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the electorate, however, voted more bonds, and the work went on. This process has now been several times repeated but with constantly decreasing majorities. The various issues of bonds for county park purposes now outstanding amount to $5,800,000.

The contest between those contending for the public parkways and those favoring the Public Service Corporation, with its allied forces, was an aggressive one. For more than five years the battle raged. The courts, the various governing bodies, civic associations, and the newspapers were active in the campaign. Only the Park Commission appeared indifferent to the fate of its own plans. The traction forces were materially assisted by the Park Commission's own counsel. The final result was that the traction company secured a franchise for a part of the distance on Central Avenue, and the cars have since been running there as far as the Orange lines; while Park Avenue, the other intended parkway, was transferred to the "care, custody and control" of the Park Commission and the attempt to secure a franchise on that avenue abandoned. The cross section East Orange Parkway is now completed for a short distance, but as one terminus is on a narrow street and the other ends at the trolley tracks on Central Avenue, it is little used and has been chiefly beneficial to one of the commissioners appointed in 1895 who was a very large owner of the land through which the parkway was built.

There are now five principal parks in the Essex County System: the beautiful Branch Brook Park in Newark, of about three hundred acres, costing nearly $3,000,000; Eagle Rock reservation along the crest of the Orange Mountain, of more than four hundred acres; the South Mountain reservation, of about twenty-five hundred acres; Weequahic Park and Lake, South Newark, of something like three hundred acres; Orange Park, of about fifty acres, and smaller local parks. The parks are well laid out and the improved ones are effectively treated with lawns and planting, and are kept in excellent condition. The low swamp lands, after suitable drainage, become most attractive as lawns and for border plantations.

When the park system was inaugurated in 1895, the county had a population of 300,000 and ratables of $178,000,000, with a direct county indebtedness of only $766,000. In some localities both population and ratables have since nearly or quite doubled,

and the parks are an added attraction, more and more appreciated as time goes on and the density of population increases.

Hudson County a few years ago followed the Essex County plan, and obtained from the legislature an amended charter for a county park commission. The law provides that the commission

of four must consist of two members chosen from each of the leading political parties. This commission has received larger county appropriations, and is now acquiring and developing parks in Jersey City and other parts of Hudson County. The completion of the Hudson River transit tubes, and the rapid growth of land values indicate conclusively that the park movement both in Essex and Hudson counties began none too soon.

Whether an appointive or elective commission is preferable; where it is safest and best to lodge the appointing power under the former plan of park organization; and whether, by any known method of legislative or municipal creation, it is possible permanently to secure park officials selected wholly for fitness, are questions too large to be discussed here. Commissioners who work solely from motives of civic pride and public spirit sooner or later discover the same lurking influences directly inimical to the public weal that President Roosevelt had to contend with in Washington, and that Judge Lindsey faced in Denver.

The experience of Essex County should, however, not discourage those interested in securing public parks. The Palisade Park Commission, since its creation in 1900, has accomplished excellent results; it has inspired public confidence, and has secured magnificent bequests. What it has done and is doing augurs well for the future.

THE PARK SYSTEM OF HUDSON COUNTY, NEW JERSEY

BY WALTER G. MUIRHEID,

Secretary Hudson County Park Commission and Board of Trade of Jersey City, N. J.

To deal with the problem of creating a system of parks in one of the areas of densest population on the American continent, necessitating the acquisition of land for a general park system at the highest average cost heretofore made necessary in any American community, has been the task allotted to the Hudson County Park Commission, in the smallest county in area and the largest in population in the State of New Jersey. The district covered by the Hudson County park system approaches in population the highest average per acre of territory of any county in the United States. How this commission solves its park problem, therefore, becomes a matter of much interest to other crowded communities. If Hudson County handles the problem successfully, it will help to solve difficulties of a similar character in other communities.

The members of the commission did not assume the duties of the office to which they were called without an understanding of the extensive plans upon which they were expected to operate, or of the peculiarly difficult nature of the task before them. They realized that while in one sense Hudson County is a municipal unit as a county, and is also divided into other municipal units by the several cities and towns which go to make up the county, yet, in another sense, it is only a part of the metropolitan unit of which the borough of Manhattan is the center.

