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Open space for the underclass: New York's small parks (1880--1915)
Abstract
At the turn of the twentieth century, when America was emerging as a world economic power and cultural center, Fredrick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux looked at the darkest, most impoverished ghettos of New York City and imagined them transformed by small parks where "the rich and poor, the cultivated the well-bred and the sturdy and self-made shall be attracted together and encouraged to assimilate."1 Their belief that landscape architecture could affect human behavior influenced social reform theories. Although the Small Parks Movement lies at the intersection of some of the most important ideas and events of the twentieth century, New York City's small parks lacked focused scholarly research and analysis. This dissertation uncovers and explains the complex relationships between social, political and architectural theories that influenced the Small Parks Movements and shaped subsequent urban theory. The Small Parks Movement gained momentum in the middle of the nineteenth century. Reformers, faced with the failure of tenement reform, turned to green space, light and air as remedies for the perceived squalor of immigrant neighborhoods. The Small Parks Act (1887) marked a critical step toward the fulfillment of Olmsted's dream for what he called "lungs" for the metropolis; the Act allocated $1 million annually to the formation of small parks in immigrant neighborhoods. This unprecedented gesture was the result of zealous activism on the part of Jacob Riis, Jane Addams, Joseph Lee and other social advocates who believed that changing the built environment would address urban problems ranging from ill-health to immorality. The political impetus was as strong as the social. Because parks and gardens symbolize a city's wealth and power, politicians also rallied for more parks. This dissertation draws on the substantial body of unpublished materials available in the archives, museums and libraries of New York City to assemble and analyze the story of the Small Parks Movement. It traces the origins of this reformist project and describes its ideals, establishes the roles of the designers including Calvert Vaux, Samuel Parsons Jr., and Carrère and Hastings. 1 Frederick Law Olmsted, quoted in Roy Rozensweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, The Park and the People, A History of Central Park (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 138.
... So influential was Riis as a housing reformer-cum-photographer that his images helped in the passage of the Small Park Act of 1887 (Iannacone 2005) and the New York State Tenement House Act of 1901. Before slum clearance would be viewed as a problematic salve for the presence of blight in U.S. inner cities, Riis, like his contemporaries Jane Addams and Frederick Law Olmstead, was able to openly advocate for the restoration of open space, even in densely populated areas. ...
... So influential was Riis as a housing reformer-cum-photographer that his images helped in the passage of the Small Park Act of 1887 (Iannacone 2005) and the New York State Tenement House Act of 1901. Before slum clearance would be viewed as a problematic salve for the presence of blight in U.S. inner cities, Riis, like his contemporaries Jane Addams and Frederick Law Olmstead, was able to openly advocate for the restoration of open space, even in densely populated areas. ...
In this photo essay, I bring to light the work of Leonard Nadel. As the sole photographer for the Los Angeles Housing Authority from approximately 1949 to 1952, Nadel captured images of abject poverty and substandard housing reminiscent of New York City's Lower East Side at the turn of century. Nadel may not, however, be included on the list of great social reformist photographers such as Jacob Riis, because his images, perhaps unwittingly, inspired slum clearance, the displacement of communities, and the bad policy that led to some of the worst housing stock and concentrated poverty in the nation. Nevertheless, students and scholars may find more to discuss in the juxtaposition of his images, using Nadel's pictures as visual data and a view of post-War housing upheavals and short-lived triumphs in Los Angeles.
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