Charles Downing Lay
Charles Downing Lay studied with Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and was granted one of the first formal degrees in landscape architecture. By the 1920s, Lay had emerged as one of the deans of the New York landscape profession.
The Freedom of the City
“Congestion is the life of the city . . . it is what we came for, what we stay for, what we hunger for”, wrote Charles Downing Lay, prominent American landscape architect and planner of the early 1920s. These words are relevant today as density and congestion are once again under siege, especially in our most productive and thriving cities.
Published in 1926, The Freedom of the City by Charles Downing Lay is an eloquent and timely defense of urbanism and city life. Award-winning author and urban historian Thomas J.