On the 8th. instant I received your instructions to examine Rockaway Point; consider the opportunities it offers for making a place of summer resort, more particularly as compared with those of Coney Island, and to suggest how they might be most profitably turned to account.

I have since spent nearly three weeks on the Point and have sought information from all local sources. The topographical survey in progress is not so far advanced that I can make much use of its results and my estimates of distances and quantities must be subject to correction, but they will be found, I believe, sufficiently accurate for your present purpose.

This being a report for your private information, I shall speak first of circumstances unfavorable to your object which you are liable to have underestimated.

First the stench of decayed fish is perceptible on the Point whenever the wind sets toward it from Barren Island which it frequently does at night. It might be prejudicial to a hotel even at the East end. Coney Island lying to the Westward of Barren Island suffers less from this source because Easterly [398] winds are less frequent in summer and, being more violent, when they occur the odor is apt to be dissipated before reaching the hotels.

Next as to Flies and muskitoes. These are always to be found in countless numbers among the bushes. I am assured that in passing through the thickets even in January, clouds of muskitoes are stirred up. They swarm to the sea-side in summer whenever there is not a fresh breeze. They have been annoying at the Surf House nearly every night. The residents are cautious in speaking of them but it is admitted that they have, at times, been an intolerable pest.

Flies also swarm on the Point and at times during my visit it has been difficult to take a meal because of them, they so covered the food and filled the air.

I think it practicable to so far abate both these nuisances that they will be of no serious prejudice to your object.

Flies are now bred in vast numbers in the privies and the slops, offal and waste thrown out at the back doors of the taverns, as well as in the dead fish &c on the strand.

Mosquitos are generated in stagnant water and find their proper sustenance while in the larvae state only in decaying matters at the bottom of pools or puddles. They mature and harbor, after taking the insect form, in bushes and herbage where they can escape from wind. Much of the eastern part of the Point presents exactly the conditions most favorable to their propagation, in moist hollows in which shallow pools form with every shower, surrounded on all sides by dense thickets, with sand hills to make a lee for every wind.

I am not likely to undervalue the beauty of the natural low growth of the Point and it goes against my professional grain, as I know it will disappoint your expectations, that I should advise you that it had better be sacrificed. But in doing so I only express my reluctant judgment of the risk which it involves of bringing a dangerous reputation upon your property. You had better burn every living thing, level every sand-hill and give the breeze a clear sweep rather than build a great establishment and have your guests even once driven away by these pests, and the newspapers tell the story as newspapers would.

By clearing off the bushes, draining the low ground and providing for the prompt removal of decaying matters, there is every reason to suppose that you may avoid the danger. Thorough measures, and perhaps rather costly measures, for drainage, sewerage and the washing away of all manner of filth, which are needed for this, are, as I shall presently show, for other reasons of the first importance.

Lastly, I must point out that though you have a certain extent of better building ground than was originally found at Coney Island, the advantages of the Point in this respect may not be quite as extensive as you have supposed, [399] for the reason that the sand-hills are so disposed and so conspicuous that in any view at the East End a deceptive idea is obtained of the general elevation of the land.

North of the line of dunes which protects it in storms from the wash of the surf and, from a line half a mile from the East end to the extreme west, very little of the property is a foot above ordinary high-water and probably nine tenths of it is occasionally flooded. The relative standing of different parts as affected by this consideration may be seen in Diagram No 1. In this the part lettered A, shows an area (lying just back of the sea-beach) which consists of an undulating ridge of sand often 20 feet in height. Here a plateau might be formed of local material at a distance of from one to two hundred feet from ordinary high-water-mark on the beach, having a length of three quarters of a mile, a depth of a hundred and fifty feet and an elevation of ten feet above high-water of Spring tides.

This narrow district along the beach is the best building-ground upon the property. I will compare it later with the ground correspondingly situated on Coney Island.

Further to the South west, the same ridge continues with much less average elevation. Still, at several points upon it, there are sites suitable for large hotels. The block on the diagram, lettered B indicates the district now referred to.

