/"""i F> T? A T* T? O T* TODTT1? vjrKJbA 1 JtLo 1 I5oUM# AN OFFICIAL P LAN MUDD LIBRARY PUBLISHED BY ART The Chicago Plan Commission o! The City of Chicago JUNE 1911 K T&f Traffic and Transport & library \ »f Taul^Gray Hoffman HIS Pamphlet portrays what Chicago has — what it owes — what it is worth — what it is gaining — what it needs — what it should do. It is designed for easy reference and that all citizens of Chicago may study "THE PLAN OF CHICAGO," originally created at the request of and promoted by The Chicago Commercial Club — Later committed for study and development to The Chicago Plan Commission, created by the Mayor of Chicago in November, 1909. One hundred and sixty-five thousand copies of this edition -were printed in June, 1911, and distributed broadcast throughout the city. Additional copies may be had on written request from the Chicago Plan Commission's headquarters, Room 314, Hotel La Salle, Chicago. CHICAGO IN 1846. POPULATION, 14,169. (Original owned by tho Chicago Historical Society.) CHICAGO'S GREATEST ISSUE AN OFFICIAL PLAN Prepared under the direction of The Chicago, Plan Commission, ? * » MAYOR CARTER H. HARRISON, Honorary President ex-ofhcio Charles H. Wacker, Chairman • Frank I. Bennett, Vice-Chairman Walter D. Moody, Managing Director The charts and pictures are used by courtesy of the Commercial Club of Chicago. The Chicago Plan Commission 1911 4- Copyright 1911 by THE CHICAGO PLAN COMMISSION of the CITY OF CHICAGO. Table of Contents Page Owners of Chicago 9 What the Chicago Plan Is 16 Plans for the Lake Front. 35 Forests for the People 46 Our Transportation Problem 47 Street Needs of Chicago 53 Building a Civic Center 64 The Cost, How to Divide It 71 Capitalizing the Chicago Spirit 76 How Other Great Cities are Building 79 Original Promoters of the Plan of Chicago 88 Members Chicago Plan Commission 89 List of Illustrations PAGE Chicago in 1846 2 View of the proposed development in the center of the city 8 South Water Street, Chicago, 1834 9 Chicago from the West, 1845 15 Corner Clark and South Water Streets, 1864 16 Chicago, general diagram of exterior highways encircling, or radiating from, the city 23 Plan of the quadrangle, bounded by Twelfth Street on the south, Halsted Street on the west, Chicago Avenue on the north and Michigan Avenue on the east 24 Proposed boulevard to connect the north and south sides of the river 26 Proposed Twelfth Street improvement at its intersections with Michigan Avenue and Ashland Avenue 28 Twelfth Street, the new plan 30 Michigan Avenue from Park Row, 1864 34 Chicago, park development proposed for the lake shore from Chicago Avenue on the north to Jackson Park on the south 36 View looking south over the lagoons of the proposed park for the south shore 38 Chicago, general map showing topography, waterways, and complete system of streets, boulevards, parkways and parks 42 Diagram of city center, showing the proposed arrangement of railroad pas senger stations, the complete traction system, including rapid transit, subway and elevated roads, and the circuit subway line 48 Diagram of the city center, showing the general location of existing freight yards and railroad lines, the present tunnel system and proposed circuit, and connections for all these services, running to the central clearing yards 49 Plan of the center of the city, showing the present and proposed street and boulevard system 54 Plan of the complete system of street circulation; railway stations; parks; boulevard circuits and radial arteries; public recreation piers; yacht harbor and pleasure boat piers; treatment of Grant Park; the main axis and the civic center 60 View, looking west, of tlie proposed civic center plaza and buildings 65 The business center of the city, within the first circuit boulevard 67 View looking west over the city, showing the proposed civic center, the grand axis, Grant Park and the harbor 69 The transformation of Paris under Haussmann, plan showing the portion executed from 1854 to 1889 '. 80 The Chicago Plan Commission ©ffirers MAYOR CARTER H. HARRISON, Honorary President ex-officio. Charles H. Wacker, Chairman. Frank I. Bennett, Vice-Chairman. Walter D. . Moody, Managing Director. ?Ex?ruttve (Eomauttpp - Charles H. A. O Bartlett Frank I. Bennett Edward B. Butler Clyde M. Carr John J. Coughlin Frederic A. Delano John V. Fakweli, Albert J. Fisher Andrew J. Graham Richard C. Hall W. D. Kerfoot Theodore K. Long Dr. J. B. McFatrich Wacker, Chairman. Walter D. Moody Joy Morton John Powers Peter Reinberg Julius Rosenwald James Simpson John F. Smulski Bernard W. Snow Charles H. Thorne Harvey T. Weeks Harry A. Wheeler W. A. Wieboldt Walter H. Wilson Michael Zimmer Headquarters Chicago Plan Commission, Room 314, Hotel LaSalle. Telephone Franklin 700— Room 314 Chic tenter Grant Paid KdiguAv Halsted SL CHICAGO. View of the proposed development in the center of the city, from Twenty-second Street to Chicago Avenue, looking towards the east over the Civic Center to Grant Park and Lake Michigan. From a painting for the Commercial Club by Jules Guerin. (Copyrighted by the Commercial Club of Chicago.) SOUTH WATER STREET, CHICAGO, 1834. It is almost incredible that Chicago has grown from a settlement of ten buildings to a great city of 2,250,000 inhabitants in the short span of 76 years. [Original owned by the Chicago Historical Society.] Owners of Chicago. >]^§ET us, as owners of the great corporation known as the City of Chicago, devote a few minutes of our busy lives to taking stock. Let us see just what we have, what we owe, what we are gaining, what our city is worth to us and what to do to make this big property of ours more valuable to ourselves and for our children. Cities, like private enterprises, must move forward with the times. Shall we permit our competitors at home and abroad to outrival us in the march of progress? What other cities are doing Chicago must do to hold her commercial supremacy and maintain her rightful position in the front ranks of the world's great arenas of commerce, art, science, s beauty and health. London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna and New York have each set the pace for greater development — newer and better things. . Chicago must be aroused and shake off her lethargy of indifference and self-satisfaction born in the hurly-burly of success in other days. Let us pause, catch our breath and take a glimpse of the future. What must we do to safe guard, and add to the greatest natural heritage bequeathed to any world city — unrivaled geographical location? It is not a question of what we are and what we have become — but, of what we should be, and what we may become. The only right way to solve this problem is to stop right where we are and determine to break the bondage of vanity and self-praise while honestly inquiring of ourselves as citi zens, what manner of stewards are we? In beginning this task, let us imagine ourselves grouped around a great table as. long and as wide as our city. Let us take up the latest expert reports of the worth of the prop erty we own in common. First we will take the city itself, because it seems nearest to us. Are you surprised to be told you are an equal owner in $200,000,000 of property there? ' Then the county property. It is worth $25,000,000 cash. The sanitary district next. Its property would bring $45,000,000 on the market. The parks. Subdivide them, cut them up in lots, and they would sell for at least $150,000,000. Add these sums up, and we find ourselves today with actual cash assets of $420,000,000. We could sell out today, we find, and have $1,000 cash for every voter in Cook County. Facts — and conservatively stated. When we think of these things, and remember all that property is ours — a great fortune we are to leave to our children — we begin to feel a new responsibility and a new pride in being citizens of Chicago. We feel that we ought to handle that property well, don't we, and increase its value if we can? Now for the other side of the ledger. What do we owe? The books are brought in, spread upon the table, and we find our total bonded debt is only $25 for each of us. And we find, too, that we have many years to pay even this small debt, which includes the sanitary district, park and World's. Fair bonds. We are reminded by somebody about the table that our family debt, though small, may be greater than the debt of other city families. So we ask about this, and we are 10 astonished and relieved to learn that of the sixteen largest cities in the United States only one has a smaller debt for each citizen than Chicago. We stand on the list be tween Milwaukee with $28.56 and Detroit with $18.78 per capita. The following figures, taking from Appleton's Year Book, 1910, indicate Chicago's indebtedness per capita in relation to the sixteen largest cities in the United States: Population Indebtedness Per Cities 1910 1910 Capita New York 4,766,833 $1,014,626,356 $212.85 , Boston 670,585 110,769,073 165.17 ' Cincinnati 364,463 51,323,518 140.81 New Orleans 339,075 27,324,360 80.58 Newark, N. J 347,469 25,674,200 73.91 Pittsburg 533,905 37,802,787 70.80 Baltimore 558,485 36,847,457 65.97 Cleveland 560,663 36,847,457 65.72 Philadelphia 1,549,008 95,483,820 61.64 Buffalo 423,715 24,694,901 58.28 San Francisco 416,912 16,105,800 38.63 St. Louis 687,029 24,389,312 35.49 Washington 331,069 9,494,800 28.67 Milwaukee 353,857 10,107,000 28.56 CHICAGO 2,185,283 56,101,674 25.66 Detroit 465,766 8,749,000 18.78 CHICAGO'S TOTAL INDEBTEDNESS ENUMERATED. Park Bonds $11,009,000 Sanitary Bonds 20,645,000 Total $31,654,000 per capita $14.48 Municipal Debt 24,447,674 per capita 1 1.18 Grand Total $56,101,674 per capita $25.66 This table, showing the indebtedness of Uncle Sam's large cities, indicates that Chicago has not been extravagant. Comparing our public improvements and our expenditures with the other cities shown, it also indicates that "we cannot get something for nothing." Chicago is a great business enterprise worth $420,000,000 with an annual earning power of upwards of $45,000,000, besides an additional rev enue may be had of many millions under its bonding power. At the close of the year 1910 there was $20,000,000 in the public treasury representing various unexpended appro priations. This great corporation of ours in which we are all interested cannot be expected to stand still ; investments n must be made for necessary present improvements and in anticipation of future growth. Next comes the question as to what we are gaining in numbers. Sixty-five thousand a year for the last forty years is the answer. Uncle Sam gives it to us through his census re ports. He adds that in counting his nephews and nieces in 1910, he found they were gathering more and more every year in his cities. Forty of every hundred Americans now live in cities, the figures say, and twelve of every hundred live in the three cities of New York, Chicago and Phila delphia. Those statements mean to us that it is a sure and certain thing that city growth is to continue, and we begin to figure on how fast Chicago is likely to grow. Most of us who were born in America, and who are not native Chicagoans, came from nearby places. It