198 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 



every resident on the avenue in Orange, and represented a 

 frontage ownership of 8,106, out of a total of 9,213 feet. 

 The Park avenue petition was still nearer unanimous of 

 all the property owners there. All of the local civic or- 

 ganizations, without a dissenting vote, took the same po- 

 sition. The local papers were outspoken and emphatic on 

 similar lines. 



URGED TO TAKE ACTION. 



The plans of the Park Commission, with the official maps 

 showing the location of the two Avenue parkways, were be- 

 fore the public. During the first six months of 1897 con- 

 stant appeals were made to the City Council and to the 

 members there to pass the transfer ordinance. Some of the 

 council members joined in the request that the transfer 

 ordinance, without further delay, be favorably reported. 

 But it was ^'in committee," and there it was held, until 

 at the council meeting, July 12, 1897, it was reported — 

 and then adversely. The report was a rambling present- 

 ment, criticizing the Park Commission; claiming the com- 

 mittee could not obtain from that board information it 

 desired and had sought at a conference held at the commis- 

 sion's rooms a short time before ; that "Orange had not been 

 liberally treated" in the commission's plans; and was un- 

 friendly in tone throughout. The principal excuse, as 

 given in the report, was that the committee had in reality 

 not been able to procure satisfactory replies from the com- 

 mission. This view was apparently coincided in by some of 

 the papers. 



On June 20, 1897, when the conference with the com- 

 mission alluded to was reported, the Newark Call made this 

 editorial comment: "The Essex County Park Commission 

 still maintains a discreet silence as to its intentions in 

 regard to Central avenue, and all the attempts of the dif- 

 ferent municipalities to find out the treatment the avenue 

 is to receive are met with glittering generalities." 



Most of the county papers took the other view, and the 

 Orange papers were up in arms directly the action of the 



