They spent several days in Paris before returning to London. Edouard André accompanied them about the city parks, introduced them to his friends, and took them to the opera. He was finishing an encyclopedic tome on landscape gardening, L’Art des Jardins. André greatly admired American parks and included a plan of Central Park as well as drawings of the Brooklyn parkways and the lake at Prospect Park. In an introductory section on public parks, he singled out Olmsted.
If ever an artist had the good fortune to design a future city and was given carte blanche, I would suggest that he study the very beautiful plans for the city of Buffalo (United States) designed by the skillful American landscape architect, Monsieur F. Law Olmsted. In his plan, different parts of the city are linked by an uninterrupted system of parks and landscaped avenues that are laid out in the grandest and most practical fashion.
Olmsted enjoyed seeing old friends, but the trip had not greatly improved his health. His depression continued. A portrait photograph taken in Paris shows a worn fifty-five-year-old, face expressionless, eyes puffy from lack of sleep. He continued to feel exhausted and even complained to John that “the disease, whatever it is, has certainly been making steady progress and I have sunk rapidly within the last few days.” French doctors examined him. They found that he had a slight heart condition, some symptoms from his old bout with malaria, and a “slightly disordered” nervous condition. Not surprisingly, the state of his mental health eluded them. They found “no pronounced disease of any of the organs or tissues of his body . . . [and] expressed no alarm whatsoever at his condition,” John, who was understandably perplexed at his father’s condition, wrote his mother. “He has formed no idea what he will do in returning or whether he will be able to work at all,” John added. “He seems almost to have convinced himself that he is permanently broken down.”
It was another month before they sailed back to New York. They were home by the end of April; Olmsted had been away four months, not three. In his absence, his friends had rallied support. A letter protesting his removal appeared in the New York World. It had fifty signatories, including businessmen, publishers, politicians, writers, and artists. Missing was Calvert Vaux. He was miffed because the New York Tribune had published a long letter from Godkin referring to Olmsted as the sole designer of Central Park. Vaux sent a strongly worded letter of protest to the newspaper. Mary had Owen publish an acknowledgment of Vaux’s “equal share” in Central Park. Privately, she fumed at Vaux’s “chivying English disposition.” Finally Vaux published a letter supporting Olmsted. “Father thinks Mr. Vaux’s letter very handsome,” John wrote to his mother, “though it seems to me he gave you a very unnecessary amount of worry by doing so.” Not that any of this mattered. In the end the protests had no effect. Olmsted’s tenure at Central Park was finally over.
* * *
1. In fact John had taken drawing courses while in college and was an accomplished draftsman.
STANDING FIRST
H. H. Richardson, c. 1884.
Frederick Law Olmsted, c. 1890.
Charles Eliot Norton, undated.
Of all American artists, Frederick Law Olmsted, who gave the design for the laying out of the grounds of the World’s fair, stands first in the production of great works which answer the needs and give expression to the life of our immense and miscellaneous democracy.
—CHARLES ELIOT NORTON (1893)
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
An Arduous Convalescence
FOR THE FIRST TIME in a dozen years, Olmsted was entirely cut loose from the responsibilities and political intrigues attached to Central Park. Yet he was not in a position to enjoy his freedom. His previous bouts of depression—during his early tenure at Central Park, waiting alone in San Francisco, and following the death of his father—had been followed by progressively longer periods of recovery. Such was the case now. Leaving the office in John’s hands, he and Mary passed the next two summers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with Fanny and Edwin Godkin. Olmsted was not entirely idle, however. While there, he collaborated with Richardson on several small projects. He also worked with Charles Sprague Sargent, a self-taught horticulturist who was Asa Gray’s successor as director of Harvard’s Botanical Garden and had asked Olmsted to help him plan the university’s Arnold Arboretum. In Cambridge, Olmsted often met Charles Eliot Norton, who was now professor of art history at Harvard. Olmsted and the New York State Survey’s director, James T. Gardener, had earlier written a report recommending the creation of a scenic reservation around Niagara Falls. When the state legislature hesitated, Olmsted, Norton, and Gardener together organized a petition. Thanks to Norton’s wide circle of literary friends, the signatories included Emerson, Longfellow, Francis Parkman, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, as well as John Ruskin and Olmsted’s boyhood hero, Carlyle.
