If the return to town be made friwii the reservoir 
 ])ark. the mute would lie via Ivanhoc avenue. 
 .Messandro street — which in this section has been plat- 
 ted one hundred an<l one hundred and twenty feet 
 wide — and then hv either Ali'utana nvemie or ,\lva- 
 
 Vermont 
 Avenue. 
 
 rado street to Sunset Ixiulevard at a point almost op- 
 posite Echo Park. 
 
 The return from Griffith Park to 
 the city by the longer loop, via \'er- 
 mont avenue, could now be pretty 
 easily developed into a fine drive. It may be said in 
 connection with this route, with the Los Feliz road, 
 or with the high-level course from Elysian Park to 
 the reservoir, and as might be said of other boulevard 
 connections, that the property needed by the city ought 
 to be given to it without cost, for such development. 
 The benefit to property of location on the boulevard 
 circuit is verv great, and in other cities it is almost 
 always the rule that property owners are .glad enough 
 to give the necessary land if so they can secure the 
 parkway or boulevard. Yet in other cities the bene- 
 fit of such location would probably not compare with 
 the advantages here to be derived. 
 
 \'ermont avenue crosses Wilshire boulevard. 
 While I have had no time to go into the platting of 
 those long, outside drives, which must l>e a feature 
 of the greater Los Angeles, and which can hardly be 
 planned too soon, it is clear that the junction point of 
 these two boulevards is of a civic significance which 
 should be marked. 
 
 ( )n the one hand. \'crmont lies 
 long and straight — a potential boule- 
 vard from the mountains to the sea ; 
 on the other, \\'ilshire — passing from Westlake Park. 
 tlirough Sunset Park, tn the Soldier's Home, and 
 
 Wilshire 
 Boulevard.
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 thence by two routes to the coast boulevard at Santa 
 Monica — is more boulevard-bke now than anything 
 else Los Angeles has. It should be further developed. 
 its great width in%iting a strij) of middle parking for 
 the whole length. As to the junction with \"ermont. 
 here is a place, having no heavy traffic but demanding 
 dignity of treatment, where a Rond Point, such as 
 those which are so striking a feature of Paris, should 
 be arranged. .\t the intersection of such broad streets, 
 its creation is a matter of surface development and 
 rounded corners, rather than of the purchase of much 
 additional land. From Agricultural Park to South 
 Park, a short stretch through a region where propertv 
 is not expensive, it should be possible to get a broad 
 diagonal parkway. 
 
 But the boulevards of Los Angeles nirst not all 
 be to the west and connecting west side ])arks. There 
 is a large portion of the population which lives east of 
 the river, arid the course of the heaviest pleasure driv- 
 ing is probably between Los Angeles and Pasadena, 
 unsatisfactory as are the present conditions. 
 
 From the .Administrative Center, at 
 Tem])le and New High streets, by 
 the Park road, into which New High is thence to 
 bo converted ; or from the Plaza, by the widened vSun- 
 set boulevard, taking its start at the old Mission and 
 passing under the proposed El Camino Real arch, one 
 comes into the broad street which is to swing around 
 the base of the north slope of Fort Hill. The hillside 
 will have been made into a park, and from the outlook 
 point at the terminus of Hill street, on the summit of 
 the bluff, tliere will be a fine view of Castelar street, 
 which from Sunset boulevard stretches to the north. 
 
 Castelar 
 
 and 
 
 Buena Vista 
 
 Streets. 
 
 To Pasadena. 
 
