 |
Home | Search | Browse | About IPO | Staff | Links |
|
Home | Search | Browse | About IPO | Staff | Links |
|
The Value of Older Parks
The vista in Lowell Park, framed by mature trees takes advantage of a natural river bluff.
by What is the value of older parks these days? You know, the ones that have some of the biggest trees in town, usually majestic red, white or black oaks. Their arms spread long and low in an attempt to touch all horizons of the earth at once. Mid-summer sun sifts through them onto understories of flowering shrubs and winding, grassy glades. In the chilling winter winds, they are symbols of strength and longevity: the older parks—the ones where roads and walkways twist and wind on and on, seducing you to partake of the next long view, down the river or across the lake or through the meadow, one after the other. The older parks are often characterized by the absence of the expected and faimiliar. The recreational accommodations which we have grown used to, such as regulation baseball diamonds, night-time lighting and high-rising bleachers with their noisy crowds are contemporary additions. In fact these new uses for older parks are having a profound impact on the "nature" of the original intent of the parks. In spite of the loss of original park elements, or perhaps because of it, the older parks are a typical part of the backdrop of the midwest. Except for the tumbling pieces of manually built rock walls and patched-over picnic shelters, we tend to overlook the hand of those artists, visionaries and creators of the turn of the century. In general, the origin and meaning of our parks seems not to have been passed on to later generations and intensive efforts are needed to recover them. An historic park is one that has been around for at least 50 years. Many parks and park structures were built in the midwest in the
1930s with CWA, WPA, and CCC funds and labor. Such projects were labor-intensive and were often of high quality. Much of the federal work was very well designed and crafted by local architects, landscape architects, and artisans. The "Prairie Style" or "Prairie Spirit" of landscape gardening was then at its peak and park grounds were often designed in that naturalistic style. Walkways were curvilinear, flowering trees and shrubs were emphasized, and the predominance of native plant material was arranged in a manner that resembled nature. The intent of the designers was often to "uncover" nature, rather than to recreate her. Excellent examples of the era are Page Park in Dixon, Levings Lake Park in Rockford, and parts of Fairview Park in Decatur.
"Over years of use and familiarity, the public acquires a vested
interest in products, in names, and especially in public places. " The obvious problem with most parks built in the 1910s, '20s, and "30s is that they are aging. Unless they've had benefactors to keep them up, they're in need of restoration. Disappearance of original features such as benches has often occurred, and their replacements are often not in harmony with older parks. Deterioration of the mortar joints in stone walls, cracking and settlement of paved surfaces, and surface drainage problems have developed. In most early twentieth century midwestern parks what were masses of elegantly draping boughs of white flowering bridal wreath (Spiraea vanhouttei) arc now only amputated bundles of twigs. Mature plants have been sheared by modem maintenance practices to obscure their inherent regality, forbidding spring flowering and summer fruiting. Shrubs stand in naked isolation at once-lush park entrances. Complete loss of shrub masses is common. New plantings of fast-growing trees stand in straight rows, perfectly measured and spaced. But remnants of naturalistic plantings may still remain in groves of gnarled crab apples (Malus spp.) gathered in casual groups, dotted with shiny, red fall and winter fruits or drenched in spring blossoms. An unintentional and reluctant experience is created by these extremes of planting styles, of captivating mysteries and bland predictability. What is the value of the older parks to the people of the community? What are the advantages of saving some or all of the original design of an older park? Have they deteriorated beyond repair and can they offer anything to the contemporary park user? Something Worth Saving Every older park has something worth saving. The stone shelter may be falling down, half the trees dying and all the benches missing, but there are valuable intangible elements that we can't afford to overlook. A few years ago, Coca Cola decided to repackage its products and discontinue its historic product in favor of a new and different recipe. As it turned out, the public wasn't going to swallow that, and "Classic" Coke is still a part of our culture. Over years of use and familiarity, the public acquires a vested interest in products, in names, and especially in public places. "Any change made to our surroundings," says Tony Hiss, author of The Experience of Place, "has the potential to affect the way we experience a place, and the cumulative effect of a number of changes may be at some point to alter the experience entirely." Hiss continues, "Changes made over the years to such places which fail to consider the experiential impact produced by physical alterations can turn pearls into paste and convert the real into a mirage." In the public's eye, the user is the owner of such assets. Parks are stages where memorable life experiences occur, and the older the park, the greater the role it has played in the aggregate experience of the community. The sentiment and other intangibles are not to be tampered with