Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 87, no. 2253: May 20, 1911

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Vol. LXXXVI MAY 20, 1911 No. 2253 THE CONFERENCE ON CITY PLANNING A Notable Gathering of Delegates at Philadelphia and an Exhibition Representing 110 Cities Reveal an Amazing Growth in a New Movement THE third National Conference on City Planning was held at Philadelpliia on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. The attendance inclucied some 250 visiting' delegates. The conference was hold 'Under the auspices of the mu¬ nicipality, which, in its capacity as host, had organized for the occasion an inter¬ national exhibition of city planning simi¬ lar to the recent exhihition at Berlin, Dusseldorf and London. Day sessions of the conference were held in the City Hall, where the exhibition wag housed; evennig sessions were held at the Bellevue-Strat- ford, the headquarters of the convention. The conference, viewed as an expression of puhlic interest in municipal questions. provements and taxation, each of whom has come to regard his specialty as a branch of city planning. T'he definition of c'ty planning given by Frederick Law Olmstead, chairman of the conference, in his opening address, will help to explain the amazingly rapid pro¬ gress which the city planning movement has achieved in America. "We are con¬ cerned," he said, "with a single complex subject, namely, the intelligent control and guidance o£ the entire physical growth and alteration of cities, embrac¬ ing all the problems of relieving and avoiding congestion—congestion of people in buildings and of buildings upon land, congestion ol tra.nsportation facilities or the reports of the conference. Not fewer than twenty thousand persons visited the exhibition on the opening day. The exhibition is the first oC its kind conducted by an American municipality. It embraces exhibits from 110 cities in the United States, Canada, South Amer¬ ica, Germany and England. The exhibi¬ tion will be open until June 15, and daily half-hour lectures by specialists are one of its features. The visitor cannot fail to be struck with the greatness of the task involved in aiisembling the mass of material dis¬ played. More than $10,000 has been ex¬ pended upon the one item of bringing the exhibits to Philadelphia. Chicago's ex- HOVi' THE CENTRAL PARK FACADE OF THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 'WILL LOOK. Sketches for the extension of the American Musuem of Natural History, submitted by Trowbridge Se Livingston, architects, in¬ volving an expenditure of $^,750,000 within the next Sve VGars, have been approved by President Henry Fairfield Osborn of the Museum, and are now under consideration by Lhe trustees of the institution. 'was a nota^ble event. Everything about it—the number of its delegates, the cali¬ bre and tone of its discussions and the list of cities contributing exhibits—went to. prove that the idea of city planning ■haa ceased to toe an unaccUmated foreign importation. The importation is hardly ten years old. Yet it has been thoroughly adapted to American conditions. Already some sixty American cities have employed experts to make compre¬ hensive plans for their betterment. The city planning idea has exercised a unify¬ ing influence, bringing together into one movement a variety of isolated reforms which a few years ago appeared to bo too dissimilar fo admit of co-operation on the part of their leaders. The principal ad¬ dresses at the Philadelphia conference were by acknowledged authorities on special subjects, as, for example, tene¬ ment housing, transportation, dock im- of recreation facilities, congestion in re¬ spect to the means of supplying light, air, water or anything else essential to the health and happiness of the 'people, IJut embracing, in addition to the problems of congestion, each one of the myriad prob¬ lems involved in making our cities year by year in their physical arrangement and equipment healthier, pleasanter and more economical instruments for the use ■of the people who dwell within them, car¬ rying on that part of the work and life of the world which is not to be done in the open country." The exhibition organized by the city of Philadelphia insures the widest possible publicity to the cause for which it stands. Reproductions of the exhibits, placed before millions of readers of newspapers and magazines, are bound to awaken the curiosity of people who, except for the illustrations, would take no interest in hibit. displaying the drawings prepared for the Commercial Club of that city by D. H. Burnham and E. H. Bennett, is of such a size that $2,000 was spent for its transportation alone. The drawings cost .^fiO.OOO, and a room 50 by 45 is required to display them. Boston has appropriated $15,000 to 'illustrate the work projected for the Bosion, 1915, exposition. The Baltimore exhibit embraces city under¬ takings of every description, from schools and parkways down to docks and harbors. Other notable American exhibits are those of New York. Pittsburgh and Wash¬ ington. iS.pecial mention must be made of the comprehensive plans for the improvement of Philadelphia, prepared at the instance of Mayor Reyburn. Among them are de¬ signs for the Parkway, the new Art Mu- seium, the Convention Hall and Stadium, . the embankment of the Schuykill an^