Report on the New York Botanical Garden

by Olmsted Brothers

But the successive and almost independent steps in the development of the main lines of through-travel for automobiles in this part of the Borough of the Bronx, have placed the Garden in the path of some of the most important of these lines and thrown upon its roads a burden of through-traffic which is already a very serious problem and bids fair to become immensely worse.

The completion of Bronx River Parkway, debouching from the north into what was evidently designed as a local loop road for circulation wholly within what is now the Botanical Garden, taken in connection with the prior opening of the Grand Concourse (laid out long after the establishment of Bronx Park and the design of most of its roads), opens through the Garden, on roads very ill adapted to the purpose, what is plainly destined to be one of the most busily thronged automobile thoroughfares leading in and out of Manhattan.

Both for the benefit of this through-traffic as such and for the benefit of the Botanical Garden as such, a radical improvement in this situation seems almost imperative. It is possible that the City may find a way to open a new and more direct connection for this great line of through-traffic independent of the Botanical Garden, between the Grand Concourse near its present northern end and a point in the southerly part of Bronx River Parkway north of the Garden. (See Map B.) Also there is even more reason to hope for the contemplated connection of Bronx River Parkway Drive with the northern end of Bronx Park East, the complete opening and improvement of the latter to Pelham Parkway, and its ultimate extension across Pelham Parkway into Boston Post Road. Such by-passes, if provided, would greatly ease the situation, but even so it would remain far from satisfactory.

Certainly if this is not done, and probably even if it is done, there should ultimately be a shorter and less tortuous road, on good lines and grades and of ample width, following as closely as practicable the westerly boundary of the Botanical Garden and substantially independent of all its routes of interior circulation, from Bronx River Parkway Drive at a point north of the northwest corner of the Garden lands to Southern Boulevard, which borders the southern part of the Garden on the west, and connecting at grade, conveniently, with the roads which cross into the Garden over the railroad at Woodlawn Road, at Mosholu Parkway and at Bedford Park Boulevard (200th Street).

Such a road or parkway for through-traffic, because of the necessity for connecting with the bridges over the railroad, should be built largely in heavy fill, on a broad embankment that would provide a platform for a tall and dense border plantation serving ultimately to screen from the landscape of the Botanical Garden not merely the railroad but the very conspicuous miscellaneous buildings on the higher ground to the west, far better than they can ever be screened otherwise. And from such an embankment-road the throngs of people using it would be able to overlook and enjoy in passing the neighboring portions of the Garden without invading it or coming into conflict with those who resort to the Garden primarily for its own sake.

As a matter of intelligent city planning we believe that ultimately a branch of such a thoroughfare should be, and probably will be, provided directly south near the railroad to Fordham Road along the edge of the Fordham University property. We understand that this is now prohibited by legislation secured in the supposed interests of Fordham University; but looking to the remote future we cannot but believe that the time will come when it will be to the interest of all concerned to complete such a connection in a properly designed manner. This possibility obviously reinforces the importance of such a through-traffic line as we have suggested along the westerly boundary of the Garden, whether the City does or does not open the independent connection between the north end of the Grand Concourse and Bronx River Parkway.

There has long been an agitation for a street across the Bronx valley from the end of Burke Avenue on the east to some point on Webster Avenue. This proposal first took the form of a high-level viaduct substantially on the north line of the Garden lands. This was indefinitely postponed because of its excessive cost. The project now comes up again in the form of a descending earth-fill embankment from the end of Burke Avenue, crossing by bridges over the road which connects the Garden with Bronx River Parkway, and over the Bronx River, coming nearly down to the elevation of the meadow along the northerly line of the Garden land at a point between the river and the railroad, thence curving across the northwest corner of the Garden land and rising on an embankment adjacent to the railroad so as to meet the grade of the existing bridge over the railroad at the Woodlawn Road Entrance. This latest proposition, besides being less costly, can be made in its ultimate effect a much less conspicuous intrusion on the landscape of the Garden than a high-level viaduct. Its immediate effect would be very distressing through the substitution of high, raw earth-banks where many well-grown trees now exist; but if these banks are liberally and skilfully graded and composed of material suitable for the vigorous growth of permanent trees and underplanting, and if they are properly planted, they can be made in due time to furnish a good enframement of the Garden, especially desirable on the railroad side.

The portion of this embankment road which would parallel the railroad from the north boundary of the Garden to the Woodlawn Road Entrance bridge would coincide with the west-side through-travel route previously discussed, and if the City undertakes the work it is highly important for the Garden that the grading plans be worked out in such a way that the slopes can be counted on as permanent, that trees can be promptly planted on them and grown to maturity. It would be a shame to permit the work to be done in such a way that after beginning by the destruction of the now-existing trees it would leave the new plantations subject to probable destruction by a future widening of the embankment when the west-side through-route is opened.

South of the Woodlawn Road Entrance the construction of the west-side through-route may be quite remote, but we believe it would be most unwise to proceed except upon the assumption that it will ultimately be constructed. Its precise location and grades and the eastern limits of the regrading necessary in connection with it we have not attempted to determine. Obviously the operation as a whole should be so designed as to minimize the disturbance to the Garden to the utmost degree consistent with securing (a) satisfactory grades, alignment and width for the through-road, (b) the best possible permanent bordering plantation for the landscapes of the Botanical Garden, and (c) incidentally attractive park-like qualities for the enjoyment of users of the through-road, including pleasant views over the Garden while maintaining an effective barrier, for police purposes, between this road and the interior of the Garden. Our impression is that a continuous, dense, high, but narrow screen of trees and undergrowth should be provided between the road and the railroad; that the slope toward the Garden should be more openly and intermittently planted; and that the permanent fence between the road and the Garden might in many places take the form of a mere parapet supported by a high retaining-wall so as to permit unobstructed views of the Garden without facilitating trespass and at the same time minimize the encroachment of the slope-grading on the present plantations of the Garden.

We assume, then, such a west-side through-traffic road, as a fundamental part of a comprehensive plan for the Botanical Garden.