thematic issue: american urban geography || modern urban parks

American Geographical Society

Modern Urban ParksAuthor(s): Terence YoungSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 85, No. 4, Thematic Issue: American Urban Geography (Oct.,1995), pp. 535-551Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/215924 .

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MODERN URBAN PARKS

TERENCE YOUNG

ABSTRACT. Urban parks were once thought to be representations of nature that would promote a better society. Like cities, these parks were subject to modernization: sections of them became segments dedicated to specialized uses. These social-spatial changes are linked to a changing concept of how parks contribute to the improvement of society. Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, where such changes began during the 1880s, is examined as a case study, but the generaliza- tions apply to most large parks in the central cities of American metropolitan areas. Examples of changes are ornamental plant species, play areas for children, and athletics for adolescents and adults. Key words: athletics, modernity, ornamental horticulture, playgrounds, parks, recreation.

InJuly 1893 the commissioners of the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco reported the creation of a field for athletic games in the park. The new

recreational "valley" was

twenty acres in extent, enclosed by slightly rising grounds and studded with pines on three of its sides.... [It will be] a beautiful lawn where foot-ball and base-ball will not only be permitted but encouraged. Benches will be placed under the trees, which furnish an inviting shade for the convenience and comfort of the thousands who go there to witness and engage in these sports (SFBPC 1893, 13).

A seemingly commonplace public notice, this statement nevertheless an- nounced a fundamental change in the park. Only a few years prior, a specialized, intentionally enclosed area with distinct uses by specific segments of society would not have been permitted in the park. Social-spatial divisions would have been seen as anathema. The local society, however, was modernizing, and its park spaces were changing along with it.

One characteristic of modernizing urban societies has been a tendency toward increasing complexity through segmentation and specialization. Modernity stresses greater complexity through the creation of new social groups and hierarchical divisions for both production and consumption. The source of the trend is the modernist search for increased efficiency, quantifiability, predictability, and control (Ritzer 1993). In concert with the additional social divisions has come a corresponding increase in the number and type of spatial segments (Tuan 1982; Sack 1986). That is, a historical examination of modern social geography, especially urbaniza- tion, reveals an expanding diversity of places, regions, territories, and landscapes.

DR. YOUNG is an assistant professor of geography at Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634.

Copyright K 1996 by the American Geographical Society of New York



536 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

But what about the natural world? Do those places treated as natural by the members of modernity have increasingly complex, segmented geographies? Although nature is often positioned as the antithesis of culture, there is no reason to assume that natural places would not be subject to the space-segmenting tendencies of modernity. Numerous scholars from diverse intellectual backgrounds have pointed out the social-cultural constitution of nature (Evernden 1992). Nature is the rei- fication of a bafflingly complex set of geographically diffuse parts and processes. To label this complex is to create a sense of wholeness where none may exist. Because the definition of that whole occurs in a social setting, nature should be socially segmentable, subject to modernizing tendencies.

In this article I argue that nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century urban parks such as Central Park in Manhattan, Prospect Park in Brook- lyn, and Forest Park in St. Louis underwent modernization. I examine in detail the process of spatial segmentation and specialization between 1880 and 1920 through the study of a typical example of the period, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Specifically, new spatial segments and social uses replaced earlier ones in the eastern end of that park. The geographical changes were linked to a shift in the beliefs of an influential elite. These ideas and their relationships to parks are detailed in three examples of the segmentation of Golden Gate Park after 1880: the new uses of ornamental plants, the first playground, and the development of athletics. Finally, the persistence of rationalistic notions into the 1990s addresses the significance of modernization in urban parks.

PARKS AND SOCIETY

From the 1850s through the 1920s the outspoken proponents of parks in San Francisco were an elite of largely middle- to upper-middle-class, native-born, white men. The values and "voice" of that group were the most influential in determining the character of the city's parks. The working classes, foreign born, nonwhites, and women had influence that was less effectual in San Francisco, as was the case elsewhere (Cranz 1982; Rosenzweig and Blackmar 1992). However, the narrow base of this elite did not necessarily preclude its ideas about parks from resonating with many individuals in the larger society. For example, more than 500,000 visitors came to Golden Gate Park in 1875, when the population of the city was about 150,000 (SFBPC 1875, 14; U.S. Bureau of the Census 1872, 14). The number seems to indicate that many San Franciscans, not just the small coterie of advocates, understood and appreciated the park.