is fair for us to assume, then, that it is from nearby places that Chicago will draw her new-coming Americans. "How many are near Chicago now?" we ask. We get the surprising reply that fifty million people, the bulk of a great nation, live within a night's ride of our city. When we sense these facts each of us begins to have a new pride in Chicago. We remind ourselves that mere bigness in a city is no longer the demand of Americans, but that we are demanding now that each year our cities shall be better places to live in, and we get down to figuring out what our city is worth to us in our lives and our happiness. We begin to look to Chicago's future, and to be interested in our real part and our real duty in conducting this $420,- 000,000 Chicago of ours. Now at this great meeting of the multitude making up Chicago, hundreds of men arise to talk to us, as fellow owners, about the right things to do to make Chicago what we all would have it. Let us listen to one of these men, talking to the people of his own neighborhood at their section of the great imag- 12 inary table where we have gathered to discuss Chicago's business. "You live in Chicago, don't you?" queries the speaker. "You have your business here?" "You work here, don't you?" - "You are loyal to Chicago — for her, heart and soul— aren't you?" "You want to see Chicago the best city it can be. Isn't that true?" "You want to see it clean — and convenient — and health ful — and attractive — and prosperous — and safe. You want to see it just as right for your comfort and success as it can be made today, don't you?" "You want the future Chicago to be better than the past, if it can be, don't you? better for your children to be born, live, work, marry and succeed in?" "If you were making a new Chicago today — if you had power to turn the wheels of time back forty of the seventy- five years of Chicago's short life, you would make some changes, wouldn't you?" "Now some of us — plain men, business men, practical men — have been interested in the changes necessary," the speaker goes on to say. "We believe we have a way to make the changes needed — easy, sensible, simple to under take. We have had the world's ablest architects at work for years. We have worked night and day ourselves. We have spent over a hundred thousand dollars, and we believe we have created a way to make Chicago a better city for everybody." "This has been referred to as a dream," suggests some one about the table. "Yes," continues the speaker, "it is a dream — just such a dream as the new LaSalle and Blackstone Hotels present in contrast to the old Tremont House — a dream such as the new Chicago & Northwestern twenty-million-dollar passenger terminal presents in contrast to the old North western station at Wells Street." "We want to suggest our plan to you right now," the speaker concludes, "and we want you to study our sug- 13 gestion. If you like it — if it will do what we say it will do — we ask only that you approve of it and that work be begun upon our plan right away, so that Chicago may not have to spend millions in the future where thousands will do the work today. If it can be improved upon, we want that improvement made, for it is not a hard and fast prop osition. Any changes anybody can suggest ought to be given thought, but let us get together again, in the same spirit that immortalized Chicago in the birth of her great World's Fair, and make Chicago the best, as well as the biggest, of all our great American cities." Present conditions in Chicago — lack of order in city building, coupled with the lack of many great necessities, are an. outgrowth of a natural condition. For upwards of fifty years or more the people of Chicago for the most part were struggling in their efforts to build up successful busi ness enterprises. Our people were without large means. The first duty of every individual is to safeguard and pro mote his own business, but when individual success is as sured attention should then be directed to the public wel fare. Neglect of the citizen to give some of time, some of thought and some of money to public good, if widely dis tributed, would mean disaster to the community. Having become prosperous, we should now earnestly di rect our attention to solving our many perplexing problems, which have crowded in upon us seemingly all at once — the building of a subway — construction of outer harbors — realization of a proper housing plan — and the development of a city plan as a whole. Provision is made in the Plan of Chicago which affords a solution of practically all of these things. As citizens of Chicago we would be enthused by that kind of a speech, would we not? We would be impressed, too, and would determine to give careful attention to the ideas advanced by those speakers. That determination brings us face to face with a patriotic, non-political and non-partisan, all-Chicago issue, and with the work of the 14 Chicago Plan Commission — a body of three hundred and twenty-eight sound, hard-headed Chicago business men, drawn from all classes and representing all interests, and working today to benefit all the people of Chicago in all the years and centuries to come. CHICAGO IN 1845. FROM THE "WEST. Population 12,08 [Original owned by the Chicago Historical Society.] An individual never attains any very great size mentally nor morally except as he attaches himself to a great 9 idea, and that idea, being worthy, grows with him until the stature of tbe man becomes equal to the stature of the idea to which he has attached himself A 15 CORNER CLARK AND SOUTH WATER STREETS, 1864. Population 169,353. [Original owned by the Chicago Historical Society.] What the Chicago Plan is. The characteristic of greatness is wisdom to anticipate the future while conserving the present. IHAT is the Chicago Plan? It is a plan' to direct the future growth of the city in an orderly, systematic way. What is its object? To make Chicago a real, centralized city in stead of a group of overcrowded, overgrown villages. What does it mean? • That by properly solving Chicago's problems of trans portation, street congestion, recreation and public health the city may. grow indefinitely in wealth and commerce, and hold her position among the great cities of the world. Above everything else it is concerned with the three most vital problems confronting every metropolitan community — congestion, traffic and .public health. The easy and con venient movement of traffic facilitates business, while the chief concern of any city is the public health of its citizens — its greatest asset. The Chicago Plan demands — in the 16 interest of the latter — more and larger parks and play grounds and better and wider streets. The conservation of natural resources as a national asset of prime importance is occupying the serious attention of the government, as we all know, but what is more important than the conservation of public health, especially in large cities? Every human life is a national asset and should be care fully preserved. It is a matter of governmental record in countries where conscription to army service is compulsory that the physique of the city dwellers is degenerating, so that only a relatively small percentage of those living in congested cities are able to measure up to the strict requirements for military service. Germany is alarmed on account of this condition and ¦ has begun a wide movement to intelligently and systematic ally direct proper city plans for bettering present conditions and for future growth. England found that during the Boer war only a small percentage of recruits from large cities offering themselves for service in the army were physically fit. The United States during the Spanish-American war found the same condition of affairs existed to a very alarm ing extent. We can all remember the publicity given to the large number of rejections of recruits offering themselves for service from our large cities. In the United States at the time of the Civil War only 3% of the population lived in cities. In 50 years this has increased to more than 40%. In the past the problem con fronting, our people in the rapidly growing cities was to provide gas, electric light, pure water, adequate schools and scientifically equipped and conducted public institutions for the sick and improvident. The problem of our great cities today and for the next generation, is to provide light, air, ample means for healthful recreation, relief from conges tion, facilitation of traffic, housing of the poor, scientific organization of charities, better public improvements and attractive surroundings to the multitudes swarming to the cities. Right city planning is basic. A proper plan of- 17 ficially adopted and realized for the direction of the growth of a city in an orderly and systematic way practically affords a complete solution of the problems confronting our great municipalities. Such is the Plan of Chicago. What are we as citizens to do to promote it? First we are to study it that we may understand it. When that is accomplished we are to make it clearly and distinctively our ideal. We are to bid good-bye to pro vincialism that calls itself "community patriotism," and thinks itself loyal because it sneers at the efforts- of every other city to solve their problems, while ignoring its own. We are to break the bonds of civic paresis and come to un derstand that wise and great as we are in Chicago, we are not so wise but that we can learn something in city plan ning from France, from Germany, from England and from our own American cities — nor so great but that we should enhance our greatness by the kind of wisdom which respects civic advance wherever it may be found. We are to look forward to the time when all barriers to the Plan of Chi cago will be broken down in the broad spirit that an in jury to one is an injury to all, and that the well being of one promotes the well being of all. We are to make the PLAN our ideal and to put it before us and dare to recog nize it and to BELIEVE in it and to build for it. We are to forecast the time when it will seem as extraordinary not to have an official plan toward which to direct the growth of our city as it now seems that Chicago was ever allowed to be worked out like an ill-patched crazy quilt. We are to establish by the influence and work of a united citizen ship the power of law necessary for Chicago's advance com mensurate with her greatness. It requires only sufficient local patriotism to substitute order for disorder, and. rea son, common sense and action for negligence, indifference and inertia. Let us bear in mind the vital point that forty per cent of all the people of the United States are now living in cities ; twelve per cent, as stated, live in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. Medical authorities assert that the physical condition of men in cities "as compared with that 18 of men in the country" is deteriorating and gradually be coming more deficient. There is a great public responsi bility resting upon the metropolitan municipality in pro viding adequate means for recreation and the health of its citizens that physical efficiency may be