This is part 3/6 in a series overviewing The Normal Requirements of American Towns and Cities in Respect to Public Open Spaces, an article written by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and John Nolen that appeared in Charities and the Commons journal of social work in 1906.

III. PLAYGROUNDS

In Olmsted and Nolen’s third category of open space they stress the importance of playgrounds as part of the open space network and describe how different types of playgrounds are required to serve different age groups of users.

Small children

An Oklahoma City “tot-lot” operated by the Parks and Recreation Department in The Greens neighborhood

Whether in connection with school grounds or elsewhere, there should be in each neighborhood, a space not open to the hurly burly of the larger children. where mothers may take little tots, mostly under the school age, to get quiet, out-of-door pleasure and exercise.

Experts recommend that these small playgrounds – or “tot-lots” as they are commonly called – should be available within 800 feet of every home.  In Oklahoma City a number of tot-lots of this size are incorporated into the development of subdivisions and also you will find plenty of back yards with enough area and play equipment to qualify as a suitable tot-lot.  Still, in order to meet this guideline, the city would need thousands of new tot-lots spread through the city’s neighborhoods.


School-aged children

But perhaps the most important playgrounds are for the children of the school age and these can best be arranged and used in connection with the schools.

The purpose…is to give opportunity for exercise and active play near the children’s homes and preferably next to the school, so that it can be used during the recesses as well as after hours.

This seems to be the most typical way in which we think of playgrounds.  The equipment has advanced some over the years, going from a swingset and monkey bars to more elaborate play systems. Of Oklahoma City’s 114 public parks, listed on the Parks and Recreation Department’s website, 97 or approximately 85% have play equipment for school-aged children.   In Oklahoma City they are usually part of the programming offered at a larger neighborhood park, and as mentioned in the article can be found in on the site of a local school.  Unfortunately, newer schools tend to be on larger sites and less accessible to neighbor kids – this is just wasteful and unnecessary development.


Youths and young adults

Grounds of this class should include ball fields, running tracks, places for jumping, vaulting, throwing the hammer and quoits, bowling and the like, and convenient accommodations for bathing and dressing.

Unfortunately many of these sports require considerable area in proportion to the numbers engaged in them and for these the grounds must generally be at a greater distance from the people’s homes than is reasonable for the other playgrounds.

Obviously, the sports have changed some. I don’t many people throwing quoits these days (but I love washers and would like to see some places to play). Ballfields can be found throughout the city, though the majority are baseball fields which are often nothing more than a backstop.  There seems to be a real shortage of public soccer fields – only 15 OKC parks have soccer fields according to the OKC Parks Dept.

And I know that it is really hard to find a public park with a good pick-up basketball game; at least in the north inner-city area.  A couple of years ago I searched in vain for a free place to play, finding that all the public gyms were reserved for youth (which is great for them, but didn’t help me) and that there weren’t many good outdoor courts with lights to be found.  Eventually I ended up spending some money to join the OU Health Sciences Center gym which has great pickup games, but was pretty pricey if you are only using it for basketball.  I have to add, growing up around 50th and Portland I played year after year in a league at the Satellite gym founded by the late Carroll Cornett – Mayor Cornett’s father.  I have many fond memories of playing basketball there and really hope we can make sure kids in every part of the city have a place to be active through the winter.  So my thanks to Mr. Cornett for making this a part of my childhood.

Again, the trends seems to make these facilities more and more segregated from other uses in the city with large specialized facilities.  For instance, instead of creating a plan that would distribute baseball and softball facilities throughout the city – providing a local place to play that is quickly accessible – we have allowed them to be clustered into large facilities like Dolese, Boomtown, Wheeler Park, etc, which almost always require a car to access.

There are some positive trends as well, like the development of parks that support untraditional, yet popular sports – like the Matt Hoffman Skate Park (pictured above). Or the addition of frisbee golf courses within a few existing parks.  Also, the Parks Department has begun adding spray parks and aquatic centers to provide great fun during the hot summers.


