RECORD OF TESTIMONY AND STATEMENTS IN RELATION TO 85 



NECESSITY FOR DISTRICTING PLAN 



Advantages of municipal over private restrictions 



One of the decided advantages of a districting plan, such as is now 

 proposed by the Commission, is in the fact that it is watched and enforced 

 by organized machinery which has facilities for inspection and follow-up 

 work. The courts will be less likely to set aside individual parts of a 

 general plan of restriction throughout the city than they would be to set 

 aside individual private restrictions which bear no relation to one another. 

 In general, the plans as proposed by the Commission will provide many of 

 those things which private restrictions have attempted to provide in the 

 way of safety, general welfare, comfort, amenity, convenience, agreeable- 

 ness of surroundings, etc., and in a way which is likely to be permanently 

 satisfactory. In particular, the general restrictions to be imposed under 

 the police power, as proposed by the Commission, will solve the problems 

 which arise from the failure of private restrictions as described above, in a 

 satisfactory way. 



Statement by L. E. Baumann, Representing the Greenpoint Neigh- 

 borhood Association, April 19, 1916 

 Need of protecting parks from factories 



The streets immediately adjoining McCarren Park should be restricted 

 to the use of residences, churches and public buildings. 



I represent an organization that for years has been doing a philan- 

 thropic and social work in Greenpoint. We find in our summer playgrounds, 

 where we have 300 children per day, that the factories immediately adjoin- 

 ing are a detriment to our work ; notwithstanding the fact that they extend 

 to us the most hearty co-operation, there is danger in the trucks that must 

 pass to and fro. There is a certain spirit of just simply " beat the game " 

 that gets into the children. That develops when you have a factory there. 

 When you can get children apart in their games and with their whole 

 attention on their games, an attitude of respect and co-operation develops 

 among them. 



McCarren Park has become the greatest center for social work in the 

 Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. The Park Commissioner has done a great 

 deal for us, and games are played there in the open in summer. This 

 recreation center is maintained all winter, and it has become a great factor 

 in the social and philanthropic work of Greenpoint. It seems to us that 

 the work ought to be backed up and kept in all its value for that district. 



Now, there are girls who come there evenings, two and three hundred 

 girls, who work all day in a factory. I know from long experience in settle- 

 ment work that girls and men and boys, all of them, while they go to their 

 work willingly, like to quit their work and get away from it at nights, and 

 if you have the factories looming up around this park where they are going 

 for their recreation, it detracts from the value of that pleasure. It is bound 

 to. Greenpoint must be industrial for years to come. Still there are tracts 

 of land lying available in sections of Greenpoint that would provide for all 

 of the additions to industrial work for years and years to come, and it seems 

 to me that there is no necessity of these factories congregating about 

 McCarren Park. 



Streets as play spaces 



The Commission's plans provide a considerable number of the side 

 streets restricted for residential purposes. This restriction will be of great 



