PARK AND CEMETERY. 
(42 
BRIDGE CONSTRUCTION ON BAY RIDGE PARKWAY, BROOKLYN. 
also, the Red Hook, Biishwick and Mc- 
Kibbin street playgrounds are nearing 
completion and also another playfield 
of fourteen acres will soon be finished. 
The playground is located in McCar- 
ren Park, taking up more than one-third 
of the park. At Highland Park some 
$45,000 worth of improvements are in 
progress ; in Sunset Park improvements 
are to be made in 1912 costing $40,000, 
storehouses and workshops in Prospect 
Park are to be built, to cost $75,000, 
and Ocean Parkway, between Neptune 
avenue and Coney Island avenue, is to 
be regraded, 1,300 feet of parkway, at 
a cost of $20,000, so that high tides 
won’t flood the thoroughfares any more. 
Other big improvements to be made 
are those affecting the Brooklyn Bo- 
tanic Garden, formerly known as In- 
stitute Park. Commissioner Kennedy 
has placed this important work in the 
hands of Dr. C. Stuart Gager of the 
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. 
Dr. Gager plans to place about forty- 
three acres under cultivation. The im- 
provements will include the erection of 
buildings and greenhouses. 
One feature of this work will be the 
collection of Fruticetum or shrubs. 
Some 150 or 200 varieties of wild 
shrubs growing within 100 miles of 
Brooklyn, will be grown. It will take 
two or three years time to make this 
collection, and the cost will c.xcccd 
$1,00(1. The shrubs will be labeled for 
tile benefit of idsitors. 
.Vnother feature of the Institute work 
will be the laying out of an artificial 
bog, which has already been stiirted. 
Insect-eating plants, cranberry vines and 
other bog specimens of growth will be 
planted. I'he cost of this will be aliout 
$],()00. Forty beds of native wild flow- 
ers will lie arranged, also. 
Tlie greenhouses will consist of a cen- 
tral palm house, with two north and two 
south wings. The buildings will be 
stocked with e.xotic plants, with a mush- 
room exhibit in the basement. In the 
northeast wing there will be experimen- 
tal laboratories. The cost of these 
greenhouses will be $125,000. Bids are 
to be advertised soon and the luiildings 
will be ready for use in about a year. 
North of the greenhouses will be lab- 
oratory and administration buildings of 
the Botanic Garden — to contain class- 
rooms, offices, a library and other de- 
partments. In the basement will be an 
auditorium seating 450 people, and there 
will be basement workshops, also. The 
style of architecture will be Italian. 
The illustrations shown here give a 
glimpse of some of the interesting im- 
provements accomplished and of some 
of the work under way. An immense 
amount of grading must be accom- 
plished to make room for the plantings 
and roads and drives that are to be 
built. Men and teams ivere busy all last 
fall on grading and dirt moving opera- 
tions that will be continued on an ex- 
tensive scale as soon as the spring 
weather permits. 
MAKING IMPROVEMENTS FOR NEW GARDENS IN REAR OF MUSEUM. 
