overflowed, are not suited for habitation. Added to this, is the 

 usual condition along a railroad line, which as mentioned, runs 

 close to the river. In the city portion, and in some of the towns 

 above, there is a low class of development and increasingly unsani- 

 tary conditions. These already constitute an intolerable nuisance 

 and serious menace to public health, apparently being neglected 

 until some disastrous epidemic shall bring it forcibly to public 

 attention. 



IMPORTANCE OF BELIEF ACTION. 



The present polluted stream, flowing through the City Botanical 

 Gardens and Zoological Park, and heretofore one of their most 

 attractive features, greatly injures and endangers the use of these 

 great recreation centers for multitudes of city people. The mag- 

 nitude of these institutions can be estimated from the fact that 

 2,200,000 people visited them in 1906, and that they had cost the 

 City of New York $2,500,000 for their improvement and an annual 

 outlay of $200,000 for maintenance. It is impossible to estimate 

 the loss and detriment to general progress and to the value of all 

 properties adjacent to the river zone, of a continuance of such con- 

 ditions. Adequate remedy is obtainable through action by the State. 



RECLAIMING RIVER. 



Where either drainage or diversion of streams is not expedient, 

 practically only two courses are open to get rid of objectionable 

 watercourses in a city's precincts. The first, particularly familiar 

 to old residents of Manhattan, is the enclosing of and building over 

 the stream, which, when gradients permit and cost is not too great, 

 affords satisfactory and full hygienic remedy. It is manifestly 

 inexpedient and undesirable to overcome the present troublesome 

 existence of so large a stream as the Bronx River by any such 

 means. In this case the only final remedy lies in reclaiming the 

 entire river, and the acquiring of the lands along its course to 

 prevent all discharge of sewage and other pollution and the con- 

 tinuance of noxious river conditions. 



Also notably demonstrated in similar instances in our large 

 cities, the river reservation thus acquired and the restored stream 

 is worth to the community far more than the entire cost of the 

 project. 



