The topographical map of the site of the proposed Riverside Park is completed; a model of the ground is nearly prepared, and a series of soundings is now being made to determine certain conditions of the ground to which the plan of the Park must be conformed.

A brief study of the capabilities of the site has led me strongly toward a conclusion on which, if sound, it might be advisable for the Board to recommend immediate legislation. I therefore ask your attention to the following considerations:

The tract of land assigned to the Park is a steep hillside, the upper parts of which will overlook the buildings which are to stand between it and the Hudson River. The twelfth avenue will bound the Park on the west, and its grade is such for a distance of nearly two miles that an excavation must be made in the foot of the hill from twenty to nearly a hundred feet in depth. The hill being chiefly of earth, the bank will cave and wash off unless artificially sustained. It would be most economically treated by a retaining wall of moderate height at the bottom and a sloping cut above it.

As the western parts of the tract will thus generally be too steep to admit of the construction of walks except at excessive cost, and will be cut off from the view of the river by buildings, the permanent condition of value [597] of the site as a place of public recreation lies wholly in the higher parts near the eastern boundary.

At the points on the eastern parts where the views will be finest, and which will be most attractive, the natural surface slopes rapidly to the west, and generally a footing for visitors will need to be gained by more or less excavation and embankment.

A walk through the Park would, for example, for the most part be a continuous shelf.

Such a shelf on the side of the Park facing the afternoon sun would be intolerably hot should it not be well shaded.

But trees cannot stand on the top of the slope to the westward of it without cutting off the view, and thus destroying the main element of value of the tract for a public park. The shelf must therefore be wide enough for the trees to stand on the level of the walk.

The eastern boundary of the tract is a highway intended to be formed on the general plan of the city avenues, one hundred feet wide. Following the natural surface as closely as practicable, its grade will be undulating and often disagreeably steep. The grade of Fifth avenue, where it is steepest on Murray Hill, is about as sharp as it is pleasant to drive upon at a trot. This is at the rate of inclination of one in twenty-six. There are a dozen places on the Riverside avenue which the grade will be considerably steeper than this, and several where it will be steeper than 1 in 16. The value of the avenue as a pleasure drive will be much restricted by this circumstance.

If a walk is formed in the Park, as above indicated, it will have to be laid out generally at an elevation of from ten to thirty feet below that of the avenue, and the heads of trees planted on the same level to shade it, will wholly intercept the view from those parts of the avenue where it would otherwise be finest.

The advantages of the situation for a grand public promenade are thus to be lost as far as Riverside avenue is concerned.

It is then a question how far they can be supplied in the Park.

A driving road and walk, both sufficient for the general public accommodation, obviously cannot be formed at any reasonable cost within the Park as at present defined.

Abandoning the drive, a walk twenty-five feet wide might be formed along the highest parts of the hill side, where it would command the view over the Hudson, which would bring it for considerable distances close under the retaining wall of the avenue. Such a walk, if extended three miles, which is the length of the Park site, would accommodate not more than one quarter as many foot visitors as the walks on the Central Park. Overbanked by the avenue, shaded by a single formal curved line of trees, the steep slope below it generally covered with turf and low shrubs in order to keep the view open, it could neither have a very stately nor yet a picturesque character, and it would be difficult to avoid a monotonous dullness.

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Yet it would only have been obtained, as has been shown, at the cost of the finer views which might otherwise have been commanded from the outer sidewalk of the avenue above it.

Regarding the present property of the city in the site of the proposed Park, and in the site of the proposed Avenue as one interest, it would seem to be but feebly used by any such method of dealing with it.

If the bounds of the Park could be extended to the east line of Riverside avenue, with a provision that a highway affording equal public accommodation should be carried through the Park, this might be done, at points especially to which the above objections to the present plan more particularly apply, upon one broad shelf, whereon would be associated ample driving, riding and walking ways; the whole shaded by trees so planted as not to obstruct the view to the westward from any part. With freedom to divide and divert the main drive in whole or in part from the eastern boundary where desirable, somewhat easier grades could be obtained. The outer walk would generally follow a bold terrace, the slope below being planted with shrubs so arranged as to shut out of view the buildings and docks, and allow the eye to range over the expanse of the river beyond.

With these conditions it would not be difficult, nor would it take many years to form a really grand promenade of much value to the whole city, having for long distances something of the general character of the Spanish Alamedas, with the great advantage of a prospect of rare extent, great beauty and much variety of interest.

It would not be merely an addition to the existing pleasure grounds of the city but would supply a want which neither the Central Park nor any other has been designed or can be adapted to meet.

There may possibly be difficulties in the way of carrying out the suggestion which do not at once occur to me, but the advantages it promises are so great that I submit that it ought to have consideration. Work is already beginning on Riverside avenue, and the opportunity will be lost if application is not at once made to the Legislature.