330 
and there are scarcely any street improve- 
ments. The land is flat to gently undu- 
lating, with a general slope westward and 
northward down to the canal and to Sec- 
ond River. Most of it is cleared, and part 
of this is occupied by golf links, but the 
north part is heavily wooded. The Orange 
branch of the Erie Railroad crosses this 
tract of land diagonally at about its middle. 
There are various feasible routes for a 
parkway from Branch Brook Park to the 
Second River near Soho station, so that 
the effect of the parkway upon land dam- 
ages and betterments and the wishes of the 
land owners may well have a good deal of 
weight in determining the exact location 
and outlines of the parkway. It is clear 
that to run the parkway about through the 
middle of the tract would benefit more land 
than to run it along the canal, where the 
cost for land taking would doubtless be 
less. It might be worth while, however, if 
the parkway is run nearly through the 
middle, to take all the land between it and 
the canal for park and golf. A border 
plantation along the canal would in time 
fairly well screen the cheap improvements 
which may occupy the land west of the 
canal. The parkway should cross under or 
over the Orange Branch Railroad either by 
a subway or by a bridge. A bridge will 
be required to carry the parkway across 
Second River to a subway under the 
Greenwood Lake Division of the Erie Rail- 
road, just north of the river. The river 
here is in a fairly narrow ravine about 35 
to 40 feet below the general level of the 
land and the railroad. Mill street can well 
be diverted so as to pass under the rail- 
road, which could be on a temporary steel 
trestle, to be eventually replaced by a con- 
cerete viaduct. 
It would be a great benefit to the final 
appearance of this parkway if the lots 
fronting on it could be restricted against 
being narrower than 100 feet and against 
having more than one house for one fam- 
ily upon each lot. This would make sales 
slower, but in the long run such lots would 
be in demand for houses above the average 
in cost and appearance. 
After passing under the Greenwood Lake 
Branch of the Erie Railroad the parkway 
will naturally occupy the swampy valley 
branch of Second River and swing over 
the divide north of Essex County Isola- 
tion Hospital down to Third River at 
Joralemon street. 
From this point a very pleasing and pic- 
turesque parkway could be developed, with 
attractive park widenings to include groves, 
mill ponds and meadows through Bloom- 
field to Brookdale, but for financial con- 
siderations it seems advisable at first, at 
any rate, to extend the parkway by a 
nearly direct line through the woods in 
the east part of Glendale Cemetery and 
over the hill east of Morris Canal at Cen- 
ter street, in the western part of Nutley 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
Township, and thence down to Brookdale. 
From Brookdale to the proposed Crest 
Parkway on Orange Mountain west of 
Montclair Heights the parkway may well 
follow the brook valley, provided an ample 
width of land is taken to secure good ele- 
vation for residence frontage. 
This over-the-hill parkway from Jor- 
alemon street to Brookdale would have the 
landscape advantage of the views from the 
hill, the top of which is 240 feet above the 
sea level and about 100 feet above Third 
River, southwest of it, and there might 
well be a park extending from the top of 
this hill to the west side of the mill pond. 
Obviously the most economical and ef- 
ficient system of rapid transit for the 
county would require all the railroads to 
electrify their roads as soon as practicable 
and to unite in the carrying out of a uni- 
fied or harmonious scheme wherever re- 
quired to do so by a Rapid Transit Com- 
mission. The cheapest and best way to 
run an electric rapid transit railway from 
the northern part of Essex County into 
New York would be to reconstruct the 
Greenwood Lake Division of the Erie 
Railroad, from Soho station to the Arling- 
ton tunnel, in such a way as to eliminate 
all grade crossings and to do away with 
the grade crossing east of Arlington sta- 
tion and to connect with both the Hudson 
and Manhattan tube system of the Hudson 
River tunnel of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
by suitable connections on the Hackensack 
marshes, until such time as those tunnels 
under the Hudson River reach the limit of 
their capacity and additional tunnels are 
provided. 
Of course, such partial merging of the 
rights and properties of different railroad 
corporations for a purpose not originally 
anticipated will be difficult, perhaps im- 
possible, to arrange. But there should be 
no serious difficulty, aside from the cost of 
construction, in extending this proposed 
transit electric railway on the Erie right-of- 
way into the Erie terminal, and it could 
there be connected with the Hudson and 
Manhattan tube system whenever the elec- 
trification of the Greenwood Lake, Orange 
and Paterson branches should make it 
worth while. 
It would be a poor system of parkways 
which failed to take advantage of the prin- 
cipal topographic and landscape features in 
or near a city. Essex County is fortunate 
in having the three kinds of scenery — the 
salt bay and broad salt marshes, the Pas- 
saic River and other rivers and brooks and 
Orange Mountain. It is at present imprac- 
ticable to take a parkway along or even to 
the bay; Passaic River bounds the county 
and cannot wisely be availed of until ar- 
rangements have been made with adjoining 
counties; but Orange Moutain presents the 
most magnificent opportunity, with the ex- 
ception of the Palisades of the Hudson, 
for a high, view-commanding parkway to 
be found near a large population in the 
Atlantic states. This must be regarded as 
the most essential part not only of a cir- 
cuit parkway, but of any sort of system of 
parkway. It will be difficult of accomplish- 
ment, but it will be worth to the county as 
a whole so much more than any other park- 
way that it should unquestionably be the 
one project upon which all should unite. 
There is one extremely fortunate pecu- 
liarity of this Crest Parkway project, 
namely, that if the whole would cost too 
much, any portion of it, no matter how iso- 
lated or how small, will be worth all it 
will cost. Even if never utilized as a part 
of a circuit parkway, it will always be of 
the greatest value and attractiveness as a 
picturesque place from which to enjoy the 
wonderful views as well as for rest and re- 
freshment. 
Near Eagle Rock Reservation there is a 
large quarry in active operation. The de- 
struction of the natural appearance of the 
weather-beaten cliffs and tree-clad rocky 
slope has gone so far here that it will 
make comparatively little difference if the 
quarrying is permitted to continue, as a 
measure of economy, for a few years 
longer, only it ought to be directed in such 
a way as not to unduly interfere with a 
good line for the Crest Parkway. An 
agreement might even be arranged for di- 
recting the quarrying in such a way as to 
help instead of hinder a carefully studied 
plan for the necessarily somewhat compli- 
cated junctions of pleasure and traffic 
roads and electric railway which must take 
place in or adjoining this quarry. 
It is to be presumed that it may prove 
desirable, eventually, to have a wide prom- 
enade on the outer edge of the cliff, prob- 
ably supported in most places by a rustic 
rubble stone retaining wall, and between 
this wide walk and the driveway to have a 
strip of turf of varying width, or low plant- 
ing, with occasional trees, and that back of 
this would be a wide driveway, and back of 
this a parking strip varying in width, then a 
driveway for access to houses, and then the 
sidewalk with planting strip for trees. It 
is not to be supposed that the inner drive- 
way would be graded and paved for a good 
many years, but it would be well worth 
while to restrict the land to such width as 
would be required for this drive against 
building or subdivision, because, as the pop- 
ulation grows, the time will come when it 
will be decidedly desirable. 
Maplewood Parkway, another section of 
the proposed Circuit Parkway, would begin 
at a suitable point on the crest of Orange 
Mountain east of Washington Rock Out- 
look back of Wyoming, and slanting north- 
easterly down the bluff and steep hillside 
might cross Ridgewood road near Cedar 
lane. Bending in a half circle at this point, 
it might follow the little grassy valley for 
a space and then curve up on to the little 
hill between Woodland avenue and Maple- 
