224 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
the discussion, In the Olmsted report of December 31, 
1898, the heavy traffic “on Park avenue from the Hast 
Orange parkway to Branch Brook Park” is noted as an 
“objection” which it is “impracticable to exclude,” though 
“the inconvenience might be less and less as time goes on.” 
The report concludes “that the large proposition of park- 
ways for Essex County is sure to lead to endless discussion.” 
Their special report of August 2, 1899, in response to the 
Park Board resolution, as above quoted, would, I think, 
have surprised the people of Essex County had it been made 
public at that time, or at any time during the five years fol- 
lowing while the contest over the parkways was in progress. 
This report, according to instructions, was to have “regard 
for the various available routes, and to the financial limita- 
tions” of the commission. After noting that “no entirely 
new east and west parkway appears to be practicable, except 
at the north end of East Orange, through Clinton and 
South Orange,” or possibly “from the northern end of 
Branch Brook Park westward to the mountain through the 
southern parts of Bloomfield and Montclair,” etc., the re- 
port refers to Park and Central avenues as follows: 
“As the board has not yet put this policy—of taking con- 
trol of the avenues—into effect, there is still opportunity to 
reconsider the matter and to leave out of the parkway sys- 
tem either or both of these avenues. After a careful study 
of the existing conditions of the territory through which 
these two avenues run, it appears to us that the greater good 
to the greatest number of the citizens of the county directly 
interested, demands that Central avenue be left out of the 
parkway system, so as to be available for ordinary business 
traffic.” 
CORPORATION AGENTS SUPPORTED. 
The reasons as then stated for this conclusion—surpris- 
ing in comparison with that firm’s prior report quoted, and 
in view of the fact that this statement was directly in line 
with the “points” which the trolley franchise agents and 
promoters had been for months actively circulating—were 
