282 



FIEST COU^s^TY PARK SYSTEM 



grounds, it was found that there was little, in the various 

 kinds of improvements there, that appeared to be applica- 

 ble to the park problem in Essex. 



Reference has already been made in the preceding chap- 

 ters to the petitions of citizens, and hearings given by the 

 Park Board to numerous delegations from various parts of 

 the count}^ Perhaps one of the most interesting and com- 

 mendable communications was the circular letter of the 

 South Orange citizens' committee of December 6, 1895. 

 The committee proposed ^^a plan of self-assessment" of 

 from forty cents to one dollar per front foot on property 

 fronting on the streets more especially affected by the local 

 park, which "it was desired should be established, extending 

 from the Orange Triangle Park, by and including the 

 Montrose tennis grounds, to South Orange avenue/' This 

 letter, or petition, I had before me, or in mind, when at 

 the Park Board meeting March 2, 1896, I offered the reso- 

 lution authorizing the preparation by the landscape archi- 

 tects and engineers of an official "map of a connecting 

 parkway along, or adjacent to, Mosswood avenue, from 

 Warwick avenue via Tremont avenue to the triangle tract,'' 

 as mentioned in Chapter YIIL 



With Central avenue as a parkway, as planned at that 

 time, this extension by the tennis grounds to South Orange, 

 would, in time, have made a park and parkway route direct 

 from Branch Brook Park, Sussex avenue, Ninth avenue. 

 Grove street or Sixteenth street. Central avenue and the 

 Orange Park, one of the most attractive park system fea- 

 tures to be found in this country. 



On May 6, 1898, the landscape architects and engineers, 

 Messrs. Barrett and Bogart, made a report to the commis- 

 sion on the subject of a parkway on the lines of Mosswood 

 avenue, the plan to include a proposed gift of land just 

 previously offered by Sidney M. Colgate. No action, how- 

 ever, was taken. 



August 20, 1898, a delegation of citizens from Belleville 

 petitioned for a. pa^rkrv^ay from the Second River northerly 

 to the ceuat^r lim-. Tm dktrlot wts d^.m^i t^y pfm^^' 



