195 



in the future, depends the valuation which can justly and sagaciously 

 be now placed upon it, and upon this valuation mainly depends the 

 financial prosperity of the city of Brooklyn. 



HOW TOE OPPORTUNITY MAY BE MISUSED AND HOW 

 AVAILED OF. 



It would be a perfectly simple problem to cause this land to be 

 given up in a few years almost exclusively to shanties, stables, brew- 

 eries, distilleries, and swine-yards, and eventually to make the greater 

 part of it a district corresponding, in the larger metropolis which is 

 hereafter to exist on the shores of New York harbor, to that which 

 the Five Points has been in the comparatively small town we have 

 known. 



The means by which it may be made a more suitable and attrac- 

 tive place of domestic residence than it is possible that any other 

 point of the metropolis ever will be, are equally within command. 



INFLUENCE OF THE PARK ON THE VALUE OF PROPERTY. 



The effect of what has already been done, under the direction of 

 your Commission, has been to more than quadruple the value of a 

 certain portion of this land, and we have thus an expression of the 

 most simple character, in regard to the commercial estimate which, 

 at this period in the history of towns, is placed upon the circum- 

 stance of convenient access from a residence to a public pleasure- 

 ground, and upon the sanitary and social advantages of a habitation 

 thus situated. The advance in value, in this case, is quite marked at 

 a distance of a mile, and this local advantage has certainly not been 

 attended by any falling back in the value of other land in Brooklyn. 



If we analyze the conditions of this change in value, we shall find 

 that it is not altogether, or even in any large degree, dependent upon 

 mere vicinity to the sylvan and rural attractions of the park, but in 

 very large part, in the first place, upon the degree in which these at- 

 tractions can be approached with security from the common annoy- 

 ances of the streets, and with pleasure in the approach itself. If, for 

 instance, the greater part of the park were long and narrow in form, 

 other things being equal, the demand for building sites, fronting on 

 this portion of it, would not, probably, be appreciably less than for 

 those fronting on the broader part. Secondly, the advance in value 

 will be found to be largely dependent on the advantages of having 

 near a residence, a place where, without reference to the sylvan 

 attractions found in a large park, driving, riding, and walking can 



