R E F O Tl T. 



To the Common Council of the City of Brooklyn : 



The Board of Commissioners of Prospect Park, by its previous 

 Reports, could do little more than to present a dry detail of the liti- 

 gation which, in connection with the financial pressure of the times, 

 had prevented it from making any very definite progress in the 

 important work committed to its charge ; and to advise the legisla- 

 tion which appeared to be necessary to enable it to proceed satis- 

 factorily, and with a reasonable assurance that it would ultimately 

 meet the obvious demands of the city in regard thereto. 



The views of the Board, in this respect, having been adopted 

 by the Legislature, at its last session, and the fearful strife which 

 desolated the land and crippled its resources, being happily ter- 

 minated, the time for more active measures arrived, and the Board 

 proceeded to make the preliminary arrangements which were neces- 

 sary for entering upon the long delayed work of providing and 

 opening a suitable place of recreation for our citizens. For this 

 purpose, a topographical survey of the ground originally fixed upon, 

 as a site for the park and its vicinity, was made under the direction 

 of Mr. Benjamin D. Frost and a competent corps of assistants. A 

 general plan of laying out and improving the grounds has also been 

 prepared by Messrs. Olmsted & Vaux, landscape architects of ac- 

 knowledged taste and skill, and is now, together with an extended 

 report, presented by those gentlemen, herewith submitted for your 

 consideration. 



The plan has been prepared in its present measurably complete 

 form, because the Commissioners have found it impracticable to ar- 

 rive at a thoroughly intelligent understanding in regard to the subject 

 of boundaries, without such a development of the whole scheme as is 

 embodied in this design and report. With the information now 

 before them, they feel confident, not only that an important modi- 

 fication of the outlines originally fixed upon for the park is required, 



