Public garden/Public ground

History

J. C. Loudon’s 1834 definition of the public garden neatly covers the history of these spaces in the colonial and federal period: the feature served recreational, educational, and commercial functions. Whether publicly or privately owned, the public garden was a space made available to the general populace. The public garden, or public ground, phrases used synonymously, could be privately owned with access regulated by race, gender, and price, as was the case at Contoit’s Garden [Fig. 1] and Castle Garden in New York, and the Pagoda and Labyrinth Garden in Philadelphia [Fig. 2]. The government-owned public garden or public ground was land that had been removed from the real estate market. For this kind of public garden, the government determined who had access to public property and under what conditions. For example, when Castle Garden [Fig. 3] was turned over to the city, its interior was planted with flowers and shrubs; later, public baths were added (see Bath). The national Mall in Washington, D.C., was the quintessential example of the public garden, as seen in an idealized view of the A. J. Downing plan from 1852 [Fig. 4]. As a symbol of democratic process, the Mall has served since its inception in 1791 as the seat of public celebration, as well as a place of public garden/public ground public protest. Common property, yet another version of public ground, was land to which all members of a community had unrestricted access, as was the case with the vernacular public garden or the unstructured playground.1

Although the great age of public parks in America did not begin until after the mid-nineteenth century, there were numerous early examples of the ornamentation of public space and the dedication of open ground for use by the citizenry. Several early town plans had public squares or gardens incorporated into the street plan. The green in New Haven, Conn. [Fig. 5], the public circle in Annapolis, Md., the palace green in Williamsburg, Va., and the city of Savannah, Ga., are examples of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century town plans that featured public gardens and public grounds in their original designs.

Philadelphia, laid out in 1682 [Fig. 6], was the site of some of the earliest public gardens, dating from William Penn’s original conception for a “Green Countrie Towne,” which provided five squares kept open for public use. In 1732 the City Assembly of Philadelphia first discussed creating a new public garden by leveling the area behind the city’s State House, the colonial seat of the Pennsylvania colony, and enclosing it “in order that Walks be laid out, and Trees planted to render the same more beautiful and commodious.” It was to “remain a public open green and walks forever.”2 Like many public gardens, the State House Yard derived its significance from its proximity to an important public building. Numerous images, particularly in prints, were circulated that depicted public gardens surrounding city halls, historic sites, churches, and civic monuments. In some cases, the view or prospect influenced the siting of a public garden. Castle Garden and the battery in Charleston, S.C., were both situated at the water’s edge, providing views of the harbor. In other cases, public gardens were located at sites that were already known as popular informal gathering places. In this way, authorities transformed uncontrolled public assembly places into controlled, “improved” open spaces.

An important public ground in New England was the Boston Common, which was set aside as a community property in 1640 (see Common and Square). It was repeatedly improved and ornamented as a public garden. The development of Boston Common followed a typical pattern: open public space that had been used as military training grounds or grazing land in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was seeded and transformed into a public garden.3 This was also true of areas that had previously been used as meeting house lots. Charles Hubbard’s view of Boston Common depicts several of the traditional uses of a public ground, including promenading and military training and display [Fig. 7]. In 1834, a landscaped park, which was designated as the Public Garden, was added to the Common [Fig. 8].

Following the American Revolution, the improvement and ornamentation of public spaces increased with a frequency that amounted to a beautification campaign.4 Plans for Washington, D.C., have included public gardens since the founding of the new federal capital in 1791. The national Mall, which was described as “public walks” on Thomas Jefferson’s sketch of that year [Fig. 9], was sited at the ceremonial and legislative center of the city. Its purpose, to provide a symbolic public space at the center of the federal capital, was reaffirmed with each successive design. In 1832, Congress rejected a proposal to turn over the public gardens of the Mall to an entrepreneur who wanted to charge admission. This plan was vehemently opposed by those who felt that even in its unkempt condition, the publicly owned Mall was more worthy of the nation than a commercial public garden with its reputed scenes of debauchery could ever be.5 This example clearly illustrates the differences between the two senses of the phrase “public garden,” one indicating an improved site open to the citizenry, the other referring to a commercial establishment designed for entertainment.

The type of public garden that provided entertainment in exchange for an admission fee took as its model the successful pleasure gardens of London, sometimes copying the names of the most famous. In the early nineteenth century, a Vauxhall could be found in nearly every big city in America. Joseph Delacroix wrote of a celebration at the Vauxhall Garden in New York on July 4, 1799: “[The] beautiful garden was opened at 6 o’clock in the morning, and the colours were hoisted under a discharge of 16 guns. The 16 summer houses being the names of the Sixteen United States, each were decorated with the Emblematical Colours belonging to each State, and ornamented with Flowers and Garlands. At 5 o’clock in the evening, the sixteen colours of each Summer-house were carried, at the sound of the musick, to the Grand Temple of Independence, which is 20 feet diameter, and 20 feet high.”6

As cities grew larger and more densely populated, citizens sought refuge outside the urban center, seeking “a breathing place to a thickly inhabited city,” as one observer wrote (1835). In lieu of parks, many colonial estates were transformed into public pleasure gardens, taking advantage of the fine stock of plants that had been cultivated in older private gardens. The eighteenth-century country seat Lemon Hill in Philadelphia [Fig. 10], for example, was turned into a commercial public garden in the 1830s.

A tension often existed between the marketing of the public gardens as a moral, salubrious “breathing place” and its competing financial goals. The advertising for commercial public gardens promoted them as places of rational amusement, wholesome air, and public taste. In practice, however, the ice cream, slide show, and musical entertainments drew in larger crowds than did the promise of an uplifting, educative environment. Occasionally the term “public garden” was used to refer to a commercial nursery open to the public. That was the case at the McAran Botanic Garden and Nursery in Philadelphia [Fig. 11], which was operated by the former gardener of the Woodlands and Lemon Hill, two of the most important gardens of the colonial period. His horticultural business also profited from added entertainments, such as a menagerie and the pastries that were offered for sale.

-- Therese O'Malley