320 The Story of The Bronx 



tains many magnificent specimens of trees, some of them of 

 rare varieties. 



The only other piece of property obtained in 1 888 is a strip 

 one hundred feet wide connecting Crotona Park with Bronx 

 Park. This lies east of the Southern Boulevard and extends 

 along the western side of Bronx Park. It is known as Crotona 

 Parkway and was opened in 1910 at an expense of $255,500. 



The other parks within the Borough have been bought since 

 those mentioned above. Macomb's Dam Park was acquired 

 in 1899. It lies between Jerome and Cromwell avenues, 

 and East i62d Street and the Harlem River, covering an area 

 of twenty-seven acres. A large part of this park included the 

 swampy and marshy land bordering Cromwell's Creek, and 

 much of this has been filled in without cost to the city by allow- 

 ing contractors to dump here the materials they have removed 

 from excavations. There are an athletic field, base-ball 

 fields, and tennis-courts. 



Echo Park is one of the most beautiful of the smaller parks 

 of the Borough. It comprises three acres at Mount Hope, 

 lying west of Webster Avenue. It gets its name from a well- 

 defined echo that can be heard, so it is said, between two 

 great masses of rock within its boundaries. Until it was 

 acquired by the Park Department in 1902 it had been used 

 by the Highway Bureau as a dumping-ground. 



University Park is a side-hill park in front of the land of 

 the New York University. It contains three acres, and was 

 acquired by the city in 1901. 



St. James Park gets its name from the fact that it adjoins 

 St. James's Protestant Episcopal Church on Jerome Avenue, 

 near Fordham cross-road. It comprises nearly twelve acres 

 and was acquired in 1901. It was a low, wet, marshy tract, 

 but it has been cleaned up and drained. 



