DEPARTMENT OF Pi\RKS. 73 



The concourse was partly improved and open to the public 

 in 1876. The improvement consisted of a beach concourse 

 made of bituminous concretes running the entire length of the 

 ocean front, 100 feet wide, for carriages and pedestrians. It 

 did not prove very durable, as in 1884 it was not til to use, and 

 had to be replaced by anew covering at a cost of $30,0U0. It 

 is located about 500 feet from the north boundary. This con- 

 course was protected on the shore side by an inclined asphall 

 surfacing, three inches thick, and about eighteen feet wide, 

 buried in the sand to low tide mark, and connected with the 

 edge of the concourse concrete. It has protected the con- 

 course from being undermined by the waves when they came 

 from the front, but has proved useless when attacked obliquely 

 at the side on the east end. Thus the great storm in January, 

 1878, washed over the entire concourse and did not injure it, 

 while merely high tides with an eastern current now do great 

 damage. The inclined bituminous concrete shore protection 

 does not seem to offer any adequate resistance. 



In the Annual Report of 1885, the Chief Engineer says, 

 "During the storm which prevailed on the 24th November, the 

 ocean face of the bituminous concrete upon the embankment 

 of the concourse was carried away for a length of 250 feet by 

 15 feet in width at the easterly end, this has been inevitable in 

 consequence of the gradual encroachment of the water under 

 the influence of northeast storms, from which direction the 

 greatest amount of damage to this shore results. The system 

 of rectangular bulkheads or enclosed cribbing, composed 

 principally of rough timber, which had been adopted by the 

 Manhattan Improvement Co., has long tended to invite the 

 attacks of the elements upon the easterly shore of the island, 

 and the destruction of that part of the beach has been so 

 general, as to ' completely modify the configuration of that 

 portion of the ocean front between the Oriental and the Con- 

 course property." 



The result of this was that the next Board of Estimate, in 

 1886, appropriated $10,000 to be spent in 1887, to protect the 

 beach. In the meantime each succeeding storm had con- 



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