One motivation for the activities of the proponents was their belief that parks could engender a better society. Park proponents were social reformers, part of a movement of "positive environmentalists" (Boyer 1978). In addition to parks, that movement fostered social-spatial changes



MODERN URBAN PARKS 537

like Hull House in Chicago and scouting (Schmitt 1990). The park proponents saw their cities suffering from various social vices, especially poor health, poverty, crime, and political corruptness. Those undesirable social circumstances were attributed to poor urban conditions: "Social problems are to a large degree problems of the environment" (Robinson 1909, 245). The proponents had a mechanical or deterministic view of cause and effect, wherein the physical environment was the cause and the social order or lack of it was the effect. Park advocates focused on the natural aspects of the physical environment and argued that the problems re- sulted from the alienation of urban residents from nature. The problems did not arise because people were evil but because they were out of touch with external nature. When urban society was once again brought into contact with nature, many of the problems would be alleviated.

The urban moral order desired by park advocates consisted of a set of social ideals, which were the antitheses of urban vices. An urban environment with parks would foster what I call the four virtues of a good society The first two virtues were related to material well-being-public health and prosperity The second two addressed the normative concerns of social coherence and democratic equality Through the presence of parks, advocates asserted that society would become healthier, wealthier, more crime-free, and more democratic (Young 1993).

Although the advocates consistently contended that parks were a medium for improving society, the definition of what constituted the best, most effective park changed during the 1880s. That change involved both the idea of how a park affected users and what form it should have. Prior to the 1880s American park proponents tended to believe that nature included both the physical world and humanity. That interpretation of parks as a universal sense of nature was an extension of the romantic movement. The premise for those romantic proponents' belief that parks improved society was the notion that nature was designed, balanced, and inherently good (Novak 1980). The challenge to romantic park designers was to reproduce the design and balance of nature to capture its goodness. The goodness of the virtues would supposedly be instilled in park users if the park was well designed.

In the romantic period, most parks were arranged like an organism in which the few specialized areas were conceptually subordinate to the whole. That principle guided Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the best-known and most-influential park-design team of the nineteenth century "The Park throughout is a single work of art," asserted Olmsted and Vaux in defense of their 1858 Greensward plan for Central Park, "and as such, subject to the primary law of every work of art, namely, that it shall be framed upon a single, noble motive, to which the design of all its parts, in some more or less subtle way, shall be confluent and helpful" (Schuyler 1986, 105). Park designers thought it best to create generic



538 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVEW

spaces linked by a composed repetition of earth, water, and the same plant species throughout. Colorful or other visually attractive plants were discouraged, because they contradicted the sense of generic spaces by accentuating specific locations. Numerous meadowlike, open areas were surrounded by copses of trees. Water bodies in the form of streams, small lakes, and waterfalls were divides in some places but in others united the meadows and copses. In contrast with the geometric regularity of the urban grid, the park landscape was curvilinear, with few structures. Visitors to any portion of a park were supposed to feel as though they were in an unspecified and unbounded natural setting (Olmsted 1875).

Because the ability of a park to generate the four virtues depended on its visual appearance, advocates asserted that a park had to be extensive enough to block out any sight of the city beyond the park boundaries. A park was rus In urbe, not rus ed urbe. In effect, visitors were to be renewed through simple immersion in a park setting. No boisterous activities like energetic children's play or adult athletics were necessary or permitted (SFBPC 1874, 86; Schuyler 1986).

In addition to being properly formed, a park had to address the users who, in the belief of the advocates, were most important. Prior to the 1880s the crucial users were adult males (Cranz 1982). Men were most important because they were seen as most likely to have their health suffer in the city; they were the persons most involved in public, en- trepreneurial, and commercial activities. Along with other reformers, park proponents contended that commercial activity was exhausting, led to a loss of personal vitality, and undermined the ultimate goal of commerce, financial prosperity (Lears 1981). The solution proposed was periodic immersion in a virtue-generating park. After that immersion visitors were supposed to be refreshed and braced for another round of commercial activity (Olmsted 1881).

