This past October at “Why Montclair is Montclair: the Role of Art and Architecture in the Early 20th Century” a panel discussion presentation held at the Montclair Art Museum, Panelist Diane Lewis, Rome Prize recipient and professor at the Cooper Union School of Architecture, brought to light how Olmsted’s Central Park is conceived as a three dimensional Hudson River Valley School painting. The Montclair Municipal Arts Society engaged John Nolen, a student of the Olmsteds, to plan a town conceived to preserve the natural beauty emblematic of George Inness’ and the other Montclair Artist Colony, Hudson River Valley painter’s works. Back then, visionary architect George Maher, a Frank Lloyd Wright colleague who in 1904 designed Montclair’s Gates Mansion stated, “peculiarity or originality in design arises from local reasons; the exactions of an educated public are essential for any improvement in art. Thus it was in Athens in the time of Pericles and also in Florence in the fifteenth century”
Lewis stated during her portion of the panel discussion, “This site of Montclair, is architecture before the buildings. In the most ancient sense, like a Greek or Roman site. Montclair is a geographical god- or gods-given place. This distinguishes it from a lot of other kinds of settlements.”
In other words, Montclair’s physical location at the base of the First Watchung Mountain, with a series of views either west towards the bluff or east towards New York City, a cameo on the horizon, makes it a perfect and wholly unique setting for a picturesque town.
“You have this amazing bluff, or cliff, or however you would like to call it,” Lewis continued, “and this particular elevation faces across an enormous span so there’s almost this mystical vision of Manhattan island that floats in space as you look across. Now this is the fundamental architectural condition that makes this place, and it’s a unique condition.”
In order to clarify this point, Lewis actually looked to Central Park, in both its forms and influences. Anyone who’s been to Central Park can attest to how pleasing it is visually, full of mysteries and surprises that reveal themselves as the path turns a corner. It probably occurs to most visitors that this layout was intentional. What they may not realize, however, is that Frederick Law Olmsted’s and Calvert Vaux’s design for the park was heavily influenced by the Hudson River School of American landscape painting. Showing Olmsted’s drawings of specific vistas he planned for Central Park next to works by Hudson River School Painters, Lewis pointed out “exactly how concretely they are the same thing.”
“After having first seen these presentation drawings by Olmsted in Hamburg, Germany, I understood that Olmsted was not only constructing a network of water systems and through-roads and paths at the level of a Roman imperial project, but then detailing this landscape to embody these new paintings. There is nothing naturalistic about the relation of spatial span, positioning of the rock outcroppings, paths, sculptures, and bridges. They are built of a particular imagery of a time; they are built paintings.”
“Over the course of the 19th Century, the sensibilities of the Hudson River School, which viewed pastoral landscapes as having mystical, mysterious qualities, and valued them for their representation of a definite Americanness, influenced the way architects and planners approached their work. Influenced by artists like Thomas Cole and George Inness, these artists of the built environment began to conceive of spaces as compositions. Olmsted, in other words, couldn’t help but see the space on which he would help create Central Park as a blank canvas. “
And how does this all relate to Montclair? In Lewis’s view, “Montclair, is one of the [landscape] paintings. The Olmsted parks are the projected corporealities of the paintings of his time,” and so is Montclair. One of the most widely-known and influential of the Hudson River School painters was George Inness, who spent much of his artistic life living in, and painting, Montclair.”
Lewis believes that the work of Inness heavily influenced Olmsted and in turn affected Montclair. She noted that when she first saw the Nolen Report, a 1909 planning document for Montclair prepared by the Harvard-trained John Nolen, she immediately recognized the similarities with Olmsted’s work and saw the influence of the Hudson River School: “Montclair is an entity and a physicality that has a legacy. The legacy is, you have Cole to Inness to Olmsted to Nolen.”
This series of influences is inscribed on the landscape of our town. Images of the Montclair Golf Club that Lewis presented look almost exactly like the Long Meadow in Olmsted’s Prospect Park; an image of Rand Park is nearly indistinguishable from Asher B. Durand’s Kindred Spirits, perhaps the most famous Hudson River School painting; a photograph of Anderson Park shows the same type of circuitous footpaths and rock outcroppings as Central Park. It’s worth pointing out that Olmsted’s firm designed Anderson Park, along with several others in Montclair and the surrounding towns – the connection between Montclair, and Central Park, and Olmsted is hard to deny.
