343 



I have thus shown how the project of a park at Prospect Hill was 

 gradually developed as an independent Local undertaking. 



An act providing for the appointment of a Board of Estimate 

 and Assessment, and also for appointing a commission to lay out 

 and manage the proposed park at Prospect Hill, was passed in 1860. 

 The commission were unable to immediately take any active steps 

 looking to the construction of the park, but deeming it important for 

 the interests of the city that, when they should make the fust of the 

 reports which they were required to present to the Common Council 

 at the end of each year, they should be able to present the scheme 

 in a form which would make it appear to the public as mature as 

 possible, they decided that a survey and report suitable for publica- 

 tion should be at once undertaken. They appropriated fifteen hun- 

 dred dollars for all the expenses of this survey and the report of 

 the engineer, and obtained what was wanted for the immediate pur- 

 pose in view ; but it is hardly necessary to say that what was done 

 at this time was of a purely preliminary character, and not at all 

 what would have been required with reference to purposes of con- 

 struction ; certainly not with reference to the construction of the 

 park which we now, five years afterward, have in hand, the bound- 

 aries of which are so different that nearly one-half of it is quite out- 

 side of the ground covered by the engineer's report, which we then 

 obtained. 



The fact should here be mentioned, that the boundaries of the 

 park established at Prospect Hill, by the acts of the Legislature of 

 1800 and 1861, differed considerably from those recommended by 

 the Commission appointed in 1859 to select the ground. The 

 boundaries of the park recommended by the Commission did not 

 extend so far toward Flatbush, and extended considerably farther to 

 the westward, so as to take in half the blocks between Eighth avenue 

 and Ninth, from Douglass to Third street. It was in part owing 

 to my advice that the change was made, and I can perhaps answer 

 as well as any one for the motives of it. The reason that I advocated 

 the change was that it appeared to me evident that the city might 

 obtain, at the same cost, a much larger area of land suitable for a 

 park. We did obtain by the exchange, and without any additional 

 cost to the city, more than twice as much land on the Flatbush side 

 as the Commission had proposed should be taken in on the South 

 Brooklyn side, and that which we gained included the ground occupied 

 by the series of roads and walks running through what we call the 

 East Woods, and which, during the last year, was so much enjoyed 

 by the public. 