maintained, thereby adding tremendously to the composite earning power of the community. Thus it will be seen that aside from the humanitarian and practical necessity for right city build ing there is a decided commercial asset in right planning that should not be lightly set aside. We designate the life of Chicago as being 75 years, but it might be more properly figured as 40 years, for within two generations we have added in round numbers 2,000,000 members to our great family. In all likelihood we shall have a population of 4,000,000 twenty years from today. A single generation is a short span in the life of a great and growing city. The majority of our big family will live to see the year 1930. What, then, do we propose to do to sur round ourselves, our children and their children with attractive conditions — comfort, convenience, means of recre ation, health and happiness? Again answering the question, "What does it mean?" Municipal economy is of prime importance. Lack of order and extravagance go hand in hand. It is as neces sary to build a city in accordance with a well laid out plan as it is in building a house or in having a model for the making of a garment. In the twenty-five years ending with 1906 more than $222,000,000 of the taxpayers' money were spent for extraor dinary betterments and improvements. This colossal item affords startling evidence of what might have been accom plished toward the realization of a plan such as we are urg ing had the city adopted an official plan a generation ago. Many millions may yet be saved hy carrying out this work before property values appreciate still higher and by securing cohesion of all interests, such as the park com missions, forest preserve commission and other powers, in carrying out their future work according to a set plan. 19 Who is handling the Chicago Plan? That is being done by the Chicago Plan Commission, a great representative body of men appointed by Mayor Fred A. Busse in November, 1909, who placed in charge as permanent chairman Mr. Charles H. Wacker. At the first meeting of the Commission held in the City Council Chamber, November 4, 1909, Mr. Frank I. Bennett was elected Vice-Chairman, and Mr. Henry Barrett Chamberlin, Secretary pro tern. The Commission is being actively supported in its work by the parent of the Chicago Plan movement, the Com mercial Club of Chicago, Edward B. Butler, chairman Plan Committee. In January, 1911, the Commission appointed as its man aging director, Mr. Walter D. Moody, formerly general manager of the Chicago Association of Commerce. How came the Commission to be established? It was done that the government of the city could under take and control the work of carrying out the plan for a centralized and improved city. This is with the approval of the governments of the state and county, and park sys tems — all our public bodies are supporting the Chicago Plan. Mayor Carter H. Harrison, like his predecessor, ex- Mayor Fred A. Busse, is in full accord with and has ap proved the work of the Chicago Plan Commission. The Plan of Chicago is a non-partisan all-Chicago issue. How and when was the Chicago Plan originated? The germ of the idea was the World's Columbian Ex position held in Chicago in 1893. Credit for first voicing this idea is given to Mr. Franklin MacVeagh, now secre tary of the national treasury, who in 1901 suggested it to the Commercial Club of Chicago. At almost the same time the Merchants' Club of Chicago became interested through Mr. Charles D. Norton, its president, and Mr. Frederic A. Delano. Work on the plan was formally un dertaken by the Merchants' Club in 1903, and was well on the way to development when the latter organization was merged with the Commercial Club under the name of the latter in 1907. 20 In that year the first Plan Committee of the Commercial Club was organized with Mr. Norton as Chairman and Mr. Charles H. Wacker as Vice Chairman. These two leaders of the plan movement retained their respective offices with each succeeding Plan Committee until the year 1909, when Mr. Norton resigned to take up his residence in Washington. Mr. Charles H. Wacker succeeded him as Chairman, which position he in turn vacated when he re ceived his appointment from the Mayor of Chicago as per manent Chairman of the Chicago Plan Commission at the time of its organization. Who worked out the Chicago Plan? For this great work of the actual drafting of a practical plan for Chicago's growth, the city was given, without any charge, the services of Mr. Daniel H. Burnham, architect. The genius of this world-renowned man was contributed to Chicago's good, and that at a time when other great cities, busy at planning betterments, were bidding tens of thousands of dollars for the services Chicago was getting for nothing. Mr. Burnham was assisted in his great work by his as sociate, Mr. Edward H. Bennett. What will the Chicago Plan mean for Chicago in a business way? Well, it will attract to Chicago millions of dollars now being spent annually in other cities. You do not mean the millions being spent each year in Europe by Americans, do you? No, possibly not in Europe, but by making Chicago healthful and as convenient, beautiful and attractive as Eu ropean cities, vast sums of money would be spent by our neighbors in the great Southern, Southwestern, Western and Northwestern sections of our own United States — who would visit Chicago with their families and friends and re main indefinitely as other Americans now visit and stay in definitely in Paris, Berlin and other attractive European cities. That's a commercial asset of incalculable value, isn't it? If we learn as we go, profiting by experience, both in 21 the matter of our mistakes as well as achievements, we must realize that the future will hold us responsible for the ful fillment of the demand for better surroundings, better utili ties, better hygienic conditions, better public improvements and greater comforts; for these always follow in the foot steps of increased commercial activity and wealth. What is it proposed to do to carry out the Chicago Plan? Before the plan was drawn careful study showed that Chicago has tended to grow in population in a southwest erly direction from the original Fort Dearborn at the mouth of Chicago river. This fact has been taken into consideration in looking to the probable future center of the city in the preparation of the general plan. A SYSTEM OF OUTER ROADWAYS AND HIGHWAYS ENCIRCLING THE CITY— To connect the various parts of Chicago with each other, with the center of the city and with outlying sections, is considered a great need. With the exception of five per cent, a perfect system of outer highways — called "turnpikes" in the old days — now exists. Partly disconnected roads form ninety-five per cent of the proposed system today. A study of the accompanying chart will show that circle No. 1 connects Winnetka, the northern lake terminal, with La Grange, Hinsdale, Blue Island and Orland, ending with Roby on the lake to the South. Circle No. 2 starts with Waukegan on the lake to the North, connecting that city with Libertyville, Lake Zurich, Elgin, Geneva, Aurora, Joliet, Chicago Heights, ending with Gary on the lake to the South. Circle No. 3 is also a lake terminal at Kenosha on the North and embraces Woodstock, Genoa, Sycamore, Morris, Momence, Kankakee and La Porte, finding its southern out let again on the lake at Michigan City. The Chicago Plan Commission proposes to enlist the aid of the various townships en route on these three circles in the construction of the connecting links, amounting as stated to but five per cent needed to complete these highways. Consider these circular roadways and their connection with 22 CHICAGO C.1J\'U< \l_ DIAC1! V\l 01 EXTERIOR HIGHWAY S ENCIRCLING \JsD RADIATING FROM THE CITS CHICAGO. General diagram of exterior highways encircling or radiating from the city. Ninety-five per cent of these arteries now exist. (Copyrighted by the Commercial Club of Chicago.) the proposed diagonal street system of our plan — the con venient and time saving feature of this system is apparent at a glance. Country turnpikes and their relationship to the metropolis should be inseparably interlinked and that is especially true in considering Chicago's welfare and her outlying suburban cities, when we realize that the popula tion of the twenty-four cities and villages on these circles amounts to 250,000, and will continue their growth in proportion to their relationship to the city of Chicago and its future development. DIAGONAL STREETS— One great element in the saving of time and labor in the transportation of people and merchandise in cities comes from the existence of di agonal streets, so traffic may, as we say, "cut across" instead 23 of moving" always at right angles. Milwaukee, Blue Island and Archer avenues are examples of such streets. The plan, then, looks to developing such streets to their greatest use fulness. Also it means, in time, the cutting of more such streets, particularly on the great west side of Chicago. CIRCUITS — Another idea of the plan is to establish several circuits of existing thoroughfares and to improve them so traffic can move freely and directly about the city's center. QUADRANGLE— The first constructive work of the jhi11HuUUUUUUlj CHICAGO. Plan of the quadrangle bounded by Twelfth Street on the South, Halsted Street on the West, Chicago Avenue on the North and Michigan Avenue on the East. These four streets are destined to bear the heaviest traffic of any thoroughfares in the city. The completion of the quadrangle means the construction of a substantial part of the main vertebra of the street circulation system. It is the purpose of the Chicago Plan Commission to complete this square as the first great necessary step in carrying out the plan as a whole. 