PART IV: Notes on Parks and Recreation Facilities
Pittsburgh: Main Thoroughfares and The Down Town District
Frederick Law Olmsted report to The Pittsburgh Civic Commission, 1910
page 101
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PART IV
Notes on Parks and Recreation Facilities
Plans for a grouping of public buildings in the Bellefield District, and for improving the entrance to Schenley Park, have been studied with some care.
The Bellefield Improvement
Two plans are herewith submitted (Plan A and Plan B), the essential difference between them being that Plan A contemplates scarcely more than the improvement of the existing layout, while Plan B involves a radical change of design, and absolutely requires, for its happy execution, a control of developments on the Frick property north of Forbes Street.
In Plan A the ravine between the Carnegie Institute and Forbes Field is not filled up but is enlarged. The bridge over the ravine remains, but the present driveway entrance from Forbes Street is moved 50 or 60 feet east, to give room for a double row of trees to screen the Forbes Field grandstand. This road is continued south from the end of the stone bridge to Bates and Boquet Streets, thus gaining a direct connection to the Oakland District. Another driving entrance is shown east of the ravine to accommodate travel from the East End through Bellefield, Dithridge and Forbes Streets. Bellefield Street is widened and Tennyson Avenue is extended from Fifth Avenue to Forbes Street, in order to give a more fitting approach to the Institute. And finally, an appropriate setting is provided for the front of the Institute by a small plaza surrounded by public or quasi-public buildings. It may be noted that one of these buildings, the stone church on Dithridge Street, already exists, but it is nearly hidden from Forbes Street by cheap wooden buildings and signboards.
It cannot be denied that the approach from Grant Boulevard to Schenley Park remains rather indirect, and even with the Bates Street extension there is a lack of obvious justification for the bridge location. It must be granted, however, that this bridge in itself is very attractive; and the whole scene, the little
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