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standing of the purposes which any town park should be designed to 

 fulfil, that is to say, of the general principles to be observed, and 

 secondly upon our estimate of the number and the special character 

 of the people who are to use the particular park in question. 



With regard to the latter point, we need only remark that we 

 regard Brooklyn as an integral part of what to-day is the metropolis 

 of the nation, and in the future will be the centre of exchanges for 

 the world, and the park in Brooklyn, as part of a system of grounds, 

 of which the Central Park is a single feature, designed for the recrea- 

 tion of the whole people of the metropolis and their customers and 

 guests from all parts of the world for centuries to come. With 

 regard, however, to the purposes which town parks in general should 

 be intended and prepared to fulfil, this being a matter upon which 

 little has ever been said or written, and upon which very different 

 ideas prevail, and inasmuch as a clear understanding upon it must be 

 had before a fair judgment can be formed of any plan for a town 

 park, we propose to indicate the views which we have adopted, and 

 out of which our plan has grown. 



PURPOSES OF A PARK. 



The word park has different significations, but that in which we 

 are now interested has grown out of its application centuries ago, 

 simply to hunting grounds ; the choicest lands for hunting grounds 

 being those in which the beasts of the chase were most happy, and 

 consequently most abundant, sites were chosen for them, in which it 

 was easy for animals to turn from rich herbage to clear water, from 

 warm sunlight to cool shade ; that is to say, by preference, ranges of 

 well-watered dale-land, broken by open groves and dotted with 

 spreading trees, undulating in surface, but not rugged. Gay parties 

 of pleasure occasionally met in these parks, and when these meetings 

 occurred the enjoyment otherwise obtained in them was found to be 

 increased. Hence, instead of mere hunting lodges and hovels for 

 game-keepers, extensive buildings and other accommodations, having 

 frequently a festive character, were after a time provided within their 

 enclosures. Then it was found that people took pleasure in them 

 without regard to the attractions of the chase, or of conversati n, and 

 this pleasure was perceived to be, in some degree, related to their 

 scenery, and in some degree to the peculiar manner of association 

 which occurred in them ; and this was also found to be independent 

 of intellectual gifts, tranquilizing and restorative to the powers most 

 tasked in ordinary social duties, and stimulating only in a healthy 

 and recreative way to the imagination. Hence, after a time, parks 



