Report on the Improvement of the City of Dubuque (Park System, Street Improvement, Abolition of Grade Crossings and Establishment of a Union Station) - October 1, 1907c, . „
REPORT
ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE CITY
OF D U B U Q U E, IOW A
B
CHARLES MULFORD ROBINSON
REPORT
ON
The Improvement of the City of
Dubuque, Iowa
BV
CHARLES MULFORD ROBINSON, A. M.
(CIVIC ADVISER)
To
JOINT COMMITTEE REPRESENTING DUBUQUE COMMER-
CIAL CLUB, CIVIC DIVISION OF DUBUQUE WOMAN'S
CLUB, AND TRADES AND LABOR CONGRESS.
THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE CITY
OF
DUBUQUE, IOWA.
Mr. G. A. Grimm, Chairman; Mrs. H. E. Tredway,
Secretary; and Members of Me joint Committee:
You have asked me to make suggestions for the
improvement of the City of Dubuque, and to embody
these in a preliminary general report. The purpose, as
I understand it, is to learn the possibilities of the city
from the standpoint of municipal aesthetics.
The conditions that give rise to the problem must
be influential in determining its solution. Let us con-
sider first what these are.
CONDITIONS.
Dubuque is a river town, of moderate size as
American cities go. For many years it has had a
steady and healthy growth, but not a rapid or spectacular
one. Therefore it has been one without the accom-
panying danger of collapse. The city is one of home
owners, and of well distributed wealth. There are
neither the extremes of poverty nor of riches. It occu-
pies a wondrously beautiful location, nature not only
pressing it around with varied and picturesque scenery,
but thrusting beauty of bluff or river or view into its
very street system, so that throughout the whole city
one can hardly ever be forgetful of the natural beauty
of the site. With these opportunities, there is in the
Dubuque citizenship a naturally park -loving element
which is of especially large proportions.
4 The Improvement of the
Dubuque would thus seem to be the city of cities
for a comprehensive and beautiful park system. Yet
there is not even a park commission, and the "park"
possessions of the city are confined to a couple of little
triangles at street intersections, and two little city
squares —good enough of their kind, with the brighten-
ing flowers and the play of light and shade on the tree
dotted lawns; but exercising none of the recreative
functions of a municipal park system, and with the
radius of their aesthetic influence not extending beyond
the property directly abutting upon them. They are
squares such as any town on the prairie might have,
for no beauty of bluff or river has been set aside for the
people, and view points have been parted with for what
they would bring. The citizen who would enjoy the
beauty that should be the right of those -who live in
Dubuque is compelled to trespass on private property.
To these anomalous conditions there must be added,
as a handicap to their prompt correction, the fact that
the city has not a great deal of money to spend for
other than the most coinmonplace improvement pur-
poses —of which the need is still considerable —and that
it is one in which a mortgaging of the future by a long
term bond issue for park requirements ought to be
undertaken with conservatism.
Obviously a peculiarly interesting and difficult
problem is presented. Here is a city in great need of
parks; a city exceptionally endowed by nature with
opportunities for very beautiful and varied popular
pleasure grounds, a city that has practically nothing to
start with in the way of park possessions and that must
measure its undertakings not by the opportunities
offered, but by its capacity to pay for them —to buy
lands and then to develop and maintain them. It would
be very easy to picture the scenically ideal Dubuque;
but such a report would have no practical value. It
would be pleasant to select every beautiful spot and
gratify its friends by asking that it be made a park; but
City of Dubuque, Iowa. 5
to .do so would be advice to bankrupt the city. It is
necessary to choose and weigh and choose again; to
consider the claims of each possible park site, not by
itself but in its relation to the whole, to discard sites
that other cities would envy; to choose 'A rather than
B, not because one is blind to the beauty of B, or even
prefers A to B from the scenic standpoint; but because
in the algebraic total of all the factors that go to make
or spoil a park site, A fares better than B. At the same
time, it is essential in this choosing not to look only to
the immediate future: —the recommendations are not to
be confined to what could be done this year or next.
The suggestions are to give a plan that may be worked
toward through many years, with the idea that if at
last they are all carried out, the city will then become
worthy of its singularly beautiful location, the units of
its park system well distributed and making a compre-
hensive and harmonious whole; while, as a result of the
change, the city itself should be not poorer, but more
prosperous, bigger, happier and busier than ever.
THE PROBLEM.
Dubuque's natural environment offers three great
features: (i) The river; (2) the bluffs, with their river
views; (3) the western highlands with their views of
rolling country. These three features extend through
the whole length of the city from north to south. Over
against these features, the park needs of a modern muni-
cipality may be grouped under five general heads: (r)
Small, ornamental spaces; (2) local, or neighborhood
parks, which may be advantageously scenic parks;
(3) playgrounds and recreative fields; (q.) large country
parks that, inviting people out of doors, give to
them the greatest possible change from urban condi-
tions; and (5) connecting boulevards or parkways that
bind the park units into a system and make possible a
pleasant passing from one park to another. The imme-
diate problem in Dubuque is to what extent these
Ornamental
Spaces
6 The Improvement of the
requirements may be best and most practically met from
the physical conditions offered. After that, we shall
note various other respects in which the city may be
improved.
PARK SUGGESTIONS.
Taking up the park needs of Dubuque in the order
in which they were named as the needs of a typical
modern municipality, we come first to the small orna-
mental spaces. In some respects this is the least inter-
esting of all the groups, but there are two factors that
give to it dignity. Though primarily of purely local
effectiveness, these irregular little spaces may become
by sheer force of numbers of general influence, so that
if sufficiently numerous they will do much to make a
city beautiful, to give it an air of prosperity —a " well
dressed" as distinguished from a " down in the heel"
aspect; and then to affect the taste of the people them-
selves, so that house gardens look better, have more
flowers, better kept lawns, and better grouping because
of the influence of the city's example. The second con-
sideration is that Dubuque, owing to its irregular street
system, does offer an exceptionally large number of such
opportunities and that they are especially interesting.