Conclusions

On the whole I think this is one category of open space in which Oklahoma City is doing a pretty good job.  Like many other cities that struggle with sprawl, we could do a better job of distributing resources and developing in a manner that allows for facilities to be shared.  School campuses should definitely be more integrated into our playground planning efforts.

This is part 2/6 in a series overviewing The Normal Requirements of American Towns and Cities in Respect to Public Open Spaces, an article written by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and John Nolen that appeared in Charities and the Commons journal of social work in 1906.

II. CITY SQUARES, COMMONS AND PUBLIC GARDENS

Pioneer Square in Portland, Oregon is a great example of an urban city square.

An opinion prevails very generally that a city can not have too many “squares” or “breathing places”

On account of the almost constant passing through such squares the best arrangement is to provide for reasonably direct and convenient paths along the lines most used. Where this is not done many of those who use the square are likely to be so irritated by the indirectness as to miss much of the pleasure they might otherwise receive.

Shade trees, either as a complete grove or in rows along the paths or grouped in some more complex plan, are almost essential features of such squares.

City Squares are certainly prevalent in many older cities, though they seem to be noticeably absent in Oklahoma City; especially downtown.

The properties adjacent to Bicentennial Park have not attracted the development necessary to integrate this open space into the urban fabric of Oklahoma City.

There are a few that I can think of, most notably Bicentennial Park (or Civic Center Park) which is mostly underutilized, but has found footing as the site of the Downtown in December ice-skating rink. Still, its proximity to the county jail has stymied development in the area and prevented it from being integrated into the broader fabric of downtown. Also, the Myriad Gardens would qualify as a public garden, but the flawed design and poorly related adjacent uses have to this point prevented it from being a effectively utilized by the public. This may all change with the completion of Devon Tower and more development to the south of the park as Core to Shore begins to be developed out.

The Core to Shore plan will also contribute to the urban open space with the addition of a downtown park.  This will provide a much needed “central park”, but the city still needs a truly urban open space, such as that provided to Portland by Pioneer Square, which is referred to as the “City’s Living Room”.  In the end, even if all of the plans for Core to Shore are fully realized, Oklahoma City will continue to lack quality urban open spaces – like Pioneer Square – that are effectively integrated into the fabric of the city.

I recently came across an article written by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and John Nolen that breaks down the different types of public spaces that are required of large cities into six categories. The article entitled The Normal Requirements of American Towns and Cities in Respect to Public Open Spaces was originally printed in 1906 in the Charities and the Commons journal of social work, and provides an interesting – though sometimes dated – overview of what is required of an effective urban park system. I figured it might be interesting to overview the categories and attempt to apply the framework to Oklahoma City.  We’ll start with the first category today, and I will try to knock out the rest in subsequent days.

I. STREETS, BOULEVARDS AND PARKWAYS

The first category of public space has to due exclusively with transportation infrastructure and how it can be effectively designed and utilized as park and/or open space.

Streets

Regular sidewalks and consistent street tree coverage turn Heritage Hills’ streets into great open spaces.

From the article:

All communities, no matter what their size may be, need to regard the plan, character and appearance of their streets.

Streets are without a doubt the most ubiquitous of open spaces and yet their quality as such is often quite poor. The number of streets in Oklahoma City that you would enjoy simply for the quality of the open space alone are few and far between. Older neighborhoods with good sidewalks and consistent street trees – like those found in Heritage Hills – provide some hope that OKC’s streets can do more to enhance our quality of life as an open space, not simply a route of transportation. However, on the whole, the lack of street trees and little attention paid to the quality of space, make Oklahoma City’s streets substandard, especially downtown where they have opportunity to be most utilized as pedestrian spaces.


Boulevards

Paris’s Champs Élysées is the world’s most famous boulevard.

