THE FIRST $1,000,000 



101 



rapidly as possible with tlie acquirement of park lands and 

 other work of the board. The land agents were requested 

 to expedite purchases. The counsel was authorized to begin 

 condemnation proceedings, directly owners were found who 

 would not sell at a fair price, or in cases where such action 

 was found necessary to correct or complete title. The com- 

 mission held frequent meetings, often twice a week, to pass 

 upon those questions and to determine the boundary lines 

 of each of the parks as soon as a location for a park was 

 decided upon. In almost every instance these locations, 

 after they were determined, brought up anew the question 

 as to extensions. 



As has already been stated, the first outlines of the 

 Branch Brook Park, agreed upon July 30, 1895, extended 

 only so far as Park avenue on the north and to Orange 

 street on the south. Almost immediately afterward exten- 

 sions in both directions were under consideration. 'No 

 sooner had the official map for the East Side, or "DoAvn 

 Neck," Park been prepared, than petitions and delegations 

 from that section asked that the park area there be enlarged. 

 This result followed quite generally, and as the majority of 

 the board had determined upon the plan of dealing with 

 each of the park sites separately, rather than as a part of 

 the system as a whole, the importance of each location was 

 unduly magnified accordingly. In order to give the reader 

 a correct view of the progress of this work, perhaps an ac- 

 count of the selection of each of the parks in something like 

 the order of their location may here be of interest. 



AYhile a number of the park sites as afterward chosen 

 were under consideration simultaneously, a final decision 

 was more readily evolved with some than with others, and 

 these decisions, in a few cases, were deferred for many 

 months. 



The same day (July 30, 1895) that the commission 

 accepted formal control of the reservoir property, the land- 

 scape architects and engineers were requested to prepare a 

 map indicating their best judgment as to the lines for a 

 park with the sixty acres transferred by the city of Newark 