As yet, only two of these have been availed of; the tri-
angle between West and South Main Street below First,
and that at Fifteenth at the side of the High School.
The first might well have been made larger by exten-
sion northward before the pavement was laid. Even
now it should be carried to the fountain, and the foun-
tain itself made worthier the proffered setting.
There are dozens of other similar opportunities.
An important one is at the intersection of Eighteenth
and Clay streets. Here the city has an engine house,
well placed, at the end of a long business street. Behind
it and to one side rises the bluff ; on the east, a narrow,
triangular strip of ground municipally owned is now
City of Dubuque, Iowa. 7
given up to billboards, where, in connection with the
little fountain, the city at small cost could make a very
pretty spot that would really be more conspicuous than
costly Washington or Jackson parks. In the broad
plaza before this space, there is an old horse -trough. It
is clear that at this central and very prominent spot
Dubuque has not made the best of its opportunities,
and that a remodeling of the space is invited. There is
room for a bit of central parking in the plaza, a charm-
ing street feature in which Dubuque is totally deficient;
and the little fountain at the side of the engine house —
suggestive of an Italian shrine even now in its construc-
tion —might well be made an invitingly cool and shaded
spot.
Other exceedingly important opportunities of simi-
lar kind are proffered, for example, at the terminus of
the Eighth street car line, and at various Grandview
avenue intersections, as at Dodge street, South Dodge,
and Delhi road. There is room for a little middle -street
park at each of these points. Near the latter, the stand-
pipe of the municipal water works also offers an oppor-
tunity for civic embellishment. The far conspicuousness
of the pipe, and the fact that the land is already owned
by the city, would justify some expenditure for esthetic
effect alone. With your cheap rock, a stone tower on
which vines should grow, might be constructed around
the tank, and the little space remaining should be
beautified with planting.
Now, such improvements as these are only aasthetic
in effect. They are not parks in a strict sense, and are
called so only because most cities find it convenient and
economical to place their care in the hands of the depart-
ment which is charged with the care of the parks. This
department is nominally the park commission, a separate
bureau; and until Dubuque has such a commission,
especially charged with responsibility for work of this
kind and eager to improve every opportunity that is
offered, it cannot expect to have that civic beauty which
8 The Improvement of the
it ought to have, and which would give to it the aspect
of an up-to-date and progressive city. Mere beauty of
site is something apart, and does not make up for defi-
ciency here. For the gifts that nature has showered so
generously on Dubuque, the city itself deserves, and
from strangers receives no credit. The question is what
does Dubuque do for itself, and by the answer it is
judged as a city. If the larger aspects of the park ques-
tion were never gone into here, it would still be worth
while, for the good name of Dubuque, for the city's greater
attractiveness, and for the constant pleasure of its own
citizens, as well as for the delight of visitors, that such
opportunities as there are be availed of and improved.
They involve the purchase of not a single inch of
ground; they much more than pay their little cost by
the increase in the value of the property abutting upon
them, and they are peculiarly needed in a city that is
almost unique in its lack on residence streets of broad
ornamental strips of lawn between walk and curb.
But in addition to this work, so essential to muni-
cipal completeness that it is familiar in cities, there is
the chance for Dubuque to do something spectacular,
unusual, and individual in the way of ornamental spaces,
and at very little cost, —something that will count in
giving to the city its own special stamp of beauty. This
would be to acquire, not for gardening or other develop-
ment, but simply that they may be preserved in their
own natural beauty, those walls of rock and bluff that
are too steep for building purposes, and that now and
again, rising above the city streets in rugged picturesque-
ness of wall or verdure, are so striking a feature of the
city landscape. Such bluffs are those on South Locust
street and Southern avenue between Railroad avenue
and Dodge street; are those on either side of Dodge
street itself; are those behind the Franklin school; those
on West Eighth street ust above the Wales Hotel,
where the billboards now partially hide them ; on
Twelfth street at the turn as it goes up the hill ; or at
the end of Main street, at Seventeenth.
City of Dubuque, Iowa. 9
For the city to acquire title to these bluffs would
cost very little, while no money would need to be spent
in their development, nor would their withdrawal from
private ownership absorb from the market valuable
building sites. In nearly every case they cannot be
built upon at all, and when it is possible to obtain a
foothold, either on the side or in a very shallow lot at
the base —for I do not refer to those bluffs well back
from the street —there is room only for the shacks which
it is to the city's best interests not to have so conspicu-
ously located. In Cincinnati similar steep hillsides have
been shorn of their beauty of verdure, and have become
so hideous with billboards that, as a result of a recent
park plan, the city is now taking measures to buy them
at an immediate cost that will be large because of their
remunerative utilization; and then to replant them that
there may be restored to Cincinnati the beauty that still
is yours, and that by so little forethought may forever
remain yours —more striking and preciously beautiful
the larger the city grows. Do this, and no one can ever
criticise Dubuque for lack of "ornamental spaces."
You will have something better than can be put into
any street gore or vacant space; while part of Dodge
street, where the bluffs rise on both sides at once, would
be thereby transformed, at this small cost, into the like-
ness of a stunning parkway.
Enough will be done if the city simply acquires
the title to these walls of rock and verdure, but there
are possibilities beyond, if it will go so far. Owning
these hillsides, the wooden stairways that now climb
them with so slipshod and temporary a look, could be
gradually supplanted by rock -hewn steps and natural
paths, or by steps of rock supplemented with concrete,
their borders made beautiful with vine and shrub; and
here and there across the face of the bluff a safe trail
could be cut to a vantage point with inviting seat. But
the great gain would remain the,'xsthetic.
Local or
Neighborhood
Parks
10 The Improvement of the
The second park need of a modern municipality
was described as local or neighborhood parks, which it
was said, might advantageously be scenic parks. The
advantage of choosing view -points for such parks is that
their necessarily small area seems all the smaller when
shut in, and is the more difficult advantageously to de-
velop; while if the reserved area can be a view -point, all
the country in view from it contributes to its effect on
the frequenter, and as his gaze is directed away from the
park itself, there is need of very little elaborate treat-
ment there. If he be made physically comfortable, the
attractiveness of the view will be the park's sufficient
merit. For that reason, it is often cheaper in the end
to pay more, if necessary, for a scenic vantage point to
be used as a neighborhood park than to purchase an in-
expensive tract shut in by city streets, since the latter
tract must then be improved at large outlay, and at large
cost each year maintained.