The space lettered C. represents an average elevation of at least three feet above that of any considerable part of the property lying West of it, and is, in all respects, the best site for shops & residences, and nearly all buildings not desirable to be more closely connected with the beach. To prevent an inconsiderate occupation of any part of it which would stand in the way of good final arrangements, lines of streets and lots of various depths, suitable to different objects, should be laid down at once, to which all constructions and all sales and leases of land may conform.

In the remainder of the property there are numerous hillocks but no considerable space which is more than a few inches above ordinary high-water. Most of it is marshy, but I have not found any to be miry. By dyking on the Bay side and closing a few gaps in the sand-hills through which water above the general level of the sea is urged in great storms, and by some drainage through tide-gates, aided, if necessary, by wind-mill pumps, a large part of this area, (say 450 acres) may be reclaimed. It will then be available for many purposes, but hardly desirable for large hotels or residences. The westernmost part is liable to be swept by the sea and no building would for the present be safe upon it in a severe storm with spring tides and ice afloat in the bay, unless set upon strong piles well above the present surface. The extreme point is gaining, however, and there is good reason to expect that it will continue to gain both in extent and elevation. Not improbably within two years the capabilities and value of this last district will be decidedly greater than at present.

Dyking the bay side of the Point might be expected to accelerate the [400] extension and elevation of the extreme point by strengthening the westerly current after a storm and increasing and carrying further out the eddy in the edge of which sand is deposited.

Before passing from the subject of the elevation of the property, I will observe that communities occupying such low ground, and especially temporary and shifting communities, are particularly open to contageous and endemic diseases. As an outbreak of one of these would be liable to be magnified by rumor, raise a panic, empty the hotels and create a permanent prejudice against the place, no unnecessary risk of it should be taken. This danger, as well as that from flies and mosquitos, is to be mainly provided against by abundant water supply and efficient sewerage and plumbing. The need of these to the highest success of your proposed enterprise will appear from another consideration.

The people of New York and its suburbs are peculiarly cursed by conditions which tend to establish malarial troubles and are hard upon children, hundreds dying in consequence of them every year as soon as extreme summer heat occurs. There is no place as near and easily & cheaply accessible from New York as Rockaway Point which is also as far removed from conditions of the same class, or in which, barring the liabilities which I have pointed out, conditions exist as favorable for recovery and the working off of malarial and diarrhetic trouble. It is at least five times as far removed from local malarial conditions as any part of Coney Island; ten times as far as parts of it, and is separated from them, as Coney Island is not, by a body of water so large that it will be recognized by Sanitarians as a perfect barrier to their influence. There is no other locality equally secure in this respect within twice the distance. Whenever this fact is well understood by physicians it will much recommend the Point as a place of summer resort and no risk should be taken, in order to save outlay in sewerage arrangements or otherwise, of sacrificing this advantage.

To avoid fouling the Bay water for bathing, the nearest point at which sewage should be discharged is a mile west from your eastern boundary. As the sewers must be carried below the level of high-water, an efficient and economical arrangement will require expert planning and the matter should have early and careful study.

The sewage of the Brighton and Manhattan Beach Hotels is discharged into Sheepshead Bay at a distance of about 3000 feet by twelve inch pipes. Complaint is made of the arrangement and a larger sewer to convey it further, with steam-pump to secure a better discharge is projected. Both houses are supplied through pipes with water pumped upon the main land. The first large hotel upon the Island was supplied at first from local wells, but whenever much drawn upon the water became brackish. A special Company to bring a much more abundant supply of water to the Island is reported to be forming.

I have now stated all the difficulties and drawbacks, for your purpose, of the property which I can suppose are not already patent to you. I will proceed [401] to show some of its advantages more especially as compared with Coney Island.

The beach in both cases varies so much with different conditions of wind that in some particulars it is difficult to generalize accurately about it, but the same winds produce like results in each case, and I shall speak of what appears common with ordinary tides and the usual summer breezes.

