Finally, in the autumn of 1877, Olmsted arranged to travel to Montreal and take his case directly to the public. This had worked in Buffalo. He’d dazzled a large audience, setting the stage for a park-making coup. Maybe, he figured, he could sell the good citizens of Montreal on the merits of his plan and, in so doing, rescue some of its best elements. Olmsted was scheduled to speak in a hall with a capacity of eight hundred. At the appointed hour, only about ten people had shown up. Another thirty or so trickled in during his speech. He described the exercise as a “farcical failure” in a
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