333 



to find in it a confirmation of our own estimate, that this improve- 

 ment would cost over a million of dollars. 



The proposal, moreover, is premature. It has not yet been deter- 

 mined that the area of land now in the course of improvemenl on 



the west side of the avenue, is not sufficiently extensive for a park, 

 or that it is not of convenient access to the masses for whose use it 

 is designed. If so, then neither the necessity nor the expediency of 

 improving the eastern side, in addition to the other, and of thereby 

 permanently abstracting from our city's domain a large amount of 

 taxable property, is by any means certain. In the judgment of the 

 committee this improvement ought not to be made; and they believe 

 the opinion of those who have to pay for public works — the taxpayers 

 of Brooklyn — is decidedly against its being made. This board has 

 repeatedly expressed its opinion to the same effect in its annual 

 reports, giving the reasons therefor at length. 



In the address of the President at the public meeting above re- 

 ferred to, which was afterwards published in our local newspapers, it 

 Avas stated that after retaining the Reservoir ground, with its beauti- 

 ful prospect, and a very considerable area for the accommodation of 

 public buildings and institutions, besides opening up a broad system 

 of approaches to the park, eastward from Flatbush avenue, the resi- 

 due of the land on the same side could be sold for three millions of 

 dollars ; and that by saving another million which it would cost to 

 improve this section as a park, and adding it to the three millions for 

 which the land could be sold, a saving of four millions of dollars 

 would be effected, besides returning a large amount of property to 

 the books of the tax collector. 



The Committee think that, with the present great burden of pub- 

 lic debt and taxation resting upon our city, the saving of this large 

 sum of money would be a sound and wise economy; and they believe 

 that all thoughtful and prudent men, who are not biased by their 

 ownership of a large estate on the eastern side of the avenue, will 

 concur in this opinion. The Committee cannot recommend the Board 

 to fly in the face of an enlightened public judgment, by proceeding to 

 do, upon the suggestion of a few interested persons, what would ren- 

 der the saving of these four millions impossible. 



There is, it is said, a diversity of opinion on this question of spend- 

 ing or of saving four millions. But those who differ belong mainly 

 to two classes of persons. One class own land in the vicinity of the 

 proposed improvement, and think their land will be greatly enhanced 

 in value by spending some millions of money to bring the park to 

 their doors. While we do not concur in the opinion, believing that 



