342 



military gentlemen in the Commission had thus been for some time 

 directed toward it, and partly in the fact that it then appeared com- 

 paratively to better advantage, as respects accessibility, than at pres- 

 ent. Neither the railroad to Flatbush, nor any of the other railroads 

 by which our park is now to be reached, had then been constructed, 

 while there were three railroads already to Ridgewood, and the same 

 Commission recommended that Atlantic avenue, which led toward it 

 from the central parts of the city, should be at once widened and im- 

 proved. 



A desire to interpose an obstacle to the extension of the ceme- 

 teries toward the reservoir also doubtless had some influence upon the 

 judgment of the Commission. 



When, however, the proposition came to be discussed at Albany, 

 it was found that some of the representatives of the Western District 

 were strongly indisposed to commit the city to so large an under- 

 taking; they urged that a park, however large and however fine it 

 might be, situated at a point so far in the extreme east, could not 

 fairly be regarded as the central park of the city ; that a considerable 

 part of it was in fact out of the city, and not only out of the city but 

 out of the county, and that the regulation of streets and other mat- 

 ters on one side of it could not be within the control of the county 

 authorities. 



The close association of the cemeteries with a pleasure ground was 

 felt to be objectionable, and finally it was said : " You propose to give 

 the Eastern District a park five times as large as that you propose to 

 give us, but you expect us to pay three-fourths of the cost of both 

 undertakings." 



The last objection was unanswerable, and after much discussion 

 it was agreed upon, as a compromise arrangement, that the great 

 Ridgewood Park should be made a local enterprise exclusively of 

 the Eastern District, and that the proposed park at Prospect Hill 

 should be considered as an affair exclusively of the Western Dis- 

 trict. 



From this followed the arrangement under which the Eastern 

 District is now exempt from taxation for the present Prospect 

 Park. 



The members of the Legislature from the Eastern District, after 

 consulting their constituents, concluded to defer the passage of the 

 bill which had been drawn up with a view to form the great park at 

 Ridgewood, with the view of taking it up again the following years, 

 but the war came, and it proved to be an indefinite postponement of 

 that part of the original scheme. 



