Page:Report of the Park Board 1903.djvu/35

 Another boulevard from the center of Ladd's Addition to Mount Tabor Park would afford a direct pleasure approach to the latter.

Another boulevard mainly formal, would connect Mount Tabor Park with Columbia Slough Park.

Ross Island Park would preserve a liberal amount of river scenery.

Swan Island would be a desirable additional reservation of river scenery.

The above system of scenic reservations, parks and parkways and connecting boulevards would, if supplemented by an adequate number of neighborhood parks, play grounds and ornamental squares, form an admirable park system for such an important city as Portland is bound to become.

A MORE DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF SUGGESTED PARK SYSTEMS.
For convenience we shall assume that the word "parkway" means an informal pleasure drive (with walks), including strips of varying width of land preserving existing woods, or to be planted picturesquely, while the word "boulevard" will mean a pleasure drive with walks and planting strips of uniform width, to be improved in a formal manner and usually not so wide as a parkway.

PARK SQUARES.
These existing squares—twenty in number and most of them 100 feet by 200 feet—have great value not only for the possibilities which they present for recreation and for local decorative effects, but also owing to the improvement which they effect in the city plan as forming two strong ornamental features of formal character interrupting the monotonous succession of city blocks and creating two nuclei similar in character to those created in New York by Union Square and Madison Square. Thirteen of these squares and a half one form a continuous row extending in a south southwest direction from the heart of the densely populated part of the city west of the river to the foot of the high hill known as Portland Heights. These thirteen and a half squares, with the two streets between which they lie, correspond closely in effect to Commonwealth avenue in Boston, and it is practicable to similarly extend a continuous system of parkways and parks outward from them. Many of the largest and handsomest public and semi-public buildings ought hereafter to face upon these squares.