Because the neighborhood park is supplementary
to the ornamental spaces, it must find its reason in its
social use. It must, therefore, be suited to the neighbor-
hood in which it is. Nearly always its function is that
of a public room out of doors, where children can play,
where mothers can sit to sew and talk, where neighbors
can meet in the evenings. Necessarily there is some
overlapping of function in these arbitrarily divided
groups of parks, and in a small city such as Dubuque
where, if the main parks be well distributed, there is
always one at no great distance from the house, the need
for local parks is not imperative.
The public demand that requires the establishment
of them is likely also to designate their location and
character, but as a suggestion of what they may be, it
may be noted that the little space at the top of the ele-
vators, reserved to the free use of the public and made
beautiful, would offer convenient view -points —as would
the vacant lot at Wilber avenue and Olive street ; that
as to the older part of the city, below the bluffs, Jackson
City of Dubuque, Iowa. 11
and Washington parks now sufficiently serve the pur-
pose; and that back on the hills and in the long stretches
of the city northward, a demand for such provision
would not be unreasonable. There are an abundance of
suitable sites, and land values are not high. But the
whole matter is of local rather than of general signifi-
cance, and with the city's far more pressing needs, the
satisfaction of them may safely wait some years ; or for
special opportunity —such as that which may be offered
at the triangle at the entrance to Linwood cemetery;
andfor popular demand.
*
*
Playgrounds and recreative fields are a special form
of local or neighborhood parks. Of all the kinds of
park development, the children's playground is just now
the most popular elsewhere, and is receiving the most
attention. It is very elaborately fitted up, with sand -
piles and a wading -pool for little children, with outdoor
gymnastic apparatus for older boys and girls, with pro-
vision for basket ball and other games, with a "field
house " containing toilet facilities, dressing rooms, a re-
freshment stand, books and magazines from the library,
and a playroom for rainy days. The function of the
playground is well illustrated, indeed, by the fact there
must always be one or two " play -directors " on the
ground, and that the conduct of the place is coming to
be quite generally transferred from the park commission
to the board of education, for in the long summer months
it is designed to supplement the school work, keeping
the children off the streets, and often affording element-
ary instruction in industrial handicraft.
The playground as thus developed is by no means
confined in its influence to the congested populations of
large cities. But it is usually started in city or town by
private philanthropy, and in Dubuque, with its more
urgent needs, the municipal provision of playgrounds—
as in the case of the other local,parks—might, I think,
properly be delayed for the present. In going around
Playgrounds
And
Recreative
Fields
Summary of
Smaller Park
Needs
12 The Improvement of the City of `Dubuque, Iowa. 13
the city, my attention has been called to a level tract a
couple of blocks long between Sanford and Twenty-
second, Jackson and Washington streets, as a possible
park site. I do not recommend that use of it, but if it
were desired to establish a playground such as I have
described, this site would seem to me well adapted for
the purpose, both in itself and in the location. But half
of the tract would be amply large.
The recreative field is an interesting and wholly
legitimate park development for the modern industrial
city. Its object is to furnish a place where the employes
of shops and factories can have healthy and enjoyable
exercise in the open air. It must therefore be located
near the work shops, and it requires very little develop-
ment —simply a large even tract, laid out with base ball
diamonds, cricket fields, etc. In locating it a safe rule
is to look for the field already and informally used for
these purposes. I find such a field near the Great
Western shops, on the car lines, and in every way well
adapted to its purpose. Large employers of labor in
Dubuque could not do many more appropriate things
for the city than to purchase this or some similar tract
—there is one on the near side of Peru road that might
do as well, though it lacks the fine trees and handsome
bluff —and present it to the municipality, to be main-
tained as a playfield for operatives.
Before we take up the urgent matter of large parks,
it may be well to review the recommendations regarding
the smaller parks, so that knowing just how much or
how little Dubuque ought to do for them, we may take
care not to ask too much of the city in respect to larger
reservations. Recapitulating then, under the head of
" Ornamental Spaces" it has been advised that the city
improve certain street intersections —waste ground
already municipally owned, and that it acquire title to
the walls of rock and steepest hillsides. These should
cost very little to buy and some of them should be
given. No development of those tracts is immediately
advocated. Under the head of "Local or Neighborhood
Parks," some advantageous sites were noted; but the
present need was stated to be " not imperative," if there
shall be well distributed large parks. And as to " Play-
grounds and Recreation Fields," these were described as
of such philanthropic excellence that private means
might well supply them. In short, this report has as
yet asked so little of Dubuque as a municipality that
such resources as are available for the satisfaction of
park needs have been practically uncalled upon, in
spite of the considerable program of improvement which
is outlined.
Coming now to large parks, we reach the question
most urgent and of most popular interest in the present
study of the improvement possibilities of Dubuque.
The city's need of such parks is so generally recognized
that there is happily no necessity for arguing the point
here. Our whole attention may be given to the difficult
and very important problems concerning their character
and location.
In the science of modern city building, the follow-
ing are accepted principles: (I) A city should have at
least one large park, so extensive in itself and in the
vistas it affords as to seem a bit of country, thus pre-
senting to tired city dwellers the greatest possible urban
contrast. (2) Two or more such parks, so separated as
to serve different parts of the town, are more effective
than one park of double the size. (3) If there can be
three or more such parks, they should present contrasts
of scenery. (4) Cities that are not confined to one pub-
lic pleasure ground of this character should distribute
the reservations as widely as may be. (5) The reserva-
tions should be located on land that is not of much
importance, or at least not of eq{ial importance, for other
purposes; or where their presence will so benefit other
The Large
Parks
14 The Improvement of the
property that the increase in the taxable value of the
latter will wholly or partially compensate for the expen-
diture for park purposes. (6) Experience has shown
the exceeding advisability of securing one or more large
public reservations at what is now a long distance from
town —this tract not to be expensively improved, but to
be held as a picnic ground where people may go for the
day, until the city's growth demands its more intensive
use.
