104 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
through the press in urging that “something be done.” It 
was now April, 1896. The commission had been in office a 
year; a million of dollars had been available for months, 
and why should not the work go forward? On April 11 the 
landscape architects and engineers were “requested to for- 
mulate a plan for the improvement of Branch Brook Park 
and for employing 200 men.” By May 25 sufficient pro- 
gress had been made to invite proposals, to close June 3, 
for the work, and to pass a resolution “that this work be 
done through contractors, who will agree to employ upon it 
citizens of Essex County on a basis of cost, and at such 
compensation as can be agreed upon by such contractors and 
the commission.” 
The plan of giving preference to residents or business 
houses within the county, other conditions being equally 
favorable, had already become an established rule of the 
board. The work to be done was in what is now known as 
the southern division of the park, south of Fifth avenue. A 
number of proposals—more than twenty—were received. 
They were as varied in specifications and offerings as were 
the qualifications and facilities for doing the work of the 
various bidders. The bids ranged from the offerings of a 
few horses and carts to those proposing to do all the work 
complete. After a moderately successful effort to properly 
classify these complex propositions, the rejection of all bids 
was deemed the only solution that could be properly made. 
The meeting when the bids were opened was, as usual, in 
executive session. There was, in this unofficial and unbusi- 
ness-like procedure, no discourtesy to any of the bidders; 
none was thought of or intended. Nor, so far as I can now 
recall, would any of the commissioners at that time have 
been likely to have objected to the presence of the public. 
The bids were called for in the regular course of business, 
and no occasion for secrecy could or did exist. 
The fact was that, owing to the topography and pecuitar 
situation of that property, it was a most difficult matter to 
draw any specifications for contract work, as a whole, that 
would give the commission, through the architects and 
