The City: Waistcoat Parks

When U.S. cities thought about parks in the past, they thought big, tended to put all their greenery in one huge garden. New York, for instance, takes tremendous pride in the fact that Central Park is larger than Monaco. But many city planners, led by Landscape Architect Robert Zion, have argued for years that what cities really need are small parks in midtown where pedestrians can escape from the madding crowd.

The Zionist movement finally saw daylight last week. CBS Board Chairman William Paley announced plans to convert the site of the defunct Stork Club (TIME, Oct. 15) into a lot-size...