62 REPORT OF THE 



barrassed, would put a considerable sum of money into the' 

 city treasury. So would the sale of Washington Park have 

 done, if that had been carried out when it was proposed and 

 strenuously urged, more than twenty years ago, when the city 

 was far poorer than now ; but probably everybody is glad that 

 that penurious local scheme failed of success. There are at 

 this day, no doubt, corners and slices of Prospect Park on 

 which little money has been expended, and which are visited 

 at present by comparatively few persons, which might be sold 

 for high prices if legal difficulties were out of the way ; but 

 we suspect that the temper of the city would make things ex- 

 tremely uncomfortable for any one who should seriously advo- 

 cate a plan of that sort.- And your Committee are thoroughly 

 assured that Brooklyn is neither so poor in purse nor so mean 

 in spirit as to be unable or unwilling to keep these lands of its 

 own between Washington and Flatbush avenues, and by suit- 

 able improvement to make them tributary to the public enjoy- 

 ment, not for the present only, but for generations to come. 

 We are wholly confident that a popular vote on the question, 

 taken at once or after the most patient and searching discussion, 

 would show a majority in favor of this plan altogether too 

 large to be safely disregarded either by ourselves or by other 

 people. In fact we cannot repress the conviction that the sale 

 of these lands by the city, when it has them in possession, and 

 has the opportunity at once to add them to its scanty and 

 scattered Park-areas, would be to Brooklyn not only a loss 

 but a permanent and a damaging disgrace. 



The Committee have only to add that the preliminary sketch- 

 plan presented by them at this time, and for which the Com- 

 mission is indebted to the public spirit and the excellent skill 

 of Mr. J. Weidenman, an accomplished and experienced 

 landscape-architect of this city, is only intended to show in a 

 general primary outline what can easily be done with this at- 

 tractive and commanding tract of land. If it should be de- 

 cided, as we earnestly and confidently hope that it will be, to 

 retain and improve it, more careful and detailed plans, based 

 upon more exact topographical surveys, and assisted by con- 



