102 REPORT OF THE 



with stagnant rain water and, in addition, they removed consider- 

 able earth in grading roads made last year. During a portion of 

 the season some of the men employed at Ridgewood Park were 

 detailed to grade a small triangle in the Eighteenth Ward, which 

 the Park Department converted into a small park. 



In Bushwick Park the grading was begun at the end of March. 

 An average of ten men were employed, in addition to ten scraper 

 teams and one cart ; 7,850 cubic yards of sand were moved. Ex- 

 cavations were made for the planting of 312 shade trees and 2,200 

 feet of hedge, and the same replaced with 638 cubic yards of 

 good top soil. The land reserved for lawns, about four and one- 

 half acres in extent, was covered one foot deep with top soil. 

 About 3,000 cubic yards were used. 



In Sunset Park work was carried on from the middle of 

 May to the end of October. An excavation 460 feet long, six 

 feet wide and four feet deep was made for the foundation of a 

 strong retaining wall along Fifth avenue. About 409 cubic 

 yards of material were moved. The work of building the foun- 

 dation was necessarily slow, owing to delay caused by the 

 handling of very heavy boulders, which required drilling and 

 blasting. 



In the Twelfth Ward Park grading was started in June and 

 carried on until October. About 9,000 cubic yards of material, 

 consisting of cinders and all sorts of rubbish, dumped there in 

 years past, were moved. An average of ten men and four teams 

 were employed. It will require the removal of 8,000 additional 

 cubic yards of material to complete the sub-grading of this park. 



The grading of the East Side lands was commenced in Febru- 

 ary at the part fronting the reservoir, at the junction of Flatbush 

 avenue and Eastern parkway. Some 9,000 cubic yards of earth 

 used at this point was obtained from contractors, who delivered 

 it free of cost. During the summer months an immense amount 

 of work was done on the remaining portion of the land. Hills 

 eight to ten feet high were graded down to the established sub- 

 of two feet above the curbstone line of the sidewalk. The 

 material thus obtained, consisting of sandy clay and boulders, 

 many of so large a size as to require blasting before handling, 

 was used in filling a large hole at the southern end of the land. 



