SHORTLY AFTER OLMSTED ARRIVED in New York from California, Godkin asked him to become associate editor of his weekly newspaper, now in full swing. Olmsted accepted. Godkin, in turn, was delighted. He informed his stockholders that “[Olmsted’s] reputation is such that his connection with the paper would, I am satisfied, strengthen it with the public, and there is no person whose judgment and sagacity in journalism as in other fields I esteem more highly.”
As associate editor, Olmsted solicited articles, corresponded with contributors, and set policy. “We go over all the editorial matter together,” wrote Godkin, “so that he is in fact, as well as in name, responsible for all it contains.” Olmsted was listed among the “regular or occasional contributors.” Authors were not identified, so it is difficult to attribute specific articles to Olmsted. A reference in “The Week” to A Journey Through Texas must have originated with him; an editorial titled “The Progress of Horticulture” reads like Olmsted; the slightly cranky “Why Are Our Railroads not Luxurious?” reminds me of his earlier complaints about Southern hotels. Olmsted’s editorial voice—if not, indeed, his pen—was probably responsible for “Health in Great Cities” in the May 11, 1866, issue, as well as an earlier editorial titled “The Future of Great Cities.”
The Nation—as the paper was called—consisted of thirty-two densely packed pages of reporting, opinion, and criticism, and sold for fifteen cents.1 Each issue began with a section titled “The Week,” which reviewed the national press and commented on the events of the previous seven days. This was followed by editorials, articles, literary notes, poetry, and book reviews. There were several regular features: letters from London and Paris; “The South As It Is,” written by a traveling correspondent obviously inspired by Yeoman; and a “Financial Review” column (preceded by a carefully worded disclaimer). Some of the people who wrote for the journal at this time included Longfellow, Lowell, Henry James, and John Greenleaf Whittier, as well as Norton, Bellows, and Charles Brace. The tone of the self-styled “Weekly Journal of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art” was progressive, bright, opinionated. It was not a runaway commercial success, but it quickly established itself as an influential periodical. “ ‘The Nation’ is a weekly comfort and satisfaction,” Norton wrote Godkin. “I hear nothing but good of it. Emerson . . . spoke to me last week in warmest terms of its excellence, its superiority to any other journal we have or have had.”
The working capital for The Nation had been raised among forty stockholders. These included fervent abolitionists who became displeased with Godkin and Olmsted’s moderate stance on Reconstruction and threatened to withdraw their support if the editorial direction did not change. In July 1866 Godkin, unable to mollify them and unwilling to alter his politics, took preemptive action. He liquidated the publishing company, raised new funds, and paid off the investors. He then formed a new company with only three owners: himself (holding three-sixths of the shares); the original backer, James Miller McKim (two-sixths); and Olmsted (one-sixth). This placed control of the paper in the hands of the two editors, something advocated by Olmsted. But his tenure as associate editor was short-lived. As the summer wore on and Prospect Park and other work consumed more and more of his time, he withdrew from the world of journalism that he loved so dearly. He did continue as part-owner of the Nation for another five years and remained lifelong friends with Godkin.
Olmsted still found time for extracurricular activities. In January 1867 he joined several friends, including Howard Potter, to mount an effort to combat a disastrous famine in the Southern states. He had been critical of Southern society, but now that the war was over, he felt a different sense of responsibility. As a member of the executive committee of the Southern Famine Relief Commission, he wrote the reports and used his newspaper contacts to raise public awareness and support. At this time he also learned his plans for Yo Semite had been sabotaged. He had left a copy of the final report with his fellow commissioners, who were to submit it to the governor. Without informing Olmsted, they decided that his recommendations were too expensive and shelved the report. He resigned in disgust.
• • • •
The Nation carried several pages of advertisements. Next to William Bradbury’s Pianos and B. T. Babbit’s medicinal Saleratus was the following announcement:
Olmsted, Vaux & Co.,
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS.
The undersigned have associated under the above title for the business of furnishing advice on all matters of location, and Designs and Superintendence for Buildings and Grounds and other Architectural and Engineering Works, including the Laying-out of Towns, Villages, Parks, Cemeteries, and Gardens.
FRED. LAW OLMSTED,
CALVERT VAUX,
FRED’K C. WITHERS.
