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provision should be made a condition of such addition's acceptance by the municipality."* It is worthy of note that Mr. William E. Harmon, real estate developer and patron of the Harmon Foundation, has issued a statement that he will never again subdivide a large tract for homebuilding without providing adequate playground space for children.

At the successful Recreation Congress at Atlantic City, in October, held by the Playground and Recreation Association of America, the paper presented by Mr. Bassett already referred to forms a most important contribution to the subject under discussion by city planners as to the best methods of acquiring new parks and playgrounds. The Playground and Recreation Association in coöperation with the American Institute of Park Executives is undertaking an investigation of great moment financed by the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Foundation, being an intensive study of recreation in municipal and county parks. An advisory committee including representation from the American City Planning Institute is assisting in the study.

The establishment of the National Capital Park Commission by Congress already noted promises well for the carrying out of much-needed extensions of the park system. The Park Conference held in Baltimore in June was intended to promote the development of a fuller system of parks, parkways and playgrounds for that city. The Chicago South Parks waterfront development has made great progress during 1924. The plans for the redemption of the Schuylkill banks in Philadelphia will add another great water park such as those of Chicago, Washington, Harrisburg, Boston, and Toronto. The volume by Mr. J. F. Lewis issued by the City Parks Association of Philadelphia in a valuable contribution to the subject of recreational waterfronts. Birmingham, Ala., and Santa Barbara, Calif., are having park system plans prepared by Olmsted Brothers, and a special report on Boston parks by Mr. A. A. Shurtleff is in press. In the Seattle park system, there are 43 tracts held for improvement as playgrounds in addition to the 25 already improved. The plan for the Indianapolis park system, including Marion County, by Mr. Sheridan, is reproduced in this issue (page 40.)

The State of New York leads in almost spectacular plans for county and state parks. The Westchester County Park Commission report dated April 1924 is an important document,-full of good illustrations,-continuing in spirit as well as on the ground the reports on the now-famous Bronx Parkway of which Mr. Jay Downer was also Chief Engineer. The Erie County Park bill was passed by the legislature of 1924, the Commission has been appointed, and an initial appropriation made by the Board of Supervisors. A similar bill for a Niagara County Park Commission is before the 1925 Legislature. As Erie and Niagara counties adjoin and comprise the whole Niagara Frontier, Mr. March of Buffalo reports that great coördination of suburban parks and parkways is confidently expected. The linking up of the Frontier parks with the splendid State park system is under consideration. In New Jersey, Union County parks are progressing according to the Olmsted plans for a system reported last year, and will doubtless be called on to do heavy duty along with other New Jersey county parks when the Hudson traffic tunnel is opened. * But compare Mr. Bassett's paper.

The promotion of state parks and forests for Illinois is the object of the "Park and Forest Policy" recently issued by the Friends of our Native Landscape, preParks of not less than 1000 acres all

pared by Messrs. Jensen and Von Oven. connected by planted roads are recommended.

Such a report as this brings to mind the striking difference of meaning assigned to the word "park", varying all the way from an appreciation of its landscape significance in such a statement as Mr. Jensen's to the bald legal sense used in the public buildings section of the Passaic city plan.

Civic Centers and Civic Art.

The final approval on referendum of the City Plan Commission's schemes for the St. Louis Municipal Plaza and group plan was secured after great controversy by a 35,000 majority vote for placing the new court house according to plan (see the illustration on page 39). The civic center was one of the items voted in the $87,000,000 bond issue of 1923. Buffalo's Niagara square site has been assured by the purchase of land for the new city hall, and the first building for Toledo's civic center has been actually started after the discouragement of 1922. San Francisco's war memorial group is now definitely under way, thus marking the final step in this city's beautiful center. In Cincinnati it is now a fact, under authority of the Charter and the State law, that no public building of any sort can be located contrary to the fifty-year "Civic and Cultural Centers and School and other Public Building Plan and Program" unless The Planning Commission is overruled by a two-thirds majority vote of the City Council after hearings.

The civic center plans by Mr. Leavitt for Camden, N. J., were publicly presented too late in 1923 to be included in last year's survey. Mr. Swan's civic center suggestions for New Brunswick are the subject of a special report. Although unfinished, the new art museum in Philadelphia, a feature of the Fairmount Parkway plan, was opened in 1924; and twenty years after the launching of the Parkway project, the city is about to undertake the Schuylkill improvement of equal magnitude. The historic town of Plymouth, Mass. is continuing the redemption of the waterfront in the vicinity of Plymouth Rock, begun for the celebration of 1923.

The plans for the memorial bridge to Arlington, reproduced on another page, assure a superb extension of the composition radiating from the Capitol at Washington. The great Camden-Philadelphia bridge is well under way. The opening of the Bear Mountain bridge an enormous convenience to traffic, but scarcely an example of civic art-in 1924 was made a great occasion. The entrance to the new North End bridge in Springfield, Mass., is also illustrated elsewhere in this magazine.

The Outlook.

Among the goodly number of projects to be heard from in 1925 in cities reporting comprehensive plans recently prepared or under way are Newton and Clinton, Mass.; Stamford, Conn.; Utica, Schenectady, Middletown, and Poughkeepsie, N. Y.; Elizabeth and Camden, N. J.; Ashtabula, Dayton, Oakwood, Wyoming, and Canton, O.; Evansville, Anderson, Muncie, Michigan City, and Kokomo, Ind.; Springfield, DeKalb, Oak Park and Jacksonville, Ill.; Saginaw, Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Pontiac and other communities of the Detroit region, Mich.; Kenosha and Kohler, Wis.; Cedar Rapids and Des Moines, Ia.; St. Joseph, Mo.; Topeka, Kan.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Norfolk, Va.; Columbus and Athens, Ga.; Shreveport, La.; Houston, Tex.; and San Diego, Calif.

In estimating the chief contributions of 1924 to the work for 1925, we can rank high the establishment of official county planning commissions, the passage in a considerable number of states of zoning enabling legislation based on the Department of Commerce Standard Act, Mr. Bassett's studies on fields of city planning legislation, especially the platting of parks, and Judge Nichols' on the protection of the official city plan, the coöperation initiated by Secretary Hoover's Conference on Highway Safety, and by President Coolidge's Conference on Outdoor Recreation.

The Delaware River Bridge

[graphic]

Courtesy of the Delaware River Bridge Joint Commission

The Delaware River Bridge Connecting Philadelphia and Camden as Conceived by the Chief Engineer, Mr. Ralph Modjeski

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