77 



The Work Before Us 



Physical Development 



To complete what may be called the initial physical development 

 of the Garden, there are four important needs: 



1. Construction of the Eastern Parkway (late 



2. A gate at the north Flatbush Avenue entrance 



3. An addition to the Laboratory Building 



4. Completion of the planting ol the Esplanade. 



Eastern Parkway Gate. — When a need of an institution is as 

 great and as pressing as ours is tor a suitable gateway or portal 

 at the main entrance, on Eastern Parkway, it will not, perhaps, 

 seem out of place to continue to call attention to that need until 

 it is met. It is recognized that we are living in times that are 

 difficult financially, and yet here is a public institution in the largest 

 and richest city in the Western Hemisphere, serving directly 

 nearly two million people annually, and serving thousands more in- 

 directly, but having at its main entrance only an opening in an iron 

 fence that is nearly fifty years old. Plans for this gate have been 

 prepared for several years, calling for a structure of architectural 

 beauty and dignity worthy of a great public institution and in har- 

 mony with its location on a prominent parkway, and adjacent to 

 one of the most beautiful buildings in America — the Brooklyn 

 Museum. The construction of the monumental Osborne Memorial 

 on the Horticultural Section makes the erection of the gate all 

 the more urgent. 



The need for this gate was recognized by the City ten years ago, 

 when the then Board of Estimate and Apportionment, in 1930, 

 approved the project together with the development of the " North 

 Addition" (the present Horticultural section). An appropriation 

 of $24,000 was made for the latter work, with the understanding 

 that as soon as it was completed the construction of the gate would 

 be undertaken. Unfortunately the great " depression " came. 

 The appropriation was cancelled in 1932 (Annual Report for 

 1932. p. 27), together with all other city Capital ( )utlay appropria- 

 tions where the contracts had not yet been awarded. 



The gate was rejected as a project by the Federal Works Projects 

 Administration since the cost of materials was too great in pro- 