At Rockaway Point for a mile and a half the beach has a more regular slope. The breakers ordinarily reach it more unbroken and with equal force of wind are a little larger. There is usually a larger proportion of powdered shell in the composition of the surface stratum; it is consequently firmer in grain and it is less apt to be pebbly. The water being further from the outflows of the Hudson, Raritan and other streams and the sewers of New York, Brooklyn & the New Jersey towns, must be supposed to be purer sea-water. This part of the beach is not only a better bathing beach than any part of Coney Island but better than the beach to the eastward which gave Rockaway its old reputation and which I find is generally preferred, by those who have had experience of both, to the Coney Island beach. I have watched it & tested it in all states of tide and I do not think that it has a fault from which it is possible that a sea beach shall be always free. I do not know that there is anywhere a better bathing beach.

Beyond a point a mile and a half to the westward of your east line the beach has a longer slope but for another mile and a half is still an excellent bathing beach, quite as good as that of the favorite bathing resorts further east, or those of Coney Island. I find no more evidence of “undertow” than at Coney Island.

The statement above that the breakers are larger than at Coney Island may suggest that they are likely to do more damage along shore as well as make bathing more dangerous. This is not the case in any appreciable degree for this reason. At a distance of about a hundred and fifty yards from the shore and parallel with it is a bar upon which, with the ordinary afternoon sea-breeze, the waves pass undisturbed, but if the wind freshens and the waves run higher and deeper they are checked or broken upon it and consequently come to the shore with abated force. I have three times seen this illustrated during my visit and Captain Donn of the Coast Survey tells me that the bar has been long established and is to be considered a permanent circumstance. Winter storms sometimes work gaps through it but these are quickly repaired and it is never broken during the bathing season.

On the opposite side of the Point and at a distance of 450 yards from the Ocean, your property fronts again upon the lagoons of Jamaica Bay. Vessels drawing twelve feet of water can run in at the lowest ebb of the tide from the open sea, find a land-locked harbor and come to a wharf at a hundred yards from the shore. Small-craft can come to the natural banks. The lagoons offer twenty square miles of quiet water surface which can be used without [402] danger of sea-sickness and which is otherwise well adapted to and much frequented by sailing and rowing parties. They are also celebrated for their fishing and shooting advantages. I have seen their value in all these respects fully demonstrated during my visit.

At the nearest point of the lagoons to the best bathing place upon the ocean there is a smooth, soft, clean, gently-sloping, sandy beach admirably adapted for still-water bathing for delicate persons and all who find the surf unpleasant. Further to the westward there are other such beaches on your property.

At Coney Island not only are all these advantages growing out of the lagoons wanting, but the ground immediately back of the principal hotels and upon which some of their dependencies stand is a marsh intersected by narrow creeks and washed by the tide, disagreeable if not even repellant. There is nothing which invites to yachting or boating, nor, off the beach, to walking, driving or riding. Embankments are now being formed adjoining to and back of the hotels upon the marsh with sand drawn from the beach and loam from the main land, and it is reported that in one case a large operation of this character is intended, with a design for pleasure grounds, in which ponds for amusement with boats will be a feature; showing that the need is felt of the class of advantages which you so abundantly possess.

This large body of water in your rear in place of the narrow marsh gives you also the advantage of cooler nights when the wind is northerly. A gentleman who has spent much time at Coney Island tells me that during periods of northerly wind he has often found it as warm there as at New-York. I have heard the same said of Long Branch. With northerly winds I have found an agreeable coolness in the air at Rockaway.

One other advantage of your property I find in the beach to the eastward of it. At low-water the drive along this beach, after passing the group of inns, for a distance of five miles is surely one of the finest of the kind in the world. It is better than that from the Cliff House at the Golden Gate and equal to that of the celebrated Lynn Beach. A finer riding course cannot be imagined.

It is to be noted, however, that nowhere along this beach are the same advantages to be found for a summer hotel as those you possess; the land in the rear being less elevated and the space between extreme low and extreme high water two or three times as broad — an advantage for driving, a disadvantage for bathing.

For the reasons I have thus sufficiently indicated and having due regard to the accessibility which is promised, it is my opinion that Rockaway Point might be made not simply, more attractive to the public than Coney Island but quite the most complete and popular sea-side resort, adapted to very large numbers, in the world.

