Much less was accomplished on the Park last year than you had intended and the cost of what was accomplished was much in excess of your estimates.

The park as hitherto designed can not be completed, at the rate of the cost of what was done last year, within the amount to which the expenditure of your Board has been limited.

After being convinced of what I have now announced to you, in January last, I presented my resignation of the office of Superintendent. The President and a majority of the Board and of the Executive Committee having been informed of the circumstances, which led me to do so, at the request of the President and a majority of the Executive Committee, I subsequently withdrew my resignation. I state this here that it may be seen, why I have not sooner brought a matter of so much gravity before the Board. The only accounts in detail which could be had as a basis for calculating, were so meagre and untrustworthy that a clear and definite exhibition of the state of the work, and of the specific items in which the estimates had been exceeded, could not be given. Until a more thorough analysis could be made, it was not thought best to occupy the Board with matters the discussion of which there appeared no reason to believe would serve any good purpose.

After much labor I find it still quite impracticable to prepare a statement in detail of the cost of the work of last year. The reason is simply that no specific account of the expenditure of labor upon different parts of the work has been kept, except upon the Transverse roads, beyond the rough record which almost from the beginning of the work I have required each foreman to give me in the form of a daily report. Many of the foremen are ignorant, some of the best can barely write and are quite unable to make any but the simplest entries. These reports therefore are too indefinite and untrustworthy to furnish a proper basis for accurate calculations. Owing to the want of all other provision for a record of cost, and to the insufficient means of superintendence in general, it is not now practicable to draw up an accurate statement of account between the different parts of the work. Nor can the general conclusions of two months’ study of such data as exist, be presented in a useful form to the Board—except as they bear upon a few broad questions of policy.

A few such conclusions I shall now offer.

To complete the park in all respects as has hitherto been intended, with as good workmanship as has hitherto been secured, at the rates of cost of last year, and with a safely liberal estimate on work and materials of kinds not hitherto [335] largely used, would cost more than the sum which the Commission is pledged not to exceed, by 32 per cent.

It is practicable to vary the plan as it has formed itself in the minds of the designers, in particulars to which the Commission has not yet given definite attention, in such a way that without mutilating it, or essentially changing it, the estimate of cost may be reduced from what it should be for the design and as hitherto entertained and estimated upon. It is also practicable to adopt in the Upper Park a ruder workmanship and cheaper method of construction in some particulars.

At the beginning of operations on the Park, I expressed the opinion that the required work could be done cheaper by the direct employment of the workmen under the Superintendent than by the contract system. Influenced in some measure by my judgment, as the given records show, the Board directed me to employ the necessary force directly, and has hitherto resorted to the contract-system only as an exception. I think it due to myself to now say that I do not consider that a fair trial of the system of labor which I had intended to approve as the alternative of the contract system has ever been had on the park, and I protest against being held as approving and recommending it. If the Board holds me to have been responsible for the economy of the work of the park, and is justified in doing so, then I have been culpably neglectful of my duty in that I have allowed myself to be constrained to constantly employ incompetent and inefficient men. Not grossly and totally incompetent and inefficient men, but men whom I should not have employed if I had been required to employ only the most competent and efficient men whom I could procure. Not one man in ten of all employees on the work has, in my opinion, obtained employment there because he was competent and efficient, and for no other reason. The Commission has the credit of conducting its work free from the vice of politics. The Park is not made to administer to the strength of any political party, but men and officers are and have been from the beginning employed on the park from considerations not of economy and efficiency, but of policy, just as truly as in the Custom House or the City Hall, and the Park has never been free, but has been constantly cursed and disgraced with the vice of politics. It is so now and it will probably continue to be. I have no reason to think that there is one member of the Board who does not believe this to be necessary: no member of the Board has evinced a desire that it should be otherwise.