24 Chicago Plan Commission — the foundation stone for all that is to follow — is to carry out the circuit idea by completing the great quadrangle formed by Twelfth street on the South, Halsted street on the West, Chicago avenue on the North and Michigan avenue on the East. These four streets are destined to bear the heaviest traffic of any streets in Chicago. The initial step will be to widen Twelfth street from Mich igan to Ashland avenue, the second to widen Michigan avenue from Randolph street North to connect with Chi cago avenue. Chicago avenue is sufficiently wide, so we come next to the completing link of the quadrangle — the widening of Halsted street. MICHIGAN AVENUE, a section of the quadrangle- It was found, is really the base line of the city's traffic. A great development of this avenue is proposed, to make it a great, wide street skirting the entire front of the city. This means widening the avenue from Randolph street to connect with Lincoln Park drive at Ohio street, and the construction of a wide, roomy concrete viaduct and bridge across the river. The bridge is to be a double deck, bascule structure, the upper deck for carriages and automobiles and the lower one for heavy traffic, with wide sidewalks above and below for pedestrians. Arrangements would be made to have east and west traffic of all kinds in the busy section near the river pass through this viaduct at about street grade. There is to be a gradual grade the entire width of the street from building line to building line, starting from Ran dolph street, reaching a maximum height of sixteen feet at the river crossing, then a gradual descent to Ohio street. This grade will be no more perceptible than is Jackson boulevard at the river. The grades suggested are less than those exist ing on Fifth avenue, New York. Imagine standing at the intersection of Randolph street and Michigan avenue and being able to follow with the eye the straightened course of that magnificent widened thoroughfare direct to Lin coln Park, where it would end in the lake at the intersection of Bellevue place. The completion of the North and South boulevard sys tem with this connecting link as shown in the cut on page 25 Randolph Street Chicago River CHICAGO. Proposed boulevard to connect the north and south sides of the river; view looking north from Washington Street. The boulevard is raised to allow free flow of east-and-west teaming traffic under, and both Michigan Avenue and Beaubien Court are raised to the boulevard level. The raised por tion throughout its entire length, from Randolph Street to Indiana Street, extends from building line to building line. It is approached from cross streets by inclined roadways or ramps; these may be changed to the east side or omitted. From a painting for the Commercial Club by Jules Guerin. (Copyrighted by the Commercial Club of Chicago.) 26 26 would give Chicago the most magnificent thorough fare in the world. The estimated cost of this work is less than six million dollars ; the value of its realization is ines timable. If there is one phase of the Plan of Chicago that every citizen should demand, it is the building of this con necting link. Its value as a Chicago asset would attract internationally wide attention. Property values in the im mediate section of this proposed improvement would be tremendously enhanced. Indirectly the benefit would be to the whole city, even to those of our citizens living in far remote sections. Attractiveness is a community asset shared in by all. It is not believed that there can be any serious objection on the part of any citizen, either directly or indirectly affected, to an improvement so palpably in the interests of all as the completion of the boulevard link as proposed. "Michigan avenue is more than the main connecting thoroughfare between the north and the south sides," as has been wjfeji said, "it is the great plaisance for office buildings, hotels, clubs, theatres, music halls and shops of the first order, lining the western side of the avenue. So desirable has property become, that the extension of it to the north must enhance the value of the abutting real estate, because of the increased opportunities for continuing the building of structures of the highest class." The property owners there should be the first to recognize their opportunity and co-operate to the fullest extent in this greatest of all needed street improvement. "Michigan avenue is destined to carry the heaviest move ment of any street in the world. Any improvement for this thoroughfare which does not recognize its importance will be a waste of money and energy and an error of the first magnitude." Michigan avenue north of Randolph street is now 66 feet wide. It should be widened to at least 130 feet, by taking a 64 foot strip off from the lots on the east side of the street. The lots in the blocks affected are 130, 124 and 121 feet deep. After the city has taken the neces sary property for the improvement, there would remain of these lots a depth of 66, 60 and 57 feet respectively — plenty 27 Twelfth Street. Ikkipa (venue Ashland tveine Cikago River CHICAGO. Proposed Twelfth Street improvement at its intersections with Michigan Avenue and Ashland Avenue. It is planned to make this a broad business street and not a boulevard as shown in this picture. . • „„„tVl __., The proposed railway terminals are shown fronting on Twelfth Street at its level, which is raised to allow North and South traffic to flow underneath. Access to the street is provided at alternate streets. The rise presumably will begin at Wabash- Avenue and end at Canal Street. At the intersection of Twelfth and Canal Streets a diagonal thoroughfare is shown extending to the proposed civic center. Between this diagonal and the river is shown the beginning of the West Side railway stations From a painting for the Commercial Club by Jules Guerin. (Copyrighted by the Commercial Club of Chicago.) of depth for merchantable, high-class property, when it is remembered that certain large office buildings in the loop are situated on very shallow lots. When the improve ment of Michigan avenue is completed, the remainder of the lots affected will be worth more than the present prop erty of full depth. TWELFTH STREET, the first section of the quad rangle, is being developed under the Chicago Plan. It is to be widened and arranged to bear easily a heavier traffic than that which now makes it a badly congested street. The wid ening of Twelfth street is the initial step in the constructive work of developing the plan as a whole and bears a relation ship to the general scheme of street construction and street widening. The necessity for the improvement of that street lies in the fact that it is the only through thoroughfare between Harrison and Eighteenth streets connecting the west side with the down town district. The actual heart of the city's population today is a little north of the corner of Twelfth and Halsted streets. Traffic and the city's growth are grad ually moving in a southwesterly direction. Adequate pro vision must be made for a suitable outlet from that district to the present business center of the city. Twelfth street from Ashland avenue to Michigan ave nue is at present 66 feet wide between building lines with the exception of the block between State street and Mich igan avenue, where the street is but 50 feet wide; 39 feet wide between sidewalk curbs and only nine feet and nine inches wide between the street car step and the curb. It is proposed to make the street 108 feet wide from Ashland avenue to Canal street, taking a 42-foot strip off from the lots on the south side of the street. It is to be widened to 118 feet from Canal street to Michigan avenue. It is not intended to boulevard the street, but to make it a clean, wide, business thoroughfare with a double, rapid- transit surface street car line down the center, and on it might be established sub-stations of all the great railroads entering the city from the east, south and southwest. It is hoped that the railroads may be induced to locate terminals south of Twelfth street between State street and the river. 29 C/fOSS - <5eTCr/0/r J £*$***£. Wl"™*** tt*ce.£ \sTR£t?T CAR THMCMS t S1^ ^^ PLAtf //£&. CHICAGO. Plan of the new Twelfth Street. Top diagram shows sidewalks 24 feet and 26-foot roadway on either side, with a 20-foot strip in the center for double street car line and bracket trolley poles. Plan below shows "islands" on both sides of the car tracks at the intersection of each street for safety in entering and leav ing street cars. Dimension of island 4 by 60 feet. Car tracks at street level, with free access for traffic to either side. Prepared for the Chicago Plan Commission. On November 16, 1909, the Chicago Plan Commission's Executive Committee appointed a special Twelfth street committee whose mission it was to investigate the entire mat ter and report back to the Executive Committee. On Jan uary 19, 1910, the Executive Committee received the' Twelfth Street Committee's report, adopting same, which was referred to the Commission as a whole and unanimously adopted on January 19, 1910. On March 2, 1911, there was a public hearing on the matter before the Board of Local Improvements, after which the property owngrs on that street were given thirty days in which to file a protest representing a majority of the lineal front footage^ The time limit expired without such majority protest having been filed with the Board, and the matter then went to the City Council, where on April 6, 1911, the Twelfth street widening ordinance passed by a vote of 46 to 10. The. improvement might properly be designated as both a "local improvement" and a "general benefit." The Chicago Plan Commission has made a strong recom mendation for a large "general benefit" in order that a large percentage of the cost of the improvement shall be borne by the whole city, in which case the matter of a bond issue to defray the city's part of the cost will have to be referred to the people in a referendum. Mayor Carter H. Harrison has declared himself in favor of a large "general benefit" and has pledged himself to see that the people in that section will receive fair and just treatment. Public sentiment generally and the united support of the press is back of this movement. Every citizen of Chi cago should aid with his influence and vote at the proper time in the realization of this improvement, thus insuring the success of the first practical step in carrying out the Plan. HALSTED STREET, a section of the quadrangle, it is predicted, will, in time to come, carry an enormous traffic. It is so situated that its usefulness, Already great, may be 31 very much increased. It is selected as, next to Michigan avenue, the most important north and south traffic thorough fare. Under the Chicago Plan the street would be widened, paved properly and developed as one of the great central business streets of the future city. CHICAGO AVENUE, a section of the quadrangle, already one hundred feet wide, will serve for a long time the traffic it will be made to carry. Crowding of vehicles is not so great upon the north side of the city and is not increasing so fast as in other sections. It will connect with the pro posed Michigan boulevard extension at Pine street, complet ing the first circuit of improvement in our streets. PARK SYSTEM— Going further with their work, the architects found our park system encircling the city on three sides, and along part of the shore. To this system it is planned to add park lands and park ways, so as to extend and complete it, and make it encircle the entire city — this to meet the needs of increasing population. Numerous small parks are also proposed, and the plan looks to taking over large forest areas, now outside the city limits, that open air pleasures may be had by the city's millions in summers to come. LAKE FRONT— One of the really great features of the plan, and one most easily to be carried out, is the im provement of the lake front. We all know how, in a few years, the city's waste, heaped upon one part of our city's "front yard," produced for us our tremendously valuable Grant Park, which is land worth millions, created for us out of our city's refuse. Why, we ask, as the owners of Chicago, can not that good work go on? Let us consider, just for a moment, what we are really doing in Chicago now, and how we are neglecting our op portunities. We spent $60,000,000 digging a canal— one of the greatest civic tasks ever done — that we might have pure