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promenade on the river completed. The grounds adjoining the road air it leaves the river are beautiful enough in their natural state to be left, for a while at least, as they are.

5th. It is evident that a park of the shape here proposed would be accessible from a much larger territory than one more compact in shape, though containing the same number of acres. This park would, indeed, be peculiarly accessible. Its accessibility for those who ride and drive is evident. It would be exactly where the great mass of the riding and driving public are now accustomed to ride and drive, and where they would prefer to continue to do so. The accessibility of the park to those who would wish to enjoy it on foot, it may be well to point out more particularly. The promenade by the river could be reached by a pleasant walk across the Common and the Public Garden, and through Commonwealth avenue, a walk shaded with trees all the way. The park would thus be directly connected with our Common, and we should have a continuous line of ornamental grounds reaching from the State House to Chestnut Hill. Persons living at the South End and at Roxbury would have another walk shaded with trees through Chester Park and West Chester avenue, when laid out, as it soon will be, directly to the easterly end of the proposed promenade. The people of Cambridge, East Cambridge and Charlestown would be within easy walking distance of the promenade on the easterly shore of the river. For those who wished the accommodation of horse cars, a horse railroad running down Marlborough street then across to Beacon street, and along that street to Brighton avenue, would afford easy access to every part of the proposed promenade on the bank of the river and to the ramble just beyond. An extension of the present Brookline horse railroad up Harvard street and up the old Brighton road, otherwise known as Washington street, would afford the means of reaching the central portions of the park, and enable those so disposed to

enjoy the view and the breezes on Corey's Hill. The Boston and Albany Railroad would land passengers at the present" Cottage Farms" station, just between the ramble and the promenade; to which point also the Union Railway, now used only for freight, but of course suitable for passengers would bring the inhabitants of East Cambridge, Somerville, Charlestown, Chelsea, and East Boston. The further end of the park would be reached by the Charles River Branch Railroad. Besides all these various means of access, it has been suggested that, when this promenade should become a place of resort, small pleasure steamboats would be run from the foot of Cambridge or Lever ett street, touching at the beginning of the promenade, then again at the ramble, thence up to Old Cambridge, and returning by the same route, thus making the trip to the park a pleasure excursion in itself, instead of a wearisome walk or a hot and dusty ride in the cars.

I might go on at greater length to set forth the merits and advantages of the plan, but it seems that enough has been written to bring it fairly before you, and to show that there is now an opportunity to give Boston a park which shall be as much superior to the Central Park of New York as our Common, of which we were once so boastful, was in former years to anything that any other city in the United States could show.

The accompanying map of the proposed park, and of the immediately surrounding country, will show the general nature of my plan more clearly than can be done by any written description. The portion of the map shaded with cross lines is intended to represent approximately the land which it is proposed shall be taken for the purposes of the park; the heavy black line running through this shaded portion represents the main driveway, which is to extend through the park from near the junction of Beacon and Parker streets to the easterly end of the Chestnut Hill reservoir, with one branch to and around the

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summit of Corey's Hill, and another along the Cambridge shore of Charles River as far as Main street. The numerous walks and bridle paths and the promenade by the shore of the river must be filled in by the reader's imagination.

Respectfully,

BOSTON, December 20th, 1869.

URIEL H. CROCKER.

NOTE.

The maps appended are furnished at the expense of the gentlemen who have

suggested the localities delineated thereon.

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