I should have been at Hartford before this, if our bill had passed or any definite action been had in the legislature regarding it. There have been several [247]calls upon us for information, which it has been a great deal of trouble to prepare, and as there is a very energetic and unscrupulous lobby at work against us, I can not leave while discussion is still pending. We have very little work, funds being very low.

I have not gone on with the printing of my book, but it is about ready. I don’t want it published or announced till after our next application to the Common Council has been acted upon, as it might prejudice that.

We continue in fair health. Owen is getting fat again & ruddy. Charley varies, but has no distinct ailment and is a good deal better than last year. Charlotte does not look very well but makes no complaint. Mary has some nervous & dyspeptic turns, but not very bad, and on the whole is better & better satisfied (& growing more so) than I ever saw her before.

Not finding that I could do anything else, I let the farm last week to a new tenant, a Long Islander named Hadley—for the interest on mortgage & taxes & ¼ fruit. I propose to get a mortgage on his movables for the rent. He seems a good young man & is an experienced market gardener. The agreement is but for one year. The Rail Road is going on, cars to run in August.

There are a great many projects on foot about the park & its management at Albany & here. I hope there will be no great change, and resist them all as far as I can. The public is strongly with the present management, but they do queer things at Albany & some body is spending a good deal of money in embarrassing us.

I hope to see [you] in course of a fortnight.

Hon. Fernando Wood,
Mayor of New York.
Sir:

I herewith submit in accordance with your request, received through John A. C. Gray, Esq., a drawing showing the arrangement which I think the best that could be made in re-arranging the angles of the streets meeting opposite the park entrance at the intersection of Broadway and Eighth Avenue. The triangular block formed by the intersection of Broadway, Eighth Avenue and 58th Street, and the acute angle formed by the intersection of 59th Street and Broadway, are the most objectionable features in the present arrangement. These being removed, architectural dignity would be best secured by whatever plan [249]would give the greatest length of unbroken street lines symmetrically opposed to each other. If the sacrifice of building space is considered to be too much, in the plan I have suggested, the least objectionable method of increasing it would be by advancing the line on the east side of the open square between 58th and 59th Streets.

I take this opportunity to offer a suggestion to your Honor, with regard to means of access to the park by the rivers. I see no reason why, as the population of the city extends its residence up each side of the island, there should not come into very extended use, a class of small steamboats, practically constituting river omnibuses, calling at frequent intervals to take in and set out passengers in the manner of the London river boats. In my visit to London last autumn, I timed the landings of the small boats there used for similar service, and found in three instances that in making a landing the time from the order to “slow” until the boat was again under way, a score of passengers being taken in or set out, averaged less than 45 seconds. The experience of last year on the Harlem boats seems to justify the anticipation that a system of this kind will soon rapidly develop. But if a general system with boats especially adapted to the duty should not be adopted, there can be no doubt, if convenient landings were afforded, a very large number of people from the lower part of the city and from the adjacent shores would in hot weather find means to approach the park by water.

In entertaining the guests of the city, a water excursion would terminate with propriety at a handsome quay forming the entrance of an approach to the park. For other reasons which will doubtless occur to your Honor such approaches would be desirable. I beg to suggest therefore for your consideration that one or two of the broad streets, leading from the park to each river bank, should be graded, and especially arranged at an early day, and that handsome, commodious, and convenient quays and landing stages should be formed at their river ends.

A question having sometime since arisen whether the ponds in the park should be arranged to accommodate bathers, as is the case in the London parks, and it having been decided that this was unnecessary, because of the rivers enclosing the island, I venture to suggest that it is desirable that the city should take measures to reserve bathing places for the people at suitable points on the rivers not yet occupied for commercial purposes.