lightly. If we could put a dollar figure on it, an older park's history of use and subsequent memories may be worth as much or more than the dollar value of the land and the aging improvements upon it. Nowadays there is a tendency to think of parks as places for active recreation--baseball, soccer, bicycling. Organized sports, however, have not always been the prevailing park use. The first city parks came into being in the mid-19th century in response to the social needs of growing urban populations. Only the fortunate few could afford to escape from the hectic, polluted industrial cities to private gardens or to the unspoiled countryside. The idea of parks was to offer a retreat for the masses, a place to stroll, picnic, experience tranquility and breathe fresh air. This was done by developing a system of walkways and roads affording pastoral views of nature-especially calm water and peaceful meadows. In the mid-19th century it was believed that access to places of natural beauty would elevate people's lives. For decades, parks throughout midwest communities were the pride of the people. Although parks have gradually taken on additional meanings and uses, the value and goal of natural beauty and tranquility were still predominant early in this century, when many of our midwest park systems were born. It may be overlooked at times, but statistics show that natural beauty and tranquility are the reasons that most people visit most parks most of the time. Because land acquisition itself, especially waterfront, is usually cost-prohibitive, the restoration of the older parks is more economically feasible than building anew. The preservation of the quality historic parks, which often are located in older residential neighborhoods, also lends stability to the neighborhoods and to the city. One of the original missions of many park districts was to make the city more attractive to residents, visitors and business. In 1922, the first park board president of the Dixon Park District, E.N, Howell said: "Beauty pays. Those who cannot enjoy beauty from an artistic point of view will find consolation in the fact that it pays big dividends in a material way. It is a plain business duty to develop and make proper use of the natural beauties...People like to live in an attractive city. People like to journey to a beautiful city. That is why thousands come to Dixon to enjoy themselves, do their trading and acquire a hope of living here some day." In the early 20th century, Dixon was a day-trip destination for thousands of visitors each week, traveling from as far as Chicago to the beautiful "bathing" beaches located in the parks on the Rock River. With automobile touring becoming common in the 1920s and '30s, the Chicago Motor Club and the Illinois Chamber of
Commerce actively supported and promoted the city' s assets in the name of good business. Although the beaches of Dixon no longer exist, the premise that "beauty pays" persists. The State of Illinois has focused recent statewide attention on tourism. The large number of tourist publications featuring naturalistic settings on their covers speak for themselves as do the generally higher property values of homes and businesses in the vicinity of a well-cared-for neighborhood park. "A property must be appraised as a part of the environment," say Judith and Anthony Reynolds, in their National Trust publication, Factors Affecting Valualion of Historic Property. "The environment extends to the entire community of which the appraised property is a part, but the more important influence is the neighborhood in which the property is located." Today's tax-dependent park districts are directly affected by the local economy and that alone may be sufficient reason for preserving and restoring the beauty of design and materials used in older parks.
"Designers of many of our grand old parks were
able to recognize and apply the principles of spacial definition found in nature. They grouped plant material in masses." High quality craftsmanship in midwest parks designed in the "Prairie Spirit" and built by the WPA is evident in the many fireplaces, retaining walls, shelters, and decorative markers utilizing native stonework. The rock was often hand-quarried locally. The uniformity in the cutting and setting stonework from 1907 through the 1940s has contributed to the quality and long-standing popularity of Lowell Park in Dixon. Only in recent years have contemporary styles and incompatible repairs been allowed to replace or alter original design features. The situation Lowell Park faces is similar to other older parks in the midwest that have clearly laid plans by master designers. The parks are only safe if their keepers are willing to adhere to the original design concept. In her summary of the 1991 American Horticultural Society's preservation symposium, landscape historian Robin Karson describes the frustrations of conference attendees. Their preservation work often faces a high degree of resistance to implementing master plans—old or otherwise. Many had negative experiences with "tree-cutting, vista-opening, fund-raising, and 'the Greek chorus of family members, volunteers, amateur gardeners and officers second-guessing every stage of restoration work.'" Perhaps this resistance stems from a lack of understanding of the vision embodied in the master plan and the skills required to implement the vision. Maybe individuals want to make their own mark on the land, or possibly there exists a substantial number of frustrated designers. Regardless, the craftsmanship and materials used in our historic public parks require, and deserve, nothing less than craftsmanship in