36 



views which governed the selection of the one and those which Led to 

 the selection of the other were so different, that t he first taken can 

 not now be realized without a sacrifice of the advantages secured with 

 the last. 



We consider therefore that all plans for using the grounds north and 

 south of the Reservoir as a garden or park must involve a weak and 

 wasteful compromise and should be persistently resisted. That our 

 meaning may be fully understood it may be desirable to recall the cir- 

 cumstances which have led to the acquisition by the city of the two 

 bodies of land in question. 



In the year L858 a project was bruited about lor establishing a series 

 of public pleasure grounds in and about the city, each of which was 

 intended to be located and laid out with reference to the accommoda- 

 tion, not of the population at large, but for the special benefit 

 of that portion of the population which should live nearer to it than 

 to either of the others. 



To advance this project a Commission was formed by an act of the 

 Legislature of 1859 which the following year reported a plan whereby 

 the city Avould have had to maintain eight considerable public 

 grounds. Three of these were to be of large size and were intended 

 for the benefit respectively of the Eastern. Central and Southern dis- 

 tricts of the city, while five others, more nearly of the class of Fort 

 Greene, were designed still more especially for local resort. < )f the larger 

 grounds one was to be connected with each of the great city reservoirs, 

 the third was to be at Bay Ridge. 



Although the land recommended to be taken at one of these points 

 was soon afterwards acquired by the city, no measures looking to con- 

 struction were adopted, and the eight-park-scheme as it stood at the 

 time this ground was selected, soon came to be considered an unwieldy 

 and impracticable one. and in effect was abandoned. 



Nothing more was done toward supplying the city with pleasure 

 grounds until after a period of eight years from the origin of the 

 first project. 



In the meantime an experiment of the sort of local pleasure grounds 

 which, on account of the expense involved, were alone practicable 

 under this eight-park-scheme had been tried at Fort Greene and found 

 to result in an injury rather than a benefit to property in the neigh- 

 borhood, while New York had fairly established the superior advanta- 

 ges of a concentration of capital in the production of a comprehensive, 