Women were not usually the focus of the rhetoric of romantic park advocacy. Women were part of the private, domestic world and, in a fashion similar to parks, a means to "cushion the [adult malel from many urban stresses" (Cranz 1981, 153). Advocates usually did not concern themselves with the effects of parks on women, because they were not as subject to vice-generating commerce. When women and parks were discussed together, it was usually in the context of ensuring that a park was safe enough for both escorted and unescorted women to visit. For reasons similar to those for women, children were usually not mentioned by park advocates, except to express a concern for their personal safety or orderliness.

Aspects of a rationalistic definition of nature began to appear in Golden Gate Park during the 1880s. The components and values of the new definition did not replace the romantic ones as much as they expanded them. New elements and spatial segments were added to im-




prove existing ones. Later advocates considered a romantic park not as unacceptable but as underdeveloped. The rationalistic park proponents sought to add to the existing parks because they tended to see themselves as separate from rather than as integral to nature. When a Darwinian interpretation of nature replaced a romantic one, the physical world became imbalanced, in a constant state of struggle, and, therefore, no longer inherently good.

With goodness now extrinsic to nature, parks became increasingly important as the ideal arenas for other good or virtue-generating activities. As the landscape architect George Burnap (1916, 58) stated it, parks in the new era needed both "beauty and utility. ... [Pjarks must serve many purposes of use as well as pictorial pleasure.... [P]ark design must attain pictorial agreeableness without disregard of the practical service which it must render." It was fairly easy for rationalistic designers to create new specific-use spaces in an existing romantic park, because its older arrangements were generic. For the advocates of the new park spaces, a great deal was gained and little was lost by the addition of features such as new ornamental plant species, children's play, and athletics.

By interpreting a park as a beautiful and useful setting for improvement activities, the aesthetics of nature became less concerned with the qualities of curvilinearity and the generic greenness of vegetation, and more concerned with linearity and colorful plants. No longer were the plantings necessarily kept subdued and suggestive; instead, they could demand attention. For example, flower gardens of all sizes and shapes were often planted in a style known as carpet bedding. Usually in geometric patterns but sometimes in whimsical shapes, carpet beds dis- played en masse the plants bred especially for their attractive colors (Henderson 1887). Straight roads appeared in parks, and the romantic concern for the banishment of the surrounding urban scenes from a park view declined as the regularity that ordered the built environment beyond a park was recognized and often celebrated within it. The aesthetics of the rationalistic park proponents coincided neatly with those of the City Beautiful movement (Wilson 1989).

During that period, groups considered to be appropriate users of parks were extended to include women, adolescents, and children. The acceptability of playgrounds shifted as childhood became viewed as a stage in the development of a properly socialized individual were changed. Crime, especially among juveniles, was said to result from improper training in a bad environment. Rationalistic advocates argued that playgrounds, especially those used by the urban poor and ethnic populations, fostered social coherence and deterred crime through youth training (Henry 1900). G. Stanley Hall, a widely influential psychologist at Clark University, articulated much of the logic for this influential




approach (Cavallo 1981). Hall (1888,1892) asserted that democratic equality and social coherence were learned in children's groups, which natu- rally occurred and focused on play. A playground with professional guidance was more than beneficial; it was necessary but should not be just anywhere. Hall believed that the best location for such children's activities was in a natural setting because earlier societies had developed in natural, nonurban settings. It was impossible to send thousands of city children into rural areas, and rationalistically designed parks made it unnecessary.

An argument about prosperity also supported the concern for children. Park proponents asserted that using parks to foster responsible children and adults would lead to reduced costs for the police and justice systems. Local taxpayers were told that they would ultimately be able to keep more of their income if they allowed public expenditures on parks. Playground supporters asserted that failure to spend a few dollars during a child's youth would lead to a greater public expenditure later in the form of policemen, courts, and incarceration. Moreover, a proper adult would contribute to the overall wealth of the city and be a responsible, involved citizen (Curtis 1917).

