A resolution of the Board, of the 16th of June, requests the Architect-in-Chief to report whether any, and if so, what, changes have been made in the original plan, and what has been the increased cost occasioned by such changes.

It is proper to say, that the plan, as originally presented to the Commission,[222] did not assume to be a working or exact plan, but simply a study or sketch for a plan, as was the case with each of the previous plans, and with all but one, it is believed, of the others before the Commission. A plan adapted to be followed exactly would have required an elaborate survey, such as it would have been impossible, save by employing several engineers, to have obtained within the period given to competitors for forming the plans.

The principal changes of the plan consist, as shown on the accompanying maps, of the introduction of the Bridle-road, a considerable increase in the length and a change in the courses of the walks, and an entire change in the position of the Drive east and south of the Play-ground [C] and along the west side of the Park, as far north as Seventy-second street. With the exception of the changes recently ordered by the Board near Fifty-ninth street, between Sixth and Eighth avenues, the above specified alterations of the plan were laid out under instructions of the Board, of May 18th, 1858, reported September 9th, 1858, endorsed by the Executive Committee, and assented to by the Board, September 16th, 1858. They have involved considerable changes of the surface, and of the treatment of ground, from that had in view in the original study, especially at the points indicated on the map by the letter A. They have also led to the introduction of bridges for carrying the Bridle-path and the walks clear of the Drive. The region of the Ramble has been much more thoroughly improved, and a more extensive system of walks made through it, than was originally contemplated, the capacities of the ground not having been entirely obvious until test-pits and experimental cuttings had been formed, and the ground somewhat cleared of worthless matters. The Iron Bridge at B, the passage under the rocks at C, the Spring-rock at D, the Rocky Ravine and Water-fall at E, are all details of some importance, not specifically contemplated in the original study. The Central Pond [B] has been considerably enlarged, and its outline changed, as in the process of excavation the rocks were found to give invitation. Knowing nothing of the subterranean rock forms, it was, of course, impossible to establish the best outlines, and it was not practicable to obtain such knowledge until after the adoption of a general intention of work. Changes will also have been made in the outline of the lower Pond [A], the final survey for which cannot even yet be completed. The attention of the Executive Committee was called to each of the above operations in their early stages, and they were approved by that Committee in September last.

It is not now possible to form an estimate, which would have any practical value, of the difference of cost which these changes have occasioned. It has before, on more than one occasion, been reported to the Board that without able assistants employed expressly for the purpose, it had been and would be impossible to state with an approximation to certain accuracy, the cost of any particular portion or portions of the work. The Board has seen fit to require or provide means for this service only in regard to the Transverse Roads—a very careful separation of all expenditure properly chargeable to which, from all other [223]

work with which they connect, is now made every day, an Assistant General Foreman being employed exclusively and constantly in the duty of obtaining the data for this account.

Each of the improvements upon the original plan involves a larger expenditure than was contemplated in that plan, and it was for that reason, and that reason alone (as was explained to the Committee of the Board under the advice of which the Board has acted in adopting them) that most of them were not included in the original plan. The change of the line of Drive on the west side is an exception, but the lines of the original plan were required by the specifications of the Board demanding a parade-ground of a certain fixed area. This also was explained to the Board at the time the change was ordered.

For the same reason that it was not possible to make working-plans, it was still less practicable to prepare, previous to the competition of designers, anything like accurate estimates. The Commission required an expression of opinion from each designer that it was possible to execute all the different parts of his or her plan in such a manner that the whole would not cost above an allotted sum. From the peculiar nature of the work, this involved, for almost any plan, [224]

simply a question throughout, of the quality of workmanship to be assumed—between, that is to say, substantial and thorough, or more or less meretricious and low-priced workmanship.

The Board has not, at any time since the work upon the ground, according to the plan, commenced, evinced in its instructions to the Architect-in-Chief any expectation of fully completing the Park in all its parts and details together, within a definite period of time, or a fixed amount of expenditure. It is not, and has never been, possible to undertake to do this with confidence, not because the materials and labor necessary to make a park must, under all circumstances, have cost more than that sum, nor because the time would have been insufficient, if the field of operations were clear, but because there were obstacles while the construction of the New Reservoir was to be in progress, and the adjacent streets and avenues remained ungraded, or in the process of grading, in the non-existence of proper outlets for water, and the incomplete system of sewerage of the adjoining part of the island, and in various other circumstances, which could not be immediately overcome, except at great and otherwise unnecessary cost. On the supposition that all work intended to be done in the [225]

neighborhood of the Park, and within its limits, was to have been pushed forward with the same energy which all desire to have employed on the Park itself, the Park might possibly be completed in every particular directly contemplated in the plan, within the time allotted to the Commission, and within the sum allowed for its expenditure. The work, however, cannot be expected to be completed, as things are, in all parts and all details, under the present law, and it has been necessary to determine how the most complete park possible to be obtained with the fund at the disposal of the Commission, and within the time allotted for its duties, can be best secured.

The Architect-in-Chief entertains the opinion that it is best to finish such portions as are most needed, and which will together make the most complete park, in a manner which shall give the most lasting satisfaction, and[226] involve the least practicable future expenditure for alterations and repairs. Such a policy the Architect-in-Chief considers to have governed all work on the Park hitherto. It would have been easy to have greatly reduced the expenditure, or, rather, to have made more immediate show of a tolerable finish, by carrying the drives at various points with heavier grades, and less agreeable curves; by leaving large flat masses of rock, from a few inches to a foot below the surface of the lawns, the bad consequences of which would be but occasionally apparent; by making the foundation of the walks less substantial, and their under-drainage less perfect; by neglecting to excavate about rocks having picturesque features hidden under a worthless deposit, &c. The course pursued has been directed, however, as is believed, by a judicious economy, looking to the future. The Park will not only at once be much more satisfactory and valuable to the city, but its improvement in such particulars as have been enumerated, and in many others, which would unquestionably have been demanded in the future, if now neglected, will have been made at a moiety of the cost which would be necessary to accomplish them, when once the lawns have been formed, the trees established, and the public admitted, while the specific features of detail that will have to be for a time omitted (such as the flower-garden) [O] are not absolutely necessary [227]

requirements in a park, and can be constructed at any time, at as reasonable cost as now.

There always has been, and there now is, a considerable cost incurred, which would otherwise be unnecessary, in forcing to rapid, and, at the same time, substantial, completion, certain parts of the Park, in obedience to the well-understood wish of the Board and of the public, that as soon as possible it might be made of some direct value to the public. The principal work upon more than three-quarters of the whole area of the Park may be expected to be completed, and the public, in some measure, given the enjoyment of it, in fifteen months from the beginning of work, instead of four years, as contemplated in the estimates of the designers. The additional cost is not occasioned by the employment of an unwieldy mass of laborers, the Architect-in-Chief believing that, as at present organized, no saving could be made by reducing the force, except in the convenience of obtaining and turning to the best account materials obtained in excavation, in keeping open and unencumbered the most direct routes of transit for materials, in using machinery of construction a second time instead of duplicating it, and in the more careful distribution and preparation of different qualities of materials, especially of soils and manures, the poor supply of which obliges a constant resort to costly expedients.