SUMMER 2002 NUMBER 2 FROM THE LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE HISTORY A MODERN ARCADIA Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and the Plan for Forest Hills Gardens When urban historian Susan L. Klaus first visited Forest Hills Gardens, she could scarcely believe her eyes. Tidy lawns, tree-lined streets, parks, and a villagelike atmosphere of Arts and Crafts buildings offered a compelling contrast to the commercial sprawl just a few blocks away. Even the cars seemed to drive more slowly, as though they too belonged to a different era. Many sections of the 142-acre Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. plotting the 39th parallel through the Rockies, 1894. Courtesy The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted. Queens, New York, suburb precisely echoed drawings by its designers, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (1870–1957) and architect Grosvenor Atterbury (1869–1956). When Klaus discovered that Forest Hills Gardens had never been the subject of scholarly study, she approached LALH with the idea of writing a book that examined the historic subdivision in the context of the Progressive Era ideals then influencing land- scape architecture. Klaus intended to focus particular attention on the role of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., son of the legendary land- scape architect, whose planning career had also escaped scholarly study. Nearly ten years of research and writing have resulted in a richly informative text that interweaves several strands of planning and landscape architectural history. Village Green, Forest Hills Gardens, 2001. Photograph by Carol Betsch. CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 VIEW FROM THE DIRECTOR’S OFFICE his past year—our tenth—has brought change and growth to TLALH. Our perceptions have been sharpened by a heightened sense of the power of place and the staggering range of human emo- tions that landscape can encompass and express. We have been vividly reminded that it is human nature to search for meaning in place and to honor land that bears witness to signal events, even catastrophic ones. After a decade of spirited and generous leadership, Nancy R. Turner has retired as president of the LALH board, but will remain an active trustee. John Franklin Miller, president of Edsel and Eleanor Ford House, Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich., will succeed Nancy as the new president. Our founding president has given us an extraordinary start and we thank her deeply for it. We also welcome three distinguished new trustees to our growing board—Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, founder of the Central Park Conservancy, Daniel J. Nadenicek, professor of landscape architecture, Clemson University, and Michael C. Jefcoat, of Laurel, Mississippi. effect of nature emerges as a dominant theme in two new volumes in And we proudly welcome three new LALH advisers: Dan Kiley, the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series by Wilhelm Miller and H. W. S. Witold Rybczynski, and Robert A. M. Stern. We are very pleased Cleveland, which emphasize the importance of scenic resources to to announce that Molly Turner, executive director of the Viburnum American culture. New introductions by leading scholars shed light Foundation, sponsor of the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series, has on the early quest for an American style of landscape design. Charles joined the LALH Planning Committee. Three new LALH books, C. McLaughlin’s introduction to another reprint, Olmsted Sr.’s a website, new collaborations with public partners, and new venues Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England (1852 edition), for our touring exhibition also figure among the highlights of the examines the galvanizing impact of the English countryside on the past year. young farmer who was to become the most influential North In November, the American Society of Landscape Architects American landscape practitioner ever. presented LALH with a Merit Award in Communications for Pioneers Through your generosity, we continue to develop and publish of American Landscape Design. We congratulate our fellow recipients of books that illuminate the history of significant North American this award, Charles A. Birnbaum of the Historic Landscape Initiative, landscapes. To the many contributors whose financial support makes National Park Service, and Catha Grace Rambusch, director of the our work possible, thank you! Catalog of Landscape Records in the United States at Wave Hill. A Modern Arcadia: Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and the Plan for Forest Hills Gardens, a new LALH monograph by Susan L. Klaus, is garnering strong reviews and wide publicity. In this richly illustrated Robin Karson book Klaus traces the development of the Queens, N.Y., garden suburb Executive Director from its Progressive Era roots through the 1920s. The rejuvenating LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE HISTORY, a not-for-profit corporation, produces books and exhibitions about North American landscapes and the individuals who created them. Our mission is to educate and thereby promote thoughtful stewardship of the land. LALH books are published in association with university and trade presses. We maintain an ongoing