What was the purpose of the parks and boulevard system in Kansas City, Missouri?
What are the defining characteristics of a boulevard and a parkway?
What makes them different from an ordinary street or each other?
The answers can be found in the 1893 Report of the Board of Park and Boulevard Commissioners (1); “The Kansas City Park System and Its Effect on the City Plan” by George E. Kessler (2); various Annual Reports to the Board of Commissioners; the 1920 booklet “Souvenir” The Park and Boulevard System of Kansas City, Missouri (3) and the historic surveys (4) that were completed in 1989 and 1991.
In 1917 (2) Kessler stated:
“[T]he boulevards and parkways of Kansas City have accomplished the real purpose outlined by Mr. Meyer in the first report [1893], namely, the tying together all sections and the uniting of Kansas City as a whole into a community whose purposes and actions are for the benefit of the city as a whole at all times.”
1915 System
There are a variety of roads within the historic system—boulevards, parkways, trafficways and park drives. Although boulevards are clearly defined, there are a couple of exceptions like Meyer Boulevard that is more like a parkway between The Paseo and Swope Parkway because this section was designed as the main arterial entrance to Swope Park. Van Brunt and The Paseo can be considered to be both boulevards and parkways. However, Kessler considered Van Brunt to be a boulevard and The Paseo to be a parkway. Swope Parkway was unique because of the duel streetcar tracks that ran in the wide median and the double row of median trees that separated the tracks from the roadbeds. And then there is Pershing Road that is considered a parkway and a trafficway. The park drive that almost everyone is familiar with is Penn Valley Drive. Kessler specially states that this is not a boulevard or parkway. With a small median containing a single row of trees, it has a design completely different from any boulevard or parkway.
Purpose of the Historic Parks & Boulevard System
- Make communication between the different sections of the city, commercial, residential and to some extent industrial direct and distinctive. (1)
- “. . . tie the slightly localities together and make them one.” (1)
- Make Kansas City a residence city with homeowner communities. (2)
- Fix the best property for residential use purposes only and for residences of the same class. (1)
- Increase property value by giving a permanent residence character to certain sections of the city and check suburb sprawl. (1)
- Support healthful minds and bodies by providing rural surroundings and beautiful natural scenery for city residents. (1)
- Draw businesses and population by providing a beautiful city. (1)
- Hold the unbroken high lands for residential, and the principal valley lands for transportation and industrial uses.
- Provide pleasure drives for light driving.
Features:
- Gas streetlights of dark color staggered along both sides of the roadway.
- Street markers of blue lettering on white tile, set in sidewalk at intersections.
- “Traffic” gaslights with ruby glass installed in the middle of boulevards on concrete bases to add to the safety of pedestrians and vehicle passengers.
Historic Boulevards
Armour Boulevard looking west past Harrison Boulevard. 1939
“The object of boulevard construction is two-fold; to provide agreeable driveways, and by giving certain special advantages and a handsome appearance to such avenues, to make the abutting land, and the land near them, especially sought after for residence purposes, and thereby to enhance the value of such lands.”(1)
“The chief objects sought in making this class of improvements are to fix for residence purposes the character of the districts through which the boulevards lead, and to provide pleasant driveways leading from populous centers through proper surroundings to points of special interest.” (2)
- Wide, formal, landscaped street with a park-like setting. Symmetrical.
- Standard is 100’ right-of-way with 40’ roadway and 30’ margins for wide grass verges, sidewalks and triple row of same kind of trees almost equally spaced (two between curb and walk and one between walk and property line). 1893 Report description of the margin was 6’ of turf, 7’ walk and 8’ of turf between the walk and property line. Trees were spaced about 45 feet apart with center row staggered.
- The roadway in most boulevards has been widened and the outer row of trees removed for vehicle traffic. The inner rows of trees have not been replaced as they are removed.
- Front walks from the house to the sidewalks did not cross the lawns to the curb.
- Appearance differed “radically” from that of the ordinary street.
- Did not contain purely decorative and ornamental plantings.
- No medians.
- Houses fronted the street.
- Connected with recreation parks and/or parkways.
- Generally followed the formal gridiron street system.
- Multiple points of ingress/egress with intersections at all cross streets.
- Envisioned that the best and most expensive residence will go up along boulevards.
Historic Parkways
Harrison Parkway looking northeast toward Holmes. 1939
- Generally have sufficient change in alignment and gradient to largely obliterate the impression of formal lines.
- Picturesque drives with or without recreational facilities.
- Where possible occupied the valley lands.
- Unique.
- Multiple transportation and recreation functionality.
- Variable width.
- Limited access.