water to drink. And we are actually dumping into our lake, which we spent that great sum to purify, hundreds 32 and thousands of tons of refuse matter — dirt and filth which not only imperils our health but proves us a most wasteful people and tends also to create obstructions gravely danger ous to navigation — a matter for first consideration as being of prime importance. What should we do about it? Just this : Send crews out into the lake. Have them drive lines of piles at proper distances from shore, and instead of throwing the city's refuse into the open lake, pile it up — ashes, old bricks, building wreckage, street sweepings — and make thus a long line of islands extending up and down the length of the city's water front. Twenty-seven to thirty-three acres can be created in this way every year. We can dispose of the city's refuse and at the same time — as we did in Grant Park — build up a water side park system greater and more extensive than that of any city in the world. The entire work can be done at a cost so trifling as to surprise not only Chicago, but all the world. TRANSPORTATION— In connection with the street and park features of the plan was considered the problem of transportation facilities. The location of passenger and freight stations had great bearing on the plan. Included is a plan for arranging the railway stations and connecting them by a subway street car system. FREIGHT YARDS— Removal of the freight yards from the center of the city so far as possible, and stopping the expensive rehandling of freight in the crowded districts is to result from the plan. Great central freight clearing yards are to be established southwest of the city. All incom ing freight trains will go there. An industrial freight harbor is proposed at the mouth of the Calumet river, South Chicago; a commercial harbor is proposed at the mouth of the Chicago river, and all the freight centers are to be con nected by subway lines. CIVIC CENTER— In seeing the growth of the city ever southwesterly the men having the plan in hand, figur ing on the experiences of all great cities of modern and an- 33 cient times, were able to tell where the real center of the future Chicago is to be. Near that point, then, it became their duty to plan the heart of the coming great city. That point was decided to be near the crossing of South Halsted and West Congress streets. They planned there a great work, designated as the principal civic center of Chicago. It is hard for any mind to grasp this great plan thus hastily outlined. It is hard to realize the ease with which Chicago's millions can make the Chicago Plan a reality. Let us study it. If the plan is good let us band together and go to work on it, willing to wait fifty years, perhaps, to see the whole plan worked out, but determined to see it suc ceed. Let us look at the plan in detail, taking one thing at a time, considering all facts, weighing all things justly, and decide what to do about it. MICHIGAN AVENUE— FROM PARK ROW. 1864. [Original owned by the Chicago Historical Society.] As marvelous as is the growth of Chicago during its life of 76 years, it is still more astounding that the city added 2,000,000 inhabitants to its population in less than 50 years. During the Civil War, the period this picture represents, the city's population was 169,353. 34 Plans for the Lake Front. ||t|||£|P|EFORE gjvjng attention to the many things in l/BJp^wt me Chicago Plan which look to upbuild the I^M (UP commerce of Chicago, increase her power as a Ife^ssS^Ssi manufacturing city, make easier the handling of her traffic, and work for her general advance, let us talk of the lake front. All of us know something of that. We know the lake itself at Jackson, Lincoln and Grant Parks. We would like to know it better, to be able to enjoy its pleasures without facing its dangers. Let us see what the Chicago Plan offers us as to the lake front. It is well to talk of the Lake Front park system first, too, because it is to cost us so little, as has been shown. This seems to bring the realization of it nearer, for if it is good to have we .can begin right away to get it. As the central idea of the lake front parks, imagine a plan for parks in the lake, reaching from Jackson Park on the south to Wilmette on the north, a stretch of twenty miles of water-front parks. These are not to be boulevarded for vehicles, but real parks and playgrounds for all the people, where family picnics, baseball, tennis and all manner of out door sports may be freely indulged in. Beginning at Jackson Park, the Chicago Plan provides first for a yacht harbor in a basin about three miles along shore and perhaps two miles across. This will result from the building of a half-circle of little islands in the lake, in the zone from Forty-third to Fifty-fifth street, where the watej is quite shallow. Then northward will sweep one large island, or perhaps two islands, reaching to the main harbor at Twelfth street. This land is to be from 600 to 1,000 feet across. Between it and the mainland will run a lagoon, 400 feet wide, to be canoeing, motor-boating and rowing. It will provide a wa terway, always calm, always safe, five miles long and nearly a thousand feet wide. 35 si. s af i Sa Grand Boulevard Cottage Grove Avenue Uke Store Drive CHICAGO. Lake shore from Chicago Avenue on the north to Jackson Park on the south. A general scheme is to be car ried as far north as Wilmette. This park, enclosing lagoons for boating, would be a continuous playground for the peo ple and may be built at practically no cost by utilizing the wastage from the city and excavated material. (Copyrighted by the Commercial Club of Chicago.) As a further development of this water-front park scheme, it is planned to build a new strip of land immedi ately east of the Illinois Central railroad tracks and extend ing out into the water for a distance of approximately 200 or 300 feet, running the entire length from Jackson Park to connect with Grant Park at Twelfth street, paralleling the lagoon and outer parkway strip. This would give Chicago the most magnificent water front of any city in the world, and would give the people an opportunity to enjoy the alluring pleasures that only water sports and waterway parks can provide. In every other country excepting our own waterfronts of every description are reserved and beautified as intended by nature for the free and unlimited pleasure of all the people. The proposed improvement of Chicago's waterfront is the most practical and feasible part of the Plan of Chicago and can be accom plished, at practically no cost, at the rate of twenty-seven to thirty-three acres each year by utilizing Chicago's waste material, as shown on pages 32 and 72. It is not contem plated that this work shall be accomplished in a day, or a year; but to gradually create this park as rapidly as can be, in the manner above described. Accessibility to the lake front is a matter of prime im portance, and has been given thorough consideration and comprehensive treatment in the plan for street widening and street construction, which is readily shown by a study of the charts of streets. Another splendid feature of the lake front parks is an idea to have extending from Twelfth street north to Wash ington street a great central harbor faced by Grant Park. This great basin lies in the hollow of curving parkland shores extending into the lake for three-quarters of a mile. Two long seawalls, curving outward, with openings at the center and at either end, permit easy passage of vessels and assure calm water always within the harbor. At the extremity of the northern coast of this harbor, pic ture to yourself great piers and stations, arranged in a circle, for use of the passenger carrying vessels of the lakes. At 37 CHICAGO. View looking south over the lagoons of the proposed lake front park for the south shore. Painted for the Commercial Club of Chicago by Jules Guerin. (Copyrighted by the Commercial Club of Chicago.) the extremity of the southern coast of the harbor imagine refectories, boat houses and other buildings built for park purposes, overlooking the lake, crowning an island in the lake. Go further with the view of the central lake front. Pic ture to yourself two long, narrow parks built as island piers, and running out into the lake for over a mile, one at the foot of Twenty-second street, the other at the foot of Chi cago avenue. These great piers, to be tipped with high lighthouses marking the entrance to Chicago's magnificent harbor, will serve as walls to break the force of all storms which assail the city frpm the lake. Each of these parks will be, say, five hundred feet wide, perhaps reaching a mile out, and each to have trees and flowers and drives for carriages. Northward from Chicago avenue the plan offers a varia tion from the south shore plan, the islands being built a 38 little farther off-shore, and the inner lagoon narrowing, but continuing unbroken until it connects with the yacht harbor and park already established at Wilmette, where begins the inland waterway provided by the north channel of the drain age district, which canal now cuts through Evanston and connects with the Chicago river at the city's northern ex tremity. The preliminary plans for these great island parks, which will be hundreds of acres in extent, call for bridges and connecting ways by which the people of. the various divisions of the city may at all times easily reach the lake front parks, playgrounds and the recreation and bathing beaches adjacent to them. Because of the small cost of this vast improvement, and because it can be carried out by use of the city's waste, which is increasing in amount every year, the lake front park island work is likely to be the first major step by Chi cago in putting the Chicago Plan into effect. The building of Chicago's subway, as now seems certain, will greatly aid in pushing the development of the lake front improvement on account of the vast quantities of excavated material that would have to be deposited somewhere; besides, it would cost far less to haul this material to the lake front than to some far more distant point. As a side feature of the lake front plans it is proposed to drive a boulevard skirted lagoon through the Midway Plais- ance on the South Side, connecting the lagoons of Jackson and Washington parks, and opening a way for pleasure craft to pierce far into the heart of the residence section of the city. The earth removed in the construction of this long lagoon, of course, will go far toward helping the island construction work within the lake. Think of what this lake front development means to Chi cago and her citizens. An extremely beautiful parkway, twenty miles in length, with the lake on one side and the city on the other. Frequent fields, numerous playgrounds, spacious avenues, fine groves — all in closest touch with the life of the city. What an effect it will have upon our health 39 and happiness who live here. How many visitors its beau ties will attract from other cities. How many millions of dollars it will mean to the city's trade thus to establish in our great city a pleasure resort of such splendid extent and possibilities. Think what this great park system means to the people of our city. Unlimited opportunities for recreation, un limited relief for the millions in the heat of summer on this great public playground at our city's front door, unlimited enjoyment of winter sports upon the frozen lagoons — an all- the-year, every-day-in-the-week joy to all Chicago and all her guests. Truly spoke the eminent French visitor to Chicago who said, "Chicago has not yet discovered its lake front." 