I have enunciated these principles in order that
they may be a guide in choosing the larger park sites of
Dubuque, since Dubuque is so wonderfully situated that
instead of having one or two perfectly obvious park
sites, choice must be made from a dozen or more.
Of these the one that seemed most prominently
before the public on my arrival was Ham's island, in
the river. There is to be said in its favor that it is land
now of very little use for other purposes and inexpen-
sive, that it presents a large river frontage, and that
Lake Peosta, which separates it from the city, is already
municipal property. From .various sources, on the even-
ing of my arrival, before I had seen the island orany
other part of the city, I was asked to consider the possi-
bility of making there such a park as Belle Isle at
Detroit —a possibility that had at once occurred to me.
On investigation, however, I find the conditions abso-
lutely dissimilar. (I) While Detroit had no other park
site, Dubuque has many; (2) Detroit with its large popu-
lation was able to make enormous expenditures for
development; and (3) the Detroit river is of constant
level, while here there may be fifteen feet between low
water and high water, and when the river is high the
entire island is flooded. Belle Isle, in short, has no
value as establishing a precedent of what could be done
at Ham's island. Furthermore, the mere fact that
there is an island lying opposite part of Dubuque estab-
lishes no convincing argument for placing a park upon
it. Boston, which has the most complete park system
City of Dubuque, Iowa. 15
in the country, including very popular water front res-
ervations, has made no such use of any of the islands in
the harbor, attractive as is the ceaseless panorama of
shipping which is visible from them. Nor has New
York, with the large investments it is now making in
water front parks, turned to Blackwell's Island or to
Staten Island. When there is a choice between a main-
land and an island park site, there is no presumption in
the island's favor.
There are also various objections to this particular
island's use. It is now exceedingly inaccessible. It
would be necessary to construct a bridge, and for this
permission would have to be obtained from private inter-
ests which have navigable rights in the lake. The per-
mission may be withheld, but if it were obtained, it
would be necessary to build a bridge high, and, as a park
approach, to give to it some grace —facts that would
make it more costly than the complete development of
a better tract would be. Then, soon after the bridge is
built, the lake, from present indications, will have filled
up, unless disfiguring and expensive dredging be con-
stantly carried on. Much of the island itself is a tangle.
of willows, and its several hundred acres will have to be
raised many feet before any park development can be
given to it. This is a large and costly work, and it
would be many yearsbefore the people of Dubuque
would have their park. Finally, assuming that after
years of effort and expense a park were created on the
island, there would be gained only one long, low, level
stretch, without variety, without a view, far removed
from much of the residence district, and enhancing the
taxable value of no property. Dubuque's good fortune
affords other and better opportunities than this.
My own impression is that the value of the island
is not likely to increase for many years, but as it cer-
tainly can now be bought cheaply, and the filling would
take a long time, there would( be no objection to the
purchase of the land —if there be faith that Dubuque is
16 The Improvement of the
to have a much larger future population —and the grad-
ual raising of the level on some selected portion. But
to concentrate the city's park efforts on this island, or to
allow expenditures there seriously to interfere with park
development from which immediate results can be ob-
tained, would be, I think, exceedingly unwise and short-
sighted. As a speculation, Ham's Island may be bought
and a little money spent on it, but as a park investment,
I urge that the city look elsewhere.
With respect to other locations, there is, beginning
at the north, in Eagle Point an extraordinarily noble
site, the great wall of rock rising sheer from almost the
river's edge and affording superb views up and down the
stream. The street cars now go to the foot of a ravine,
whence an easy ascent can be made, if one does not care
to climb the more abrupt but by no means difficult
sides. By good fortune, too, only a few feet of Lincoln
avenue, parallel to Rhomberg, has yet been cut into the
hill. By continuing this, but making it follow the con-
tour, and leading it gradually up the hillside, with its
charming views, and then back of the hill by way of the
ravine —all of which could be done at less cost than
cutting a level street —a park drive out of Seventh ave-
nue, a short block from Rhomberg, can lead to a view-
point on the summit of the bluff. From further along
on Seventh avenue, the hill can be reached from behind
at no severe grade, so affording a pleasant loop drive.
The rolling upland that forms the back of the bluff is
covered with an oak grove, already sufficiently thinned
for park purposes, while such a park as this demands no
elaborate development of planting. Its own wild beauty
and stunning view, when roads and paths have given it
accessibility, would make it a park of which any city in
the world might well be proud. Let this go for build-
ing sites or an institution, and the citizens of Dubuque
will never cease to regret the lost opportunity; secure it,
and the wisdom of the mayor and aldermen responsible
therefor will forever be chronicled in the city's history.
City of Dubuque, Iowa. I7
Coming south into town, the next great view point
unbuilt upon and of more than neighborhood park
dimensions is Kelly's Bluff. This is in the heart of the
city. Rising precipitously on the east, its bluffs are
among those to which I have urged that the city take
title, that they may be always preserved in their beauty;
on the south the green hillside slopes down to Dodge
Street, not so steeply that it could not be made beauti-
ful as a park, and its summit reached from there by
paths; and on the north and west the table land is on a
level with the adjacent street system, so that on those
sides there is no difficulty in walking or driving upon
it. There is in Dubuque no other unoccupied height
of such area so accessible and with so splendid a view —
a view that there is no need to describe to Dubuque
citizens. To have this in the very center of the city,
and Eagle Point as a wilder and more strictly country
park, would be for Dubuque to have turned to advantage
its great opportunities —to have restored to the people
the wonderful heritage of river views which is right-
fully theirs, since they live in Dubuque. No more pub-
lic spirited act could be done than to make readily
practicable the acquirement of this plat by the city.