It should not be forgotten that forty years ago “The Beach at Rockaway” was the most fashionable sea-shore resort in America, drawing visitors [403] from all parts of the country, and that only three years ago, with poorer accommodations, it had more visitors than Coney Island; 50,000 coming to it in one day. Considering the present furor for Coney Island and its numerous superior approaches the fact that Rockaway even now draws 20,000 a day is significant as to its undeveloped capabilities.

In discussing how a property of these capabilities should be dealt with in order to secure the largest profit, the chief difficulty I find lies in an apprehension that such measures as a prudent estimate of immediate results may call for, may restrict and embarrass such a development of its value as will be justified when its merits shall have been established in the estimation of the public.

There is, in my judgment, sound reason for believing that a much larger number of visitors may yet be drawn to a suitable resort upon the sea shore than has yet been known at Coney Island.

The fame which in two years three or four independent undertakings more boldly and liberally designed than any of the class before them brought to Coney Island has drawn many thousands to the sea-shore who never before left home for recreation; thousands besides who had hitherto gone for their summer recreation elsewhere than to the sea-shore; and thousands more who had before been accustomed to go to other resorts on the sea-shore. Yet there is no reason to suppose that this success has been obtained at any serious and permanent cost to other like enterprises. It seems rather to have stimulated the business at various points. A substantial hotel of brick 800 feet in length has just been opened at Cape May. Newport, Narrangansett Pier and other resorts to the Eastward are reported to have more visitors than ever before. The Telegram of today reports that the number of visitors at Long Branch, both of lodgers at the hotels and of “excursionists” coming for a day, has never been as large as it is now.

The growth of the business does not come exclusively, though it does largely, from the great cities. It is evident that the field is opening very widely. Of the visitors to Rockaway during my stay there parties of a few hundred each have come from Connecticut; from Central New York; from distant parts of New Jersey and from Eastern and Western Pennsylvania. I have talked with those engaged in getting up such parties and am assured on intelligent grounds that these hundreds are not unlikely soon to be thousands.

Again, I have observed a statement, and it seems to me true, that more than three quarters of all the visitors to Brighton Beach have thus far come from Brooklyn and that much more than double as many people came to the Island as a whole from Brooklyn in proportion to population as from New York. It must be inferred that with better provisions, better knowledge of them, better facilities of transport and better times there may be a vastly greater number of people drawn out from New York to the sea-shore than there yet has been.

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That the enlargement of the business shall be attracted chiefly to Rockaway Point the main requirement is that those coming there shall carry away a more decided and pleasurable impression of its adaptation to public wants than they can obtain elsewhere.

By observing how and in what degree different points at Coney Island are occupied, something is to be learned of the manner in which visitors are acted upon in this way.

Within certain defineable limits it is evident that substantially all take their pleasure alike. All, for instance, enjoy the outlook upon the sea; the great expanse. All enjoy the dash and sparkle of the breakers close at hand. All enjoy to feel the full force of the sea-breeze and nearly all enjoy to take their pleasure in these things while walking slowly up and down the beach, or if the sun is hot, the verandas of the hotels. Beyond these the inclinations of visitors are diversified and they rapidly divide off, according to their tastes and dispositions, as affected by age, sex, education and means.

Out of 50,000 visitors on a fine day at least 49000 will have stood or strolled before the end of it on the beach or the verandas; nearly that number on both. But I do not suppose from what I have seen that more than 10,000 of these will have taken a “square meal” at the hotels or more that 1000 have paid for a room. I doubt if 20,000 will generally have paid for anything at all at the hotels. Rarely 10,000 pay for baths. Then come a variety of special provision for the public entertainment of which each draws a few. The Aquarium, the Prospect Tower, the Race Course, the Balloon, The Shooting Galleries, Billiard Rooms and so on down to the Mud Pie establishment, Aunt Sally and the Scups. Not one in a hundred of all who attend the concerts or walk on the verandas may be seen at any of these, yet few fail to see and be pleased with some one of them and each contributes to a general gay, grand, popular holiday effect and thus to make people of all tastes and of all classes go away satisfied, disposed to come again and to stimulate their neighbors to come.

