Report of the President 19 



Parks, the Honorable Cabot Ward. The idea is not to bring 

 forward at the present time a formal project, but to show 

 how it is possible to provide for the people the greatly desired 

 western and eastern accesses to the Metropolitan and American 

 Museums; secondly, to show how the City has an oppor- 

 tunity of providing, in spaces at present wholly inaccessible 

 to the public and unutilized for park purposes, a central court 

 or plaza whereon it may be possible to develop certain artistic, 

 musical and recreational influences in the open air, for which 

 there is no space at present provided in our entire Park 

 System. We have playgrounds, baseball and tennis fields, 

 polo and golf fields a plenty, but no space for musical, artistic, 

 historical or other educational celebrations and fetes such as 

 should be provided for within our Parks; nor is there any 

 adequate plaza for public music. The sketch plan published 

 with this number of the Museum Report is an indication of 

 what may be done. This or some similar plan, which should 

 be prepared under the direction of the Department of Parks 

 and the Municipal Art Commission, will provide for the free 

 circulation of people to our two great Museums and it will 

 provide, not in Park land but directly over the transverse sub- 

 way extending east and west at Eighty-sixth Street, for an 

 art and educational exhibition building, which will also serve 

 on the south facade as a platform for open-air concerts and 

 fetes. The broad level space, now occupied by the reservoir, 

 may either be developed as a garden with fountains, or as a 

 sunken area with encircling stone seats, — an amphitheatre 

 with proportions adequate for such historical presentations as 

 that planned for the Shakespeare Tercentenary. 



EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH 



Through gifts from the Trustees and friends of the 

 Museum, amounting all together to $62,964.20, and through 

 the interest of $117,473.44 received from the Morris K. 

 Jesup Endowment Fund, the Museum has been able to 

 accomplish more than in any previous year toward bringing 

 the results of exploration and discovery in all parts of the 

 world to the schools and to the non-traveling public of this 