When acquired this tract and Eagle Point could be at
once thrown open and the public begin to enjoy them,
as they could not for years the island; there would be
an immediate, visible and immensely popular return for
the money invested, and Dubuque would instantly have
parks, and not only parks that would mean much in
enjoyment to its citizens but that would make the city
famous. And how little it all would cost! Indeed, they
Kelly's Bluff park would largely pay for itself in the
enhancement in value of nearby property.
Nothing could compensate for the loss of these two
park sites, and it is obvious that no time should be lost
in the effort to gain them. Happily the city has the
power of condemnation in the purchase of park areas, and
in the case of Eagle Point it probably is only a matter
18
The Improvement of the
of money. If, through other considerations, Kelly's
Bluff cannot be obtained, there would still remain —not
as an equivalent, but as an alternative resource —the
large vacant plat on the east side of Grandview avenue,
just before one reaches the Mother House. The view
here is about as good as from the Mother House grounds,
and the site at the south end of the city would well
balance Eagle Point; but its relative inaccessibility as
compared to Kelly's Bluff, its smaller area, less varied
and advantageous contour, makes it much inferior to
the latter as a park site. However, it is one that nearly
any other city in the country would give many thou-
sands of dollars to secure. That it should be mentioned
as a second choice shows how extraordinary is the
opportunity offered by Kelly's Bluff.
At the river level two factors make park location
difficult. One, and the more serious, which was also
operative in the case of the island, is the great fluctua-
tion in the river level. The other is the difficulty of
finding sites not already seized for strictly utilitarian
purposes. On my way to Dubuque I happened to read
what Mr. Dooley says of the railroads in Chicago, and I
found his point only too well illustrated here. He is
asking Hennissey: " Ye know the Illinye Centhral?
Why do I ask? Iv coorse ye know it. 'Tis wan iv th'
institutions iv our fair city. It has a rockin' chair on
our front stoop. Its thracks are our lawn." Then he
added: "Whin an American city is blessed be hiven
with a site alongside iv th' shinin' ocean, th' sparklin'
lake or the purlin' river, it shows its gratichood to hiven
be givin' the site to a glue facthry, a lumber yard, or a
railroad." This is exactly what Dubuque has done.
But there are still some possibilities available. Of the
broad strip, one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet
wide, which the city owns around the Ice Harbor and
along the river edge to the south of it, I shall speak
further on. For a large park at river level, I find the
most interesting immediate possibility at Rafferty slough,
City of Dubuque, lofa.
19
and the sloughs extending south from there to the river
below Mount Carmel road. By good fortune a consid-
erable part of Rafferty slough is already city property.
Fed by springs, the water does not stagnate, and there
is offered here, within a couple of blocks of the business
section of the city and almost on a car line, a site capa-
ble of as picturesque, beautiful and useful development
as any one could ask. On the west, the wooded slopes
of Mount Carmel hill and the great bluff that frowns
over Southern avenue and South Locust street make a
natural frame of exquisite beauty. To the east, the eye,
traveling over the flat area with its railroad tracks, looks
to the Mississippi and the hills beyond. Developed at
slight expenditure into a water park, with skating in
winter and boating in summer, and girdled as it is par-
tially even now with drives, this park can well supple-
ment"the two municipal pleasure grounds on the bluffs.
Nothing could be easier than to make its little banks
beautiful with planting, and to create here, in a small
fraction of the time that the island would require and at
a very small part of the cost of raising and developing
the island, such a water park as has been dreamed of
there —but much more accessible. If one will walk
along South Locust street and Southern avenue, or along
Railroad avenue, and will go up Mount Carmel road to
overlook the plat, one will see without need of argument
how beautiful and useful a natural park this is. Then
in fancy let him add to it the two suggested elevated
parks with their great views, and ask himself whether
Dubuque would not thus be well provided, and at small
cost, with a system of parks, varied, typically individ-
ualistic, well distributed and accessible, fitted to restore
to the people the enjoyment of the natural beauty of
their city's site.
As to the large country reservation, to be set aside
as a strictly rural park supplementary to these municipal
parks, the lower Catfish, the bluff on which is Dubuque's
grave, and the broad flat space extending to Horseshoe
Connecting
Boulevards
And
Parkways
20
The Improvement of the
bluffs, seem to me to furnish the ideal location. The
historic interest of the spot, the proper incentive which
grave and tower offer to a visit and to the steep climb to
the top, the lovely natural boundaries of the park, the
river trip, the large play space offered by the flat area,
the romantic scenery of the Catfish with its invitation to
boating, the delightful picnic grounds in the timber
on either side, all combine to make this an appropriate
spot for a city's rural park. The one great objection is
inaccessibility, but this is not through remoteness, for it
is only two miles from the business part of the city. If
the tract were made a park, however, the Milwaukee
road would doubtless be quick enough to put in a subur-
ban station, and this railroad service could be supple-
mented during the season by a line of public launches.
At a five, or even ten, cent fare these would offer so
pleasant a way of going that the concession would doubt-
less bring in some revenue to the park commission. As
for driving, it would seem that by an extension of Mount
Carmel road a direct approach at reasonable gradient
could be established.
Isolated park units, however excellent in themselves
and as a group, do not constitute a system until they are
unitedby drives. In the ideally planned city, these
would make a complete girdle and would be an exceed-
ingly important factor in the city's beautification.
The good fortune of Dubuque, in its wonderfully
varied and beautiful site, will stand it in as good stead
in the construction of these connecting drives as in the
establishment of parks. For while most cities have to
trust to the development of the street itself for the at-
tractiveness of boulevard and parkway, here the topogra-
phy will give to selected streets interest, variety and
charm as a circle of scenic drives, the function of the
development bestowed on them being then simply to
establish their character as belonging to the park system.
City of Dubuque, Iowa.