Hence in forming the general scheme of a resort of this class it would be a wild mistake to measure the value of an object by the money it is likely to directly bring in, or even by the degree in which is to be voluntarily used by visitors. It may be, as I have said, that at Coney Island, much less than half the visitors on a particular day contribute anything to the revenue of the hotels. But to a man who does not enter the hotels, who even does not use their free verandas, they are by no means an unimportant element in his experience and will influence very much the story he will tell of the place. That is to say these great, gay complex structures, if they do not feed his belly do feed his eyes. They please his fancy. He feels them, with all the rest, to be admirable and they help perhaps as much as everything else to the common exclamation. “It’s a Great Place!”

And, in the long run, the revenue of the hotels is dependent on the common fame of the place and will, in some degree, rise or fall according to the satisfaction taken in it even by men who directly contribute nothing to it.

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Looked at in this light it will be evident that the capital invested in the hotels might have been much more profitably used had it been under one control and had the prospective value of the common fame of the place been appreciated.

For example, with reference to general popular admiration of the place, nothing perhaps is more talked of, or counts for more, than the single circumstance of the length of the verandas. “Such a glorious piazza”! You hear people exclaim again and again. Yet the longest hardly exceeds four hundred yards. If all the verandas on the island had been set end to end it would have made one more than a mile in length.

Let it be supposed that the four principal buildings for public entertainmnt on the island instead of being set a quarter of a mile apart and one obscured from the other by petty structures, had been skilfully grouped together with a view to producing a single strong impression of the same kind which has been more or less judiciously aimed at in the composition of each. Suppose that the several bathing establishments connected with them had been in like manner consolidated and brought into range and harmony of effect with the mass and that the small buildings for various purposes which huddle about them had been added and then suppose that a single spacious arcade had been carried along the entire front of the whole. Let this have been done by an architect alive to the opportunity and it is certain that at no greater cost and at no sacrifice of convenience a result might have been obtained which in its effect in pleasing the fancy and producing a strong impression of spaciousness, liberality and adequacy to the public needs, would have been a much more marked success than has in fact been realized on Coney Island.

Hence, as you are situated, with a frontage of four miles on the Ocean beach and another frontage of four miles upon the Lagoons; with every important advantage which Coney Island possesses and many of great value which she lacks and, with the opportunity of a far broader and more comprehensive organization of all the elements of your improvements with reference to general effect, it would be a mistake to look closely upon Coney Island as a model or to take the numbers which it has drawn as the measure of those for which you should make provision.

Successful as the arrangmnts of Coney Island have been it is apparent that they were not contrived either as a whole, or (except in a few later constructions) in particular parts, with direct regard to the character and extent of the business which has actually been drawn to them. From fifty to a hundred thousand people, largely in families, in which the little children have to be taken care of without the aid of hired nurses, often come to the island in a day. At the same time there may not be upon it more than one thousand such visitors as usually fill a first-class hotel. Yet it is apparent that the plans of the central, most conspicuous, most famous and most costly constructions upon the island have been conceived in the first instance wholly from the point of view of the ordinary hotel-keeper. Both at Manhattan Beach and at Brighton [406] Beach there is a building known as the Pavilion specially prepared for vistors who do not want a room and do not want regular meals. But they are comparatively plain and inconspicuous structures; are set on one side, are evident after-thoughts; and the hotels have as distinctly the aspect of hotels simply, as if they had been designed for Saratoga or Niagara. The great outlay for music, for turf and for flowers is all for the hotels. The ground about the Pavilions is shabby and neglected.

Now the class of people for whose use the Pavilions are more especially intended do not as individuals spend much money; they are not at all the sort of people whom first-class hotel keepers like to fill up with because of their frugality and the small number of “extras” they call for. But of the class of men who are well able, and who are growing rapidly to be more disposed than they have hitherto been, to come with their “wives, their cousins, their sisters and their aunts” and more especially their little children for an occasional holiday to the sea shore, there are in New York and its various suburbs and in all the country penetrated by the rail ways and steam boat routes centering at New York, not hundreds merely to one of those for whom first class hotels are more particularly designed, but absolutely thousands.

I have not any doubt that your best policy is to provide directly, frankly, ostensibly and with manifest pride, as the foremost matter of your enterprise, for the accommodation and gratification of immense numbers of this class — the great industrious, moderately-thriving, decent, self-respecting class, the children of which mainly fill the Common Schools.