40 Forests for the People. EXT in importance to the lake front development we may perhaps give place to the matter of se curing for the people large areas of forest lands adjacent to Chicago. These should be in their natural condition, filled with such wild trees, shrubs, vines and flowers as grow in this climate, and the people should have free access to them for all time. These large parks, we may all agree, should be selected with a view to getting the best lands for such purposes, the most attrac tive natural sites, and have them readily accessible and near to all the people. Let us look for a few minutes into the possibilities which nature has given us to secure such places for the people. We will begin at Glencoe, near the northern border of Cook County, and in our minds go through the territory which we can well take and improve for pur benefit and the bene fit of future generations, coming back to Lake Michigan on the southern border of the Chicago zone. Glencoe, on Lake Michigan, lies in the center of a broken country which affords a natural park entrance to the country from the lake shore. Here are virgin forests where lordly oak, elm, ash and cottonwood trees cast their summer shade. Piercing the country we have the Skokie marshland, almost as beautiful as the lake itself. A mile inland we have the valley of the north branch of Chicago river, where the ever-changing views give never ending delights. Southward the forests extend along the river down to ward and approaching the city limits. There are about eight thousand acres which should be taken for this great natural northern park. The land could be secured now at comparatively small cost. 41 Mt. Forest Reserve lake Calumet Des Plaints River Reserve &kUA>fC7 Skokie Valley Reserve CHICAGO. General map showing topography, waterways, and complete system of streets, boulevards, parkways and parks. The parks and parkways encircle the city; they are placed in rela tion to the radiating and increase in area in proportion to their distance from the center (heavy black). Also showing the proposed harbors at the mouths of the Chicago and Calumet rivers, and the location of outlying townships. (Copyrighted by the Commercial Club Of Chicago.) A park area entirely surrounding the city can be had by extending westward from Glencoe to the valley of the Des Plaines river, and passing down that valley to Riverside. Thence, taking in the valleys of Salt and Flag creeks — a country of great natural beauty. Thence in a southerly di rection to the drainage canal, including the fine rolling country and forests in the Willow Springs district. Now bearing eastward, extend the line along the Calumet Feeder, Stony Creek and Little Calumet river, to and including Lake Calumet, and so to the lake shore below South Chi cago. This recital brings a view, perhaps, of great expense. But the cost would not, in fact, be as large as most people would believe at first thought. First, most of the territory suggested still lies in its natural state. No expensive improvements have been made ; which would naturally lessen the cost. Secondly, much of the territory is now either public property, such as streams, or is practically valueless for till age or improvement because of its wild and broken state. It is proposed, as part of the plan, to create a driveway around Lake Calumet, and to reclaim the lowlands south of that body of water, and also to plant a belt of woods sur rounding this lake park set in the center of one of the world's greatest manufacturing districts. Driveways, too, are to run through all this outlying park territory, connecting with the main routes to the center of the city. We are already engaged in serious attempts to provide good living conditions for the many thousand people work ing in the large industries of the Calumet territory. Exten sive parks are demanded in that region because city condi tions, no matter how ideal, fail to satisfy the craving for real out-of-door life. Human nature demands such simple and wholesome pleasures as come from roaming the woods, from canoeing and boating, and from sports and games that require large areas. We live in an era of holidays. We use every available day for recreation and rest for the tired body and mind. We need, therefore, the large parks, and the necessity for 43 them is greatest in the regions south and southwesf of the city. There the city's workers will find their largest means of enjoyment for their hours of leisure and days of vacation. The outer park plans have been so drawn, generally, as to provide proper areas for the people of all the various parts of the city, and to have these areas all easily accessible for the many thousands who will use them. The forest preserves, as shown on the chart accompany ing this chapter, indicate that these reserves are placed in relation to the radiating arteries. Naturally these arteries will be larger and better paved as the forests are developed, since they will always be the short-cut to the forests ; this applies particularly to Milwaukee avenue for the Des Plaines River reserve, Twelfth street for the Elmhurst re serve, and Archer avenue for Mt. Forest reserve. The Des Plaines River reserve, and particularly the Elmhurst and Mt. Forest reserves are destined to be the big forests because the topography of the land and in all prob ability the price of these (if the purchases are not delayed too long) are more favorable than the other districts. Fifty-eight American cities are now engaged in city plan ning and fourteen of these are arranging for radical changes, providing for extensive park areas, civic centers and public squares. The subject of forest preserves in connection with the world's large cities is receiving most serious attention by the authorities of Berlin, Vienna, London and Paris. In fact, these cities have already secured properties adequate for this purpose. Berlin, with about the same population as Chicago, has a total area of proposed forest reserves of over 75,000 acres within a radius of ten miles of the Center of the city. Ber lin's Grunewald Forest contains 10,000 acres and is situated no further from the center of the city than our own Wash ington Park. Vienna, with nearly the same population as Chicago, has a total park area of 15,000 acres, and is making exten sive preparations for large forest preserves. 44 Chicago's present actual park area is 3,200 acres. The outer park system recommended by the Special Park Com mission in their report of 1904, is 37,000 acres; proposed by the Plan of Chicago, between 40,000 and 50,000 acres. CHICAGO'S PARKS AND THOSE OF OTHER CITIES — From President Henry G. Foreman's Park Commission report of 1904 — from which we may see at a glance how Chicago stands in regard to parks when placed side by side with other American cities. The showing is not flattering to Chicago. While our city is second in population, it is seventh in park area. City Acre Area of Parka BOSTON 12.878 ?LONDON 8,404 NEW TORE 8,074 ?PARIS 4,299 PHILADELPHIA 4,175 LOS ANGELES 3,737 NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, and environs 3,548 SAN FRANCISCO 3,411 CHICAGO 3,174 WASHINGTON 2,911 *[The acreage of foreign cities does not appear in President Foreman's report, but has been inserted here for the purpose of comparison.] In the year 1909 the General Assembly of Illinois passed an act providing for the creation of Forest Reserve Districts within counties in Illinois. This act provided that upon petitions being filed, the question should be submitted to the voters of the proposed district, and if the vote was in favor of the adoption and creation of such district, thereupon the district should be organized. The affairs of the district are managed by a Board of Commissioners consisting of a President and four commis sioners, appointed by the Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, with the consent of the members of such Board. Such a petition was presented to the County Court in September, 1910. The question was submitted to the voters at the election in November, 1910, resulting in a vote of about 138,000 for such district, and less than 40,000 against such district. 45 Thereupon, on the 30th day of November, 1910, the President of the Board appointed a President and Board of Commissioners for such Forest Preserve District, which dis trict embodied all of Cook County. The act provides that the Commissioners shall have power to designate by ordi nance, to lay out, establish, open, widen, pave and otherwise improve and maintain pleasure driveways ; to prescribe rules and regulations concerning such driveways, and also the Forest Preserves acquired under the provisions of the act. The Board also has power under the act to acquire by gift, devise, purchase or condemnation any and all grounds and lands necessary for such driveways and Forest Preserves and lands contiguous thereto. The Board further, according to the act, has power to acquire and hold lands for the erection and maintenance thereon of public buildings for the use of the public for assembly and recreation purposes, but not of a religious character. In order to provide revenues with which to carry out the purposes of the act the Board may issue bonds and levy taxes in the same manner as taxes are levied for city and village purposes. Such Board shall report annually to the County Commissioners the revenues received, expendi tures made, land acquired, the progress of construction work and the condition of the property and such other matters as may have been acted upon by the Board during the previous year. A quo warranto proceeding was instituted in December, 1910, which proceeding involves the constitutionality of the act under which the Forest Preserve District was organized. At the hearing before Judge Dever, a decision was rendered sustaining the act; an appeal was taken by the State's Attor ney, which appeal was considered by the Supreme Court of this State at the April Term, A. D. 1911, and a decision thereon is expected at the present June Term, which term began on June 6, 1911. This decision when handed down by the court will either declare all or a portion of the act unconstitutional, and if the act is sustained, no doubt the court will define the powers of the district. 