FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
CHAPTER I. 
PLAN FOR THE ESSEX COUNTY PARKS. 
THE inauguration of a great system of public improve- 
ments is often preceded by general discussion, more or less 
public agitation, and sometimes by party divisions, in the 
efforts to obtain the requisite legislation. This has been 
not infrequently the case in the selection and acquirement 
of lands for public parks, which, owing to the great cost 
usually involved, becomes at once an important factor 
within the community or the areas affected. 
In New York the discussion over a proposed “outer park” 
in 1851 resulted in a special session of the Legislature in 
July of that year and the authorization made for the city 
to locate the park on the East River, above Sixty-sixth 
street, and including the tract then known as St. John’s 
Wood. Opposition to the project promptly developed, and 
the property was never acquired for park uses. Two years 
later, in 1853, a commission was created with authority to 
locate and acquire land above Fifty-ninth street for what 
is now Central Park. It was not, however, until three 
years afterward that the park received its name, and not 
until 1859 that the lines were extended to One Hundred 
and Tenth street, and that that park, which has since been 
so much to New York and to the country, was fully and 
firmly established. This history of Central Park has been 
repeated in many of its phases in nearly every large park 
undertaking where the parks have not been acquired by 
gift from individual owners. 
9 
