RECORD OF TESTIMONY AND STATEMENTS IN RELATION TO 135 



NECESSITY FOR DISTRICTING PLAN 



Statement by Raymond V. Ingersoll, Commissioner, Department of 



Parks, Brooklyn, April 10, .1916 

 Injury done parks by factories 



The factories already located on the borders of McCarren Park, and 

 particularly one of them — the Kings County Iron Works — have been in- 

 jurious both to vegetation and to the recreation activities in that park. The 

 Board of Health has taken action a number of times, but we have not yet 

 obtained satisfactory results. There is one factory that emits smoke and 

 fumes which darken the sky and which leave a heavy deposit of soot, so 

 that within 24 hours after a snowstorm you will often find the show almost 

 black with this soot. Now, that does not tend to promote the healthfulness 

 of McCarren Park as an outdoor play space, and it seems to me that it 

 would be feasible to put this within your district restricted for resi- 

 dences and business, and exclude industry for the future. Of course, 

 the result of that would be that there will be some industry around the 

 border of the park for some years to come, but some of those industrial 

 plants are gradually becoming obsolete, and if they move away for any 

 reason, we will gradually approach the condition which we would like to 

 have there. 



Statement by Raymond V. Ingersoll, Commissioner, Department of 



Parks, Brooklyn, May 25, 1916 

 Effect of districting 



I believe that, without doing any violence to existing conditions, this 

 plan, if it goes into effect, will check the unnecessary growth of congestion 

 of population in certain sections, dimmish the fire hazards, decrease unneces- 

 sary street congestion and the dangers from street congestion, particularly to 

 children who have to play in the streets ; that it will be a very great aid 

 to the City in properly locating its schools and libraries and other public 

 buildings by its tendency to make the growth normal and to make it possible 

 to anticipate it ; in other words, a general substitution of harmony and plan 

 for chaos and ugliness. 



Importance of protecting small parks 



As the members of this commission know, I have been particularly 

 interested in this plan in relation to the surroundings of. the parks and 

 parkways and particularly to the small parks and playgrounds scattered in 

 the various parts of our borough, and I have been in touch with the Com- 

 mission for a good many weeks on that subject, and I must say that I have 

 been very much gratified that the Commission has seen its way clear to meet 

 the park point of view to so great an extent in regard to the surroundings 

 of these small parks. We have a very wholesome tendency now, noticeable 

 in Brooklyn, to build public and semi-public buildings along the borders of 

 these small parks, helping to embellish them and to make them more attrac- 

 tive and impressive, to protect them from smoke and noise and to make them 

 what they are intended to be, genuine centers of recreation and civic centers 

 for these various neighborhoods. The Commission has met our views in 

 most respects with the exception of one or two small parks located in indus- 

 trial sections. 



I think it is extremely important that we should have a few attractive 

 residence areas around these little parks and playgrounds. It is the natural 