Defining the characteristic differences between boulevards and parkways is not easy and exceptions are not uncommon as noted earlier.
| Boulevard | Parkway | | Generally follow the formal gridiron street system. | Generally have sufficient change in alignment and gradient to largely obliterate the impression of formal lines. May follow a creek. Exception examples are parts of The Paseo and Ward Parkway. Most of the exception parkways have wide, landscaped medians. | | Multiple egress/ingress points. | Limited access, i.e. infrequent intersections, no or few private driveways and some grade-separated crossings. | | No median. Exception is east end of Meyer Boulevard from The Paseo to Swope Park and Van Brunt Boulevard (20” median) south of 26th Street. Traffic medians added after 1960 along Brush Creek and Rockhill Road along Nelson Art Gallery. | Some parkways have duel roadways with wide, extensively landscaped medians with recreational facilities. May be formal or informal. Budd Park Esplanade had the smallest median at 30 feet. The Paseo and Ward Parkway were 90 feet. Swope Parkway was 40 feet. | | Generally do not contain purely decorative and ornamental plantings. | May contain purely decorative and ornamental plantings. | | No recreational facilities. | Multiple recreational facilities. | | No water features. | Water features maybe fountains, pools, or small lakes. | | No ornamentations. | May contain ornamentations. | | Formal tree plantings with one to two rows of same type trees, evenly spaced along both sides of sidewalks. | Symmetrical tree plantings same as boulevards on parkways with standard right-of-ways and may be formal or natural in medians. Trees in parkways with wide, variable right-of-way are naturalistic on the parkway side and follow the boulevard pattern on the side of the street that residences front. Some parkways may contain both designs. | | Design consistent from boulevard to boulevard. | Design varies from parkway to parkway and within parkways. | | Standard right-of-way width. | Variable right-of-way width either in whole or part. | | Residents almost always front. No backyards front the boulevard. | Residents may front border roads like Gleed Terrace and Manheim Road along Harrison Parkway. It was not intended that residences would back up to the right-of-way. | | Symmetrical. Formal. | Generally asymmetrical but may have some symmetrical sections. |
References
(1) “The Kansas City Park System and Its Effect on the City Plan,&dquo; George Kessler in Good Roads, New York, June 2, 1917.
(2) “1893 Report of the Board of Park and Boulevard Commissioner of Kansas City, MO.”
(3) “Souvenir” Presented by the Board of Park Commissioners of Kansas City, MO., The Park and Boulevard System of Kansas City, Missouri, Revision and Reprint of 1914 Edition, Board of Park Commissioners 1920, Compiled and written by Fred Gabelman. “Scope and Purpose of Park and Boulevard System”, George E. Kessler, Landscape Architect, page 8.
(4) “Historic Resources Survey of the 1893 Parks & Boulevard System, Kansas City, Missouri”, prepared by Deon K. Wolfenbarger for the Prairie Gateway Chapter, American Society of Landscape Architects, 1989. “Landscape Architectural/Historic Survey of Parks and Boulevards, 1893-1940 Kansa City, Missouri,” Volume Two, Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners, Kansas City, MO., Missouri; Division of Natural Resources, Division of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Jefferson City, MO; Tourbier & Walmsley, Inc., Philadelphia, PA and New York City; Architectural and Art Historical Research, Kansas City, MO; Theis Doolittle Associates, Inc., Kansas City, MO. 1991.
1920 Report of Parks & Boulevards | | Total Area of
Blvd., Parkways
& Parks—Acres | Total Length of
Boulevards &
Parkway—Mile | Boulevards
Admiral
Armour
Belmont
Benton
Brighton
Brookside
Broadway
Brush Creek
Gladstone
Harrison
Independence
Karnes
Linwood
Locust St. Trafficway
Manheim Road
Maple
McCoy Avenue
Meyer
Prospect
Rockhill Road
Rockhill Terrace
Twentieth Street
Twenty-six Street
Thirty-first Street
Thirty-eighth Street
Van Brunt
Valentine Road
Warwick
Wyoming Street
Total Boulevards |
14.346
15.608
10.677
49.480
1.101
35.496
15.930
8.538
32.655
20.082
11.618
27.280
0.72
6.478
3.626
2.196
0.534
63.475
3.031
24.771
3.817
0.321
3.650
1.643
3.570
56.500
9.966
12.658
0.837
507.748 |
1.13
1.25
0.72
4.19
0.18
2.12
1.24
0.74
2.82
0.84
0.96
2.27
4.837
0.56
0.47
0.18
0.08
2.85
0.32
2.47
0.42
0.05
0.31
0.25
0.51
3.25
0.97
1.53
0.00
37.23 | Parkways
Brush Creek
Budd Park Esplanade
Chestnut Parkway
Gillham Road
Mill Creek
The Paseo
Pershing Road
Roanoke Parkway
Sixty-third Street
Spring Valley Plaza
Swope Parkway
Ward Parkway
West Pennway
Total Parkways |
55.414
3.689
11.848
129.056
37.900
237.043
15.804
15.007
4.511
4.179
63.826
119.595
19.481
717.359 |
0.84
0.37
0.32
4.24
0.95
8.81
0.66
0.97
0.60
0.14
3.63
3.95
1.15
26.63 |
|