Towns, villages, parks—an ambitious range of services. In fact, the business of Olmsted, Vaux & Co. included all this. The firm undertook a dozen large commissions during its first two years of operation. The plans for the College of California were completed although work did not begin immediately (a few years later the college ran into financial difficulties and the Berkeley site was transferred to the newly established University of California, which did not adopt the design). Olmsted and Vaux drew up campus plans for the new Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst and designed a layout for a residential subdivision in Long Branch, New Jersey. They prepared preliminary reports for major parks in Newark and Philadelphia. But Prospect Park consumed their greatest energy. In the report that accompanied their initial plan, Olmsted and Vaux spelled out the range of their ambition:
We regard Brooklyn as an integral part of what to-day is the metropolis of the nation, and in the future will be the centre of exchanges for the world, and the park in Brooklyn, as part of a system of grounds, of which the Central Park is a single feature, designed for the recreation of the whole people of the metropolis and their customers and guests from all parts of the world for centuries to come.
This struck a chord with James Stranahan, the president of the board. An exceptionally farsighted individual, he would, a few years later, be one of the prime movers behind the Brooklyn Bridge. He would also serve as vice president of the commission that led to the creation of Greater New York. He encouraged Olmsted and Vaux to expand the scope of their planning and examine how streets leading to the park could be improved. In their second annual report they concluded that it would be expensive for the city to widen streets in the already occupied areas west and north of the park, but that such improvements could economically be undertaken on unbuilt suburban land. Even if an approach road were not built immediately, they observed, “the ground might be secured and the city map modified with reference to its construction in the future.” This suggestion intrigued Stranahan and the board. Public meetings were held. A topographic survey was made. Olmsted and Vaux were requested to prepare more detailed studies.
Their next report (1868) began by arguing that the chief advantage of Brooklyn was its capacity to grow. “The city of New York is, in regard to building space, in the condition of a walled town,” they wrote. “Brooklyn is New York outside the walls.” They foretold a change in the functional organization of the city: a greater separation between the center, which would be devoted to business, and the residential neighborhoods in the suburbs. This peripheral growth would make access to the countryside difficult, increasing the need for recreational space within the city.
The report observed that “the present street system, not only of Brooklyn but of other large towns, has serious defects for which, sooner or later, if these towns should continue to advance in wealth, remedies must be devised, the cost of which will be extravagantly increased by a long delay in the determination of the outlines.” The chief drawback, according to Olmsted, was the undifferentiated grid plan with its network of intersecting, uniform streets. He had already spelled out his opposition to this characteristic nineteenth-century device in his report on San Francisco. “On a level plain, like the city of Philadelphia, a series of streets at right-angles to each other is perfectly feasible, and the design is as simple in execution as it appears on paper,” he had written, “but even where the circumstances of site are favorable [emphasis added] for this formal and repetitive arrangement, it presents a dull and inartistic appearance, and in such a hilly position as that of San Francisco, it is very inappropriate.”
Olmsted and Vaux proposed modifying the grid. Their solution was a new kind a street, part avenue and part green space. They called it a “Parkway.” The parkway was a 260-foot-wide avenue divided into five traffic lanes, each separated by a row of trees. The two outside lanes were reserved for commercial vehicles and gave access to the residential lots facing the parkway; the central carriageway was reserved for recreational traffic. Between the carriageway and the service roads were shaded pedestrian malls. Olmsted and Vaux also proposed that the next streets on each side of the parkway be widened to one hundred feet. These streets would be planted with double rows of trees so that “the house lots of these streets will be but little inferior to those immediately facing the Parkway.” In the rear of these lots they introduced a service lane, “convenient sites for stables being thus provided.” In total, this arrangement cut a 1,400-foot-wide green swath through the dense city.
The inspiration for the Brooklyn parkways is the Avenue de l’Impératrice (now the Avenue Foch) in Paris. The avenue opened in 1855; Olmsted saw it three years later in the company of its designer, Jean-Charles-Adolphe Alphand. The 330-foot-wide avenue, which led from the Place de l’Étoile to the Bois de Boulogne, incorporated a central carriageway flanked by a pedestrian mall on one side and a bridle path on the other. Side roads gave access to the villas that lined the avenue.
The Brooklyn parkways resembled the Avenue de l’Impératrice in cross section but not in length. The Parisian avenue was relatively short—only four-fifths of a mile. The Brooklyn parkways—like the San Francisco promenade—ran for several miles. One extended from Prospect Park to Coney Island, a distance of about six miles. Another, of similar length, connected the park to Fort Hamilton overlooking the Narrows. Here the report proposed a “marine promenade.” A third parkway was to reach the Ridgewood Reservoir, in the hills east of the city. The most ambitious parkway extended to Ravenswood, opposite present-day Roosevelt Island. The island would provide an easy crossing of the East River by means of a ferry or a bridge.