The emphasis for all age categories shifted to groups of users and away from individuals during the rationalistic era (Cranz 1982; Hardy 1982). The new park advocates sought a sense of group cooperation and competition among the local population. Athletics proponents argued that active pastimes, like sports, should be encouraged because they trained the mind and the body for greater individual and group efficiency. Those skills would lead to improved health and, especially for men, success in the increasingly managerial business environment (Lears 1981). For the first time, park advocates expressed concerns about the effects of parks on women. They were encouraged to think about their health and to "pursue exercise as a vigorous remedy for their com- plaints." However, the concern was largely confined to sports, and women remained relatively disadvantaged athletes; only bicycling, golf, and tennis opened their ranks to both sexes (Hardy 1982; Mrozek 1983, 141). In addition, during the early years of the rationalistic era the sexes were expected to remain spatially separate (Cranz 1981).

MODERNIZING GOLDEN GATE PARK

Begun in 1870, Golden Gate Park was typical of a romantically designed park. Initially laid out by William Hammond Hall, a devotee of Frederick Law Olmsted, the park was approximately 1,019 acres, had curvilinear roads and pathways, generic spatial arrangements, and pre- dominantly green plantings of trees and grass but was devoid of active recreational facilities (Fig. 1). The public and private exchanges about creating the park indicate that its advocates believed it would foster the




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elements, a playground, and athletic facilities. Proponents linked each to at least one of the four virtues.

ORNAMENTAL HORTICULTURE

The earliest move from the definition of a park as a visually generic, holistic landscape appeared with the planting in Golden Gate Park. The romantic definition of Golden Gate Park had been horticulturally simple. It essentially began and ended with trees and grass The resultant park plan required few tree species and cultivars-approximately one hundred (Hall 1872, Young 1994)-which was not the case in a rationalistic Golden Gate Park. The few horticultural records remaining indicate that




the number of species planted increased rapidly after 1880. For example, a June 1882 inventory of the plants in the park nursery listed a total of 134,006 individual plants from a minimum of 184 species. A list appended to that inventory noted that 171,576 individual plants from a minimum of 107 species had been planted in the park during the preceding year. Of the 107 species, the enumerator considered only 9 to be morphologically "Trees and Shrubs." Of the 9 species, 57,344 individuals were planted. The enumerator categorized the remaining 98 species as "Shrubs and Herba- ceous Plants" and noted that 114,232 were planted in Golden Gate Park (Inventory 1882).

The presence of shrubs and herbaceous plants in great diversity and quantity contrasts strongly with the romantic focus on trees. The plethora of conspicuously flowering species set some spaces apart from others, so loosening of the romantic stricture that all scenes be generic can be inferred. Evidence from other, later sources indicates that the horticultural changes were spatially complex and effectively permanent in at least three ways.

First, the diversity of plant species steadily increased. The 1889 annual report listed at least 768 species and their cultivars in the park grounds (SFBPC 1889, 35-40). By 1899 the number had swollen to 1,421, and in 1924 the total was a staggering 2,273 (SFBPC 1899, 37-44; SFBPC 1924, 69-82). Letters between the park superintendent and nurseryman Francesco Fran-chesci show that much of that diversity was probably made possible by the elimination of the policy in force during the 1870s and 1880s of growing nearly all of the plants in the park's own nursery. These letters indicate that the superintendent may have ordered several hundred species from Fran-chesci's well-known nursery in Santa Barbara (McLaren 1904, 1906a, 1906b, 1911, 1912). Much of the reputation of that nursery rested on its diverse selection, developed through the steady introduction of exotic species into California.

Second, the planting records and photographs from the period indicate that thousands of flowering herbaceous plants were used for colorful displays. Carpet beds of this sort had been popular in the San Francisco area for many years (The bedding-out system 1871). Although the colorful displays were attractive, they likely distracted those visitors who wanted to contemplate the romantic scenes. Thus both the romantic and the rationalistic park users benefited from yet another change in the ornamental horticulture.