Boulevards are usually arranged formally with rows of shade trees and parallel ways for those on foot and on wheels.

Beyond that which standard streets provide, boulevards allow for a more substantial contribution to a city’s open space. The authors point out that boulevards should be arranged formally and have paths for BOTH pedestrians and cars – such as Paris’s Champs Élysées (pictured above).

Classen Boulevard in Oklahoma City lacks the formality, trees, and pedestrians improvements that would make it functional as an open space.

As for Oklahoma City, the best example I can think of is Classen Boulevard, though in reality it is little more than a wide street with a median.  Classen lacks regular trees plantings and has minimal pedestrian improvements.  The street used to feature streetcars traveling down the center median, but today the street is used almost exclusively by cars.  Currently, the Core to Shore plans include the replacement of the current I-40 alignment with a multiway boulevard – inspired by the type found in Paris.  Hopefully this will provide a great new public space for the city.


Parkways

Vondel Park in Amsterdam was cited by the author as an example of parkways as open space.

A parkway so far as it can be discriminated from a boulevard, includes more breadth of turf or planted ground and also usually narrow passages of natural scenery of varying widths, giving it a somewhat park-like character and inducing a less formal treatment of the roads, paths and accessory features. Parkways are frequently laid out along streams so as to include the natural beauty of brook or river scenery and to preserve the main surface water channels in public control, thus providing for the adequate and economical regulation of storm drainage and floods.

Edgemere Park utilizes a parkway designed to preserve the creek and floodplain as neighborhood open space.

Using parkways to create park space, manage stormwater, and preserve and enjoy the beauty of streams, was at one time a common practice in OKC. It was a key recommendation of the 1930 Hare & Hare plan and places in OKC like Edgemere Park (pictured above), Sparrow Park, and portions of Grand Boulevard, have great examples of how this type of open space can be effectively implemented.  Unfortunately, today we often back up development to streams so that it can not take advantage of the natural beauty or worse, we buy the stream underground in a pipe.  There is much to gained from returning to this practice of parkway development.

Would love to get your thoughts on Oklahoma City’s streets as public spaces. Where are we doing a good job? Where can we do better? What are some of your ideas to improve streets in this city?

So I will be en route to Oklahoma City tomorrow and wanted to leave you with what I think are some of the best posts from the last six months.  Thanks for reading and have a Merry Christmas!

1. Mapping Pedestrian Friendliness in OKC

This was one of my earliest posts and still my favorite. I really like Gehl’s work and it is interesting to apply it to Oklahoma City. Check it out and try to contribute to the map of pedestrian friendly places. Though I heard from someone the other day that there is not really a reason to map pedestrian-friendliness in OKC, you can just count of the places on your fingers…:)


2. Ten Must-Haves for OKC’s Downtown Park

It is fun to dream about the future of the “central park” that is being planned as part of Core 2 Shore. OKC has needed a downtown park or other place to serve as the “heart” of the city for years and it seems it is finally coming. Check out the list and add your own lists!


3. Oklahoma City’s 1910 Plan for Grand Boulevard by W.H. Dunn

OKC has a fascinating planning history that is largely unexplored. I am in the middle of researching a thesis about this history and found this great plan for OKC’s parks and boulevards.


4. The NEW I-40 Pedestrian Bridge

The bridge is beautiful! What more is there to say?


5. Bricktown Parking: Killing Two Birds with One Streetcar

Parking in Bricktown was a hot topic last summer!  I say, if we really want to solve the parking problem then we have to think outside the box and take our first steps toward a downtown transit system. In this post I layout a plan to make it happen.


6. I Love Oklahoma!

First big post and it took me forever to produce; so there is some sentimental value there.


7. What Is the Future of Suburbia?

Ideas that I enjoy discussing (keeping comment vague and general because I can’t remember exactly what I talked about).