For myself, after a close observation during four years of the working of this political system, I am satisfied that, looked upon merely as a policy, it is a bad policy, the purposes intended to be accomplished by it being on an average as much set back as advanced by every appointment that is made. What is a favor to one man brings about a cause of offense by preventing the appointment desired by another; a bad man is appointed as a favor, and his subsequent necessary discharge, his malice and false reports, do more harm than his appointment did good, simply with reference to the friendship of those intended to [336] be conciliated. I am speaking now of the matter without any regard to economy, but simply to policy as ordinarily considered in the advice I receive as to the employment of officers and men. I repeat that I believe that no purpose of the Commission is served by it in the average of all cases. I may not be competent to properly judge of the matter, and I do not ask that my opinion should outweigh that of any Commissioner, but I think it proper in discussing the general policy of the Board to distinctly express it. It has not been formed carelessly, or without a certain amount of familiarity with all the circumstances of the case.

As to the additional cost of the work caused in this way, it is difficult to form anything like an exact estimate. It is not by any means limited to the difference in the direct value of the men employed and of those who might be employed at the same wages; it is the indirect influence of the system which costs the most, the discouragement to personal exertion, the demoralization which comes from it, and which unconsciously affects every man on the work from myself to the water-boys. I acknowledge myself affected by it, and I do not believe there is an officer on the park who would answer upon his honor that he had not at times reserved the expenditure of his best powers for the park from the reflection that appointments, promotions and discharges were made from other considerations than they are upon works conducted purely upon commercial principles. If this is the case with the superior officers, it is ten fold more so with the foremen, policemen and working men. It is the opinion of those whose long experience on other works, as well as our own, gives reason for respecting their judgment, that the vice of politics in the form in which it exists on the park costs the public $200,000 of every million expended. I have no reason to believe, and I do not believe, that this is an exaggerated estimate. If the Commission could unanimously determine and persist in the determination that the work should be conducted absolutely upon the principles which would govern an honest and humane contractor in the management of a similar work, it is my deliberate conviction, after much reflection, that this amount would be saved, that in the end, trouble and annoyance would be saved, and that any purpose of the Commission would be better accomplished than by any other course.

I should like to have the work fairly placed in my hands, with the same liberty to secure efficiency in its management which is possessed by those who directly manage the greater part of this city’s expenditure for work. I believe that it is possible to secure as cheap work for the Commission as these contractors secure for themselves, and to save their profits. I should like to fairly try this, but I have been too often told that I did not understand or did not adequately appreciate the necessities of the Commission to expect this, and I do not ask it. I do ask however, that this question and the questions which should follow it may be once more thoroughly considered by the Board, and if it is thought impracticable to secure a very decided change in the direction that I have indicated, that I may be definitely relieved of the responsibility of the superintendence of the work of construction. What I have now said, I have said to no member of the Board [337] before, nor have I advised with any Commissioner before presenting it to the Board. It is no more than I believe to have been required of one by my duty as the servant of the whole Board, and of that which the Board represents.

This matter is one which interests my personal feelings, and I have desired to urge my request in a more definite form, but I would not venture to do so without acquitting myself of the responsibility of overstepping the proper limits of my duty. For this reason I advised with the President, as he yesterday stated, and it is with his approval that I ask the Board to appoint a special Committee with instructions to report, at a future meeting, to be called for the purpose of considering their report on the general feasibility of the plan of operations now had in view by the superintendent and especially upon the following points:

1st. Whether any, and if any, what, modifications or additions to the plan, or omissions from it, are at this time desirable to be made by the Commission.

2d. Whether the alterations in the method of construction referred to in the report of the Superintendent should be forbidden.

3d. Whether it is practicable to conduct the work hereafter, especially with respect to the employment of officers, foremen and men, with simple and direct regard to its economy, and with no more consideration for the wishes of those not employed on it than is usually to be expected of an honest and humane contractor under a commercial operation.

4th. Whether it is best to give and secure to the Superintendent, the authority and means to so conduct the work.

5th. What measures can be taken for this purpose which, while giving him freedom to act efficiently and according to his own necessities without waste of time in matters of form, will also secure a proper account of expenditure, and enable the Comptroller to exercise authority whenever there shall be due occasion to arrest unauthorized or excessive rates of expenditure.