According to Lewis, all of this matters because “We’re talking about something very deeply authentic that you have here that many other places in the United States do not any longer have. In my view, you do not live in a suburb. You live in something like Fiesole, something like Florence. And when you do a Master Plan, you had better be very careful. Because your project here has the fragrance and the imagery of the Hudson River School in the deepest sense. And I would not like to see that disappear.”
Not many people seem to understand how important that view is. It would make more sense to put 6-8 story structures and more residents around the train station. It’s toward the bottom of the hill and wouldn’t obstruct views from the ridge. It would become a true transit village, with multi-used buildings around the station. It would create a more vibrant area with more foot traffic and retail space in neighborhood that would benefit from having a little more density. And it would create additional spaces (top floors and rooftops) with a view of the city.
Though I humbly live on the Valley floor of Montclair, and not in any of the massive homes south of Bloomfield Ave on the mountain that get the incredible views, one of my absolute favorite things about this time of year when all the leaves fall off the trees and the view becomes unubstructed, is being able to look up AT the mountain and the homes lining it.
It gives you a sense of the original beauty of the landscape here, and there’s just something insanely charming and postcard-esque about seeing these grand old homes dotting the mountainside.
I love that you can see Casa Deldra from just about anywhere in the center of town this time of year. Or the house on Llyod Road that lights the massive Christmas tree in front of their house that you can see from most of downtown. Edgemont Park is another one of my favorite places to stand and get a sense of Montclair and the mountanside’s natural beauty.
Speaking of postcards, something like this:
https://www.digifind-it.com/montclair/PHP/8162%20-%208235/image_gallery/big/P8164-0001.jpg
Sadly, the misconceived massing of the hotel near MAM and the twin buildings of Valley and Bloom, made worse by a fearful and ignorant Planning Board, will destroy those views to First Mountain from the town center. As the corner structure of V+B rises, one can plainly see that the view to First Mountain for pedestrians and cars headed west on Bloomfield Avenue will be blocked.
The Town Center is about to lose its connection to the “Athenian bluff,” majestic background for the commercial and cultural heart of Montclair, which literally means, “bright hill.” We didn’t see it coming, but we should have.
Benefit from more density? Between 4 and 7 p.m., it’s already easy to find yourself sitting at the light (Grove & Watchung, Bellevue & Valley, etc.) as it changes several times due to the number of cars! I did not move to UPM for density but for character and quiet. Do we really want to become Hoboken?
Although I was not aware of this post yesterday morning when I was out for an early morning run, after I made a right onto Bloomfield Avenue from Park Street (I was headed south) and started running up Bloomfield Avenue I got this gut wrenching sense of loss. There, looming up ahead of me, was the rising structure of Valley and Bloom — already blocking what used to be a spectacular view of the hillside. I wholly concur with the concept that Montclair’s natural beauty and unique sense of place should be protected in perpetuity.
The only way that this will happen, however, is for the Planning Board and Town Council to hear MORE voices demanding it. Unplug yourselves for a bit and come to a Planing Board or Town Council Meeting. Demand that something like Valley and Bloom NEVER, EVER happen again. Question why we need all of this dense development. Why we should become a local transit hub? Because NJ Transit underwrote the consulting firm that initially drafted the Master Plan? Really? Is this a good enough reason to continue blindly down this path?
I have stood before the Planning Board and respectfully asked that they consider what is best for Montclair’s current residents and put those interests ahead of those yet to move here. Those of us that moved here and love Montclair for what it is (or has been) need to be very vocal about not ruining this precious place if we want it to have any resemblance to the town that we fell in love with.
You could tastefully develop and improve Montclair all day long using the principles of adaptive reuse (taking existing structures and improving or re-purposing them) without ever having to build another building, let alone the kind of architectural garbage that is going up on Bloomfield Avenue. Does Montclair really need ANY new 6-story buildings? Why? To make a Montclair address attainable for people that don’t yet live here? To make developers wealthy?
Please, come speak. Be vocal. Be firm. If you are saddened or angered by Valley and Bloom and the coming, even more massive and out of place hotel, please realize that the same developer that created these monstrosities (and The Sienna) recently purchased more property across the street from Valley and Bloom (on the north side of Bloomfield Avenue) AND all of Lakawanna Plaza. Imagine the mess he will make of our Town if more people don’t get involved to ensure that any “redevelopment” he tries to do is done more tastefully than his track record suggests he is capable of.