8. Oklahoma City Gas Counter

Tells an amazing story! The steep “double black diamond” slope on the right shows both my stock portfolio, as well as my dreams for cities that encourage biking, walking, and smart urban form, come crashing down.


9. Walkability Rankings: Oklahoma City #35

I love cities that allow for walking and think Oklahoma City has plenty of room for improvement – as this walkability ranking attests. This post overviews the rankings, some of the flaws with their analysis, and discusses other issues related to walkability in Oklahoma City.


10. Axel Peemoeller’s Funky Parking Garage

This is just sweet!

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BONUS: Sunrise in Boston!

I am digging this new mobile upload feature and can’t believe I scored this amazing sunrise the day after I set it up! Looking forward to many more posts on the go in 2009!

In the course of my thesis research I have tracked down a copy of the 1910 plan prepared for the Oklahoma City Parks Commission by W.H. Dunn, a landscape architect from Kansas City.  The book entitled: Oklahoma City: A report on its plan for an Outer Parkway and a plan for an Interior System of parks and boulevards (the complete report is available in .pdf – see below).  This may very well be the first formal plan prepared for Oklahoma City, though there were previous planning efforts for individual developments like Classen’s streetcar neighborhoods or some of I.M. Putnam’s developments.  I don’t have time to get into all of the details of the this plan and my thoughts right now, but I figured I could make a bunch of information I have discovered available and allow you to read and discuss.  Please let me know if you have any insights or see any connections that you think are worth pursuing.  Looking through this plan that contains some of the earliest ideas that helped shape Oklahoma City has certainly been a pleasure for me and I hope you enjoy them as well.


OUTER PARKWAY GENERAL PLAN

This actually represents one of the earliest and most complete maps of Oklahoma City.  I have tracked down a couple maps that predate this one, but this is definitely the most complete and absolutely beautifully done.  Keep in mind that this map is a combination of what existed and what was proposed – not all of the ideas came to fruition.

For a higher-resolution image of the map, download the .pdf at the bottom of the page.



GRAND BOULEVARD






















CLASSEN BOULEVARD










DETAILED PLANS FOR NEW PARKS














Northeast Park – what became Lincoln Park

Southeast Park – what became Trosper Park

Southwest Park – what became Woodson Park

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE PLAN

These resources are all made available in .pdf.  These files are quite large (please use right-click Save as…).

• Complete 1910 Dunn Report and Plan in b/w .pdf, 7.5mb – (click here)
• Large general plan color map, 8.9mb – (click here)

Also, I have full-size 300dpi scans of all images available and will consider sharing them – please email me if you are interested.



RELATED RESOURCES

These articles are from journals available for free through google books that reference this planning effort around the time it was carried out.  They are helpful in completing the picture, though you have to take it with a grain of salt as early Oklahoma Citians were always hard at work selling their beloved city. I downloaded each journals complete .pdf and saved only the portion that contains the relevant article.

• “The Park System of Oklahoma City“ by Glenn Marston, appeared in The American City in 1909
• “How Oklahoma City Secured Its Park and Boulevard System“ by Will H. Clark, President of the Oklahoma City Parks Commission, appeared in The American City in 1910
• “The Park and Boulevards of Oklahoma City“ by S.T. Bisbee, appeared in Municipal Engineering in 1911

I am taking a course called Sensing Place: Photography as Inquiry. Our first assignment was to take pictures that show how light affects the landscape. I chose the courtyard in the Boston Public Library as my site because it is one of my favorite places in Boston. We reviewed the assignment today and I thought you might enjoy seeing the photos I turned in.

A classic courtyard with a very pleasant fountain in the center.

I ran out of the house on Saturday afternoon when sunlight began to pour through my south facing window (after days of cloudy skies). Would have been nice to get a series of these shots throughout the day, but the sun didn’t really cooperate.

A wonderful pillar supported arcade surrounds the central courtyard.

