DEPARTMENT OF PARKS. 



215 



CONTROL OF SMALL PARRS. 



FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED. 



May 9, 1867, the Legislature passed an act taking from the 

 Common Council the control of Washington, Carroll, City and 

 City Hall parks, which had been previously purchased by the 

 City under the report of the original 

 Commission, and placed them under 

 the control of the Park Department. 

 Olmsted and Vaux were directed to 

 immediately prepare a plan for Wash- 

 ington Park, and the Park as now ar- 

 ranged is in accordance with the design 

 planned by them in 1867. The portion 

 of Myrtle avenue and Canton street 

 was designed as a place for mass meet- 

 ings and regimental drills. The plan 

 of the tomb in which lie the remains 

 of the prison ship martyrs was origin- 

 ated at the same time, and located 

 just where the high ground of the Park 



begins. At the time the Park was laid out there were magnificent 

 views of the bay and the river; but these have been shut out by 

 the building up of the city, and can only be restored by an obser- 

 vatory, which has been suggested, but never constructed. That 

 men are not always wise in their opinions of subjects affecting the 

 public is shown by the recommendation on the 25th of January, 

 1868, by A. A. Low, T. J. Bergen, A. B. Baylis and W. S. Griffith, 

 members of the Board of Park Commissioners at that time, who 

 recommended that all money raised for the improvements of 

 Washington Park be returned to the city treasury, that the land 

 be cut up into four hundred and thirty-five building lots, and 

 that they be sold for one million dollars. In the opinion of these 

 gentlemen, and in fact as stated by them at the time, Washing- 

 ton Park had ceased to be a public necessity, being wholly super- 

 seded as a place of general resort by Prospect Park, and it could 

 never regain its importance or be of any special value to the 

 community at large. That they were mistaken in their opinion 

 time has since demonstrated, for Washington Park is one of the 



