USA > New Jersey > Essex County > The first county park system : a complete history of the inception and development of the Essex County parks of New Jersey > Part 17
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Efforts to have the objectionable feature of the ordinance amended were then made. The pressure of public opinion to have some action taken by the City Council was con- tinued, and accelerated by the passage of resolutions by a number of representative and public-spirited organizations. Among others, the Woman's Club, early in October, 1898, adopted a resolution, as follows :
"Resolved, That we women of the Oranges, represented by the Woman's Club, of Orange, earnestly favor the early transfer of Park and Central avenues to the Park Commis-
CONTEST FOR PARKWAYS CONTINUED 215
sion, to be improved and beautified for parkways, that the people may receive the benefit of such action.
"Resolved, That a copy of this resolution be sent to the Common Council of Orange, the Board of Chosen Free- holders, and the Essex County Park Commission, and the local press."
About this time, October 6, 1898, the City Council adopted a resolution, stipulating that the avenues, in the event of transfer, "should not be widened or any assessment for their improvement levied upon abutting property own- ers, this being in consonance with the views of the present commission." The resolution further suggested that "the clause referring to prospective park commissions be stricken out," as was done. A clause was then added "reserving police jurisdiction and control of franchises ;" also a stipu- lation that "the ordinance must be accepted within sixty days," but should be "inoperative until the regulations em- braced in the ordinance are adopted and ratified by the council and the commission." This resolution was sent to the Park Commission.
The reply of October 17, 1898, stated that "your pream- ble and resolution, so far as they relate to this board, are in consonance with its views and purposes ; so far as they relate to our successors, we are powerless to act. If your resolu- tion can be amended by the omission of the words 'now or at any time hereafter' and a simple resolution substituted in place of that clause in the ordinance, the transfer will be acceptable to the board."
The ordinance was, by the City Council, amended in ac- cordance with this request, the objectionable clause was stricken out, and on October 18, 1898, more than a year after its introduction, was finally and unanimously passed. This action met with general approval. But those who had hoped that the controversy was at last ended misjudged alike the reserve power of the traction company and the evident determination of the Mayor and his friends to de- feat the parkways' plan.
In an interview in the Newark News of October 22,
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Counsel Munn came to the rescue by increasing the pending uncertainty in the accredited statement : "The question whether these avenues will ever become parkways is still open. No action has ever been taken by the Board of Free- holders, whose consent is necessary to establish the control of the Park Commission." He was then, as since, the coun- sel of that board.
MORE OBJECTIONS.
The activities of the corporation agents and attorneys continued. They were not in the least abashed or their efforts abated, and at the November meeting of the Orange Council, Mayor Stetson's veto of the transfer ordinance was presented. It was a remarkable document. He thought "it unwise for the city to part with its control of the ave- nues until it is definitely settled in what manner they are to be treated," and "unwise to strike out of the ordinance the words now or at any time thereafter," also "unwise to approve the ordinance until the regulations are agreed upon between the Common Council and the Park Commission, and until action on the proposed transfer is taken by the Board of Chosen Freeholders."
A long and rambling statement then followed, but the gist of the alleged reasons for the veto is given in the quo- tations just noted. These "reasons" were promptly analyzed and their speciousness shown in both the editorial and news columns of the daily papers. Commissioner Bramhall had clearly defined to the councilmen themselves what the use of the avenues as parkways would be. It was "a waste of words," as The Chronicle expressed it, "to dwell upon the now or hereafter" clause objection. The very point the freeholders had ostensibly, all along contended for was that the municipalities directly affected should first express their preference in the matter of transfer.
The Journal contended "that the Park Commission on one side and the Mayor and Common Council on the other" were both "to blame for the result."
CONTEST FOR PARKWAYS CONTINUED 217
PARK BOARD'S ATTITUDE.
Commissioner Franklin Murphy, in a published interview November 18, 1898, again sounded the keynote of uncer- tainty as to the future attitude of the Park Commission in the statement: "I feel as though we had gone as far as we should go in this matter. We have no desire to take the avenues if the municipality does not want us to have them. It is not likely that we shall take any action in the matter until the commission has progressed further with its work, and until the avenues become valuable as connecting links of the park system."
The reports regarding Counsel Munn's extreme friendli- ness to the trolley interests, and efforts in opposition to the parkways, notwithstanding the statements of the Park Com- mission, were becoming more and more frequent. The com- missioners were fully aware of these reports current. In a statement in the Orange Chronicle of November 26, 1898, Commissioner Bramhall, among other things, said :
"Mr. Munn has been represented, or misrepresented, as saying much that is not so in relation to the transfer of Park and Central avenues. The truth is that the commis- sion has spoken for itself directly and officially in this matter."
But the dissensions and differences were increased, in- stead of being allayed or diminished. The fact that the commission was saying one thing, and that the sayings of its duly authorized and retained counsel were being construed ยท as meaning directly the opposite thing, gave the opposition and the franchise lobbyists just the opportunity desired. When, therefore, the Mayor's veto message of the avenue transfer ordinance came before the Orange City Council for action on November 21, 1898, it occasioned the knowing ones no surprise that the veto was sustained and the ordi- nance thus defeated by a tie vote of 7 to 7 in the council. And this directly in face of the evident fact, as stated in one of the leading papers at the time, "That the proposed improvement was favored by more than nine-tenths of the
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people;" that the action of the seven members who voted to sustain the Mayor's objections was "an affront to the people by whom they were elected to office ;" and that, "by some mysterious influences," these men had "experienced a change of heart and literally stultified themselves by facing about without giving a single reason for so doing."