There are nowhere else in America such peculiar conditions as rule in the relationship of Hudson County to New York City. An overwhelming majority of those who live within the county have an income of from $500 to $2,000 per year. The proportion of the very poor and the very rich in the county's population is small. The park problem, therefore, is a unique one, and must be met and solved with but little light from other cities. In the solution of the

problem it was deemed wise to approach it from the people's side, and not from the land side.

Hudson County has no open country in its suburbs in the usual acceptation of the term "country," and for that reason, as it increases in population, it cannot spread out like the ordinary city with an open country around it. On the contrary, as its population. increases, its available open area will decrease, and the constant. encroachment of the railroads on its territory will in time leave no space for the very important purpose of giving to a large and thickly settled community the benefit derived from parks and playgrounds.

The Hudson County Park Commission is composed of four members appointed by the Court of Common Pleas under authority of a special act of the legislature, and its funds are supplied by sales of county bonds to an amount the total of which is equal to one per cent. of the county ratables. Its object is to establish and maintain a system of county parks.

There were some who said that any commission that the court might appoint would be unable to complete the construction and maintenance of this system of county parks. They said that the political influence that would be brought to bear would be so heavy as to defeat the purposes of the commission. At the death of its first president, when it was necessary to appoint his successor, men to whom the position was offered declined to serve, fearing that the commission would be tied up by political entanglements and that they would not be free to continue the construction of a suitable park system for Hudson County in the way in which it should be conducted.

Since the organization of the commission it has been beset by many political obstacles, but it has met such difficulties and in every case overcome them. Every session of the New Jersey Legislature brings forth a number of bills the sole object of which is to hamper and annoy the commission in the prosecution of its work. Fortunately for the people of Hudson County, however, "strike bills" and bills representing private or special interests have not been permitted by the state's legislature to become laws, and thus interfere with the work of the commission. As a consequence, Hudson County is rapidly coming into possession of a modern system of public parks that has been commented upon favorably, and the work of the commission has been indorsed by almost every park com

mission in the United States and many similar bodies of the largest cities of Europe.

It has been held by those competent to give an authoritative opinion upon the subject that the minimum area of park space for the population of any community should be at least one acre for every 200 persons. Assuming this to be a correct estimate, Hudson County should have at this time more than 2,503 acres of park space, and Jersey City, the largest municipality in the county, more than 1,268 acres, or more than thirty times its present city park area. It is an undisputed fact that available space cannot be purchased in this county for less than an average of $3,300 per acre. This, then, in order to give an acre to every 200 persons, would require the expenditure for land alone of $8,259,900, which, it is needless to say, the commission does not advocate.

A noted park authority says that any ratio between population and park area is a constantly varying one, for the population of a city or county is constantly increasing. A certain proportion of the ground occupied by a municipality is, of necessity, reserved for public use, a large percentage of which must, of course, be devoted to streets. A study of conditions in many cities has formed the basis of an estimate that 15 per cent. of the area of cities is used for public streets and 5 per cent. for parks. In other words, 20 per cent., or one-fifth of the total area, can be advantageously set aside for public use, and such setting aside increases and does not decrease the value of the other four-fifths which remain as private property. This ratio of 20 per cent., the authority states, should be increased in densely populated centers. It is usually larger than that. By this estimate Jersey City, with an area of 12,288 acres, according to the state geologist, should be entitled to at least 614 acres of public parks, and the other municipalities of the county in proportion. There should also be a fraction of one per cent. used for public buildings.

As a matter of fact, in a little over five years the commission has purchased or decided upon six county parks, the smallest of which contains 5.455 acres and the largest 207.823 acres, the total acreage of these six pleasure spots being 514 acres. The average

price per acre of the land for these parks to date has been $3,275.96, while some property, acquired by condemnation proceedings, has cost the county $22,887.45 per acre.

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