PARK SITES CHOSEN 115 
bound District.” A similar sentiment was reflected by other 
editorial notes and published expressions of the opinions of 
many persons entirely outside the district immediately 
affected. 
There was no adverse criticism that ever reached the com- 
mission until the board declined to extend the lines of the 
park as originally established. These objections were, how- 
ever, confined to those more directly interested, and evi- 
dently never got beyond the point of individual opinion. 
The lines of the park were at first located at the limits that 
it was desired should be placed in each direction. As soon 
as the requisite property outside of the O’Brien purchase 
could be acquired, the working plans were completed and 
the contracts, in August, 1896, were let for practically all the 
work for completing the park. This work, also undertaken 
by the Messrs. Shanley, was pushed rapidly forward and 
finally completed in 1897. It was the first of the county 
parks to be turned over in a finished condition for public 
use. The entire area was a level tract, and the landscape 
treatment, with trees on the borders, walks, lawn, etc, simi- 
lar to most city squares or parks of small acreage. The 
park contains a little more than twelve acres, and has cost 
upward of $160,000. 
THE WEST SIDE PARK. 
Although the decision to locate a park in the western por- 
tion of Newark was not in the order following that for the 
East Side, the conditions controlling the selection were so 
directly the reverse of those in the other case as to make the 
comparison of them quite apropos here. With the West 
Side situation, instead of the moving forces being from 
within the commission, they were—at least during the early 
stages of the discussion—wholly from without. The park 
experts to the first commission had not made any special 
recommendation for a park there, and none were included in 
the plans of that board, as it was believed that a park of 
creditable dimensions within the city limits there would in- 
Volve in proportion to its size too great cost, While other 
