Frederick Law Olmsted: landscape architect, 1822-1903Frederick Law Olmsted G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1928 - Landscape gardening |
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acres adopted advantage American elm Annual Report appointment Architect-in-Chief architectural arrangement beauty Board Brooklyn Park buildings Calvert Vaux carriages Central Park Chapter character Commission Committee conifers considerable construction convenience cost Department desirable direct drive duty effect elements entrance Fifth avenue Folded Map foliage force Frederick Law Olmsted garden Green Greensward ground important improvement intended interest keepers labor land Landscape Architects landscape art LAW OLMSTED Legislature less letter ment miles Morningside Parks natural necessary Norway Spruce object Olmsted and Vaux Olmsted's original Park Commissioners plantations planted pleasure practical present President promenade proposed Prospect Park Public Parks purpose question recreation reference refreshing regard reservoir respect result rock rural scenery secure shrubs space street suggested Superintendent surface tion transverse roads trees turf Tweed Ring visitors walks York Zoological
Popular passages
Page 115 - And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts ; I am no orator, as Brutus is ; But as you know me all, a plain blunt man, That love my friend ; and that they know full well That gave me public leave to speak of him.
Page 509 - Southwick, entomologist of the department of public parks of the city of New York, and which is the form used in Albany.
Page 121 - If thou art worn and hard beset With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget, If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, Go to the woods and hills! — No tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.
Page 12 - I saw in each of these countries evidence that, about the same time, planting and gardening for the public benefit had taken new life. Parks have plainly not come as the direct result of any of the great inventions or discoveries of the century. They are not, with us, simply an improvement on what we had before, growing out of a general advance of the arts applicable to them. It is not evident that the movement was taken up in any country from any other, however it may have been influenced or accelerated....
Page 237 - Island will have been converted into formations for rows of monotonous straight streets, and piles of erect buildings. There will be no suggestion left of its present varied surface, with the single exception of the few acres contained in the Park. Then the priceless value of the present picturesque outlines of the ground will be more distinctly perceived, and its adaptability for its purpose more fully recognized. It therefore seems desirable to interfere with its easy, undulating outlines, and...
Page 21 - The population of your city, increasing with such prodigious rapidity; your sultry summers, and the corrupt atmosphere generated in hot and crowded streets, make it a cause of regret that in laying out New York, no preparation was made, while it was yet practicable, for a range of parks and public gardens along the central part of the island or elsewhere, to remain perpetually for the refreshment and recreation of the citizens during the torrid heats of the warm season. There are yet unoccupied lands...
Page 197 - What artist, so noble, has often been my thought, as he who, with far-reaching conception of beauty and designing power, sketches the outline, writes the colors, and directs the shadows of a picture so great that Nature shall be employed upon it for generations, before the work he has arranged for her shall realize his intentions.
Page 25 - In such a park the citizens who would take excursions in carriages or on horseback could have the substantial delights of country roads and country scenery and forget for a time the rattle of the pavements and the glare of brick walls. Pedestrians would find quiet and secluded walks when they wished to be solitary, and broad alleys filled with thousands of happy faces when they would be gay. The thoughtful denizen of the town would go out there in the morning, to hold converse with the whispering...
Page 3 - Press, 1887. of London, nor sever nor divide by any hedges, ditches, pales or otherwise any of the said fields lying within 3 miles etc., to the hindrance of the training or mustering of soldiers, or of walking for recreation, comfort and health of her Majesty's people.
Page 134 - As superintendent of the Park, I once received in six days more than seven thousand letters of advice as to appointments, nearly all from men in office, and the greater part in legislative offices upon which the Commissioners have been much dependent for the means of accomplishing anything they might wish to do, — either 416 written by them directly, or by Commissioners at their request.