256 FIEST COrXTY PAEK SYSTEAI 



It appears from the records, however, that at that same 

 meeting, after the committee had left the board rooms, a 

 resolution was, in executive session, offered by Commis- 

 sioner John E. Hardin, and, at the next secret meeting of 

 ^ the Park Board adopted, that landscape architects be 

 instructed to prepare, as soon as possible, a scheme of im- 

 provement for parkway purposes, of Central avenue from 

 the East Orange parkway to the Orange line, assuming the 

 avenue will not be widened, and that a double-track rail- 

 way, with overhead wires, will be placed on the center line 

 thereof; roadway twenty feet wide on each side of the 

 tracks ; lawn treatment, etc., shrubs and trees, and treated 

 as a street for both business and pleasure; the landscape 

 architects also to furnish estimates of cost." 



NOT WOETH THE COST. 



The report of Olmsted Brothers, of May 7 and May 

 16, following that resolution, advised that "the improve- 

 ment in the manner indicated will not be worth the cost'' ; 

 that it involved ''a. purely engineering affair without the 

 slightest element of beaut}" or art;'' if it should be 

 adopted, the avenue should be widened from '•'the East Or- 

 ange Parkway to the Orange line to at least 110 feet, and 

 new building lines established.'' The estimated cost wa3 

 then given at $119,384, with an annual maintenance ac- 

 count of $4,389. 



^'^liy this action of the Park Commission, in '"assuming" 

 as it did in the resolution quoted, that the question of a 

 railroad on the avenue was then settled, and calling for a 

 report combining a trolley and parkway project — ^which was 

 at direct variance with the board's announced policy for 

 years theretofore, in contending that a parkway and troUey 

 way could not be properly made on a 100 feet wide highway 

 — ^was kept secret and from the joint committee and the 

 public, is to me now, as I make this record, in view of all 

 the circumstances, unaccountable ; and I pass from the sub- 

 ject without comment. 



The request of the joint committee referred to, as to send- 



