55 



York island under the name of Boulevards during the next few years, 

 are calculated to interfere with the probable success of such a scheme. 



While the Central Park was in its earlier stages of progress, a Com- 

 mission was appointed to prepare a plan for laying out the upper end 

 of New York island, and some years later tins responsibility was trans- 

 ferred to the Centra] Park Commission, whose plan is published in their 

 last annual report. 



The same document contains an elaborate discussion of the subject 

 by Mr. A. H.Green, on the part of the Board, and as our professional re- 

 lations with the Commissioners have, not keen extended over this de- 

 partment of their work, and we are not aware of their intention in re- 

 gard to this improvement, except so far as it is set forth in the plan and 

 public statement above mentioned, we make, for the purposes of this lie- 

 port, the subjoined quotation, winch sets forth clearly the limitations 

 that are to be recognized in New York as controlling the designs of the 

 Commissioners : 



"We occasionally, in some country city, see a wide street ornamented 

 with umbrageous trees, having spaces of green interposed in its area, 

 the portion used for travel being very limited. This arrangement is 

 only possible where thronging population and croAvding commerce are 

 not at liberty to overlay and smother the laws that are made to secure 

 the legitimate use of the public streets. "It would seem inexpedient, 

 at any rate, until some better permanent administration of our streets 

 is secured, to attempt these fanciful arrangements to any great extent 

 in a commercial city, under our form of government." 



It is clear, therefore, that the Central Park Commissioners have no 

 intention of carrying out, in New York, any such scheme as the " Park- 

 way," and consequently, if, as we believe, the requirements that such 

 a plan is designed to meet are already felt to exist in this community, 

 Brooklyn can soon be made to offer some special advantages as a place 

 of residence to that portion of our more wealthy and influential citizens, 

 whose temperament, taste or education leads them to seek for a certain 

 amount of rural satisfaction in connection with their city homes. 



Although the plots of ground appropriated to the Brooklyn and 

 Central Parks are entirely different in shape, while their landscape op- 

 portunities and general possibilities of design are equally dissimilar, a 

 generic family resemblance will yet be found between the two pleasure- 

 grounds, simply because they are both called into existence to meet the 

 same class of wants, in the same class of people, at the same Metropolitan 

 centre. 



The Brooklyn Parkway, on the other hand, will, if executed, be a 

 practical development of the ideas set forth in this Report, which seem 