maintenance. Designers of many of our grand old parks were able to recognize and apply the principles of spacial definition found in nature. They grouped plant material in masses. They arranged in order to avoid straight lines or geometric patterns and to appear as if seed had taken root where it had been scattered by the wind. As a result of plant placement the eye was directed to the long view down a meadow or through the tree-break to a bend in the river upstream. Private room-like spaces flowed into broader, more open spaces, creating changes in mood and experience for the visitor. Expert design knowledge was applied to enhance the enjoyment of natural elements. Master designers capitalized upon such elements of nature as sunlight, clouds, moonlight, and prevailing breezes to reveal cool places in the heat, warm places in the cold, and captivating sensory delights made only the interplay of natural light and landscape can provide. "We tend to be object-oriented, so it often takes time to become comfortable thinking of plants, rocks and landforms not just as shapes and volumes but as boundaries or modulators of space," says University of Michigan professor Robert Grece in his article "Nature as Inspiration" in Fine Gardening magazine (March/April 1989). By failing to understand our older parks in these terms, we miss important opportunities to preserve integral parts of what a park experience was at one time and what it could, and possibly should, be today. Landmarking One public statement of value, landmarking has been integrated over the past 25 years into the preservation process for buildings and historic sites. Landmarking older parks as historically significant elements of our American culture has lagged behind. The decade of the 1980s, however, saw strong strides taken toward the goal of preservation of designed landscapes. The thrust continues into the present decade. In 1990, a computerized national database of NPS historic designed landscapes, as well as historic scenes, historic sites, historic vernacular landscape, and ethnographic landscape was established. In January 1991, the midwest regional office of the NPS hired a full-time regional cultural landscape architect to develop management programs and provide technical assistance to midwest NPS personnel. Also in 1991, the Gardner Museum of Architecture and Design featured an exhibit of historic parks in Quincy, Illinois. Created by curator Paul Larson, the exhibit displayed plans and photos of Quincy's scenic parks dating to the turn of the century. Larson presented a slide and historic overview, and local high school students portrayed early park benefactors. Another major exhibit. "Prairie in the City: Naturalism in Chicago's Parks 1870-1940," was a combined effort of the Chicago Historical Society, the Morton Arboretum, and the Chicago Park District. On display were
Although attrition of original plant material has occurred along Page Drive in Dixon, the photographs, books, manuscripts, and historic plans and drawings by the two most influential designers of their time. O.C. Simonds and Jens Jensen. In conjunction, the Illinois Chapter of American Society of Landscape Architects and the Chicago Park District organized a tour of four Chicago park landscape restorations. Attendees came from Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio. The 1990s is likely to see a continuation of these accomplishments, with increasing emphasis on the restoration aspect of preservation. Original park designs, if they can be determined, are valuable toward that end. Contemporary tradition has seen government as a major contributor toward expenses in public restoration projects. As these funds become restricted, competition grows tougher among grant applicants, and the need for organized community support becomes more crucial. One of the ways an organization can effctively compete for Illinois Historic Preservation Agency matching grant awards, for example, is to be located within the jurisdiction of a Certified Local Government (CLG). Certification requires that a city or county historic preservation ordinance be adopted and that a qualified and adequate preservation review commission is in place and active. Among other things, a preservation commission has the authority to landmark local sites as historically significant. Landmarking, locally or nationally, will certainly confer status on a park and the community and can open doors to preservation/restoration assistance. "The value of a city park, therefore, to a city population is greater or less accordingly as the poetic charm of its scenery is preserved and developed." concluded O.C. Simonds, master of park, cemetery, and estate design spanning the late nineteenth, and early twentieth, centuries. Simonds applied this philosophy in the development of park systems in Quincy and Dixon, had major involvement in the development of Chicago parks, and designed parks in Joliet, Decatur, Springfield, and Rock Island. Regardless of their ages and designers, however, every park we have today will be an historic park of the future, and the decisions we are making, whether to preserve our heritage or to change it, will be the history. The employees and board members of park districts are in a powerful position regarding stewardship of the "intangible" and often unspoken values. Shall we neglect or intrude on our older parks until their purpose disintegrates, no longer resembling or providing what was originally intended and still needed? Are we handing down these older parks to the next generation as beautifully and with as much meaning as they were handed down to us?
About the Authors
|
|
|