. . . connection may thus be had with one of the broad streets leading directly into the Central park, and thus with the system of somewhat similar sylvan roads leading northward, now being planned by the Commissioners of the central park. Such an arrangement would enable a carriage to be driven on the half of a summer’s day, through the most interesting parts of both of the cities of Brooklyn and New York, through their most attractive and characteristic suburbs, and through both their great parks; having a long stretch of the noble Hudson with the Palisades in the middle distance, and the Shawangunk range of mountains in the background, in view at one end, and the broad Atlantic with its foaming breakers rolling on the beach, at the other.
Two of the parkways were built: Ocean Parkway, connecting Prospect Park to Coney Island, and Eastern Parkway, stretching from Prospect Park as far as Crown Heights. The Ravenswood parkway was not realized. Although the grand vision of a pleasure drive stretching from the Palisades to the Atlantic Ocean remained stillborn, the parkway idea caught the imagination of the citizens of Brooklyn. Over the next fifty years, the city built more than thirty-eight miles of parkways.
The Narrows, New York
Thursday, June 20, 1867
It is late afternoon on a warm summer’s day. A steady stream of vessels fills the strait between Long Island and Staten Island, where the Hudson River spills into the Atlantic Ocean. Stolid square-riggers and graceful fore-and-aft schooners plow the choppy waters. Fast brigs and California clippers heel over in the brisk wind. A dark cloud of smoke from a transatlantic side-wheeler rises among the billowing sails. There are dozens of small vessels: coastal lighters, fishing boats, and steam-driven tugs towing heavily laden barges. All are headed in or out of Upper New York Bay, one of the great natural harbors in the world.
Well away from this traffic, a small rowboat makes its way along the Staten Island shore. Olmsted, in shirtsleeves, is sitting in the stern munching an apple. His lean face is deeply tanned from days spent outside, supervising work on the park. A sailor’s cap covers his balding head; it makes him look younger than his forty-five years. John, a sturdy boy with the delicate features of his father, is rowing. His brother Owen, a chubby nine-year-old, is curled up in the bow, sound asleep.
Towels and wet swimming costumes are draped over the bench. Olmsted has made it a summer habit to return home early, several afternoons a week, to take the two boys swimming. They have spent the last hour happily splashing about, and now they are returning home to Clifton. He treasures these little outings. While they were in California, he got used to spending time with the children. The previous year, his landscaping practice kept him away from home more than he liked, and he is being careful not to fall into his old work habits. He enjoys being on the water. It reminds him of boyhood summer holidays and boating on the Connecticut River with his brother. John was about fourteen then, too, he thinks, looking fondly at his stepson pulling intently on the oars.
The Narrows are less than a mile wide, and Fort Hamilton is clearly visible across the water. Beyond the commanding bulk of the fortification he can make out the rising ground that is Mount Prospect. The park commands most of his attention these days. The workforce has grown to more than a thousand men. They are making swift progress: the first of the three meadows is almost complete, and by the fall it will be open to the public. He is worried about damage to the new planting, but he cannot refuse the insistent Stranahan—it is thanks largely to him that the work on the park is going so smoothly.
“A little harder on the starboard oar, John,” he directs. “Try to keep Bedloe Island over my right shoulder.” The boat swings slightly as the boy dutifully alters direction. Olmsted notices the smoke from a paddleboat—the ferry from Brooklyn. He was on board a few hours ago after spending most of the day at the park. He finishes his apple and throws the core far into the water. A noisy group of seagulls swoops down, attracted by the splash. Owen wakes up, stretches, and sits up, looking across the bow of the rowboat.
“Look!” he cries excitedly, and waves.
Olmsted can see Mary and the two girls—Charlotte and little Marion—about a hundred feet away. He regards the small figure of his wife with affection. He is glad to see that she has come down to meet them—the sun and air do her good. Her health is finally improving. Last November she gave birth to a child. After a difficult delivery, the baby, a boy, lived only a few hours, not even long enough to be given a name. Mary’s recovery was slow—she is thirty-seven, after all, already old for childbearing, and this was her sixth child. She is so brave, he thinks. He was too worried about Mary to grieve for his nameless son, yet he feels the loss. Although he loves John and Owen, he had hoped for a boy of his own.
He takes off his sailor’s cap and halloos to the figures on the shore.
1. Starting on May 1, 1866, Godkin and Olmsted experimented with two installments of sixteen pages that appeared on Tuesdays and Fridays. After two months they reverted to a single weekly edition.