BRIDGES AND
TUNNELS OF
ALLEGHENY COUNTY,
PENNSYLVANIA
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Frederick Law
Olmsted
report to the
Pittsburgh Civic Commission
"Pittsburgh:
Main Thoroughfares and The
Down Town District"
1910
00 Cover Page
00 Contents
04 Parks and
Recreation
Facilities
06 Index
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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
improvements be made in Grant Boulevard: First, enough additional width should be obtained, where the value of frontage or the character of the land does not make it impracticable, to provide for a planting-strip with shade trees on either side of the roadway. Second, additional width should be secured at certain points along the street, where the opportunity seems most favorable, in order to provide special tree-shaded promenades or overlook terraces, where people may stroll amidst comfortable and agreeable surroundings, or sit upon benches and watch the passing stream of travel or look out upon the broad, distant views. Third, the steep hillsides above the Boulevard, at least those which do not have and are not likely to have in the future any appreciable commercial value, should be controlled by the City and reclaimed from their present status as free dumping grounds and barren wastes.
Suggestion from Lausanne for treatment of a bluff
These hillsides are in fact so closely related to the Boulevard that their appearance is of almost equal import, in the value of the street as a pleasure thoroughfare, with the treatment of the street itself. Neatly kept banks, partially covered with trees and shrubs, would go far toward making this street a boulevard in fact as well as in name. Finally, where the slopes are too steep to stand securely at all times of year and in all kinds of weather, retaining walls should be built to prevent the slumping of clayey hillsides into the road, and the more dangerous falling of large pieces of stone from the disintegrating cliffs. Except for the western portion, the banks are seldom steep enough to require a wall of more than ten feet or so in height, even if the street is widened fifteen or twenty feet; but west of the line of Kirkpatrick Street the bank becomes steeper and is partially supported by strata of rather firm shale. It is where the bank is almost precipitous for a height of 30 to 60 feet that the
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