Third, the increasing number of woody-shrub species reflects two concerns of the park authorities. Hedgelike plantings were being created to provide visual separation of areas. The earliest plantings of the park were reaching maturity, and by the late nineteenth century trees in the park were so tall that their foliage was above an average viewer's line of sight. The park needed new, lower plantings to maintain the clumps and




masses of green vegetation that had been planted in the 1870s. Hall (n.d., 4) remarked that by 1886 "the forestation of Golden Gate Park was made up of large clumps of trees ten to thirteen years in the ground, whose prime for shrub-like effect was past." In other words, a person's view was no longer contained and controlled by immature trees. Under those conditions a visitor could gaze across expanses and inadvertently see other park features, such as the colorful carpet beds, other visitors, and activities. That visual openness violated both the romantic notions and the increasingly popular rationalistic ones.

The presence of shrubby species in the park reflects their partial use as hedges. Hedges would have both isolated and highlighted the new park segments. With the increasing use of specialized areas by age- and gender-specific groups, hedges maintained the visual and physical separation in a park. For instance, hedges along the edge of a playground isolated it from intrusions and prevented the sight of the active children from intruding on the contemplative portions of the park. Much of the attraction of parks, wrote a rationalistic designer, "is the result of hedging the avenues and isolating the different compartments by foliage banks of undergrowth planting" (Burnap 1916, 233).

Those horticultural changes were linked by rationalistic advocates to three of the four virtues. First, the increasing diversity of exotic plants was seen as a method to teach people of all ages about the botanical qualities of distant places (SFBPC 1895, 13). Their presence was said to develop an appreciation of equality among children, especially when they were exposed to it at an early age (Bailey 1911). Second, the plant diversity was a novelty that attracted tourists who spent money and thus promoted local prosperity. Third, the increased use of colorful plants supposedly refreshed people through beauty and delight. Visitors' health benefited because "the park is full of delightful surprises; exquisite bits of color that suddenly and unexpectedly come into view to charm the eye and elevate the mind" (SFBPC 1895, 13).

THE SHARON BUILDING AND PLAYGROUND

Although the new horticultural elements were scattered about the park, some spatial changes like the play area for children were localized. Hall, the original superintendent and designer of the park, had been interested in a children's play area as early as the 1870s (SFBPC 1872, 22). However, no area was set aside prior to his departure from the park superintendency in 1876. During the next decade the park had several superintendents, none of whom seems to have been interested in dedi- cating an area to that use. Then in 1886 Hall and a new board he had selected were appointed by the governor of California to manage the park. At approximately the same time, an unrestricted bequest of $50,000 was willed to the park by Senator William Sharon. On reappointment,




Feet I l l 0 100 200 300 400 900 I I 1000 1.500

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FIG. 2- The eastern quarter of the 1897 rationalistic Golden Gate Park. Source: After SFBPC 1897.

Hall asserted that there were "fbeneficial things which as yet the park did not have, but which that money could be made to provide"- namely, what Hall referred to as a "children's quarter" (Hall n.d., 1). It was to be an area for the entertainmnent and training of children plus the convenience of their attendants.

After some debates about its merits, Hall convinced the park commissioners and the children of Senator Sharon that the best use of the bequest was a playground and a monumental building. A site was designated in the southeastern corner of the park (Fig. 2). To prepare the grounds, a lake was filled by grading a ridge north of the water into it. The transformation of the site began in fall 1886, and the Romanesque Sharon building and playground were dedicated on 22 December 1888. The grounds included an outside area with swings, seesaws, and slides, as well as animals to ride and attend to: "nice, gentle donkeys for nice, gentle children" (San Francisco Chronicle 1887). In tShis area was the two-story, sandstone Sharon buiilding (Fig. 3) for games during inclement weather and in which refreshments were served (Hall n.d.; SFBPC 1895). The building and playground were an age- and sex-segregated area in a natural place with specific social goals. Men and older boys were not allowed in the area,




even if they were accompanying their own children or were with siblings. The premise of the regulations was that children and their mothers and older sisters had needs distinct from those of the rest of the family and society as a whole (Cranz 1981).

