PARK AND PLAYGROUND SYSTEM 



tunity of the school authorities to develop and improve 

 the various school properties, adding thereto and equip- 

 ping a suitable Athletic Field, as suggested under para- 

 graph 22. The program mapped out for the Park 

 Board is naturally much larger. Action would appear 

 to be called for first in connection with the proposed 

 extensions of Riverside Park and Ocean Beach and 

 the acquisition of Shaw and Winthrop Coves, the so- 

 called Harbor School Park in front of the Lawrence Hos- 

 pital, and the wild tract referred to on the plan as the 

 Large Natural Park Reservation. When the general 

 recommendations for these properties are approved, more 

 detailed plans should be made for the takings, the land 

 should be acquired, and then design, construction, and 

 planting plans should be prepared by the landscape 

 architect for the improvement of each park. 



It will take years to execute the park and playground 

 system as outlined for New London. That, I believe, is 

 clearly understood by the Municipal Art Society and 

 the Park Board. One advantage of the General Plan, 

 however, is that it shows the relation of each part to 

 the whole and enables the members of the Park Board 

 and the city authorities to keep the final system con- 

 stantly in mind. It will help the city to avoid mis- 

 takes and make many economies possible. 



There is a new spirit in New London. It has already 

 expressed itself in a phenomenal improvement of roads 

 and sidewalks, in the founding at New London of the 

 Connecticut College for Women, and in the plans now 

 under way for large commercial and business development 

 of the city. To these great enterprises there will be 

 added, unless all signs fail, a park and playground system 

 which promises to be as good as that of any other city 

 in the class of New London. 



[27] 



