344 



After the passage of the act to establish the park in 1860, an 

 effort was made to still farther revise its boundaries, and the engi- 

 neer whom we employed to make the preliminary survey, in his 

 report, seconded the proposal, suggesting that the ground between 

 Warren and Baltic streets should be thrown out, and that the east 

 boundary of the park should be shifted from Washington avenue to 

 a new avenue proposed to be laid out between Classon and Franklin 

 avenues. 



This would undoubtedly have enabled a great improvement to be 

 made in the plan of the park as then contemplated east of Flatbush 

 avenue, giving it the greater breadth, which it so much needed, but 

 the objection which was effectively urged against it was the serious 

 inconvenience which would result from the closing of Washington 

 avenue. 



I have thus viewed the principal facts in the preliminary history 

 of our enterprise. At this time nothing had been absolutely decided, 

 for the act of the Legislature providing for a park at Prospect Hill, 

 which was passed, as I have said, in 1800, proved to be defective. 

 The work of legislation was accordingly done over again in 1861, 

 when the Park Commission was definitely established, and the ac- 

 quisition by the city of the land I have referred to was first legally 

 provided for. It was not, however, until midsummer of 1864 that 

 the Board of Estimate and Assessment completed their business, and 

 we obtained possession of the land. We were then in the midst of 

 the war, and even if we had obtained our land sooner, it is doubtful 

 if we should have set to work upon it. 



During these three years we had not, however, been merely 

 lying still. The friends of the-thirteen-hundred-acre-park scheme at 

 Ridgewood had gradually abandoned their intention. Other parts 

 of the original scheme had been dropped or modified. The military 

 were beginning to look at the vicinity of Prospect Hill for their 

 parade ground. The general subject of providing our city with 

 parks had been much thought about, deliberated upon and debated 

 by our Commission. We had obtained information about parks in 

 other cities, abroad and at home; the influence they had exerted upon 

 the cities which possessed them, and what it was in them that their 

 influence depended upon. We had watched the Central Park rapidly 

 advancing toward completion, and had gained experience of its great 

 popularity, and of the influence it was destined to exert. Indeed, we 

 in Brooklyn were already feeling the consequence of its construction 

 in a manner not at all satisfactory to us. Not only had Ave been 

 brought to understand the whole subject of our duties better, but 