I was sitting about 20 feet away from this guy when I noticed that he had positioned himself perfectly to get sunlight on his body, while his face stayed comfortably in the shade. I couldn’t figure out how to get a picture that would tell the story, but finally managed to crawl up on a second story window sill and hover with camera directly above the guy.

On any given day you can expect to find a number of people sitting, eating, reading, or utilizing the free wi-fi.

Taken from inside the library with the courtyard visible through the window. The light marble surfaces of the grand staircase shine bright as the sun pours through the southwest facing windows.

Follow up on my previous post on the new I-40 pedestrian bridge, which I now know is called the “SkyDance Bridge”. Doug Loudenback has put up a nice post that includes the Core to Shore masterplan and shows the location of the bridge on the Harvey alignment and photos of a model of the bridge that currently is sitting at city hall. This north-south pedestrian alignment will extend all of the way from the river, across I-40 (via this bridge) and up into downtown where it will intersect the new Devon Tower rotunda. The model of the bridge is especially helpful in understanding the whole design, including a small pivot that takes play halfway across the bridge, which I assume is both for aesthetic value and to help align the paths on either side of the highway. Also, I have included all of the members of the team with links to the websites that I have found. While many of these guys have yet to do a project of this scale and significance, all of them have have been doing terrific architecture around Oklahoma City for years. Finally, there is the video from newsok.com that includes commentary from lead designers Hans Butzer and Stan Carroll on the design, including information on the two lighting schemes that will either glow from withing the translucent ETF skinned north face or provide dramatic sculptural lighting that shines from below.

Video

MODEL OF THE BRIDGE	DESIGN TEAM
	Hans Butzer Butzer-Gardner Stan Carroll Beyond Metal Kenneth Fitzsimmons TASK Design Jeremy Gardner Butzer-Gardner Brett Johnson J3 Architecture Doug Klassen MKEC Engineering Laurent Massenat Obelisk Engineering Chris Ramseyer OU School of Civil Engineering Karl Svaty MKEC Engineering David Wanzer J3 Architecture

RELATED LINKS

Previous post: The NEW I-40 Pedestrian Bridge

More model Pictures: DougDawg.blogspot.com

New York City’s Department of Transportation recently kicked of their ‘Summer Streets’ program, similar to Bogota’s Ciclovia the program temporarily closes major streets to automobiles, allowing people to takeover the space and use it to walk, bike, or just hangout. Like Bogota, they also provided health and fitness activities to encourage people to get out and exercise.

Do you think this could happen in Oklahoma City? Would we be willing to give some space back to pedestrians, even if only for a day? Creating a permanent pedestrian friendly environment downtown will take some time. It will require the full commitment of the city with each new development, zoning change, and public improvement. But closing a street for a day takes nothing more than the will and a “road closed” sign. If you have ever been downtown during the day on a Saturday, then you know that traffic is not really a problem. It would be great to close a couple streets from downtown all the way to the trails at the river every Saturday. South of 10th Street on Broadway then down Shields to the river is my preference. The YMCA would be able to provide some exercise programming and the two new bicycle shops – Bicycle Alley and Schlegel’s Bicycles – could serve as headquarter for bike rentals, etc.

If you are interested in improving things on a more permanent basis, check out this post on Mapping Pedestrian Friendliness in OKC!

If you haven’t yet become familiar with the “Core to Shore” master plan, then check out the video posted a couple days ago before reading on.

The “Core to Shore” plan lays out a vision for an over 500 acres area between downtown and the Oklahoma River. This is a long-term plan, intended to shape development for the next 25 years. Much of what is planned will change over time as markets shift and thinking evolves. However, there are a number of public improvements planned that will begin to take shape very soon, when the I-40 relocation nears completion (currently scheduled for 2012). The most significant of these public improvements is undoubtedly the large ‘Central Park’ at the heart of the plan. Oklahoma City’s new downtown park will consists of approx. 32 acres between the new boulevard on the north (replacing current I-40 alignment), SW 7th Street on the south, Hudson Ave. on the west, and Robinson on east. Over $3 million was approved as part of the 2007 Bond election to fund the purchase of the land for the park. In the future, this park will be the symbolic heart of our city, drawing visitors to events from all around while providing future downtown residents recreational amenities and an idyllic escape. With the master plan complete and the funding for the land in place, it is time for us to start visioning what we want the park to be, so I have compiled a list of the ‘Top Ten Must-Haves’ for Oklahoma City’s new park.