Folks, municipal bodies like the Planning Board and Town Council are nothing more than a reflection of us. If we do or say nothing while our Town is denuded, then we are every bit as responsible. The next Planning Board Meeting is this Monday evening, December 8th at 7:30 in the Municipal Building. And remember, yes you are busy at this time of year, but the Planning Board will not stop marching forward on allowing developers to build more Valley and Blooms just because you are busy and cannot come to the meeting to be heard…
“Does Montclair really need ANY new 6-story buildings? Why? To make a Montclair address attainable for people that don’t yet live here?”
Wow jjd123…this about sums up the privileged attitude
The concepts of ‘viewshed’ and open horizons are important to the healthy human psyche. “Viewshed analysis” should be part of any redevelopment plan for Montclair. You can see a digital image of what V&B will look like, vis-à-vis First Mountain, here: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=874721822553188&id=574682685890438.
By “privileged” perhaps park tour is referring to the 75% of the Montclair taxpayers who don’t have children in the school system while 65% of their property taxes pay for the school system and services that they don’t use. It would be more appropriate to refer to them as “generous” instead of “privileged” . The only privileged here are the developers.
It seems to me that a view-shed of the First Mountain is something we should all be able to cherish, and be inspired by, and aspire to protect. Surely, Inness and Olmstead intuitively figured this out- instantaneously. Even the finest ‘we’re in it for the money’ 6-story apartment house architecture..(which the purple-gypsum-board-mit-a-slobbering-schmeer- of-waterproofing-gook-to-cover-up-all-the-sloppiness’-soon- to-be -disguised-by-fake mansard-roofs-and-foam-stucco-and-crappy-windows …and pretentiously known as ‘Valley and Bloom” -sure ain’t)…cannot even begin to cut the deli-style mustard here. Valley and Bloom is a particularly offensive and cynical essay in Multifamily McMansionish Livingstonian Slapdash Vulgarity, and cannot hold a faltering candle to the eternal, natural beauty of the ancient First Mountain.
I would wake up in the morning looking west to the Lenni Lenape cooksmoke rising above the first mountain before the seasonal migration down to the mighty Passaic river, down the path that would become Ave. B, down through the Broadway following the deerherds into the bay full of fish & mollusk never thinking I would see clear cutting, never knowing there would be words called false stucco and high rise and master plans.
Never knowing the “eternal, natural beauty of the ancient First Mountain” would come to an end sometime in a near century.
It’s natural to want to get a bargain. What’s not to like about gaining access to the setting, architecture and educational system that Montclair offers at the low price of new residential apartments that our developer Mayor and his compliant Planning Board are encouraging in the new Master Plan when the eventual incremental costs are borne by the current residents in the form of higher taxes? Most current residents complain about their taxes, but relatively few protest against the policies (including the Master Plan) that lead to our high property taxes. In the end, we get what we deserve. Given our collective inaction, we deserve to see our quality of life diminish and our property taxes increase as developers and our developer-in-chief Mayor profit from selling out our community’s most distinctive and valuable assets.
PAZ, you are our resident Walt Whitman.
Thank you.
Parkour, you are trying to turn my statement into something that it was not. Anyone that moved to Montclair has made what is likely one of their most significant economic investments to do so — whether that investment is to buy a $200,000 house, a $2 million house or to sign a lease and pay $400 per month in rent. In each case a decision was made to live here because of what “here” represents. 6-story, bulky, poorly-designed buildings that will block the view of First Mountain — one of the very things that many of us love about Montclair — are moving town in a direction that goes away from at least one of the reasons people moved here in the first place.
So, if I feel that I should be privileged in any way, it is that I expect our leadership to recognize and carefully consider what it is that makes Montclair so special and desirable in the first place and to not mess it up through a series of careless, poorly executed policy decisions.
On one last note, I certainly hope that you were not implying that a respect for natural beauty and the desire to not live in a town overrun with traffic, too many people and shoddy developments that could be “Anywhere USA” is something that is not shared among all different kinds of people with all different kinds of backgrounds.
“By “privileged” perhaps park tour (sp?) is referring to the 75% of the Montclair taxpayers who don’t have children in the school system while 65% of their property taxes pay for the school system and services that they don’t use. It would be more appropriate to refer to them as “generous” …”
—no, Frank, they are “tax payers”, pure and simple. Frank, you looooove to show everyone (well, the dozens here, anyway) how smart you are. Who paid for your primary education, Frank?
Which reminds me—you don’t live in Montclair. So stop whining about the taxes I pay.
Nice try at a shot, jcunningham, I do business in Montclair and donate all of my local history archive material to the public library as well as collecting material from others in the community to donate… not to mention all of the expenses. You must be a displeased elected official ….or developer.