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is necessary, in order to allow the fence or wall that would other- 

 wise definitely establish the position of the boundary to be obscured 

 by planting, if nothing more ; and that therefore, until all other 

 necessary requirements are provided for, it will not be entirely prac- 

 ticable to determine where the boundary lines of the park may be 

 established, with a true economy of space. 



We have first then tq determine what accommodations are desira- 

 ble to be secured within the park, and next how these shall be situated 

 with reference to one another, and to exterior topographical circum- 

 stances. Our conclusions will depend first upon our understanding 

 of the purposes which any town park should be designed to fulfill, 

 that is to say, of the general principles to be observed, and secondly 

 upon our estimate of the number and the special character of the 

 people who are to use the particular park in question. 



With regard to the latter point, we need only remark that 

 we regard Brooklyn as an integral part of what to-day is the 

 metropolis of the nation, and in the future will be the centre 

 of exchanges for the world, and the park in Brooklyn, as part 

 of a system of grounds, of which the Central Park is a single 

 feature, designed for the recreation of the whole people of the 

 metropolis and their customers and guests from all parts of the 

 world for centuries to come. With regard, however, to the pur- 

 poses which town parks in general should be intended and pre- 

 pared to fulfil, this being a matter upon which little has ever 

 been said or written, and upon which very different ideas prevail, 

 and inasmuch as a clear understanding upon it must be had before 

 a fair judgment can be formed of any plan for a town park, we pro- 

 pose to indicate the views which we have adopted, and out of which 

 our plan has grown. 



The word park has different significations, but that in which we 

 are now interested has grown out of its application centuries ago, 

 simply to hunting grounds; the choicest lands for hunting grounds 

 being those in which the beasts of the chase were most happy, and 

 consequently most abundant, sites were chosen for them, in which it 

 was easy for animals to turn from rich herbage to clear water, from 

 warm sunlight to cool shade; that is to say, by preference, ranges of 

 well-watered dale-land, broken by open groves and dotted with 

 spreading trees, undulating in surface, but not rugged. Gay parties 

 of pleasure occasionally met in these parks, and when these meetings 

 occurred the enjoyment otherwise obtained in them was found to be 



