DEPARTMENT OF PARKS. 01 



unique opportunity for securing what will always afford room 

 for noble and fruitful public institutes, such as other cities 

 have, such as this will be sure more and more to crave. It is 

 an opportunity which cannot be regained if now it be sacrificed, 

 and which cannot be paralleled on any other land which the 

 city possesses or may acquire. The peculiar elevation of this 

 land, its separateness from the larger Park with which as an 

 auxiliary pleasure-ground it will still be associated, the breadth 

 of outlook commanded by it, and the healthfulness which must 

 belong to it, cannot be repeated in their remarkable combina- 

 tion, while they are all ours to-day if we see fit to avail our- 

 selves of them. 



Available sites can be furnished, too, in the same grounds 

 for such memorial statues as it may hereafter seem desirable 

 to raise, for which it is already becoming difficult to find 

 places of satisfactory distinction and dignity in Prospect Park, 

 but for which the very conformation of the ground in the East 

 Side Lands offers special advantages ; while every suitable 

 statue placed there will add its independent attraction to the 

 manifold others belonging to the grounds. Additional room 

 for lawn tennis and croquet can also be afforded, to an impor- 

 tant extent, in a new and large campus ; and an} r one disregard- 

 ing this consideratian will be very likely to find life a burden 

 if many young people are about. Certainly no statue will be 

 erected to him ! 



Such are some of the reasons, rapidly suggested, which lead 

 your Committee to the strong conviction, which all its members 

 equally share, that this important piece of now vacant land should 

 be retained by the city, and be properly improved as one of its 

 free public pleasure grounds. The only argument against this 

 proposal of which we have knowledge, is founded upon the fact, 

 which no one will dispute, that the sale of these lands, supposing 

 the city to have power to sell them for private use, and supposing 

 no equitable rebate to be due to those who years ago purchased 

 the lots on Washington avenue with the assurance of a 

 frontage on the Park — the sale of the lands, if not thus em- 



