Brooklyn Parks

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BROOKLYN PARKS.

Our Eastern District has no parks; but the old portion of the city is better off. For grandeur of situation, we doubt if there is a finer public ground in the world than Washington Park, on Myrtle avenue. The views from some of its elevated points sweep over a wide distance, comprehending city and county, houses, shipping, and steamers, sea and land, hill and hollow. There has not been much judgment exercised in laying out and planting the ground, however. The trees, especially, have never been well-chosen nor well-placed. In some spots where they are in the way, they have been multiplied; and there is a little too much military regularity in their arrangement. Then there should have been a fuller selection of American native trees. But these are not faults so serious but they can be remedied.

The City Park, on Flushing avenue, by the Navy Yard, is getting to be a really pleasant ground. The trees thrive, the grass and clover look rich and green, and the whole place is kept in good order. It is a flat, monotonous ground, and small; but when we remember the stagnant pools and black ooze of mud and green slime that a few years since spread over the spot, and from whence noxious exhalations continually rose, the present condition of the City Park looks like a Paradise.

But a Park on the heights, over Montague ferry! A small portion of that most superb of grounds is yet vacant on the heights—the best part of it—commanding a wide view of as noble a panorama as there is in the world—we mean the bay, shores, river, and island of New York, with all their moving life. We have heard of a move to secure this ground for a public promenade. If done at all, it must be done soon; for a season or two more will put it out of reach.