21
Beginning at the Ice Harbor, as a conveniently
central point, the city owns on the south bank of it a
broad strip not yet parted with for other purposes. This
should be planted with a double row of trees, and on the
water side a promenade should be laid out, with frequent
incandescent lights, and with seats beneath the trees
where one can sit to watch the shimmering waters and
the life of the little harbor, while incidentally there will
thus be established a pleasant entrance to the city for the
passengers by boat. Back of the promenade, which may
well be twenty feet in width, with a strip of greensward
twenty feet broad between it and the road, should be the
drive, the second row of trees on its southern side. The
drive, extending to the river, should there turn south, —
as it still can do on city property —to Railroad avenue.
Leaving the river at that point and turning westward,
it will enter in a few hundred feet the park to be made
at Rafferty slough, and crossing its pretty lake will reach
Mount Carmel avenue. By raising the lower end of
this, the hard grade can be considerably lessened, and
there will be offered a beautiful parkway, climbing the
wooded bluff, with long vistas up and down the majestic
river, and views to the park below and into the wild
growth on either side. Thus it will be a varied and
parklike drive from the beginning of the Ice Harbor to
Herron Place, and there it will join the park to be se-
cured at the north of the Mother House —if Kelly's
bluff be not obtained; and in any case will join Grand-
view avenue, withits long peaceful views to the west-
ward hills.
For accomplishing this result, existing highways
only need to be used; the development along the river
and the Ice Harbor will serve a double purpose, giving
pleasure to those who walk as well as to those who
drive; across Rafferty slough the making of the park
will give all the development desired, and the drive up
Mount Carmel has been made beautiful by nature. The
steep slope from the road to the sloughs would of course
be added to the park takings.
22 The Improvement of the
Grandview avenue on the brow of the hill, with
its views over the broad tranquil valley and to the blue
hills beyond, has the making of a very stunning boule-
vard. To this purpose it would be economy for the
city to give to it that elaborate development for which
its hundred feet of width now so sorely calls —and that
hundred feet should be made uniform. The curb line
has been placed, I understand, twenty feet from the lot
line; but as few curbs have yet been laid I would rather
have it twenty-five feet from the lot line. Then the
space should be laid off as follows: Lot line to walk,
five feet; walk, five feet; street lawn, between walk and
curb, fifteen feet; roadway, fifty feet. In the broad
strip of parking between walk and curb trees should be
planted by the city —that they may be placed in orderly
fashion, all of one kind, equi-distant, in formal row.
They should be trimmed high, so as not to break the
views; and the poles and wires should be taken off of
this one show street of Dubuque. Side -parking, it
seems to me, is preferable here to center -parking, because
the interest of the street is in its distant views. To
have the strip of parking in the middle would be to
invite attention only to the avenue; to have it at the
side invites the eye to look toward the view. Incident-
ally it will make the little ornamental spaces, which I
have proposed for some of the intersections, more inter-
esting because of their variety. Thus developed there
can be no doubt that there would be a demand for house
sites on Grandview avenue which would so increase the
assessable value of abutting property as to more than
repay the city for the expenditure. In other words, the
improvement can be made for nothing. I hope the
street cars may be kept off of Grandview avenue.
By proceeding from Grandview avenue to Semi-
nary street, and thence east on that, and down by the
Madison street hill, the half circle around the city will
have been completed. Thence by Garfield and Rhom-
berg avenues it will be a pleasant drive to Eagle Point
City of Dubuque, Iowa.
23
and the park to be established there. Thus with the
exception of the possible park at Kelly's bluff, which
can be approached by excellent residential streets, all
the large municipal parks will be united by driveways
and boulevards into a system. Of course in the case of
Seminary street, Garfield and Rhomberg avenues, no
elaborate development is possible; but these in one way
and another are attractive streets already, and may well
serve as links of the system.
It is clear that these plans contemplate a consider-
able park expenditure by the city of Dubuque. But to
the modern city, parks are as much an essential as are
sewers, pavements, lights, or police and fire protection.
They are not subjects for argument or for sentiment;
they are recognized municipal necessities. You in
Dubuque appreciate this, and have made up your minds
that you must have parks. The only question is how
completely shall you go into the matter, and where
shall the parks be situated.
It is my belief, as I have stated, that the island
would be in the end a costly, laborious and time -taking
park proposition, and that the immediate and serious
park investment of the city should be in the other men-
tioned sites, where the returns will be substantial and
immediate. It is my further impression that it should
be possible to obtain a pretty complete park system, as
outlined in this report, at no greater aggregate cost
than would be involved in the development of the
island and its adequate connection with the city. As to
whether this degree of expense is justifiable, I would
state that the plan is not an extravagant but a conser-
vative one for a growing municipality; though there
might properly have been, if necessary, a degree of
extravagance about it, since with cities as with men,
obligation goes with opportunity. The city so pictur-
esquely located as is Dubuque may well find it to its
Counting
The Cost
24 The Improvement of the
advantage to make the most of the talent it so pre-emi-
nently possesses. That a great deal here ought to be
done promptly is, perhaps, unfortunate. But the risk
in waiting is very serious. The park commission should
be obtained and it should at once acquire the sites.
Those here described are so advantageous in their
present condition that development could be deliberate
if once the land were safely secured.
For the purchase of the land two courses of action
are available —a park tax or a bond issue. Personally,.
I favor the latter, leaving the proceeds of the former for
use in the development and maintenance. A bond issue
for park lands is justifiable because the future will ben-
efit at least as much as .the present from the parks, be-
cause the land is security for the bonds, and because
while nearly all other property represented by city bond
issues —as water works, sewers, schools and other public
structures —depreciate in value with the lapse of time,,
the value of the parks steadily increases. I know of no
better or more legitimate fiscal operation for a city,
quite apart from the paramount sociological and xsthetic
benefit. Furthermore, parks pay financially. Let me
give briefly the results of an investigation which I made
a few weeks ago on this point :
In Louisville, where there is a fine park system,
more than two million dollars having been expended on
it, D. F. Murphy, a former city assessor, estimates the
city's direct money profit by the transaction at $r,600,-
000. Figuring out, by careful watchfulness from year
to year, the amount of increased taxable values that
have resulted from the parks, he gets the sum of $2o,-
000,000. At the present annual assessment of $1.86 that
gives an increased annual income as a result of the parks
of $372,000. Going back only ten years, this would aggre-
gate $3,720,000, from which, deducting the $2,070,000
expended since the system was started, he gets the direct
money profit of more than $i,600,000 in ten years. Of
course, there are incidental profits besides. In larger
City of Dubuque, Iowa. 25
cities, as New York, Chicago and Boston, figures show
much more amazing results, for there the abutting land
often " doubles and even quadruples in value at once"
when a park is established. I quote the words from W.
