there are needed smaller houses each containing a counter and a few tables at which ices and simple refreshments, rather than full meals, can be obtained, and from which there will be access to retiring rooms, respectively for women and for men, on the general theory of the plan lately presented the Board for a building in Madison square. Buildings of this class, with low roofs, could be so placed that while one could always be reached by a short walk by visitors needing to make use of it, in whatever part of the Park they might be, they would yet be scarcely seen by those who had no occasion to look for them. Two necessary buildings, each covering a space of 16 x 30 feet, were last year placed in positions where they have since been passed within 100 feet by a large majority of all the visitors to the Park without being seen, and without causing the slightest offense. All necessary refreshment rooms, privies and urinals can be arranged so as to be perfectly convenient without being obtrusive or injuring the rural character of the park.

Respectfully,

FRED. LAW OLMSTED,
Landscape Architect.

CHAPTER X

THE PROPER FUNCTION OF STATUARY IN THE PARK

Of the two documents bearing on this subject, the first is of unusual permanent interest because it furnishes a well-considered statement of the criteria by which park boards may determine the appropriateness of monuments and statuary in park designs. The report,-signed by Mr. Church, the artist, by Mr. Vaux, and by the President of the Board, and undoubtedly having the collaboration of Mr. Olmsted,revises and amplifies the former rules which had been in course of formulation since the Committee on Statuary of 1860 began its work. Directly after the Civil War, in the Annual Report of 1867, there is a statement of the Commissioners' opinion as to the inclusion of memorials in the Park which is worth quoting:

"The Commissioners of the Park have been thus guarded in dealing with this subject (7th Regiment Monument) because they have deemed the Park not an appropriate place for sepulchral memorials; it is for recreation and pleasure; its especial aim and object is, by all justifiable means, to dispel from the mind of the visitor, once within its enclosure, thoughts of business and memories calculated to sadden or oppress. It is a pleasure-ground. The beautiful cemeteries in the vicinity of the city offer abundant opportunity to commemorate, by appropriate memorials, the virtues of those who are passing away from the strifes and distinctions of the cabinet or the field.

"It will, on the whole, perhaps, always be wiser to defer the admission of monuments intended to commemorate individuals chiefly characterized by an active participation in any questions upon which the public mind is divided with a greater or less degree of vehemence, until time determines whether they are of those reputations that briefly flame and flicker, or of those whose lives of sacrifice and labor have formed characters that all ages delight to honor."

An amusing account of some of the early difficulties which the See p. 92, ante.

Commissioners encountered in dealing with proferred gifts may be found in the Description of the New York Central Park, 1869. (See Bibliography)

THE PAPERS INCLUDED IN THIS CHAPTER ARE:

Report of the Committee (of the Board) on the subject of Statuary on the Central Park. April 25, 1873. Printed as Doc. No. 46, July 17, 1873.-Finally adopted with additions (noted on page 493) at the meeting of the Board on October 18, 1876, and incorporated in the By-Laws as Section 5, Article III.

Communication on a Proposition to place a Colossal Statue at the south end of the Mall in the Central Park, from F. L. O. and C. V. March 4, 1874. (Doc. No. 57.)

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON STATUES IN THE PARK'

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC PARKS,

Office of Design and SuperintendeNCE,
NEW YORK, 25th April, 1873.

To the Board of Commissioners

of the Department of Public Parks:

At the request of the Board, the undersigned have considered the subject of Statues in the Central Park, with a view to the determination of some general rules which shall govern the question of accepting and disposing of them.

During the first half of this century but one statue was placed in the public places of this city, and it may be difficult to believe that the offer of such costly and substantial presents to the public is likely to be at all frequent in the future. A consideration of certain facts will, however, show that the inclination to this form of benefaction has, with the progress of wealth, luxury, and a taste for refined enjoyments, been very rapidly increasing.

It is less than ten years since the Drive was opened through the Park; the improvement of some important sections of the grounds is not even now begun; the larger portion is yet in a sketchy state, and a few residences are but now beginning to be occupied at one end of its border.

Nevertheless, we find that already more than twenty works of sculpture-the majority full length statues in bronze-have been formally offered to the Commissioners, and it is known that the tender of a number of others is likely soon to be made. During the same period three other statues have been paid for by voluntary contributions and set up elsewhere in the city. Another is at this time in the sculptor's hands, and still others are projected.

In nearly every instance, those offering a statue have designated the position in which they would have it stand, and, in the majority of cases, have made the concession of their selected position a condition of the gift. At least two offers have been withdrawn because the Commissioners hesitated to promise what was thus required; one of these coming from a man who proposed to make the statue of a I Doc. No. 46.

relative the central object of the Mall. On two other occasions, the positions fixed by the Commissioners have been refused, with some feeling, by those offering statues, and, in several, the Commissioners have been requested to remove well grown trees in order to give greater prominence to a selected site.

It will thus appear probable, first: that before the design of the park is at all maturely realized, the number of statues for which positions will be sought upon it will be very great; and, second: that if the question of placing them is in each case to be determined without reference to defined and strongly established rules, narrow considerations of temporary expediency will almost necessarily have undue weight, both with respect to the choice of statues for the park, and to the positions which they shall be allowed to occupy. Rules applicable to the question can be established only by a consideration of the major purposes of the park, and of the essential properties by which it serves those purposes. The main popular want to be ministered to in a large park situated like the Central Park, with respect to a great city, is the natural craving of its residents for opportunity to exercise a variety of capacities for enjoyment which must necessarily remain unused, and through disuse tend to feebleness or distortion under the ordinary limitations of a city experience, however rich this may be in other respects. Three things should be supplied in a park not to be had in the city elsewhere: First, air, purified by abundant foliage. Second, means of tranquilizing and invigorating exercise, as in good quiet roads and walks, kept free from the irritating embarrassments of the city streets. Third, extended landscapes, to refresh and delight the eye, and, therefore, as free as possible from the rigidity and confinement of the city and from the incessant emphasis of artificial objects which inevitably belong to its ordinary conditions. The chief difficulty of a park enterprise is to meet the latter requirement as fully as desirable.

In a well drained and cultivated territory extending over several miles, the air naturally remains fresh and pure, and a liberal area of ground planted with shade trees at intervals along properly constructed roads and walks, can hardly fail to offer good facilities for healthful out-door exercise. But the preparation and preservation of the best possible landscape effects will always depend on a series of conditions of a subtile and delicate character, that are much more liable to be interfered with and encroached upon.

If a park, as a whole, is to be considered as a work of art, it is in this direction, then, that it most needs to be carefully protected; for the demands of the special art of which it is an example must always have the first claim to consideration.

The essence of the park, that is to say, must be in its landscapes. If, as years elapse, the pictorial effects prove to be as broad, well-marked and varied as was possible under the circum