 Because manufacturing has already 
 got into Pjuena \ista street, north of 
 Sunset, and the thoroughfare seems 
 past redemption for a boulevard, 
 while Castelar is liroad, free of car 
 tracks, and easily improved, I select the lat- 
 ter as the boulevard route to the north. As 
 this route, direct to Elysian Park, to the San 
 Fernando \'alley. to the Arroyo Seco, and to 
 Pasadena, is destined to carry a heavy pleasure 
 traffic, it is worth doing a good deal for. Lying 
 through Sonora town, the improvements along it are 
 not without interest now, but as they would probably 
 pass w'ith the boulevard development of the street, the 
 latter may as well be widened at once to a hundred 
 feet or more, and, with a central strip planted in palms, 
 made a striking stretch of boulevard. At its starting 
 point, from Sunset, I would have it swing out in gen- 
 erously rounded corners, so creating a Place that will 
 be pleasant to look down upon from the Hill-street 
 persfola — much as one looks down from the Pincian 
 in Rome to the paved open space below — and that will 
 make a fitting gateway to the long reaches of the 
 boidevard. It will be observed that I have recom- 
 mended more than one such development. They give, 
 in the midst of the citv streets, a fine air of spacious- 
 ness and amplitude — the sort of effect that should be 
 characteristic of a city in California, where every- 
 thing is big, and the cramped, the mean, and the 
 crowded have no proper place. Then at its other end 
 Castelar should be extended and swung rather sharply 
 to the right — on a curve, of course, — to strike Buena 
 \'ista street at the angle, between Bernardo and Cot- 
 tage Home. 
 
 Pergola Effect, Los Augeles Residence.
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 From this pdiiit. plans have been already matured 
 for the widening of Biiena \'ista street by twenty feet, 
 and for the removal of the ugly brown fence on its 
 east side. When this is taken down, there should be 
 substituted for it a low parapet which will ojjen the 
 view of the railroad's yards, which by day arc inter- 
 esting, and at night are beautiful with their jeweled 
 studding of lights. Avoiding the awkward turn at 
 tlie Fremont Gate to Elysian Park, it is planned that 
 the new viaduct shall carry the street in a straight line 
 over the railroad tracks and across the river, where, 
 swinging to right and left, it will reach Downey and 
 Pasadena avenues. This is one of the best improve- 
 ments that has been planned for L<is .-Xngeles, quite 
 worthy the newly awakened ambition of the city, and 
 the onlv pity is that there should be willingness to 
 C()m]ironiise on the beautv of the bridge. l'>ecause 
 the railroad objects to allowing space in its yards for 
 piers, it is proposed at that part of the viaduct to de- 
 part from the concrete arch type, which is to be the 
 style of the bridge in its other portions, and to give it 
 overhead steel braces. This will very greatly diminish 
 the whole effect : it will change a stunriing improve- 
 ment to a common])lace one. With the realization of 
 the function which this viaduct is to perform there 
 ought to be absolute insistence on the preservation of 
 the beautv of the bridge. 
 
 Pasadena 
 Avenue. 
 
 Taking the left arm of the viaduct, 
 Pasadena avenue — here a broad 
 street — is reached, and a few blocks 
 brii.gs one to Twenty-sixth street, where it makes its 
 turn. The turn is an important point. The little tri- 
 angle that closes the vista of the street might well be 
 acquired and parked; Twenty-sixth street, as the 
 best ap])roach to the San Fernando road, should be 
 widened and straightened from here, and given a bet- 
 ter bridge : the corner between Pasadena avenue and 
 Twenty-sixth street should be rounded, so improving 
 the point of intersection, and from this junction Pasa- 
 dena avenue should itself be broadened, to harmonize 
 with its broader portions beyond, and should he given 
 a better bridge. As there are small home gardens on 
 either side of the street between the Twenty-sixth 
 street corner and the Arroyo, the widening should not 
 h^ costly. Beyond the bridge, it would not be my idea 
 to use Pasadena avenue as a boulevard ; but it is des- 
 tined always to carry a heavy interurban and suburban 
 traffic, and should be as much improved as possible. 
 The treatment of the car tracks opposite Sycamore 
 Grove, where they are on a slightly raised roadbed, 
 separated from the drive by a curb, is here a good 
 plan. It should Ijc repeated on the avenue wherever 
 conditions |)eniiit. 
 
 The New Walnut Lane Bridge Over the Wi.ssuhickon Creek, PhUudelphia — a Beautiful Concrete Structure Such as 
 Should Span the Arroyo Seco. This Was Designed and Constructed b.v the Bureau of Surveys, Phila- 
 delphia, and Sets a High Standard to Other Cities. 
 
