Pittsburgh Main Thoroughfares and the Down Town District / Improvements Necessary to Meet the City's Present and Future Needs

by Frederick Law Olmsted

Generally speaking, these steeper and more irregular pieces will be of greater use to the public than they could be to private occupants. It must be noted, however, that their value for recreation is distinctly limited. They cannot adequately or economically supply the local needs for playfields, outdoor gymnasiums and the like; and as isolated fragments they cannot, of course, fulfill the functions of large rural parks. It is possible, however, to lay out sidehill walks on easy gradients and to furnish seats and terraces, especially near the upper edge of such declivities, where the people of the neighborhood can stroll and rest and enjoy interesting and extensive views over the city, the river or the adjacent valley; always with the steep natural hillside below as a foreground.

Such areas, for instance, as the rugged slope under Bluff Street, or the precipitous land south of West Carson Street should be under public control. Hillsides less conspicuous, less striking in their characteristics, and offering inferior opportunities of outlook—while in themselves, perhaps, of doubtful value to the city—should be taken over rather than allowed to become positively injurious features in private hands. In other cases, unless their cost is practically nothing, and there is no apparent probability of future taxpaying development, the City could hardly afford to purchase and maintain them.

Hillside at Meissen, made useful and attractive by terracing, planting and care

GENERAL DISCUSSION OF PARKS

In any city closely built over a large area, public parks or recreation grounds become one of the most urgent civic needs, if the health and vigor of the people are to be maintained. And the most important classes to provide for are the children and the women of the wage-earning families; most important, not only because of their numbers and of the direct influence of their health and vigor upon the efficiency of the coming generation, but also because they, least of all, have energy and opportunity to seek out healthful recreation at a distance. Normally it requires two distinct kinds of recreation grounds to supply the needs of these people,—the local or neighborhood park for frequent and regular use, and the rural park for occasional holiday enjoyment.

Neighborhood Parks

The size and form and character most desirable for neighborhood recreation grounds depend upon the functions to be performed by each. Some of the activities in the best developed playgrounds, as for example in Chicago, are these: (1) The playing of little children in sand-piles and upon the lawn, under the watchful guidance of an attendant who not only keeps them out of danger and mischief, but plays with them, tells them stories and stimulates the healthy activity of their little minds and bodies. Here the mothers may come with their children and remain to watch them play or leave them in safety. A plot one hundred feet square may be of value for such uses. (2) For boys of larger growth and men and for girls and women, the more active games with and without apparatus, in the open air and under cover, always with opportunity and inducement to bathe, and, if possible, with a swimming-pool. Sometimes space is found for the big field games and regular athletic sports on a running track; sometimes for nothing that takes more space than basketball. (3) For the older and the less active people, pleasant shaded walks for strolling and benches to sit upon amid agreeable surroundings, with opportunity to see the youngsters play, and once or twice a week, perhaps, to enjoy a band concert. (4) For the use of all, a field house where the sanitary accommodations are kept to a standard of cleanliness and order that sets a good example to the neighborhood, where a reading-room branch of the public library is available, and in which one or more large rooms are at the disposal of the neighborhood for lectures, entertainments and dances. Clean, healthy recreation may thus be given full play amid decent surroundings instead of being driven to saloons, to vicious or questionable dance-halls and other baneful establishments for the commercial exploitation of the spirit of play.

Of perhaps first importance in the planning of local parks is the problem of distribution—accessibility to the people served. Practically there are few women or small children who will take the trouble habitually to walk much more than a quarter of a mile to a playground or local park for exercise or rest, and for most a carfare is out of the question. This means that, ideally, there should be neighborhood recreation centers not more than a quarter or at most a half mile from every home in the city.