It sounds like an arduous way to convalesce, yet according to his own demanding standards, Olmsted was merely puttering about. In June 1879 he wrote to André: “I am doing but little professionally, my most important active work being the Capitol Grounds in Washington.” That was not quite accurate. While he was still with Central Park, he had been contacted by Charles Dalton, of the newly formed Boston Park Commission. Dalton, a Boston businessman, was another Sanitary Commission alumni. He invited Olmsted to Boston and solicited advice informally. The Commission’s final report—written by Dalton—recommended several parks connected by parkways. Olmsted’s influence was unmistakable, and he expected to prepare the final plans. Yet on returning from his European trip with John, he was disappointed to find that the commissioners had held a park design competition in his absence. To add insult to injury, he was being invited to be one of the judges. He declined. He referred to the Central Park competition, which had produced so much bad feeling. He also expressed his doubts about the value of a competition for something as subtle as laying out a park. Yet he shrewdly left the door open:
No aid I could give in the selection of a plan to receive your premium would materially lessen either class of objections to the competition, which I have indicated. Advising your choice I should place myself in a leaky boat with you. Keeping out of it I retain a professional position in which it is possible I may yet be of service to you.
The twenty-three entrants included Robert Morris Copeland, who had participated in the Central Park competition. He fared no better this time; the five-hundred-dollar prize was awarded to an amateurish design by a local florist. As Olmsted had foreseen, the embarrassed commissioners asked him to step in. He sketched out his ideas and was offered a long-term contract: two thousand dollars a year for three years to design and oversee the construction of the park. Olmsted, leery after the debacle of the competition and still smarting from Central Park, was careful to spell out that he would be working as a private consultant, not as a city employee.
The park site was one hundred acres adjacent to Back Bay, a fashionable residential neighborhood built on land recently reclaimed from the Charles River Basin. This low-lying area received the sewage outflow of Muddy River and Stony Brook and flooded at high tide; it became a fetid, muddy flat as the water receded. The problem, Olmsted quickly realized, was not how to design a park: “The central purpose of this work is simply that of a basin for holding water, as an adjunct of the general drainage system of the city.” In collaboration with the city engineer he devised a plan that diverted the sewage into underground conduits and solved the tidal problem by creating an artificial salt-grass marsh, traversed by a winding stream. This was not scenic design. “The object of this crookedness,” he explained, “is to prevent the surface of the water from being raked by the wind for any considerable distance and consequently to prevent a swell from forming.” The stream banks were further protected against erosion by being gently sloped; three water-gates controlled the tidal flow from the Charles and the outflow of the two creeks.
Drives were laid out at the edges of what Olmsted pointedly called an “improvement.” (At his insistence, the so-called park was officiall
y renamed Back Bay Fens.) Smaller roads led to boat landings at the water’s edge so the winding stream could be used for recreation. Olmsted recommended that Richardson design the two main bridges. Thus was a work of engineering transformed. It was not intended to be a work of art—which is probably why Olmsted didn’t mention it to André—it was to appear as undisturbed nature within the city.
The supportive commissioners and the city council approved the final plan in timely fashion. Construction began soon after. Encouraged by this unaccustomed cooperation, Olmsted turned to the problem of the Muddy River itself, the boundary between Boston and the small town of Brookline. The project took shape as the result of a question he had asked the city engineer.
“What are your plans for dealing with the Muddy River above the Basin?”
“We have none.”
“What are you likely to have there eventually—a big conduit of masonry to carry the flood, several miles in length, and intercepting pipes for the sewerage from both sides?”
“That is not unlikely.”