book series with the University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst. P.O. Box 1323 View is distributed to 20,000 individuals and Amherst, Massachusetts organizations in North America and is posted 01004-1323 on our new website, www.LALH.org. (413) 549-4860 Audience attending June 2001 lectures by LALH authors Judith B. Tankard and (413) 549-3961 fax Rebecca Warren Davidson, Longfellow National Historic Site, Cambridge, Mass. www.LALH.org 2 VIEW CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 By 1909, “Rick” Olmsted had emerged The public spaces at Forest Hills Forest Hills Gardens, ca. 1909, was the as a preeminent force in the profession his Gardens also contribute to the parklike brainchild of Robert de Forest, the director father had helped found and in the new ambiance. Primary among them is the of the newly formed Russell Sage Foundation. science of city planning. Klaus’s research 3 1/2-acre Village Green, which provides a De Forest and the chief designers he selected contrasts differences between the elder cohesive center to the village and a setting for the project, Olmsted and Atterbury, Olmsted’s approach at Riverside, Illinois, for events such as the annual Fourth of July fervently hoped to demonstrate that good and that of his son. Klaus writes movingly pageant. To establish neighborhood identity, design and comprehensive planning were both of the slow decline of Olmsted Sr., who died Olmsted also laid out smaller parks through- practical and profitable and that Forest Hills in 1903, and his son’s coming of age as a out the suburb, providing landscape designs Plan and elevation, Group VI-A, Forest Hills Gardens. From Architecture, August 1916. Courtesy Rockefeller Archive Center. Gardens could provide a model alternative to forceful and highly original landscape archi- for each of them and for the major streets, increasingly unhealthy living conditions in tect in the century’s early years. which are lined with shade trees. Narrower American cities. The burgeoning middle class In Klaus’s view, the most important streets feature more floriferous species, such desperately needed housing and, by 1909, the design element at Forest Hills Gardens was as dogwood, magnolia, and hawthorn. In Country Life movement had created a wide- Olmsted Jr.’s brilliant street plan. The City several instances, homeowners hired Olmsted spread desire for fresh air and the social cachet Beautiful formality that structures Station to prepare landscape plans for private lots that country living brought. If the experiment Square soon gives way, in the designer’s which included detailed planting plans of worked, its backers reasoned, similar projects words, to the appearance of a “kind of flower and vegetable gardens. would be built throughout the United States. accidental plan which has generally resulted By the early 1920s, Forest Hills Gardens The trio decided that comprehensive from unpremeditated city growth, combining had attracted shopkeepers, artists, doctors, planning was the key to success. At Forest straight streets with subtle deflections, bends and business owners. There were even a few Hills Gardens, the site plan, street layout, and variations in width.” Rather than termi- celebrities, including author Dale Carnegie major building groups, open spaces, utilities, nating abruptly, glimpses down these streets and the designer Frederic Goudy. (Later, designs for architecture and landscape, and disappear, fostering a sense of domesticity former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine administrative regulations to govern future and the illusion of organic development over Ferraro and the fictional character Peter development were to be integrated from the time. The irregularities provide visual buffers Parker, aka Spider-Man, would take up very start. Despite high costs (nearly $6,000 and work to calm traffic, as well. residence.) In the early years, village schools, per acre, owing to the construction of the shops, and a church Long Island Rail Road), a large parcel of brought like-minded, former farmland was purchased and the primarily white collaboration moved forward with speed Protestant residents and efficiency. together. Unwritten Atterbury was a passionate housing restrictions that prohib- reform advocate who brought English ited Jews and African Garden City-inspired notions to the project. Americans from own- His designs for its major buildings incorpo- ing property in Forest rated an eclectic mix of architectural styles Hills Gardens were that evoked associations with medieval abolished and an European universities and feudal villages increasingly diverse in England. Atterbury also utilized European population eventually ideas about mixing commercial and residen- settled there. tial buildings and combining residences into Although Forest row houses and semidetached units to Hills Gardens did not achieve greater population density. Careful fulfill financial expec- Arts and Crafts detailing and unusually rich tations (by the time materials and colors proved appealing to the foundation sold prospective buyers, and the houses sold well. Climbing roses, Greenway Terrace, Forest Hills Gardens. Courtesy Rockefeller Archive Center. CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 VIEW 3 LALH BOOKS ALH’s books are intended for professional and general readers.