San Franciscans associated two of the four virtues with the children's area. First, the program for the opening-day festivities linked it with

THE SHARON QUARTERS FOR CHILDREN. FIG. 3-The Sharon quarters for children. Source: SFBPC 1888.

public health. "It is believed and earnestly hoped, by the Commissioners, that many hundreds of children will be taken from our streets, and with the facilities now afforded them for ... healthful recreations, will grow up to be better men and women than had not the munificence of the late Senator Sharon provided them with these play-grounds" (SFBPC 1888, 3). Second, in discourse similar to that of G. Stanley Hall, the play area was to promote democratic equality among the various segments of society. The rich and poor, native and foreign-born, whites and children of color would learn to treat each other equally during play in such a natural setting. According to its supporters, the playground for many years remained "the most popular and beneficial of the many spaces devoted exclusively to [juvenile] recreation" (SFBPC 1924, 15).

ATHLETIC FACILITIES

The ascendancy of rationalistic park supporters led to a change in the official stance toward active sports in Golden Gate Park. Instead of being figuratively and geographically marginal, athletics became central. The 1893 annual report featured the creation of Recreation Valley for the playlng and observing of football and baseball. By 1901 baseball was a




commonplace activity in many locations throughout the park (Gibson 1901). Organized sports of this sort became acceptable in the park because, in part, rationalistic San Franciscans had embraced the putative connection between athletics and public health (SFBPC 1897, 22):

In crowded cities, public recreation grounds are . .. necessities for the physical development of the younger generation. From recent statistics it is shown that in large and populous cities where such places of recreation do not exist, the death rate is much higher than in cities possessed of such pleasure grounds, or breathing spots as they have been very appropriately called.

Those San Franciscans were willing to associate an effect they desired with a cause they enjoyed.

Not all sports facilities in Golden Gate Park were intended for the exclusive use of men. Active pastimes in which San Francisco women participated began in the rationalistic era. Bicycling and tennis are two examples of those pastimes most heartily embraced by women. The first bicycle road was finished in the park in 1895, and it was immediately popular (SFBPC 1895,19):

Cyclists of both sexes in large numbers frequent the park every day and night when the weather is favorable, and during the afternoons the large open space adjoining the music grounds is filled with ladies learning to ride the wheel, most of them attired in knickerbockers or bloomers. Any day in the week a long line of bicyclists can be seen on the road specially constructed for their use, and on Sundays every drive in the park has its large quota.

Tennis courts became popular in the park later than did bicycling: the first courts were constructed in 1902. By then the demand was so pent up that as soon as such facilities were built, the commissioners professed that the tennis courts were "so popular as to warrant the construction of new ones from time to time to meet the demand of the players" (SFBPC 1902, 22). Their popularity came in part from the early, strong acceptance of tennis by women (Mrozek 1983). At the same time, the park commissioners wished to make clear their concern for the needs of women. The 1902 annual report noted a relatively new feature, the tennis clubhouse with baths and changing rooms for women. San Francisco women nevertheless remained athletically restricted relative to men.

GOLDEN GATE PARK TODAY

The past spatial segments of Golden Gate Park persist in the 1990s. The planting of attractive flowers is common, and carpet beds are a tradition at the park conservatory. The Sharon building is still in use, and the playground remains popular (Fig. 4). Recreation Valley has been developed further since its opening; today it has two permanent baseball




FIG. 4-The children's playground in 1994. (Photograph by the author)

diamonds with stands (Fig. 5). Tennis has become so popular that the number of courts has been increased repeatedly. The conunmissioners accurately predicted in 1902 the future of this activity for the park.

Modernization did not cease with the creation of the spatial segments that I have examined in this article. The park now has many specialized areas, some of which are its most popular features. These features are likely what many current San Franciscans suggest define the modern Golden Gate Park. For instance, a group of museums was created to enlighten the public. They are complemented by a music concourse and shell, which also add an element of entertairument. An instructive and beautiful arboretum, planted in the early 1940s, promotes the value of water-saving gardening practices. For the outdoor-activity enthusiasts, installations have included a polo field, a football field, soccer pitches, a pi'tch-and-putt golf course, an archery field, and a fly-casting pool. As a consequence of the modernizing tendency the eastern end of the park now mainly comprises specialized segments. Only in t-he western end do large, open meadows and generic shrub and tree plantings dominate.