To get an idea of what types of amenities and attractions are typically successful at large urban parks, I perused Project for Public Spaces list of the best parks in the world. And here are the results…

#10 Model Sailboats

A pond or fountain for r/c model sailboats is a popular attraction for kids in many parks around the world. In OKC the sailboats will be cruising thanks to winds that average over 11 knots.

#9 Ice Rink

The annual Braum’s ice rink during Downtown in December has proved that an OKC ice rink can not only stay frozen but provide a great winter time destination for people of all ages.

#8 Flower Garden

How can one take time to stop and smell the roses, if there are, in fact, no roses?

#7 A Great Lawn

The perfect place to have a picnic, catch some rays, or throw a frisbee. This flexible space is a key element of many great urban parks.

#6 Beautiful Bridges

Beautiful bridges serve a number of purposes in a great park. They make for picturesque scenes, offer attractive places to sit and converse, and they bridge things – ideally water, but now more often traffic. Oklahoma City will have at least one great pedestrian bridge spanning I-40 and we should hope to have a few more top-notch bridges connecting paths across the parks various water features.

#5 The Crumrine Carousel

The Crumrine Carousel (also referred to as the Oklahoma Centennial Carousel) was an idea floated around a couple of years ago by Bob and Jacqueline Crumrine. The Crumrines were said to have already met with an Italian carousel manufacturer about building the two-level carousel and had even struck a tentative agreement for a location in Bricktown. I haven’t heard much about this project since early 2007, but it is time we revive the idea. Everyone loves a great carousel and it would be a unique feature for our park not found in many places outside of Paris. A Bricktown location wasn’t a bad idea, but it will fit much better in the park.


#4 Public Art

Anish Kapoor’s Cloudgate (first picture) cost $23 million dollars. An absurd amount of money to spend on the piece of public art located in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Yet, the mirrored bean is so loved by the citizens of Chicago and has attracted so many people to the park, that it is considered money well spent. Art can provide something to contemplate, something to remember, or just something to make you smile and it is something our new park must have.

#3 Outdoor Concert Venue

Whether permanent or temporary, having a stage setup ready to accommodate rockstars, symphonies, and everything in between is a definite must-have. Placing this adjacent to the our Great Lawn (see #7) creates an outdoor concert venue to accommodate the masses. In fact, Oklahoma’s very own Garth Brooks set a record when approx. one million people gathered to hear him play in New York City’s Central Park.

#2 World Class Fountain

The popularity of fountains dates back centuries. Romans celebrated their incredible infrastructure with beautiful ornamental fountains (such as Bernini’s Trevi Fountain – third picture). Our park will surely have one fountain, maybe more. Grant Park in Chicago has both the classically designed Buckingham Fountain (first picture) and recently added the more modern – and extremely cool – Crown Fountain (fourth picture) as part of the Millennium Park addition. The fountain will be such an important element of our new park that I recommend holding an international design competition to ensure that our’s is truly world class.

#1 The Oklahoma Land Run Monument

This massive bronze sculpture by Norman artist Paul Moore depicts Oklahoma’s most famous moment. The monument is located south of I-40, near the Bass Pro Shop and spanning the most southern portion of the canal. The current location falls far short of ideal. We need to move this incredible work to a prominent location in our new park where it can get the attention it deserves. The pictures shown are from Doug Loudenback’s extensive overview of the project – worth checking out if you would like to learn more.