•J 2 REPORT OF THE 



and Seventy-fifth street the streets are only sixty feet wide. It 

 seemed to us absurd to connect Fort Hamilton avenue, which is 

 one hundred feet wide, and Fourth avenue, which is one hundred 

 and twenty feet wide — both bearing horses, carriages, bicycles and 

 pedestrians by thousands — with the most beautiful parkway in 

 the world, by an ordinary city street sixty feet wide. We thought 

 of widening Sixty-seventh or Sixty-eighth street; but that would 

 have left on one side of the street, if not on both, for the distance 

 of more than half a mile, lots not deep enough for building pur- 

 poses, and therefore certain to remain neglected and unsightly for 

 many years. Again, it seemed to us extremely desirable to avoid 

 grade crossings of the trolley railroads. We have, therefore, pro- 

 posed to take an entire block between two streets, from Fort 

 Hamilton avenue to First avenue. The statute calls for detailed 

 plans of the improvement only after the authorities shall have 

 passed on our first report. Nor have we really fully determined 

 on such details. But we may say that from Fort Hamilton ave- 

 nue to Fourth avenue it will be practicable to pass over all the 

 intersecting avenues, and from Fourth avenue nearly to the shore 

 to go under the intersecting avenues, with but little cost for filling 

 up the eastern section and even less for excavating the section 

 nearer the bay; and all without disturbing the grade of any street 

 or avenue (except, perhaps, First avenue), without impairing the 

 value of a single building lot, but creating a magnificent parkway 

 which will add immensely to the value of the property of the 

 vicinage. 



We have estimated the cost of acquiring the property em- 

 braced in our plan at two and a half millions of dollars. The 

 project has been long under consideration, and we believe the 

 people expect it to be carried out, at whatever necessary cost, 

 desiring only to be assured that not more than the proper value 

 shall be paid for the property to be taken. We are warned that 

 certain parties will oppose the plan now reported, or any similar 

 plan. The\' would have Brooklyn as an independent city less 

 attractive than the cities with which it must compete for popula- 

 tion, or as a section of a vast metropolis, the least attractive sec- 

 tion of that metropolis. Central Park alone about equals all the 

 park spaces of Brooklyn combined. Yet New York has Morning- 

 side Park, Riverside Drive, numerous other parks, and about 

 seven thousand recently acquired acres of parks and parkways 

 above the Harlem river. Among them all there is no section 

 possessing such natural advantages as the district we propose to 

 develop .mhI beautify. New York is preparing to improve its 

 system of rapid transit so as to make its new parks and annexed 

 district more easily accessible. But the Bay Ridge Parkway, and 

 the territory contiguous, will offer more desirable sites for resi- 