The city has imposed upon your Board in addition to the duties originally assigned to it by the Legislature, with regard to the Central Park, the duty of also laying out and forming an outer park of no inconsiderable size. Including the portions which you have determined to unite with it from the park proper, this outer park will contain an area as large as the Battery, Bowling Green, the City Hall Park, and Hudson square united.

It is not desirable that this outer park should be separated by any barrier more than a common stone curb from the adjoining roadways. It is still more undesirable in the interest of those who are to use it that it should be separated more than is necessary from the interior park. It will offer to these a broad shaded promenade more than twice as long as from the Battery to Union Square, in immediate proximity to and associated in design with the scenery of the main park. The trees which grow upon it are used in the design as a part of the scenery of the main park, adding to its beauty, attractiveness and value. The scenery of the main park should much more be made to add to the beauty, attractiveness and value of the outer park. As far as it is practicable, the two should be incorporated as one whole, each being part of the other.

The value of this outer park can not be estimated at less than $3,000,000. Whatever separates it from the interior park detracts from its value and equally detracts from the value of the park itself. If a close fence six feet high intervened between the park and the outer park, it would by and by be felt to be cheaply purchased, for the sake of removal, at the price of $5,000,000. Assuming that a barrier is necessary for police purposes on this line, the more it fills the eye, the more it crosses the landscape, the more it is seen either from one side or the other, the more it is a nuisance, the more it detracts from the value of everything [339] else you do, the less valuable becomes the park. The more modest, unobtrusive, insignificant it is, the less will it interfere with your general purpose, the less will it injure your design, the more will be its value, and the greater the value of both the park and the outer park.

The object of the barrier is to prevent people from entering and leaving the park at improper times. It can have no other good object. If the present arrangement of allowing the public to use the park till eleven o’clock at night is to be continued, there is not the slightest use in any barrier at all. It will be not only an entirely useless expense to establish it, but an expense the only result of which will be an injury to the park. It will constitute an eyesore and an inconvenience and has nothing whatever to recommend it. Experience however must soon lead to such a modification of the present ordinance that while carriages may be permitted to pass through the park after dusk, only the outer park will be open at night to use for sauntering, resting and walking.

Experience has shown everywhere in Europe that public grounds must be closed at nightfall unless they can be very well lighted and policed; otherwise rapes, robberies and murders are frequent. A similar experience here, even with our small and open and well lighted public places, has led to the closing of Union Square at night and to quadrupling the usual police force on the area of the City Hall Park. The mere current expenses of a prudent lighting of the park with gas lights will not be less than $1,000,000 per annum, or five times as much as is at present expected to be expended for its maintenance in all other respects. There are the gravest objections however to the introduction of gas pipes through the park, aside from the enormous cost of laying them. Trees for instance seldom flourish and generally die young in the vicinity of gas pipes. The additional cost of adequately lighting the outer park need not exceed $5,000 per annum and with a suitable barrier the police expense of the park will be 75 per cent less than would be necessary, even if the park were well lighted, if the present arrangement should be continued.

On these grounds I assume that a barrier will be necessary, and for the reasons I have given previously, I further take it for granted that the Board will wish this barrier to be of the slightest and most inconspicuous character that can be made to answer the purpose.

An insurmountable barrier is not practicable to be had. Even the fence of the garden of the Tuileries, which is the most formidable one that I have seen, would not detain a man of ordinary strength and skill, who had a strong determination to surmount it, two minutes, and the effort would be neither fatiguing nor painful. Such a fence around the Central Park would cost more than the whole sum at the disposition of the Commission. I say therefore that a fence which would be really a formidable obstacle to a determined man is not to be aimed at. All that is required is a perfectly distinct demarcation between the main and the outer park which cannot be crossed accidentally, or without sense of effort and inconvenience, or without a deliberate intention of breaking the law.

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The style and appearance of the barrier, so far as it must be seen, should have some relation to whatever else is seen in connection with it. It should therefore change in character correspondingly with each very striking change in the character of the scene of which it will form a component part. There is not the slightest occasion for uniformity in the fence, because unlike many other situations, as the Tuileries garden for instance, or any of our City Squares and Parks, the position of the fence of the Park will be such that nowhere can it be seen except a little at a time.