4G Our Transportation Problem. E ALL know Chicago has been made, largely, by the railroads. We know, too, that our future prosperity depends upon them. We see, then, that we ought to give much thought to transpor tation, that in all possible ways the railroads may be helped to handle our people and our freight as quickly and as cheaply as possible. When we investigate today, we find each railroad hand ling its business in its own way, without a central system. We ask, then, if the time has not come to develop a com mon system, at least for the handling of freight, and we look about to see how such a system could be established. We think of freight matters first becauscwe know that upon the proper handling of freight depends the business of our factories, the growth of our commerce, and the steady employment of our people. We know that upon that sub ject depends the growth of our city and the stability and increase of the value of all our property. Most of us are astonished to- learn that the chief reason for the congestion of our freight terminals, for delays, for railway smoke and for other evils from which we suffer lies in the manner the roads are operated. The great trouble is that the railroads haul thousands of cars every month into the heart of Chicago, switch them and haul them out again without unloading. No need for this appears to us, as we study the subject. We ask ourselves how to avoid this, and the answer comes to us at once. "Turn all those through cars into a common clearing yard on the outskirts of the city," we say. "Stop them at Gary on the south, at Summit on the southwest, at Franklin Park on the northwest and at Waukegan on the north, and send them by a great belt railway to a common center out southwest, there to be sorted, made up in trains and deliv ered to the various roads to continue their journeys." 47 We can see at a glance how much this would prevent congestion down in the center of the city, leaving the cen tral district tracks more clear for passenger traffic and for quick delivery of such freight as is intended for merchants and factories in Chicago. We see, too, how it means a cleaner city for us, and at the same time a big saving for the railroads. Ashland Avenue tenter Avenue Halsted St. Canal St. 12th St. H. N. Station Michigan Avenue Milwaukee Avenue West Side R.R. Station la Sille SL CHICAGO. Diagram of city center, showing1 the proposed arrangement of railroad passenger stations, the complete traction system, including rapid transit, subway and elevated roads, and the circuit subway lirie. The last is designed — (A) to connect all railroad stations with one an other; (B) to connect passengers from all points of the city within and with out the center with the railroad stations by transfer from the subway line proposed in the Arnold report; (C) to supplement by transfer the interchange of passengers from traction line going through the center from the north, south or west to any point in the city. (Copyrighted by the Commercial Club of Chicago.) 48 I Halsted SL Canal SL South freight Yard KhBillJl'i " Tatac HI m iii LIM \i yT % Milwaukee Ave. Center Ave. West freight Yard la Salle St. State St. Michigan Ave. CHICAGO. Diagram of the city center, showing the general location of existing freight yards and railroad lines the present tunnel system and pro posed circuit, and connections for all these services, running to the central clearing yards. (Copyrighted by the Commercial Club of Chicago.) Having decided this as a good move, we would then go a step further. We know that many thousands of- cars of goods are sent to Chicago each year, which goods are un loaded, stored, and shipped out through the country by wholesale merchants from time to time as they are sold. It seems clear, then, that a great general storage depot could be created outside the city, at the place most convenient, where these goods could be handled more cheaply and quickly than in the center of a great city. 49 In making these moves, we would have to figure on the fact that much freight reaches Chicago by water, and that this water trade should grow as the city grows. It would be well, then, to greatly develop the harbor at South Chi cago, as nearest the general freight clearing yards, as all heavy freight now goes there, and also a commercial harbor at the mouth of Chicago river. These harbors we would connect by underground or surface railway, operated by electricity, with the freight clearing yards, and also with the general freight distribution system for the city itself. The Chicago Plan Commission endorses the report for the provision of both the industrial and the commercial har bor made by the Harbor Commission of the City of Chicago in 1909. COMMERCIAL HARBOR— proposed at the mouth of the Chicago river — "At large cities provision must be made for the delivery of passengers arriving by vessel, and for the freight that is used in the city locally, including coal, fruits, vegetables, and other merchandise. Such a harbor re quires docks, warehouses and unloading facilities near, or convenient to, the heart of the city, and may be termed the 'city' or 'commercial' harbor. All traffic through the city, or moving from lake to rail, or rail to lake, cannot be handled at an outside harbor. Some of this is high class package or fruit and vegetable freight, which is carried by the same ves sels that bring to the city freight needed locally. Hence the 'city' harbor must provide for this 'through' business and interchange of lake and rail traffic." — [Extract from Har bor Commission report of 1909.] INDUSTRIAL HARBOR— proposed at South Chi cago — "An entirely different class of requirements arises in connection with the handling of commodities which are in transit through the city, or which are required for manu facturing. A harbor supplied with facilities for handling such traffic may be called the 'industrial' harbor, and need not be near the heart of the city. It is desirable that such a harbor should be convenient to an industrial and manufac turing neighborhood. The industrial harbor bears about the same relation to a great city as do the freight yards, 50 switch tracks, etc., of a railroad. The congestion which ex ists in large cities should not be increased by attempting to handle in the heart of the city wares intended for manufac ture or which are passing through or being transshipped from water to rail or vice versa."— [Extract from Harbor Commission report of 1909. J Thus we would outline to ourselves the creation of one great machine, planned to handle all the freight traffic of Chicago— preventing congestion in the freight yards, saving untold sums in the handling of goods, preserving pavements from unmeasured needless wear, carrying on the city's en tire business without waste or delay. Having thus disposed of the city's freight troubles, at tention would be given passenger traffic, so that the railway stations of the city could be grouped into a system giving us all the best and most convenient service- Conditions would lead us probably to select the district between Clinton and Canal streets, extending from Twelfth to Lake streets, for the railway stations of the west side, and to arrange the south side stations along Twelfth street from State street to the south branch of the river. It will be seen, -by a little study of this plan, that this ar rangement would give us ideal railway facilities. The sta tions should be arranged so as to avoid closing any streets, either building the main stations above or below street grade. The latter arrangement would appear the best, be cause it would allow the use of the areas above the railway tracks all to be used. Such parts of this area as were not used for station purposes could be devoted to business uses, the rentals reducing the cost of operating the roads. Our transportation plan provides for a great belt line system interlinking all railway terminals and crossing all surface and elevated lines. With a proper system of trans fers, we could save time for the people desiring to reach various parts of the city as quickly as possible, which can onlv be arranged by avoiding the congested downtown dis trict. Transportation experts concede the belt line idea to be the only feasible and practical plan to accomplish this re- 51 suit. In a less comprehensive manner than our plan desig nates, the belt line plan is operated with complete satisfac tion in other large cities. Thus we would complete a system able to easily handle many times the number of people that at present are accom modated with so much difficulty. Besides this, our most important gain would be to restore to general business uses the big area between Van Buren and Twelfth streets, west from State street to the river. It would mean adding a territory almost as large as our present entire downtown business district to the heart of Chicago, making the growth of the city easy and natural. Chicago's people are all appreciative of the good done the city by the railroads. More than a million of us now regularly use their facilities, and our demand is constantly growing for better service, which the railway managers are anxious to supply. We want the irritation to our nerves which comes out of railway operation reduced to the mini mum. We know the community will get far more out of its million workers when their nerves cease to be racked by ir ritating conditions and great noises. We are coming to think well of the fact that what is best for the city as a whole is best also for its business inter ests. And so it is in railway matters. The solution of the transportation problems which would be of the best advantage to the city will also most benefit the railway lines, each and all of them. The transportation managers have in recent years shown a desire to act together in matters for the public good. Whatever will be required of them, therefore, to bring about good order in traffic, it is expected will be conceded by them ; so there may be completed a system of handling both freight and passenger traffic which will enhance Chi cago's commerce and thus maintain and build up the rail roads themselves. 52 Street Needs of Chicago. "City streets are the parlor and playground of the poor — the happy hunting ground of youth." HEN we think with a view to deciding what the greatest needs of a city are, we conclude, gener ally, that two things are of the greatest impor tance. The first need is for enough streets, sufficiently wide and running in the right direc tion, to permit the people to go about the city easily and quickly. The second is park area great enough to insure good health and a pleasing appearance. Proper street arrangements are the prime need because we are all interested in saving time. Life is made up of minutes, and to save minutes means to lengthen life. Time, then, is of tremendous value to us all, and almost any sacri fice of money today is right if we can save daily minutes for the millions of tomorrow. Right here we should remind ourselves that Chicago has at no time ever looked far enough ahead. We can all see today the mistakes made when Chicago was rebuilding after the fire of 1871. We see how the people then were short sighted in not planning for the orderly growth of the city. We must understand, then, that the people of Chicago twen ty-five yea/s hence will hold us in light esteem if we let slip the opportunities before us today. We should not feel, in considering the street needs of Chicago, that there is any danger of undertaking too big a plan, or of over-shooting the mark. This fact was well shown in the work of erecting our new county building. We started a structure more than twice as big as the one then existing for county purposes, but before it was finished our needs had outgrown the new structure. It was the same with our new city hall. Neither of those structures is large 53 enough to house the departments of government for which it was intended. In all growing cities it has been necessary, before build ing according to an orderly plan, to begin, at large expense, to correct the error of not having a plan to build upon when ¦a s 3 3 & Halsted Street Michigan Avenue \f J" . 