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It happens thus : New York was laid out years ago, when the price 

 which great numbers of people are now willing to pay for luxurious res- 

 idences, was not dreamed of, when five or six hundred dollars per 

 year was considered, even by a wealthy merchant, to be a great rent to 

 pay. Now, on the other hand, there are numbers of people to whom 

 five or six hundred dollars a year, more or less, is felt to be of little 

 consequence in the rent of a house, provided it be so much finer and 

 more luxurious. 



In laying out the city this condition of things was not thought of: 

 consecpiently, the people of New York, through the Central Park Com- 

 mission, are now seeking to improve their plan in that part of the 

 Island as yet far out of town, where streets have not been made, and 

 where there is little building. About their park they cannot do this, 

 though efforts are making in a small way. There is the East Side As- 

 sociation and the West Side Association, and numberless little rings of 

 interested speculators who vainly try by forethought to control the 

 character of some section or block in which they own lots, but no one 

 of these appears to control property enough to do what is necessary to 

 establish beyond contingency the success of a single comprehensive 

 scheme. The recent rapid advance in value, of the property held com- 

 pactly and managed shrewdly by the corporation of Columbia College, 

 is an example of the advantage which may result from the power to 

 control the character of improvements throughout a complete district, 

 even when the street plan is out of the reach of improvement. In this 

 case it has been made certain, that a considerable property will be oc- 

 cupied for a long series of years, exclusively, by a certain agreed on 

 class of residences, but it is almost an isolated instance. It is too late 

 to do anything of this kind in connection with the Central Park. 



It is not too late for us. We still hold the opportunity of establish- 

 ing a district which shall have throughout a character in the highest 

 degree attractive. The possession by the City of Brooklyn at this 

 juncture, of the 128 acres of fairly paid for land, on the east side of 

 the park, thus puts in its hands the one additional lever that is needed 

 to establish the balance of advantage between the two cities. 



What we want to do with this land then, is this. We want to tho- 

 roughly revise the whole street plan from beginning to end, and to lay 

 it out anew in such a way as will not only be much more convenient 

 and useful to the whole public, than it would under any other plan that 

 has been proposed, but in such a way as will make it easy for us to 

 show, every one who comes to the park, that we have in Brooklyn, sites 

 in close connection with our park, better adapted for first class residen- 