“Such arrangement will be very costly and will be delayed many years because of its cost. Meantime and before many years the Muddy River valley will be very dirty, unhealthy, squalid. No one will want to live in the neighborhood of it. Property will have little value and there will grow up near the best residence district of the city an unhealthy and pestilential neighborhood.”
“All that is not impossible.”
“Why not make an open channel there and treat the banks of it as we are going to treat the banks of the Basin. Would that not be an economical move?”
“I don’t see but it would.”
“Then the roads leading up that valley to Jamaica Pond would be the beginning of a Park-way leading from the Back Bay to the Arboretum and West Roxbury Park.”
“They might be.”
“Suppose then that we put our two professional heads together again and see if we can’t make a practicable plan for that purpose and get the city to adopt it.”
“Agreed.”
Olmsted did not work on any more large urban plans after the rejection of Tacoma and the failure of his Bronx proposal. He understood that Americans were simply not willing to make the sort of long-term public investments required by city planning. Pragmatically, he restricted his efforts to what city administrations were willing to do: parks, parkways, and drainage systems. But he did not lose sight of his goal. The Fens and the Muddy River improvement were not conceived as individual projects, they were means to civilize the city.
25 Cottage Street, Brookline, Massachusetts
Friday, February 25, 1881
The Richardson home stands on a wooded, two-acre lot in rural surroundings. The front of the Federal-style farmhouse is rather grand with a two-story-high porch and tall pillars that might recall the plantation architecture of Richardson’s Louisiana if the ground were not blanketed with a coat of fresh snow. Attached to the rear of the eighty-year-old house is a recently built, one-story annex. The low, flat-roofed wing houses the architect’s office.
It is early morning and the workrooms have not yet filled up with the dozen or so young men who are Richardson’s assistants. Olmsted, who is staying with the family for a few days, is alone in the narrow drafting room. Wooden drawing files line the walls; large trestle tables are spread with plans. He walks down an aisle next to a row of alcoves. Each alcove contains a stool and a drawing table. Illumination is provided by a window and a wall-mounted gasolier on an extendible arm. Each alcove can be closed by a curtain hanging from a track on the ceiling. Olmsted likes the practical simplicity of the compact work spaces, which are affectionately known as coops.
He has risen early this morning, but he has slept well and feels refreshed. After four years he has almost recovered from the illness that afflicted him that last summer he was employed on Central Park. He is still officially the “Consulting Landscape Architect,” even if no one ever consults him. Of course, he is better out of it. He deliberately stays away from New York, delegating the office management to John, who has turned out to be a valuable assistant. Avoiding overwork has helped his recovery. It reminds him of the advice he gave to his friend Samuel Bowles, years ago, to beware of his “habit of mental intemperance.” Poor Bowles—he died a month before his fifty-second birthday, while Olmsted was in Europe.
He strolls around the room. The unfinished drawings on the drafting tables attest to the variety—and quantity—of his friend’s commissions: a city hall, a beautiful library, another town hall, several railway stations. He looks closely at the drawings of a rustic gate lodge for a large estate owned by Frederick Lothrop Ames, whose wealthy family has been Richardson’s most generous patron. Ames, Richardson, and Olmsted have spent many hours planning the grounds of the estate. Richardson has sought Olmsted’s advice on many of these projects, which is one of the reasons for his presence in Brookline. Another is to meet with Charles Sprague Sargent, whose estate is across the street from Richardson’s house. Thanks to the energetic Sargent, who is a Brookline park commissioner, the Muddy River Park was recently approved by Brookline and Boston; work has already begun on the Fens. Now Olmsted and Sargent are discussing ways to convince Harvard to make the arboretum a part of the city’s growing park system.
Olmsted finds what he has been looking for. He sits down to examine a drawing pinned to the table. It shows a large country house. The building stands on a base of rubble walls and is entirely covered in wood shingles. The design is unusually plain, devoid of ornament and decoration. The client is Dr. John Bryant, Olmsted’s son-in-law, who has recently married Charlotte. Olmsted was concerned for moody Charlotte’s future and is pleased with the marriage. He is looking forward to laying out the grounds, which are by the sea in Cohasset, Massachusetts.