H. Harmon, secretary of the Chicago Park Department.
But if the reports of larger cities be not convincing, let
me quote the park report for 1907 of Madison, Wis., a
neighboring city: The president's report says: "There
is now being turned into the city treasury in increased
taxes, by reason of this (park) work, on the basis of the
tax rate of last year, not less than $28,000, and the
greatest financial benefit from the establishment of our
drives, parks, and playgrounds has not yet come to the
city. Yet even now the city is receiving not less than
$20,000 annually in excess of the amount expended to
maintain the parks each year." But, of course, parks
are worth while in themselves, in the pleasure and
physical benefit which they give to the community,
apart from their profits.
OTHER IMPROVEMENT
SUGGESTIONS.
While Dubuque's need of an adequate park system
is so serious that any report on the improvement of the
city must place there its principal stress, yet I should
feel myself remiss in my duty if I did not make note of
various other things that might be done to enhance
the city's attractiveness and make it a better place in
which to work and to live. These as distinguished from
questions of park improvement may be classed as ques-
tions of municipal improvement. They have mainly to
do with the streets.
Main street, considered as the leading business
thoroughfare of a growing city, is too narrow. If the
population of Dubuque increases considerably, the thor-
oughfare will be a congested one ; yet its widening is a
26 The Improvement of the
Haussmannizing process not to be seriously considered.
But there is one simple step which can be taken, and
which will notably increase the street's carrying capacity
and at the same time add in a measure to its dignity.
The unnecessary sidewalk obstructions —very many in
number and in kind —can be removed. For this there
is already sufficient authority in Chapter 33 of the Re-
vised City Ordinances. There is need only that the
regulations be enforced ; and if they are enforced uni-
versally, hardship will be imposed upon no one.
Various other streets have too wide a roadway,
though this error is less common in Dubuque than in
most cities of its size. The streets of a city have as
varied functions as the rooms of a house. Nevertheless
in the old planning of cities, all parallel streets in a cer-
tain tract were given uniform width, regardless of the
function they had to perform in the city's life, regard-
less of the volume of traffic they would carry or of the
character of the buildings at their sides. Yet no one
would think of giving the same dimensions to all the
rooms of his house.
A good illustration is offered by the streets that run
east and west to the bluffs. Fourteenth and Eighth,
which must be always arterial, because carried up the
valleys, are given no greater width than are the streets
between them, although these stop abruptly at the hill-
side, only two short blocks from Main street. If we
cannot change the width of the short streets, at least we
need not in their development perpetuate the foolish
blunder. For example, in paving Eleventh street, it was
a bit of unjustifiable extravagance to pave the full width
of the road. There was not only waste in paving a wider
expanse than was necessary, but there was actual loss in
attractiveness and comfort. A roadway twenty-six feet
wide here would have taken care of all the traffic that
the street will be asked to carry. That would have left
nineteen feet on each side, and of that nineteen there
should have been one foot of greensward between walk
City of Dubuque, Iowa. 27
and lot line, then a six-foot walk, and then twelve feet
of turf between walk and curb. This would have made
a beautiful street; to the eye, it would have carried
down to Main street the ornamental parking at the side
of the elevator, and it would have given to the Library
a much needed setting. And aside from these particular
advantages there would have been those common on all
streets where side parking is possible, viz: a saving of
expense in construction and in subsequent maintenance,
a lessening of dust and noise, a saving of pedestrians
from the spattering of mud, an apparent setting back of
the building line, and the seeming addition of just that
much to the front lawns.
I have thought it worth while to dwell with some
pains on this instance, for considering Eleventh street
as an example, the discussion is not academic. The
like opportunity may arise at any time on a similar
street. In fact, Second street is so striking a case that
I recommend parking here immediately without wait-
ing for paving. Like Eleventh street second terminates
at the bluff, two short blocks from Main, but for some
reason there was given to it an extra width, so that it is
eighty-six feet wide, as compared with the sixty-four of
the arterial streets. Needless to say, very little of the
expanse of roadway is used. It happens, too, that finely
situated at the head of this street is the Cathedral,
which stands for so much to many of Dubuque's
citizens that it would be an appropriate act, as well as
one making for the enhancement of the city's attract-
iveness, to give to it that significance and dignity of
setting which would be given —with an actual economy
—by transforming Second street from Main to its portal
into a parklike approach. My advice would be a forty
foot road, thus leaving twenty-three feet on each side
for walk and parking. The twenty-three feet I would
divide as follows: From lot line to walk, one foot;
walk, ten feet; parking —turf /from walk to curb —
twelve feet. I have recommended here an especially
28 The Improvement of the
wide roadway and wide walk so as to take care of the
dispersing congregations.
On Rhomberg avenue, to which in my plan I give
special significance as a park connection, there is for
some distance a fine double row of elms. These have
now grown to such size and are so well worth saving in
their beauty that they ought to be thinned out so that
the trees which are left may be given opportunity to
develop. Many persons have great reluctance to author-
ize removal of a tree; but a congestion of trees, so that
they are starved and cramped, is only a little less bad
than a huddling of human beings into tenetnents.
The work here, and the tree planting which I have
already suggested for Grandview avenue, ought to be
done by a properly constituted official authority, which
will not only act with expert knowledge but with that
regard for the interests of the whole street —which are
also the interests of the city —as distinguished from the
individual lot owner's point of view. And Grandview
and Rhomberg avenues are only two streets out of the
whole city, on all the streets of which tree care and tree
planting should be systematic and scientific if Dubuque
is to realize all its possibilities for beauty. To gain
this result there may be created the office of city
forester, in which a competent man can by degrees ac-
complish much with a comparatively small annual appro-
priation; or the street trees can be put in charge of the
park commission, when that body has been secured.