Even with the very unsuitable provisions which now exist, the business of the inns at Rockaway Point has at once a large increase when the Public Schools of New York close and their profitable season ends abruptly when the schools open again.

I do not mean that ample and wholly suitable provisions even surpassing that made at Coney Island, should not also be made for the more free-spending and luxurious class but that the larger profit on the whole would be found in placing the hotel for these where it would not seem intended to be the focus of attraction; even by giving it a slightly retired and reserved if not exclusive character.

Hardly anyone even at a pleasure resort does not prefer to command occasional quiet and an opportunity to draw himself well away from a multitude. Hardly anyone, on the other hand, does not like, in his own good time, to join a great festive throng. It is better, then, not to complicate the problem of the festive arrangmnts with the problem of the hotel. It is only necessary that there should be convenient communication between the two.

It is to be remembered that large numbers and apparent expectation and preparation for large numbers go far to secure large numbers, as is so well established in respect to theatres and all public shows and exhibitions. The gregarious instinct of human beings is as evident as that of crows or buffaloes. And that immense numbers are drawn to a play or a concert or a preacher does [407] not stand in the way of rich, exclusive, refined people’s being drawn with the rest. Unless there is some special element of rowdyism or coarseness in the crowd, of which there is always less danger in the case of a very large than of a moderate sized assembly, the gregarious disposition manifests itself in the rich quite as much as in the poor and this equally whether it is the Black Crook or a sermon that is the centre of attraction.

This idea, thoroughly-well carried out, of remanding the hotel element of a watering place to its proper subordinate position and magnifying and glorifying the Pavilion element would have this incidental advantage, that the new place would not seem to be quite so much Coney Island over again as there is danger that it otherwise must be. It should be remembered how much Coney Island owes to the immense gratuitous advertising which it has received from the newspapers. There is nothing newspapers are more averse to than repeating an old story. Every element of originality that you can secure, whether it be novel in its purpose or simply novel through the advance made in carrying out in a large and grand way purposes previously realized more cautiously and contractedly, will compel the Press to help you, will compel people to talk about you. Nothing can be more fatal than failure in this respect.

A realization of the topographical conditions which the diagram (No 2) before you is intended to broadly exhibit will leave no doubt as to where you should aim to fix the centre of attraction and provide most amply for the public accommodation. The division marked by the letter A is your most elevated and firmest ground and that which will be first closely approached by rail from New York. There is no area on the sea-coast from New York to beyond Far Rockaway and none on the New Jersey coast for a much greater distance from New York than Long Branch which is quite as well adapted for a building or a range of buildings close upon the strand and from which an equally simple sweeping ocean overlook may be secured.

Make the most that is practicable of these three elements — the great breadth of the ocean view, the surf tumbling in at your feet and the expression of amplitude and liberality in your provision for general public entertainment, and you will not only stand in advance of any other place of summer resort but all competition must be permanently at disadvantage.

And I advise you to bring all your main structures into one line, partly for the reason which I have already suggested and partly to avoid the flanking out of the view of the sea as the view from the hotels is flanked out by the bath houses, rail way-stations and other structures at Manhattan Beach.

Finally I advise you to place the front of this range as near to the Strand as shall be found consistent with perfect security and convenience. That is to say, as your guests come to enjoy the sea-shore, I advise you to place your principal accommodations for them as closely as practicable to the sea-shore.

This would give you another distinction. It is not a customary arrangment and it is not partly because it is not generally practicable. From the [408]

[409] veranda and the lower windows of the Manhattan Beach House the beach cannot be seen and all the glory of the surf breaking upon it is lost. It is the same at Cables and at the principal hotels at Long Branch. To visitors who come to stay but a few hours at most upon the sea-shore of a hot day the deprivation seems almost a cruelty.

Is it compensated by the customary front flower-garden? I question the art which under such circumstances places such an object as a flower-garden where to be enjoyed it must be in competition with and through distraction from such another object as the Ocean. I question if it does not involve an unnecessary incongruity with sea-coast scenery which it would be better under any circumstances to avoid.