 Arroyo Seco. 
 
 .•\t the bridge, we reach the .\rrnyo 
 Seco. There is great unanimity of 
 opinion that along that watercourse there should be a 
 drive to Pasadena. There is great diversity of o])in- 
 ion as to the character which the drive should have. 
 
 Am analysis of the Arroyo's charm must intlicate the 
 type to be selected. If the charm of the ravine lies 
 in its picturesc|ueness, in its seeming remoteness, in its 
 \cry narrowness and shut-in character where nearly 
 every other view is broad and swee])ing, in its shadows
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 and seclusion, there will obviously be destruction of 
 the reason for the drive if we cut a wide boulevard 
 through its length. 
 
 Mv idea of the Arroyo drive is, then, a conipara- 
 tivelv narrow road, with mam^ sycamores and live- 
 oaks along its course ; that it shall wind around trees 
 and boulders and irregularities of topography, like a 
 forest road of the East : that directness and breadth 
 shall be avoided rather than sought, for here people 
 should drive, not to gain time, but pleasantly to spend 
 it, and all the hurry of the world should be put away. 
 Where practicable, existing streets of the Arroyo 
 ravine mav be utilized ; and always there should be 
 effort to secure as many park tracts as pos- 
 sible that building along the course may cease. 
 lest the charm of the way depart. The de- 
 velopment of these should not be on the 
 model of Sycamore Grove, with its geraniums 
 and home-gardening effects. It should be nat- 
 ural — for here nature and the trees are the thing. 
 It should invite family outings, love-making and a 
 forgetfulness that cities are at hand. The so-called 
 "islands" should tempt one to climb their trails and 
 get the view; Mineral Park, in the very fastness of 
 the ravine, should be left full of mystery and romance : 
 a bridle path should wander through the cafion, 
 crossing and recrossing the stream by fords : here 
 and there, where a broad space opens, there may be 
 a plavgrcamd. but it must not intrude on the quiet 
 beauty of the wa\-. And the railroad must be as com- 
 pletely hidden as possible. 
 
 The entrance to such an Arroyo drive may be just 
 over the Pasadena-avenue bridge, whence it would fol- 
 low the stream to the city's holdings at Sycamore 
 Grove. Passing through that, it should proceed on 
 lines to be determined in part by existing streets and 
 in part bv such tracts as the city may be able to 
 secure : but always in the general type of development 
 T have indicated. This cannot be urged too strongly. 
 ]\lv own preference would be to make Griffin avenue 
 the entrance, using this as it skirts the hillside of 
 Montecito Heights — where it opens a noble view — 
 and then at Avenue Forty-three crossing the stream 
 and coming down to the lower level. This should in 
 any case be an alternative route, for Griffin avenue will 
 then make a direct connection with Eastlake Park. 
 
 r, J There is, I know, a strong and jus- 
 
 R f°^ J tifiable desire for a broad and hand- 
 some boulevard between Los Angeles 
 and Pasadena. But I am sure that it should not be 
 put through the Arroyo. On the one side the Hunt- 
 ington boulevard partly cares for such travel ; and 
 on the other a very beautiful scenic boulevard can be 
 laid out on the line of the road which, turning off of 
 San Fernando road, follows the electric railway line 
 to Colorado street, in Eagle Heights. This opens a 
 Swiss-like view of surprising beauty. From the termi- 
 nus of the car line, where the carriage road now climbs 
 the hill to pass Eagle Rock, it could — I should judge 
 — be taken at easy grade through the Ijeautiful little 
 
 wooded canon at the base of the rock, and so in to 
 
 Pasadena. 
 
 p, . , The other east side boulevards 
 
 p , must have to do with the east side 
 
 ^ ^. iiarks. I have alreadv spoken of 
 
 Connections. , -rr ■ ^- ^ 
 
 (.nmn avenue as a connection to 
 
 Eastlake Park. The connection from the business 
 
 center would be by jNIission road, which is about to be 
 
 widened to a hundred feet, direct to Aliso street ; and 
 
 by the straightened Aliso direct to the Administrative 
 
 Center. This would make a good drive all the way 
 
 and offer an attractive alternate route to the Arroyo. 
 