Perhaps not all romantic spaces were transformed in Golden Gate Park because there was an alternative. As the process of modernization unfolded, many of the new and specialized as well as the old and generic characteristics of such a park diffused beyond the confines of the original facility. Nature's elements and locations became multiple in San Francisco. For example, four new small parks with playgrounds




FIG. 5-Recreation Valley in 1994. (Photograph by the author)

and ball fields were listed in the 1910 annual report (SFBPC 1910,53-62). Modernization had carried nature and its places beyond a special preserve to other parts of the city. In other words, it became possible for a city to possess a specialized, social-spatial hierarchy of park types, each suited to a given set of circumstances (Olmsted and Nolen 1906). A neighborhood park might be constructed in a middle-class locale, and a children's playground might be placed among the tenements south of Market Street.

On the one hand, the specialized areas of Golden Gate Park and their rationalistic activities seem likely to continue indefinitely, because they are popular with park visitors. Yet there are reasons to suspect some future segment losses. The arboretum was built on the site of former baseball fields, and few spatial segments have been added to the park since the 1950s. Although this lack of additions may in itself be insignifi- cant, it may indicate decreased momentum for modernizing. Historic- preservation forces are gathering in other U.S. cities to compel the removal of some rationalistic segments. Prospect Park in Brooklyn is undergoing a "restoration." Some rationalistic structures have been tar- geted for removal in an attempt to re-create the park Olmsted and Vaux designed (Wabmsley & Co. 1986). A similar sentiment toward Golden Gate Park may yet prevail in San Francisco, which would signal the end of the rationalistic era that began in the 1880s.




CLOSING REMARKS

Three types of specialized segments distinguished Golden Gate Park after 1880. Colorful plantings drew the eye, and botanical collections educated the mind. A play area for children offered a setting for develop- mentally important activities. Athletic facilities trained the minds and bodies of adolescents and adults. New, shrubby species of plants grew as hedges to isolate and amplify the effects of those segments. The promise of the virtues was part of the justification for the spatial changes. In each case, local park advocates noted how health, prosperity, democracy, or civility would supposedly flourish as a result of the use of those areas.

Modernization was not unique to Golden Gate Park. Between 1880 and 1920 many of the large urban parks in the United States begun during the romantic era were transformed by the logic of the rationalists. Some facilities were changed only slightly; others more so, but all underwent the same modernization process that altered the landscape in Golden Gate Park. Portions of Central Park, the oldest large urban park in the United States, became the site of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and of facilities dedicated to music, archery, lacrosse, football, roller skating, and tennis. This park now displays many specialized areas, but the demands of the rationalistic advocates were balanced by the resistance of the romantic supporters, so that Central Park retains a general air of romantic, natural scenery.

Elsewhere, the South Park system in Chicago was modernized more than was Central Park. Begun in the 1860s, the parks were spatially segmented to provide flower beds, music concerts, dance halls, picnic grounds, tennis courts, archery fields, horseshoe pits, a swimming pool, a playground, a recreation center with ball fields, and bicycle paths. Similar facilities were installed in the parks of Boston, New Haven, Providence, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore.

Both culture's place, the city, and nature's place, the park, are subject to segmentation and specialization. The tendency for modern societies to divide is inscribed in their landscapes. Park segments proliferated between 1880 and 1920 as the types and numbers of visitors expanded. Groups demanding specialized settings multiplied, and the role of the large urban parks changed. These social-spatial changes were consistently justified by reference to social improvement. After 1920 a variety of neighborhood, regional, state, and national parks reduced the impor- tance of older central-city parks. Suburban dwellers increasingly sought nature elsewhere. Golden Gate, Central, and other large urban parks no longer needed to respond to every metropolitan demand. Increasingly they have become the landscapes of central-city residents, which leaves in doubt the purpose of many spatial segments. It should come as no surprise that in a time when the central city itself is being redefined, the contemporary role of large urban parks is also being questioned.




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