48 Ni:\v voKK Z()()i.()c.ic.\r. sociirrv. 



there is one location which may he regarded as a truly ideal 

 site for a Zoological Park, such as this city sliould have, and 

 such as this Society desires to establish. 



\Vc therefore apply to you to allot, set apart, and appropriate 

 to the New York Zoological Society, according to law, all that 

 portion of Bronx Park which lies south of Pelhani Avenue, of 

 about 'Jfil acres in extent, to be used by this organization only 

 under the terms of its charter, as a public Zoological Park, and 

 to be laid out for improvement and use upon a general plan 

 which shall be approved by the Board of Park Commissioners 

 before any actual work is begun. 



One important reason for our choice of South Bronx Park 

 is that it contains several open areas in which all the large 

 buildings could be erected without the cutting of any trees or 

 shrubs whatever. The Society desires to place itself on record 

 as being opposed to the cutting of living trees or shrubbery in 

 a public park, and to all plans involving any defacement or 

 diminution of natural beauties. South Bronx Park is now 

 asked for because it is eminently the place wherein a semblance 

 of the natural haunts of wild animals can be secured by the 

 adaptation of Nature's handiwork rather than by the slow, 

 costly, and not always satisfactory processes of artificial crea- 

 tion. It is also asked for because it is possible to develop upon 

 it a Zoological Park of the most spacious and attractive char- 

 acter. 



At present the area in question is merely a tract of rough, 

 unimproved land, part meadow and partly timbered, through 

 which flows the Bronx River. Other parks in the Annexed 

 District possess 'greater [landscape possibilities, but the site 

 chosen is particularly well adapted for the purposes of a Zoo- 

 logical Garden founded on a large scale. It is, or soon will be, 

 easily accessible to the people of New York and Brooklyn by 

 payment of a single five-cent fare ; its water supply is the best 

 to be found in any of the northern parks ; its contour is not so 

 precipitous or so rough as to destroy its full availability to 

 visitors on foot ; its natural drainage is perfect ; its shade is 

 abundant and of the peculiar open kind so extremely desirable 

 in a zoological park. It possesses four natural basins, in which 