 On high ground, a short distance south of East- 
 lake Park, is the Hazard Reservoir site, where the 
 city has alreadv considerable holdings, dedicated to 
 ]iark and playground purposes, though not yet de- 
 veloped. Connection with Eastlake is, of course, ex- 
 ceedingly desirable, and there ought to be a loop 
 drive, so that one could circle through this property 
 with its far views and back again to pretty, shut-in. 
 
 Private Garden Effect Similar to Many Now Being 
 Designed. 
 
 Eastlake. Mission road and Griffin avenue would be a 
 natural course one way, on existing streets ; but as 
 the county owns considerable property between East- 
 lake Park and Griffin avenue, I should hope that a 
 parkwav strip could be secured through that, and a 
 new and novel park road made for the short distance 
 to Griffin ; thence, direct to the property, where the 
 drive and walk should wind around the hill, circling 
 the reservoir — with a walk to the hilltop — and past the 
 playground reservation in its northeast corner, and 
 so to San Pablo street and back to Eastlake. 
 
 From this Hazard Reservoir property to Hollen- 
 beck Park, St. Louis street offers a good connection. 
 At Hollenbeck, the most necessary work seems to be 
 the filling in of a portion of the bay at the northwest 
 corner, opposite the Home, so as to get a good curve, 
 reduce the slope of the bank, and secure a planting 
 strip.
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 THE OWENS RIVER AQUEDUCT 
 
 Photo Copyiiglit hy A. A. Forhi s. Bishop, Cal. 
 
 Owens River Near Lone Pine Bridge. 
 
 The rajiid increase of the population of Los 
 Ansi^eles nwde it al)snhitely necessary to provide ad- 
 (htional water sup])ly. Every conceivable means of 
 obtaining- more water in the vicinity of Los Angeles 
 was investigated, but no ^proposition that would meet 
 with the approval of the Water Commission could be 
 found and not until Mr. Fred Eaton presented to the 
 representatives of the City of Los Angeles his project 
 of bringing the water of the Owens River to this city 
 (a distance of 2_|o odd miles), was the problem 
 finally solved. 
 
 The idea of liringing the water of the ( )wens 
 l\i\er to the City of Los Angeles originated with Mr. 
 Eaton in 1893. Mr. Eaton was for several years 
 Engineer and Superintendent of the Los Angeles 
 Citv Water Company. He was subscf|uently City 
 Ivigineer. In 1P93 he was engaged in llie ranch 
 business in ( )wens \'alley, where he resided for a num- 
 ber of months. Mr. iCaton did not ])ublicly discuss 
 this idea. His training as engineer, bt)th for the city 
 ard with the Water Company, together with his gen- 
 
 eral knowledge of the water situation in and arDund 
 the City of Los Angeles, peculiarly (_|ualified him to 
 judge of the necessities of the case, and the merits of 
 this ]iroject. In the fall of 1904 and in the early 
 s])ring of 1905 Mr. Eaton, on his own responsibility, 
 and at his own expense, began obtaining contracts 
 and o]itions on water-bearing property in ( )wens \'al- 
 ley. With these contracts and options in hmcl, he 
 first presented the matter to rciiresentatives of the 
 City of Los Angeles in the fall of 1904 and early in 
 the year 1^05. The fir.st idea that Mr. Eaton had 
 concerning the handling of the ])ro]iosition, contenv 
 plated a combined private and nnmicipal ])roject, the 
 cit\- to receive 10,000 miner's inches of water for 
 domestic uses, and the surplus water to be available 
 for Mr. Eaton and his associates — for disposal outside 
 of the city; this .surplus water to pay toll for the use 
 of the aqueduct, and all water to be available in 
 transit for the benefit of the corporation for purposes 
 of generating power. The aqnednct was to be luiilt 
 and paid for by the city and have a capacity of at
 