Of all [the] sorts of barriers which could be used, by far the worst, artistically, is the ordinary spiked iron fence. In expression and in association, it is in the most distinct contradiction and discord with all the sentiment of a park. It belongs to a jail or to the residence of a despot who dreads assassination. Mr. Ruskin in a recent work asks what it means and answers: “Your iron railing always means thieves outside or Bedlam inside. It can mean nothing else than that. If the people outside were good for anything, a hint in the way of fence would be enough for them; but because they are violent and at enmity with you, you are forced to put the close bars and the spikes at top.”

I consider the iron fence to be unquestionably the ugliest that can be used. If on the score of utility it must be used, then the less the better, and certainly where used it should not be elaborated and set up on high, and made large and striking as if it were something admirable in itself, and had better claims to be noticed than the scenery which it crosses and obscures. Where used, the less it obtrudes itself the better. It should be no larger in any way than is necessary and should appear nothing more than is necessary to guard people from going where they should not go. Unfortunately, an iron fence is the cheapest upright fence of a substantial and permanent character which can be used, and where it will not bar the promenader on the outer park from any beautiful prospect over the main park or cause him to look at it like a confined madman through a grated window, it will probably be thought best to use it. Wherever practicable I should flank it on the park side with a hedge.

The most elegant form of iron fence, if my reasoning and feeling is right about it, would be a simple series of ¾ inch iron bars six feet high, six inches apart, firmly attached at each end to rails and posts of the same character. This would be as little offensive as an iron fence of the requisite strength could be, and with the hedge would accomplish every desirable purpose required as well as the fence of the Tuileries and at one tenth the cost. It may be questioned if a strong wooden paling of a rustic character would not be better than either. An iron fence of the kind described could be contracted for, at the present low prices of iron, at $6. per foot, and if it is to be got, had probably better be engaged at once, the price of iron being subject to great fluctuations.

Where the outer park is graded at a higher elevation than the adjoining ground of the main park and commands a view over it, a high fence of any kind would be as much out of place as a grating over a beautiful picture or before a [341] drawing-room window. If the outer park were formed on a causeway-wall above the park at a height of eight feet or more, no other barrier against ingress or egress would be needed, as no one would ordinarily leap a distance of eight feet, perpendicularly, without an object, and it is more difficult to climb an eight foot wall than to surmount an ordinary iron fence of twice that height.

A guard in the form of a balustrade or banister would be needed to prevent accidental falls, and this would add to the depth to be leaped by one attempting to enter over it. If eight feet is enough to deter a man from carelessly undertaking this, and an iron banister be set 3½ feet high, 4½ feet of wall would then be sufficient. It would perhaps be too easy to attempt to get out of the park by grasping the banisters and pulling up by them. This would be obviated by a hedge planted at the foot of the wall. Such a method of separating the interior and exterior portions of the park is much better than any other which has been suggested and should be adopted wherever practicable. In some situations, a balustrade with a cut stone coping and base course might be substituted for the iron banister with great advantage. With a dead-wall of brick, masked by a hedge, this would not be too expensive. I have not been able to obtain any satisfactory plan of substantial fence in which the use of both iron and brick could be dispensed with which would not cost more than it is prudent to appropriate for this purpose.

Where cliffs, or vertical walls of rock more than eight feet high, bound the outer park toward the park proper, no other barrier is required. I propose only to excavate niches at intervals of about ten feet, and to guard these with iron railing, within which ivy can be planted, and at a proper height trained over the face of rock. This will be the most beautiful as well as the most economical barrier of the park. Unfortunately it is practicable but for a short distance.

By using the four different plans which I have described alternately, accordingly as either is best adapted to local circumstances, the cost of the barrier between the park and the outer park, if the iron work could be contracted for at present prices, could be kept within seven dollars a foot—which is, I think, the largest price that could be allowed for it with propriety. This is exclusive of gateways and their immediate vicinity.