Jay
DownerJay
DownerJay Downer (1877-1949) received the Pugsley Bronze Medal in 1949. He was born in Muscatine, Iowa, and graduated from Princeton University in 1905 with a degree in civil engineering. He gained experience with the Cape Breton Railroad Company in Nova Scotia; with the US Army Corps of Engineers on the upper Mississippi River; and with the Aluminum Company of America in Massena, New York, before moving to Westchester County to become chief engineer of the Bronx Parkway Commission from 1912 to 1923.
The Bronx Parkway Commission was established in 1906 thanks to the persistence of William W. Niles (who received the Pugsley Gold Medal in 1933), with the objective of building a parkway through the Bronx River Valley linking affluent Westchester County with New York City. The goal was to retain the attractiveness of Westchester, while affording highway access to the city which would keep automobiles off the streets of the county. The parkways were intended to increase property values and to be attractive amenities.
The Bronx River flowed through Westchester County and the Borough of the Bronx, forming the northerly portion of New York City. When nuisance conditions developed at intervals along the river a proposal was made to solve the problem by building a large sewer which would obliterate the river from view. One of the argument advanced in support of this plan was that the objectionable conditions would e disposed of and, at the same time, the river and its margins would be converted into a considerable area of reclaimed fill land. Downer later reflected that the completed Bronx River Parkway with the natural beauty of the river and its banks restored was an asset of incomparably greater value for the health and well-being of the people than the same area would have been if utilized for streets and solid blocks of buildings.
The work of building the Bronx River Parkway and laying out the parkway reservation was Jay Downer’s responsibility. He combined artistry with engineering in the standards he developed. The standards were copied and replicated in other parts of the US and elsewhere in the world. The development of the Bronx River Parkways involved grading and landscaping large areas of the Bronx River, diverting five miles of the river, designing elegant bridges to cross the river, and eliminating pollution from the river, as well as building the parkways. The pollution clean-up was so successful that swimming was possible in the summer of 1918 in a river that in 1909 was described as an “open sewer.”
During World War I the project was in abeyance and Downer left Westchester County to serve as a civilian in the aircraft procurement division of the War Department as a “Dollar-a-Year-Man.” This work led him to develop early an interest in aviation and, hopeful of interesting the officials of Westchester County to construct an airport, he went to Europe to study the landing fields in London, Paris, and Rome. However, it was not until World War II that the Army finally constructed an airport in Westchester County worthy of the name; this was built on a site in Rye originally recommended by Downer.
The Bronx Parkway project resumed after the war when Downer returned. Its completion in 1923 elicited the following description of it from Downer:
“From Bronx Park in a motor car one moves swiftly over the smoothly paved 40-foot drive following an alignment of ever varying graceful curves with gentle undulations of grade. The Bronx River is nearly always in sight with small lakes at frequent intervals and there is the continual diversity of open spaces, woodland and rocky ledges characteristic of the river valley.”
When the road was completed the Commission disbanded. The outstanding job done by Downer in transforming the ugly Bronx Valley into an attractive, well-landscaped area convinced elected officials in Westchester County that the county should have system of parkways modeled after the Bronx project. Thus, Downer was retained as chief executive of the Westchester County Park Commission when it was formed in 1923.
The Bronx Parkway project had shifted the public’s perceptions. Instead of being viewed as threats to the environment, parkways were seen as devices for rehabilitating despoiled areas and preventing relatively unspoiled regions from degenerating into carbon copies of what the Bronx River Valley had been prior to the creation of the parkway reservation. Thus, the preservation of small streams was one of the basic principles in laying out the Westchester County Park System.
One of the first things Downer did after joining the county commission was to prepare an overall scheme for future park development. His plan called for waterfront parks along Long Island Sound and the Hudson River, several inland parks, and parkways in the Saw Mill River and Hutchinson River valleys. He vigorously pursued implementation of this plan. When he resigned his position with the county in 1934, much of the engineering construction and development work had been completed, and the responsibilities were transitioning to maintenance rather than construction. In his 22 years in Westchester, Downer had overseen the investment of $104 million of public money on parks and parkways.
As a result of his experience, Downer believed that cities should recognize streams and rivers as a central asset rather than as inexpensive sewers or fill areas. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the wisdom of this perspective became apparent, but in the first quarter of the century he was a visionary ahead of his time. He observed that people in cities could:
Turn from the stress and burden of their worldly affairs to find refreshment in the quiet contemplation of a small stream running between green banks and overhanging trees. And, yet, in the building of cities, the small stream or watercourse is usually neglected or allowed to become a nuisance instead of being conserved and utilized as one of the most valuable and attractive features of any city plan. Too often it is obliterated completely by a garbage dump or ignominiously consigned to an underground drain.
After he retired from the county, Downer was involved in several enterprises initiated by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. This work occupied him until 1940, when he established his own consulting office for the practice of civil engineering. From time to time, Downer was drafted for special consulting work by directors of the National Park Service and he visited many national parks, rarely charging for his services other than enough to cover expenses. He became an advisor to Rockefeller on the acquisition of lands atop the Palisades of the Hudson and on highway and other problems at Williamsburg, Virginia, in connection with that great restoration project. The New York World Fair Commission solicited his services as an engineer and planner in the design and construction of its buildings and grounds. There he created a vast new, but necessarily temporary, array of structures, gardens and playgrounds in ultra modern design.
Downer was an inspiring leader and a man of impeccable charter and integrity. He received many honors, among them the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Columbia University in 1931.