 LOS ANGELES. CALIF0KNL4 
 
 least 20,000 inches. Mr. Eaton was to secure all 
 necessary lands and water rights, and to deliver the 
 water rights without cost to the city. The Board of 
 \\'atcr Commissioners, as well as other city officials, 
 declined this, and insisted upon an exclusive munici- 
 pal ownership and control. At this time, the U. S. 
 Reclamation Service was investigating the Owens 
 \'allev project, and had withdrawn all public lands 
 there, including reservoir sites and had filed on the 
 water. Air. Eaton's ])rogram was presented to the 
 officials of the Reclamation Service, including Mr. 
 F. H. Xewell. Chief Engineer, and Mr. J. I!. Lippin- 
 cott, Supervising Engineer, for the first time in the 
 fall of 1904. Both of these officers of the Reclama- 
 tion Service took the stand that they could not aid 
 the City of Los Angeles unless the project was ex- 
 clusivelv a miunicipal one. 
 
 After a thorough investigation by the City's Water 
 Department of the water supply of the Owens River 
 \'alley, in September. 1904, at which time of the 
 vear the waters of the streams in that valley are 
 usually at their lowest ebb, and a careful reconnois- 
 ance of the route, to determine the practicability of 
 the constructing of a canal to bring the water to the 
 City of Los Angeles, the Superintendent reported 
 favorably on the adequacy of the water supply and 
 the feasibility of constructing a canal to bring to the 
 city said water supply. The Board of Water Com- 
 missioners then instructed him to make a preliminary 
 estimate of the probable cost of such an enterprise, 
 with a view to getting data on which to base a bond 
 issue for the purchase of the Eaton water rights. 
 
 In this transaction, the city acquired all lands 
 controlled bv Mr. Eaton in what is known as the 
 Rickey ranch, lying south of the north line of Town- 
 ship 10 South, Range 34 East, M. D. M.. embracing 
 22,670 acres, together with all water rights appur- 
 tenant thereto, including about sixteen miles of front- 
 age on the Owens River ; also an easement permitting 
 the use perpetuallv of 2684 acres in the Long \'alley 
 reservoir site for storage purposes, and in addition 
 thereto, options held by Mr. Eaton on large tracts of 
 land, with extensive frontage on the river below the 
 Rickey property. 
 
 The commercial organizations of the city were 
 taken into the full confidence of the Water Commis- 
 sioners, and each stej) in this affair was fully con- 
 sidered by them. The minutes of the Board of 
 Water Commissioners were ]nib!ic documents open 
 to inspection. 
 
 The Chamber of Commerce appointed a special 
 committee to investigate the plan of the Water Com- 
 missioners for an additional water supply, and the 
 advisability of voting the $1,500,000 bond issue of 
 September, 1905, for the purchase of water rights, 
 making survey and starting construction, and after a 
 careful investigation, the said committee, on Septem- 
 ber 1st. made a report entirely favorable to the 
 project. 
 
 When the sul)jcct was presented tu the voters of 
 Los Angeles, with a full explanation, in September, 
 1905, $1,500,000 was voted by them to pay for 
 
 these bonds, and to continue the investigations and 
 start construction, the vote being in favor ot the 
 issue, by a ratio of 14 to i, which is probably the 
 greatest majority that has ever been given to any 
 bond issue in the City of Los Ange'es. 
 
