A Central Park for Brooklyn—Where Shall It Be?
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A CENTRAL PARK FOR BROOKLYN—WHERE SHALL IT BE?
The reasons which we gave some days since for the speedy selection of one large grand Park for the city, instead of several little mean, dimunutive squares, appear to have generally found favor. A cotemporary journal, approving the idea, suggests Greenwood Heights as the locality for such a Park. The gross impropriety for such a location requires few words to make apparent. Greenwood is located at the very extremity of the city. Already are taken in the legislature to violate the sanctity of its resting places, by running a street through the cemetery limits. The travel would be still further incommoded by the withdrawing from travel a large adjoining tract for a Park. The land, toe, would be enormously expensive at Greenwood. The natural features of beauty, and capacity for artificial adornment, would not be so great as elsewhere. For all these reasons, we think Greenwood decidedly not the place for a Central Park for Brooklyn.
The true and proper location, combining every possible advantage, is that at Ridgewood, recommended to the Board of Park Commissioners by their Eastern District Committee, of whom Dr. Berry1 is Chairman. It embodies, among others, the following advantages:
I. It is central—equally distant from Astoria and Bay Ridge. Unlike Greenwood, or Greenpoint, every part of the city would be conveniently near to a Park placed there.
II. It is accessible. It would not be necessary for any considerable portion of the city to take more than one railroad route to reach it Fulton ave. from the Western District, and Division avenue from the Eastern, concentrate at the spot.
III. It is convenient in regard to travel. Rounded by Bushwick and Division avenues and the Plank road, not a single street intersects a tract of 700 acres. No equal tract can be found in or near the city, unintersected by roads.
IV. It is cheap. An acre of ground at Ridgewood may now be had for the price of a lot elsewhere. The city already owns the Reservoir and a large space around it, which will be so much less to pay for.
V. It combines every possible variety of scenery, elevation, and capacity for ornamentation. Whoever has seen Mr. Thomas W. Field's2 map of the Park, drawn for the inspection of the Park Commissioners will be surprised to see what splendid terracing the grades admit of; what beautiful fountains can be easily supplied, in gradual succession of declivity, by the waste water from the Reservoir. For distant views and lofty heights, the chief merit claimed for the Greenwood site, the location which we refer to cannot be equalled in or near this city. Ridgewood Heights are as clearly adapted by nature and position to Brooklyn's want of a great, Central Park, as ever the Reservoir hill was to the scooping out of the basin wherein to hold the accumulating waters for the city's daily supply.
Notes:
1. Dr. Abraham J. Berry (1797–1865) was a former physician who served as the first mayor of independent Williamsburgh in 1852. Berry was instrumental in setting up a ferry system between Brooklyn and New York, served on the Parks Commission, and played a key role in the incorporation of Williamsburgh into Brooklyn in 1855. [back]
2. Thomas Warren Field (1820–1881) was a Brooklyn educator who served on the Board of Education and as Superintendent of Schools. In the late 1850s, he was the Chairman of the Parks Committee. George C. Bennett, proprietor of the Brooklyn Daily Times and a fellow Republican, would serve as one of his pallbearers. [back]