DEPARTMENT OF PARKS. 87 



T. Stranahan. To him belongs the honor of inaugurating a 

 system of public parks and boulevards, and starting it well 

 upon its way. 



The system of elevated railroads that is weaving its spider- 

 ous web over this great city is on the road to completion. 

 With the opening of its aerial highways, the influx of people 

 into Brooklyn will be greatly increased. This generation 

 will yet see the boundary of the city limits drawn on the 

 map by a line running from Flushing Bay, taking in Jamaica, 

 across to Jamaica Bay. The parks and boulevards should 

 be the avant couriers of the city in its mighty strides 

 forward. To fully develop New Brooklyn, as it should be, 

 along the high ground of the island, Kings County should be 

 extended to this line The present area of Kings is almost 

 identical with that of the city, and soon the county will find 

 itself with many of its public duties of a merely perfunct- 

 ory character. A county should be large enough for a city 

 to grow in. No city should be crowded on any side in 

 its natural and symmetrical development. The area of 

 Queens Countiy is quite large while that of Kings is small. It 

 would be a much more equitable division of territory were the 

 boundary line of Kings County extended below Jamaica. All 

 of this portion would then be a guarantee of increased valuation 

 for the land ceded to Kings County, and consequently a corres- 

 ponding benefit to its owners. 



Could New Brooklyn be laid out in advance of its actual 

 growth on the same prospective plan as that pursued in 

 constructing the new parts of Boston, Washington or New 

 York, so as to develop the idea as suggested of having a con- 

 tinuous drive through or around the city by a system of parks, 

 squares and betterments, linked together in an unbroken 

 chain by noble and well shaded parkways ; could this be done, 

 the future of the city would at least redeem its past. And 

 just here it is that the whole discussion of this subject, to 

 which Ave have devoted this closing chapter of [our report, 

 climbs into importance. 