 The Board of Water Commissioners now promised 
 to employ hydraulic engineers of national reputation 
 to pass on the plans and cost of this project. In ac- 
 cordance with this agreement a Board of Engineers 
 consisting of John R. Freeman, Frederick P. Stearns 
 pud James D. Schuyler were so employed. ?*Ir. 
 Stearns at that time was Chief Engineer of the Metro- 
 politan Water Board, which has constructed and is 
 now operating the w^ater works for some twenty 
 towns around Boston Bay. He was President of the 
 American Society of Civil Engineers, Consulting 
 Engineer of the Panama Canal, and Consulting 
 Engineer on the additional water supply of the City 
 of New York. Mr. John R. Freeman is a past Presi- 
 dent of the American Society of Mechanical En- 
 gineers. Consulting engineer for the additional water 
 supply of the City of New York, former Consulting 
 Engineer for the Metropolitan Water Board, and 
 lately appointed Consulting Engineer for the Panama 
 Canal. It was considered particularly desirable to 
 einp'oy some Western Engineer who was familiar 
 with the cost of work in the Southwest, and parlicu- 
 larlv with conditions in Southern California. Mr. J. 
 D. Schuyler was Assistant State Engineer for Cali- 
 fornia from 1878 to 1882. He built the Sweetwater 
 and Hemet dams, and has been connected as a consult- 
 ing engineer with the construction of many impor- 
 tant domestic and irrigation water works in arid 
 America and in the Hawaiian Islands. He has been 
 \ice-President of the American Society of Civil 
 Engineers, and is a member of the Institute of Civil 
 Engineers of London. He was engaged for the City 
 of Los Angeles in practically all of the litigation 
 during the last ten years relative to the acquisition of 
 the Water Works for the citv and for the protection 
 of its water rights. 
 
 The appointment of this Board was the result of 
 long deliberation, and their selection was made 
 unanimously at a joint n'.eeting of the City Council, 
 Board of Water Commissioners. Board of Public 
 Works, Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association, 
 Alunicijril League and the Chamber of Commerce. 
 Probabh' no stronger aggregation of hydraulic en- 
 gineers was ever employed on the Pacific Coast. The 
 Bo''rd convened in Los Angeles on November 14, 
 1906. and was continuously engaged in reviewing this 
 work until December 22, 1906. Prior to that time Mr. 
 Schuyler made two trips over the line of the Aque- 
 duct, and Air. Freeman made one preliminary visit 
 to the city. Eight days were spent by all on the ex- 
 amination of the line in the field, and the balance of 
 the time was spent on plans and estimates. 
 
 They estimate the cost of the Aqueduct proper 
 as $18,221,300. After adding for railway, cement 
 plant and other accessories, ineludhig 15 per cent, for 
 contingencies, they reach a total of $23,110,700; and 
 thev further add for land and water rights, and for
 
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 Ictjal and titlicr expenses connected with their acquisi- 
 tiiin. fn.ni estimates presented bv Messrs. Mulholland 
 and Afatliews. inchuhno^ whnt has already been ex- 
 pended $1,375,000. making: a total of $24,485,600. 
 They report the quality of water satisfactory The 
 i!oard desio-ned sections of the conduit on most con- 
 seryatu-e hues, and based their estimates thereon 
 They estnnated the time necessary for construction 
 atter the sale of the bonds, as five years. No insur- 
 mountable eno;ineering difficulties w'ere found. The 
 re])ort concludes: — 
 
 "W e find the project admirable in conception and 
 o-tlme. and full of promise for the continued pros- 
 peiity of the City of Los Angeles." 
 
 The next steji was the submitting to the yoters of 
 the city the issuance of $23,000,000" in bonds for the 
 completion of the aqueduct, in accordance with the re- 
 port of the engineer, which, if carried, vyould at that 
 time almost reach the limit of our bonding power 
 
 In June, 1907. the election was iield and the result 
 was over ten to one in favor of the bonds. 
 
 The Board finds that the conditions for the 
 economic deyelopment and maintenance of power are 
 very favorable, and its safety against interruption or 
 diminution by drought, and the permanent character 
 of the aqueduct, tend to make the power development 
 feature particularly attractive and valuable \n ex- 
 perienced electrical engineer in the construction of 
 hydro-electric power plants in Southern California 
 has made a detailed estimate on the cost of installin<r 
 the power plants, and from his report the probable 
 revenue that tlie city would receive from the sale of 
 water power would more than pay the interest on the 
 entire bond issue, and reduce taxation in the Cit\- of 
 Los Angeles at least 25 per cent. 
 
 H.\RRv y. Lhi.axdk 
 
 City Clerk. 
 
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