If a garden is desireable in connection with a sea-coast house, to occupy all the ground between the house and the beach with it is to place it where as an object of interest from the windows it is least needed, where it must be formed and maintained at the greatest cost and where perfection of plant-growth is, at whatever cost, least likely to be secured.

In Sketch No. 2 you will see more distinctly the position which I have thus recommended to be held for your principal architectural demonstration. (The dark space on the right marked A) Within the limits indicated a range of buildings can be stretched out nearly three quarters of a mile in length. According to the depth and height adopted for them, their entire capacity might be less than that of the two principal hotels with their dependencies on Coney Island, or it might be greater.

For convenience of reference in what is to follow I will call this proposed range of buildings facing the Strand, the Terrace, and will now proceed to point out the best positions for other provisions of a large Summer resort which cannot, or for various reasons should not, be incorporated with it.

Referring again to sketch No. II., the terminal railway station of the roads from New York will be observed (F) fixed upon a direct prolongation of the present tracks and to avoid bringing unnecessary noise near the Terrace at a distance from the latter of 200 yards. A narrow-gauge road leads each way from it, the southern branch showing two way-stations in the rear of the Terrace. The Steamboat Wharf (L) is at the point where boats of 10 feet draft can come nearest to the shore, and a straight, broad street leads directly from it, passing the main railway station, to the Terrace. The ground immediately to the West (I) is proposed to be reserved for a village plot for all shops and residences for which close association with the beach is not important.

The northern line of narrow gauge railway is to follow down the northern shore of the Point upon an embankment which will form a dyke. Of the land thus to be reclaimed, the highest and firmest is on the ocean side of the Point half a mile to a mile west of the Terrace. Here (J) provision is made for an enclosed Exhibition Ground with a mile race track; buildings for spectators and a level sward for cricket, base and foot ball; arrangements for acrobatic [410] performances, school & club festivals, fireworks, &c., the whole as much as practicable open to the sea breeze and accessible by special trains direct from New York and Brooklyn.

Still further West an area of nearly 200 acres (O) is proposed to be adapted to military maneuvres on a larger scale than is practicable on any Parade Ground in the country. I assume that, with the advantages that could be offered, brigades would be likely to be drawn from New York & Brooklyn, and Regiments from a greater distance, to camp upon the Point, forming an attraction for other visitors. They could be landed from boats or the railway upon the ground. This being for maneuvres in line and column, the region further West, (P) consisting largely of low, broken sand-hills with slight growth of vegetation, will be suitable for skirmish practice. A range for rifle and light artillery target practice being desirable, not only for military but for general use, the best position for it is shown just west of the Steamboat Landing at K. The extreme length of this range would be 1200 yards, which is equal to the longest in the country.

An intermediate area, marked Q, is proposed to be enclosed for a variety of objects by which the attractions of the Point would be increased. I have in mind for this some of the more popular features of European Zoological Gardens. In several of these there is, for example a model dairy in which cows are exhibited in a luxurious stable and milk from them, as well as other dairy products, as cream-cheese, ice creams and custards made on the spot, are sold to visitors. Another establishment would be for the breeding of large numbers of swans, geese and ducks, the greater number to be sent out during the day to give greater interest to the Lagoon water. A large poultry yard and dove-cote would be another. An elephant and a few camels to make tours, carrying children, would be desirable. A pond in which children could sail small boats. A fish pond and a house for fish dinners would be placed near the railway station and the boat-landing on the shore. At this house there should be large glass tanks from which guests could select the fish to be served to them. A grotto of artificial stone leading into a subterranean aquarium, in which day light would come to the visitor only through tanks in which the fish would be seen, after the style of that last year in the Paris Exposition. Each of these features, as I intend it, would be a novelty and would be particularly pleasing to the large class of people who would come to the Point with their children. They would probably be directly profitable in admission fees, sales and charges, but their chief profit would be indirect in swelling the general tide of popular interest in the locality.