1 \ i \ _jr ".uri ^,»»- " i / ¦m i //// r""""nr"Bii"T""""i _ iBHnc t *?/ 4 mWm CHICAGO. Plan of the center of the city, showing the present street and boulevard system, the proposed additional arteries and street widenings (heavy black). (Copyrighted by the Commercial Club of Chicago.) 54 the city was founded. The longer this beginning has been delayed the greater has been the expense. To postpone it means multiplying the cost, besides a greater burden of dis comfort and loss of business every day. Later on will be discussed the history of other cities in this work, and the tremendous cost they have had to pay for delay. But it may be said now that all these cities have found that no matter how great the labor or how large the cost, the result has always well repaid the necessary outlay. Let us see how it is best to lay out, construct and keep up the streets in a city like Chicago. Beginning in the retail district, the past has taught us we should have streets from eighty to one hundred feet wide, with smooth, noiseless pave ments. The lighting and signs should be arranged to give a pleasing general effect. Such streets should be about equally divided into roadway and sidewalk space. Where heavy tonnage is moving a width of from seventy to ninety feet is desirable, a little more than half being given to roadway. Here the pavements should be most wear- resisting, regardless of noise. Next comes the usual residence street. Here we may well lessen the space devoted to traffic to from twenty to thirty-six feet, as necessity warrants. We should do this where houses are crowded together or apartments abound so the smaller children may have playgrounds close at hand, and that grass and trees may add to appearances and furnish shade for pedestrians. After, that we consider the avenues, or traffic streets. These should be wide enough to draw in the streams of traffic passing frdm one part of the city to other parts, and to provide for street car traffic, keeping the stream of ordi nary vehicles and cars each moving in its own place and not interfering with each other. Then we think of the boulevards. From these we ex clude heavy traffic. They are the wide streets, of fine dwell ings, ornamented with grass, shrubs and trees. They pro vide continuous playgrounds for the children of the neigh borhood. They give us places for statues and fountains. 55 Our parks are connected with them. We adorn them with flowers and embellish them with rare and beautiful trees and plants. They are important ornamental features of our city, elevating and educational. Lastly, and most important, come the time and distance saving diagonal streets. We all know their value. We all know that Chicago could not possibly be the huge city it is today if it had not always had such streets as Milwaukee, Lincoln, Ogden, Blue Island, Archer and other avenues — the straight-aiming trails of the Indian and the trapper — developed to aid in the handling of its people and its traffic. Usually cities are compelled to create these diagonals, al ways at great expense. But no matter what the expense, it is always found that these streets, when constructed, pay in con venience and time-saving, many times over what they origi nally cost. It is certain that Chicago needs more diagonal streets than it has. The need is greatest for direct routes by diago nals to connect the north and south sides of Chicago with its great west side. The need of more open spaces on the west side itself -is already acknowledged in the movement for small parks. These spaces could be created in large part by cutting diagonal streets through, thus letting light and air jnto all crowded sections. A further benefit of a proper system of such thoroughfares is that they will serve at all times to provide fresh air and healthfulness to all parts of the city, no matter from which direction the wind may be blowing. Diagonal streets which would serve hundreds, of thou sands of people daily ought now, experts say, to be cut through the central part of Chicago on these routes : First, from the crossing of Chicago avenue and Lincoln Park boulevard southwesterly to Milwaukee avenue and Canal street. Second, from the crossing of West Washington and Canal streets southwesterly to the crossing of West Congress and Halsted streets. These two streets completed, we would have an almost straight street, practically extending Blue Island avenue to the lake front at Chicago avenue. 56 Third, from the crossing of Halsted and West Congress streets southeasterly to the crossing of West Twelfth and Canal streets, and thence still southeasterly, and crossing the river at Sixteenth street, to Archer avenue at State street, and, still southeasterly, to Cottage Grove avenue at Twenty- second street. By cutting a further street from the crossing of Milwau kee and North Ashland avenues to Halsted and West Con gress streets we would have an almost straight street con necting the extreme northwest and southeast sides of Chicago. The value of the "quadrangle" around the center of the downtown district is apparent to us all, especially when we foresee the growth of the retail business district bringing such high values for land in these districts that the factories will be crowded further out, and the proposed diagonal streets become great, wide retail streets. When we consider that at the present day it is necessary for people wishing to go from either the north or south to the west side of the city to travel long distances at right an gles, we are forced to decide that this is wrong, and ought not to continue. Besides that, we know that today if one wants to make such a trip, quickly he is forced in most cases to go through the business district in the city's center. Thus everybody is constantly getting in the way of everybody else and adding to the useless crowding of the downtown streets. We ask ourselves if we cannot do something to bring the various sides of the city into closer touch with each other. We begin a study of the plans of the architects, which we must remember are drawn to prepare for fifty or more years of work for the city. Each of us is interested, perhaps, in his own section of Chicago. Each of us wants to know what the plan prom ises for his neighborhood in the way of new streets, and in the way of convenience in going about the city. Here is a little sketch of what is proposed in the way of new streets for each side of the city, by which we can each see how easy the plan would make it for us to travel through Chicago if the streets were already cut through. 57 NORTH SIDE— Let us begin on the north side and swing around the entire city by way of the proposed diagonal streets. Starting at the crossing of North and La Salle avenues on the second circuit of diagonals about the city's downtown district a street would run southwesterly, crossing Clybourn avenue at Sedgwick street, and there turning more westerly to run straight southwest to the crossing of West Chicago avenue and North Halsted street, and continuing thus to connect with Ogden avenue near the crossing of Washing ton boulevard and North Ashland avenue. Thus Ogden avenue would be practically extended to the gate of Lincoln Park. Starting again at Belmont avenue and the. lake, and run ning southwesterly to the crossing of Lincoln avenue and North Halsted street, another new street would run thence straight southwest to where North and North Ashland avenues cross, thence turning south to the crossing of Mil waukee and North Ashland avenues, and then southwest again to the crossing of Grand and North Western avenues, and then still southwesterly to connect with Colorado avenue at West Madison street. Thus would be provided a new highway reaching from beyond South Fifty-third avenue to the lake shore at the north extremity of Lincoln Park as it is to be when extension work now in progress is completed. Again starting at the lake shore, this time at Irving Park boulevard, a new street would be cut through southwesterly to the crossing of Lincoln avenue and North Ashland avenue, thence straight southwest to the crossing of West Fullerton avenue and North Western avenue, and on south west to Humboldt Park at North Kedzie and West North avenues. Then the route would be south in North Kedzie avenue to the southwest corner of Humboldt Park, where the new street would go on cutting southwest to West Con gress street at Fifty-second avenue. Short diagonals would also be cut from Irving Park boulevard and the lake shore northwesterly to Lawrence avenue, near North Ashland avenue, and from that point 58 southwest to North Western avenue and Irving Park boule vard. WEST SIDE — Over on the west side the chief diagonal streets needed would find a common center at South Halsted and West Congress streets. Starting from that point, where is planned the future center of Chicago, the first of these new streets would run northerly and westerly to connect with Milwaukee avenue near North Ashland avenue, which would thus become prac tically a straight extension of the new highway. The second new street would be cut from the same point at South Halsted street westerly and north to Grand avenue and North Western avenue, connecting there with Grand avenue and making that street a long straight avenue run ning to the center at Halsted street. The third of these new streets would run from the same point westerly and south to where West Twelfth street crosses South Ashland avenue. It would open up a greatly congested part of Chicago, give ease of travel and add to public health. All the remaining new diagonal streets needed on the west side can be best shown, perhaps, by beginning to lay them out and show how they will connect the west and south sides of the city. Together, they form the remainder of the general plan for giving all the people of Chicago free ways of travel to all parts of the city. Starting, then, to show how best to connect the south and west sides of Chicago, a new street would start at Thirty- ninth street and the lake shore, and run northwest to Thirty- first street and Wentworth avenue, crossing Grand boule vard at Thirty-fifth street. On northwesterly it would go to South Halsted street at Archer avenue. South Halsted street would be the route then to West Twenty-second street, when the street would again cut northwesterly to the cross ing of West Twelfth street and South Ashland avenue, and on in the same direction to cut Ogden avenue at West Con gress street, finally ending at the crossing of North Western avenue and Grand avenue. 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