Bookcover: Terracotta-roofed civic buildings designed by the well-known architect Grosvenor Atterbury at the edge of the main plaza of Forest Hills Gardens, a commuter suburb of New York City in Queens, New York. A small traffic island is present in the foreground. The bottom and left hand side of the color drawing are edged with trees.
 
A vanishing sidewalk runs parallel to a vine-covered stone wall. A stone step precedes a gate which leads to a house.
 
A sun-dappled lawn spreads out beneath mature specimen trees. A house is in the background.

A Modern Arcadia: Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and the Plan for Forest Hills Gardens
Susan L. Klaus

Published by University of Massachusetts Press in association with LALH

Cloth $39.95; paperback $24.95

To order: University of Massachusetts Press,
tel. 800-537-5487, fax 410-516-6998

Winner of the 2003 Historic Preservation Book Prize from the Center for Historic Preservation at Martha Washington College

Winner of the New York Society Library’s 2002 New York City Book Award for Landscape History

 

“Forest Hills Gardens, a remarkable suburban enclave in New York City and one of the finest planned communities ever, finally receives the attention it deserves in Susan L. Klaus’s . . . fascinating account.”—Robert A. M. Stern, dean of Yale School of Architecture

“The scholarship in this work is exceptionally thorough. . . . A Modern Arcadia will make a significant contribution to the fields of landscape and planning history.”—Cynthia Zaitzevsky, author of Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System

“A Modern Arcadia illuminates the fascinating intersection of social and aesthetic reform movements in the Progressive Era, as well as the early career of a prolific and influential planner and landscape architect.”—David Glassberg, author of Sense of History: The Place of the Past in American Life

 

FOREST HILLS GARDENS IN QUEENS, New York, has long been recognized as one of the most influential planned communities in America, yet it has never before been the subject of a book. Susan L. Klaus’s richly illustrated monograph chronicles the creation of the 142-acre commuter suburb from its 1909 inception through its first two decades of development. A Modern Arcadia tells a vivid tale of collaborative genius, focusing particularly on the remarkable plan of streets, parks, and common areas designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., who drew on his father’s visionary concepts as well his own ideas about what makes a community work.

As Americans continue to struggle with the dual challenge of containing sprawl and creating “livable” communities, A Modern Arcadia offers a timely analysis of one of the most successful American places ever built.