The Railroad Station is the City's Door. Cities are realizing more and more that it pays to give visitors a pleasant first impression. The railroad station is the city's land portal. When the railroad winds among the tenements and factories to an ugly shed-like station in a dingy, badly paved and unattractive location, the visitor is repelled, and the bad impression is

often a lasting one. The railroad station should be carefully built, and if possible facing an open square planted in flowers and trees. The Union Station in Washington is a splendid example of how a city can capture the visitor upon his arrival. It is located in the most beautiful part of the city and has an attractive outlook which includes the national Capitol. Grand Central Terminal in New York City is necessarily in more crowded surroundings. Yet an effect of space is gained by its location at the head of a broad avenue.

Beauty in the Street Plan. The modern city realizes that among its chief attractions are wide, well-paved, and well

planned streets and avenues. Convenience must be the main consideration in planning streets, of course, but beauty is also an important factor. Small triangular or circular parks, located at the intersection of diagonal streets, serve to elevate the tone and character of the neighborhood. Health officers testify that there is even less disease in such localities. There is more incentive to keep a wide, attractive street clean than one which is narrow and ugly. But a city cannot employ enough street sweepers to maintain cleanliness in districts where citizens are careless and thoughtless. Nothing is more unsightly than a pavement littered with papers and rubbish; it would spoil the whole effect of the most beautifully laid out boulevard. Citizens must take pride in keeping their city floors unlittered and clean, and hence beautiful. Many communities have a yearly clean-up day. Why not make every day a clean-up day and not allow rubbish to accumulate at all?

Trees. One of the most effective ways of making streets both attractive and comfortable in all kinds of weather is to set out shade trees along

them. On streets where houses are built close to the building lines, large trees are usually impossible, just as they are in business districts where high buildings cut off light and air. But along residence streets trees are a joy, and many

park departments are spending thousands of dollars every year in setting out trees. This is another movement in which the good citizen can co-operate. The city cannot usually afford to keep these trees in condition. A person who has a tree planted in front of his home should take an interest in it. Trees, particularly newly planted ones, need water. The soil should be

loosened up about their roots, so that when it rains the water will be absorbed and not run off into the gutter. A little fertilizer applied now and then will help the trees grow more quickly. Caterpillars should be watched for and fought as any other pests are fought and destroyed. Of course, no good citizen would wilfully chop at a tree with a knife, or gouge out pieces of the bark. By taking just a little trouble, those of us who are so fortunate as to have trees in front of our homes can help make our neighborhood beautiful. Trees lend a certain dignity and grace to an avenue that it can acquire in no other way.

Plots of grass, too, are effective in adding beauty to residence sections of a city. Among the chief attractions of West Philadelphia, and one of the things that make Philadelphia so truly a "city of homes," are the well-kept grass plots in front of houses in many of the blocks. Most of these streets are also lined with shade trees.

3. CIVIC ARCHITECTURE

A city's buildings are a prominent indication of its character. No city can be beautiful if it has ugly, clumsily designed buildings. Unless its buildings have architectural merit, and appeal to the eye, it is very difficult for the visitor or even the citizen to be enthusiastic about a city.

Every city has at least complete control over all public buildings and structures. The city hall, the court houses, the bridges, and the monuments can be just as pleasing and as beautiful as the city wishes to make them. By employing a good architect, and insisting that public buildings be designed according to the best taste, city officials can also set a good example to private builders, and thus exert a great deal of influence over the community as a whole. Municipal architects seem to agree now that no matter how beautiful a city's public buildings may be, if they are isolated from each other and scattered along the streets their effect is insignificant. But when they are grouped around a square or circular park, public

buildings make a beautiful and imposing civic centre. The water-front makes a good location if it is central; if not, the civic centre should be located on an eminence, where the public buildings dominate the whole city as such important buildings should, as in the case of the splendidly located Capitol in Washington. If neither of these locations is possible, the civic centre may be placed at a point where the two most important thoroughfares cross. In any case the public buildings should not be dwarfed by towering private structures crowding in upon them, as is Philadelphia's City Hall. Boston has imposed a special restriction on the height of buildings erected on Copley Square, in order to safeguard the effect of the beautiful public buildings gathered there.

The old haphazard method of allowing private owners to develop their property as they chose has resulted in our closely built up tenement districts and our towering sky-scrapers cutting off light from the street level and from lower buildings. Cities are now directing the property owner at least as to how his property should not be developed. There can be no beauty in a street lined with a conglomeration of residences, garages, factories, and shops. The more orderly plan is also the more beautiful one. In European cities all property must be architecturally developed with reference to surrounding buildings. Structures must be not only of like use, but similar in architecture, so that one building does not dwarf another and the whole effect is pleasing. In restricting the height of buildings, our cities are taking a step in the right direction.

4. THE PARKS

Our parks are beauty spots as well as breathing spots. Here in the midst of the great rows of stone and steel structures are left whole sections of natural beauty. A long peaceful view of a tract of beautiful, natural scenery gives repose to tired In the Old World the parks were lands donated to the people by some king or noble, and they were laid out in

nerves.

extremely formal style, with straight walks, tiny circular groups of trees, and geometrical flower-beds. The designers of Central Park, in New York, set a new style in park-making, a picturesque, informal landscape design which revolutionized park layouts all over the world. Thereafter it happily became

the fashion to preserve natural beauty, and the rocks and hills and gullies and trees were left as Nature planned them.

The open spaces-even the small ones of a city are its ornaments. They break the monotony of regularly plotted streets. In the residence districts they can be informal small parks, planted in trees and grass. In the business districts perhaps they should be more formal, paved, and crossed by convenient paths. Here are appropriate locations for treasures of sculpture. In Washington the "circles" all have central bits of sculpture, with sometimes a green background of trees and plants. Washington Park, in Baltimore, is

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