Mesa Verde National Park: Cliff Palace. Mesa Verde National Park: Spruce Tree House. Ricksecker Point. Mount Rainier from near Mount Rainier National Park: Mount Rainier from Kautz Fork. Mount Rainier National Park: Mount Rainier and Paradise Valley. Mount Rainier National Park: Mount Rainier, Paradise Valley and Gap Point Road. Road in the park. Fern Bank. Mount Rainier National Park: arch. Yellowstone National Park: Yellowstone National Park: Yellowstone National Park: stone river from Point Lookout. Christmas Tree Park. Firehole River Cascades. Gardiner Station and Entrance Giant Geyser in action. Grand Canyon of the Yellow Yellowstone National Park: Great Falls of the Yellowstone river. Yellowstone National Park: Yellowstone National Park: Hayden Valley. Mammoth Hot Springs. New Grand Canyon Hotel. Old Faithful Geyser in action. Yellowstone National Park: Yellowstone Lake. Yellowstone National Park: Yellowstone River Rapids above Yosemite National Park: Yosemite National Park: view of Kolana Rock. Yosemite National Park: Yosemite National Park: River. Yosemite National Park: Meadow. Yosemite National Park: Yosemite National Park: arch" (tree). Yosemite National Park: (tree). Yosemite National Park: (tree). Yosemite National Park: "Wawona" (trees). Yosemite National Park: Yosemite National Park: Yosemite National Park: Yosemite National Park: Point. Hetch Hetchy Valley, Kolana Rock. Hetch Hetchy Valley, North Dome. Hetch Hetchy Valley, Upper Mariposa Big Tree Grove. Mariposa Grove, " Forest Queen" Mariposa Grove, "Grizzly Giant' Mariposa Grove, "Vermont" and Mirror Lake. Yosemite Valley from Artist's National, State and City Parks. On Wednesday evening, March 20, 1912, while the pictures of National Parks, loaned by the Interior Department, were on exhibition as before described, the Society held another meeting at the National Arts Club at which addresses were delivered on the subjects of National, State and City Parks. Mr. Frederick S. Dellenbaugh of New York, the artist, author and explorer, who accompanied Powell in one of his famous voyages through the Grand Canyon, spoke on the subject of National Parks. Dean Liberty H. Bailey, Director of the State College of Agriculture at Cornell University and Chairman of the Roosevelt Commission on Country Life, spoke on the subject of State Parks. Mr. Frederick S. Lamb, who, like Dean Bailey, is a Trustee of this Society and who is also Chairman of the City Plan Committee of the Municipal Art Society, spoke on the subject of Municipal Parks and Civic Centers. These addresses were illustrated with stereopticon views. NEW YORK CITY CIVIC CENTER. The Defence of City Hall Park. During the past year there have been interesting developments in connection with the public parks of New York City. The most important has been the culmination of the movement for the preservation of City Hall Park in the selection of a site for a new County Court House and in a definite plan for a Civic Center. [See plates 15 and 16.] In our Fifteenth Annual Report (1910) we gave, on pages 383-424, a somewhat extended sketch of the history of City Hall Park and in other Reports have made briefer allusions to the civic interest centering in the City Hall itself and the Park surrounding it. We have also recalled the circumstances under which the southern portion of the Park was sold to the Federal Government for a Federal Court House and Postoffice; and the County Court House, known as the Tweed Court House, was built at the northern end of the Park. In order to understand the importance of the present encouraging state of affairs it is necessary to review the efforts covering a quarter of a century further to encroach upon City Hall Park. The plans for these encroachments revolved around two different projects one for a new Hall of Records, to replace the one which formerly stood just east of the City Hall; and one for a new County Court House to replace the one which stands just north the City Hall. Incidental to these projects was one for the removal of the City Hall itself. Twenty-five years ago the City and County of New York began to feel the inadequacy of their accommodations for the transaction of public business, and in 1888 secured the passage by the Legislature of chapter 323 creating a Board of Commissioners to locate a site conveniently near the County Court House "but not in the City Hall Park," upon which to erect a building for the accommodation of the Register, Clerk, Courts and Surrogate of the City and County. It is to be observed that the sentiment which has recently arisen so strongly in opposition to the diminution of the area of City Hall Park is not new. Its exist ence was distinctly recognized, when the project for a new building was first broached, by the condition embodied in the above bill that the new building should not be in the Park. In 1889, the Legislature repealed the above act and enacted chapter 81 for the same purpose. This act authorized the Commission to locate the building " in that portion of the City Hall Park in the City of New York which lies north of the avenue running through the same immediately south of the City Hall from Broadway to Park Row and east of the walk which runs adjacent to the easterly lines of the City Hall and New County Court House." When the knowledge of the enactment of the foregoing amendment became generally known, public sentiment asserted itself and in response thereto, the Legislature in 1890 enacted chapter 299 for the same purpose, authorizing the location of the building "in the neighborhood of the County Court House building in said City, but not in the City Hall Park.” In 1892 the advocates of City Hall Park secured a temporary victory by the enactment of chapter 414, which gave the Commissioners power in their discretion to "select and locate the site for said building in City Hall Park or on the land adjacent thereto." In 1893, with a view to making more room in the park, while the foregoing act stood on the statute books, the Legislature enacted chapter 103, authorizing the removal of the old Hall of Records (which was demolished in 1903), the building occupied by the Court of General Sessions (which is still standing east of the County Court House) and the engine house east of the latter (which was removed in 1906). Then in 1892 the situation was relieved by the enactment of chapter 547, which repealed entirely chapter 414 of the laws of 1892. In 1893 a project was advanced having in view the removal of the City Hall itself, and a letter was addressed to the Commissioners appointed to locate a site for a municipal building on behalf of the Trustees of the Tilden Trust, deprecating the removal in these terms: "Much as we should regret the necessity of disturbing a structure consecrated to us like our City Hall by so many precious historical and forensic associations," yet they suggested "should such a necessity be found to exist, that that admirable structure be transferred to the site now occupied by the Reservoir in Bryant Park and appropriated to the uses of that Trust.* Among the Trustees of the Tilden Trust was the late Hon. Andrew H. Green, founder of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, who heartily accorded with the sentiment above quoted so far as it related to the non-disturbance of the City Hall, and he was not in favor of giving color, even by a conditional assent, to its removal. In February, 1894, therefore, he addressed a public letter to the Commissioners zealously defending the City Hall and vigorously arguing not only against removing that building but also against the erection of a municipal building in the park. Since that time little has been heard about the removal of the City Hall. In 1897 the project for a new building for the Register's office and other county and city officers was revived and the Legislature that year enacted chapter 59 for the construction of the building in the neighborhood of the County Court House but "not in the City Hall Park." Under this act the new Hall of Records was built outside of City Hall Park on the northwest corner of Chambers and Center streets. This disposes of the Hall of Records project. History of Present County Court House. Attention was next turned toward the inadequate accommodations for the courts in the old "Tweed Court House." The history of this site,before the present Court House was built, is given in our Fifteenth Annual Report (1910) at pages 385-424. The present Court House had its inception fifty-one years ago. During the Tweed regime, when Tweed was a member of the Board of Supervisors of the County of New York, a law was passed April 10, 1861, being chapter 161 of the laws of that year, entitled "An Act to enable the Supervisors of the County of New York to acquire and take lands for the building of a * The New York Public Library, Astor, Tilden and Lenox Foundations, was subsequently erected on the Reservoir site above suggested and was opened to the public in 1911. See Appendix B. |