I may here barely touch upon several matters of detail in most of which every place of summer resort in America is deficient as compared with many like places of repute in Europe. For example, at one where I spent a week or two, years ago, there were hundreds of wheel-chairs held to let, and they were more used by visitors than public carriages. The streets of the town [411] were adapted to them, there being slopes instead of curbs at the crossings. I think from experience at the Philadelphia Exhibition, that they would be much liked here and that there would be no difficulty in managing so that one could travel in them without a jar from the steamboat landing to and along the whole length of the Terrace if not further. Other desirable equipments would be pony phaetons for the beach with broad tired wheels, and riding ponies and donkeys to let.

The beach and surf should be thoroughly illuminated for a distance of a mile. This could be accomplished by the use of low-grade electric lights set at frequent intervals along the veranda of the Terrace, with clear glass toward the sea and opaque glass toward the buildings.

Fire works, except what are called fixed or exhibition pieces, appear to the best advantage when seen at a greater distance than is usual in exhibition grounds and best of all when fired over water. A nightly display of colored fires, bombs and rockets from a hulk moored so far off-shore that they would be well seen from the ends as well as the centre of the Terrace would be very attractive.

A mere squirt of water such as commonly passes for a fountain at our hotels is a poor thing and especially so if it comes from coarse and pretentious iron-work. But as an abundant supply of water and a powerful pumping engine will be needed for reasons I have given and also to guard against fires it would add but little to the cost for hydraulic works to provide some simple fountains, both wall and jet, which would be an element of great splendor. Of course they should be on the land side not the sea side of the buildings.

On the strand, however, gay awnings thrown out from the veranda of the Terrace at frequent intervals with comfortable seats under them will not be out of place and elsewhere numerous public seats with awnings fixed to them will be desirable. A provision of row-boats much more gaily painted and furnished than is usual would give an element of life to the lagoon side. There are several additions which could be made to the ordinary bathing arrangements which would be gratefully regarded by the public but these are details for the future.

The district along the shore West of the Terrace I advise to be given with suitable preparation to shows, hucksteries and means of amusement such as can be accommodated with slight temporary buildings, or none at all, so that the ground will remain available whenever required for adding to the length of the Terrace or for another detatched hotel and bath-house. I mean such things as Punch and Judy and other puppet shows, circuses and minstrels, conjurers, performing birds, tents and enclosures for walking, leaping, & wrestling matches, quoits, Scotch games and travelling exhibitions of curiosities, scups, swings, flying horses & so on. I would take care that they were so arranged and displayed with bright colored awnings and bunting and in [412] such positions with reference to the beach, that without being obtrusive or offensive they would add to the general festive character of the scene.

Still further West beyond Mr. Degraw’s villa site, I suggest a range of small cottages or cabins and beyond these again, where the ground near the beach is too low for slight houses to stand safely during the winter, a provision of tents to be let with all requirements for camping. I believe that, well organized, under a superintendent and a police officer who would have their head-quarters at a store at which supplies would be sold to the Campers, such an arrangement would find many patrons, single, by clubs and in families, and that the whole affair would not only pay fairly in rent of tents, &c., but add another object of interest to the Point.

I have thus sufficiently for the present set forth the germ of a general plan and what seems to me to be the best disposition for various purposes of the different parts of the property.

Drawing No. III. shows to a larger scale and with more suggestion of detail the proposed position of the Terrace group, the Stations, Landings, Still-water Baths, the Village Plot, the Hotel Garden and Play Grounds. The walk from the Terrace to the Station and Steamboat Wharf is designed to be shaded by a trellis and vine foliage.

A Concert Garden is suggested, in connection with the Terrace, in which a large audience would occupy the ground where in the afternoon it would be shaded. Great amphitheatrical galleries are suggested to be carried around this space in which, suitably divided, open to the breeze from the North and South & with a view over the ocean, the principal business corresponding to that of the Pavilions and restaurants of Coney Island would be done. A continuous arcade along the entire front of the Terrace is indicated. At points where the different sections of the Terrace could be desirably separated, the supports of the arcade might be of iron and the roof and floor moveable, with a view of guarding against sweeping fires in winter.

Sketch No. IV., shows the general design with some modifications and more elaborately than No. II.

All the drawings are to be regarded simply as elementary suggestions of matters of general design to serve as a basis for a more mature discussion of your scheme.

It would be inexpedient to proceed further except in consultation with an architect to whom you would entrust the design of the buildings.

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