In the latter case the park board would employ the for-
ester and should be given a separate appropriation
expressly for street tree work.
Further considering the streets as a whole, there
should be a better rounding of curbs at the corners.
The radius of the present curve is so short that the arc
has neither beauty nor .utility. A long sweeping curve
at the corners will add much to the comeliness of the
street, and will greatly facilitate driving.
City of Dubuque, Iowa. 29
On all the business streets, and as rapidly as prac-
ticable on the residence streets, light standards should
be substituted for the present flimsy method of hanging
electric lights from wires. Various artistic standards
are on the market at little or no higher price than those
designed without thought of appearance. A very little
care in the selection of the standards will give satisfac-
tory results.
Street name signs are also very much needed
throughout Dubuque.
Cans for the reception of street waste and rubbish
are good things, but cans plastered with signs are about
as much of an eye -sore on the public way as would be
the rubbish itself. I do not know what arrangement
tempted the granting of permission to cover these street
cans with signs. If no permission was given they should
at once be freed from the advertisements; if financial
considerations persuaded a granting of permission let
there be a reflection that —if the signs pay for the cans
—they also negative practically the whole good of the
cans. I do not believe that Dubuque is so poor or so
mean that it cannot keep the rubbish from the outside
of its rubbish receptacles. A municipality that has
awakened to high ideals of civic beauty, and looks for
a beautiful park system, needs only to have its attention
called to the present condition of the street cans.
The alleys of Dubuque are so broad and so conspic-
uous that they may properly be considered under the
head of streets. Their dirtiness is appalling. For its
alleys, Dubuque needs one of those general cleaning -up
days that have been so popular throughout the west for
the last year, and after. that a system of much more
frequent regular collection.
With regard to the landscape development of the
city's present little squares and triangles, I shall say
nothing. Speaking generally,, the effects are pretty
good, and the problem is one that will naturally be taken
30 The Improvement of the
up by the park commission. But I may suggest that
the pipes for drinking water are susceptible of worthier
treatment than at present.
The school yards also, which are exceptional in
their size and the opportunity they offer for good work,
require no word of mine, as I understand that a very
competent authority has already made plans for them.
The one big thing for Dubuque to work for, after
the park and street improvements —and in its importance
it is comparable to them —is the abolition of grade cross-
ings by the railroads, and then, as an incident of the
reconstruction necessary, the erection of a union rail-
road station. The abolition of the grade crossings will
be a large and costly work, but it is one of exceeding
moment to Dubuque, and one in the expense of which
the railroads will share. This they can be compelled to
do, if compulsion is necessary; but the change would be
so much to their own interest, in the facilitation of
traffic, in lessening the cost of maintenance —doing
away with gates and flagmen —in relief from damage
actions for death and injury, and in economy and con-
venience of administration, through having one station
instead of four separate ones, that the roads will probably
be found willing to co-operate with the municipality if
properly approached. There should be appointed to
take up this matter a joint committee representative of
the city and of the different roads. The opportunity for
an economical elevation of tracks is exceptionally favor-
able in Dubuque, and convenient sites for the union
station are at hand, while there are so many big roads
to share the cost of the improvement that a requirement
of grade crossing abolition would work hardship upon
none of them. As for the city, it would gain immensely
by this improvement. The one adequate union station,
instead of the four little village -like stations, would at
once transform the impression it must make upon trav-
elers, from that of a little town to that of a city. The
elevation of the tracks would not only mean a saving of
City of Dubuque, Iowa. 31
life and limb, and of considerable time for city traffic,
but in so doing it would render the Ice Harbor landings
much safer and pleasanter of approach, and would vastly
increase the accessibility and usefulness of the suggested
harbor and river -front drive and promenade.
CONCLUSION.
With these three distinct groups of effort: (r)
For the creation of a park system; (2) For the im-
provement of the streets in various ways; and (3) For
the abolition of grade crossings and the establishment
of a union station, Dubuque will be transformed into a
modern city —beautiful, with a beauty characteristic of
its picturesque location, more orderly of aspect, and
more convenient, —in short, better to visit, and better to
live in and to call one's home. As such a city it will
attract people to itself, for with the present ease of com-
munication, population has a fluid character, flowing to
the points where it finds most to please it. People make
business, and I believe the future of Dubuque, in the
present keen rivalry of cities, depends more upon the
city's immediate grasp of its opportunities for municipal
improvement, not in a picayune way, but in a broadly
comprehensive and daring way, than upon any other
factor. The very circumstance that this report has been
called for shows that the right spirit is stirring in the
municipality, and gives the promise that the situation
is recognized and will be worthily met, as clearly it can
be at no staggering expense.
The change which I dare to forsee in the attitude
of Dubuque must be in the hearts of individual citizens
before it manifests itself in the community. The con-
struction of large private places —by which I mean not
the erection of fine houses but the putting of houses in
large grounds, the development of these grounds, and
the treasuring of view points, will be one expression of
it. This will line Grandview avenue, for example, with
IOW
32 The Improvement of the City
of Dubuque, Iowa.
handsome private grounds, thus doing much by private
means for the embellishment of the city. The end will
be hastened by the worthier municipal development of
the street. And the new individual spirit will show
itself in gifts to the city. There is no finer thing for a
rich man to do than by gift to make recognition of the
community where he has gained his wealth. It is a
proud fact in the history of American municipalities
that much of their parks and connecting driveways, and
much of their aesthetic embellishment, are the gifts of
citizens. Finally, and most important of all, the new
sentiment will show itself in the public spirit of indi
viduals, in that self-sacrifice that freely gives of time
and effort for the common good. That expression I
have found already evident, in an inspiringly large
measure, in the members of the Joint Committee, which
I have the honor to serve. In the thing itself, but
especially in its promise for Dubuque, all who love the
city must rejoice.
Respectfully submitted,
CHARLES MULFORD ROBINSON.
October ist, 1907.