“There you are, Olmsted. Good morning,” booms a familiar voice.
Richardson is wearing a capacious tweed ulster that emphasizes rather than hides his considerable girth. This is no longer the slender youth whom Olmsted met fifteen years ago; he now weighs close to three hundred pounds. His monumental proportions attest to his prodigious appetite for food and drink. With his dark, wavy hair parted in the middle, a full beard, and his sparkling eyes, he cuts a Falstaffian figure. Olmsted knows that despite his appearance of bonhomie, Richardson is far from healthy. He suffers from a hernia that sometimes incapacitates him for months on end. During these periods he directs his practice from the second-floor bedroom. This morning, however, he is mobile and beams with good humor.
“I see that you’re looking at B-B-Bryant’s house. It’s simple, but I think it has turned out well. We will start building in the spring.”
“You’re kind to do this for Charlotte and John. I can see that you’re busy.”
“We are that,” Richardson answers contentedly. “Charles Eliot of Harvard College liked Sever Hall so much that he has been talking about a new building for the l-law school.” He speaks in fast bursts, but still occasionally stutters. “If we get the job, I may have to bring in more boys to help me. I want to build a large space over here with skylights where we can exhibit drawings and beyond it a private studio for myself.” His arm sweeps out, describing his plans. “With a big fireplace-brr, it’s cold in here. Why don’t we go in the house. My morning walk has given me an appetite. I do believe that cook has made a special b-breakfast in your honor.”
Olmsted notices a pool of melted snow at Richardson’s feet.
“Don’t tell me that you were outside. It must have been hard going with the snowfall we had during the night.”
“Not at all. The town has a man who plows the streets. Didn’t you hear his team passing by the house this morning?”
“This is a civilized community!” Olmsted exclaims. “Brookline appeals to me—I ought to live here. I’ve thought about it a lot. The Boston parks are going well and I will be busy with them for years. There’s nothing to hold me in New York, and the longer I stay away from the city, the better I feel.”
“That’s what I k-keep telling you! Do what I did. Move. But not till we’ve had breakfast.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Fairstead
IN THE SUMMER OF 1881 Olmsted put his New York house up for rent. He, Mary, and the children moved to a leased house in Brookline. Added to the attractions—the civility of the town, friendships, greater professional opportunities, a return to his New England roots—was the escape from New York. The reminders of his personal defeat weighed heavily on him. “You can have no idea what a drag life has been to me for three years or more,” he wrote to Brace. “I did not appreciate it myself until I began last summer to get better. The turning point appears to have been our abandonment of New York.” Three years!
He did not leave quietly. After settling in Brookline, he wrote a pamphlet telling his side of the Central Park affair. The Spoils of the Park: With a Few Leaves from the Deep-laden Note-books of a “Wholly Impractical Man” appeared the following year. The tone was sarcastic rather than bitter. He included many examples of the political patronage, corruption, and sheer ignorance that had marked his tenure in the Department of Public Parks.
The president once notified me that a friend of his was to come before the Board as spokesman for a “delegation” of citizens, to advocate the introduction of a running-course on the Park.1 He would ask me to explain some of the objections to the project, but hoped that I would do so in a way as little likely to provoke the gentleman as possible, as he had great weight in politics, and it would be in his power to much embarrass the Department. I followed these instructions as I best could; but it was impossible for me not to refer to the landscape considerations. At the first mention of the word the gentleman exclaimed, and by no means “aside,” “Oh, damn the landscape!” then, rising, he addressed the president to this effect: “We came here, sir, as practical men, to discuss with your Board a simple, practical, common-sense question. We don’t know any thing about your landscape, and we don’t know what landscape has to do with the matter before us.”
A Clearing In The Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Cent Page 38