But the action had been taken. The parkways ordinance was dead. The curtain had been again rung down; now with the corrupting forces representing private gain and corporate greed, at the expense of the people and of the park system, for the second time triumphant.
CHAPTER XIV.
GOOD CITIZENSHIP HELPLESS.
EAST Orange having completed the parkways' transfer, the Park Commission having formally accepted both ave- nues there, and the city of Orange having twice failed to complete the transfer ordinance, the parkway situation, early in 1899, might be compared to a well-equipped, safely ballasted, strong coach with a balking team. Every facility was at hand for the commission to mount the driver's seat of that coach, to quietly and firmly take the reins, and with- out resort to force, not even to the lash, to guide the load of obligations and pledges, which the board had already made to the public regarding the avenue parkways, to a safe and successful destination.
Not only did the Park Board possess ample power and full authority for accomplishing this result, but it had the press and the great majority of the people of the Oranges and of the county then in its favor, to approve and support any and every measure or action taken for the good and the protection of the parks and parkways which the commis- sioners were especially entrusted in their charter, by the people, to create and defend. One of the leading papers on January 7, 1899, voiced public sentiment in contending, editorially : "It is probable that nine-tenths of the voters of Orange are in favor of having Park and Central avenues receive parkway treatment."
PARK BOARD'S EVASIVE COURSE.
Similar sentiments were at that time so frequently ex- pressed that there could be no reasonable doubt as to the attitude of the public generally upon this question. Instead
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of the Park Commission taking any advantage of its op- portunities at this critical juncture of its parkway affairs, it was content to sit in secret session, month after month, for several years, and give out statements or promulgate manifestoes, restating its position that it had "not changed" its attitude regarding the parkways ; and at last, "declined to take a partisan stand" on this matter, upon which the board itself had taken the initial action in preparing and publishing its plans, and had even secured appropriations with the promise and understanding that the avenues were to be made parkways. And this question as to whether these results should be secured, or the collusive corporate interests should appropriate one or both of the proposed parkways for private gain, was no more a "partisan" ques- tion than was the action of the Legislature in passing the Park Commission's charter, or were the innumerable official acts of the commission in locating the parks and parkways, or in acquiring the requisite land, or in formulating rules and regulations for the administration of the park department.
But while the commission was for years resting upon its declared intentions as to the two principal parkways, the traction company, before the close of 1898, had its scheme for securing at least one of the parkway avenues well in hand. And, at the time indicated, it was in possession of both the reins and lash of the parkways' coach. This con- dition had been, in the meantime, very materially strength- ened by Counsel J. L. Munn, by his assistance in keeping actively alive the controversy, not only in Orange, but also with the Board of Freeholders. .
In this board, some action was usually taken about the time the Park Commission would issue another statement of good intention, which would in effect nullify the com- missioners' claim that they wanted the parkways, by creat- ing still farther obstacles in the way of the avenues' transfer being completed.
After the parkway-avenue resolution of the Park Board of November, 1896, had been sent to the Board of Freehold-
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ers, nothing was heard of it. While the contest between the parkway forces and the trolley syndicate was being actively waged in 1898, efforts were made by committees of various civic associations to ascertain, if possible, why the free- holders were non-responsive and why such an important request as that of the Park Board remained pigeonholed all that time.
A PUBLIC HEARING.
Finally, on May 20, 1898, the Road Committee of the freeholders gave a hearing on the commission's application. The local committees were well represented. Mayor John Gill, of Orange, and other well known officials and citizens, were present. The reasons why the avenues should be used as parkways were well presented. The petitions, signed by nearly all the property owners on both of the avenues, favor- ing the transfer, were read, as also the resolutions of various civic bodies. The former official and unanimous proceed- ings of the Orange and East Orange authorities, favorable to action being taken, were noted.
The opposing corporation agents now offered a new line of obstructive tactics. The Park Commission would, by inaugurating new regulations after transfer at once "re- strict ordinary traffic." The parkways were at best a local question, they said : "The freeholders elected by, and the direct representatives of, the people, should not surrender control of these great highways and thus prevent the free use of them as originally intended."
Although it was clearly shown that, under the transfer, or eighteenth clause of the park law, the commission would have no such right of restriction, and that the parkways, in extending park treatment through the various municipali- ties by directly connecting the larger parks of the whole county, could no more be considered a local question than could the park system itself, yet the freeholders adopted the opposition views and nothing was done. On October 25 following (1898) another "hearing" was given by the same
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freeholders' committee. Frank H. Scott, F. W. Baldwin, A. P. Boller, G. R. Howe and others made earnest and able pleas, urging early action. But the listening freeholders ap- peared deaf to the appeals, and the conditions of persistent inactivity were continued as before; although Chairman J. B. Bray assured the petitioners "that a simple resolution passed by the committee would not be sufficient to complete the transfer"-a fact that was gradually beginning to dawn on the minds of those who had heretofore believed that the logic of the situation and merit of the transfer proposition might be a potential factor in the proceedings before the freeholders.
While the powerful hand of the Consolidated Traction Company was clearly visible back of this inconsistent and continuous inactivity, still it was a condition, not a theory of official inactivity, which confronted the parkways move- ment. Attention was then again turned to the Park Com- mission. Here much the same uncertainty existed. What- ever may have been the cause, the wabbling attitude of that board, aside from its executive session statements, was an indisputable factor of large proportions in still farther ex- tending the uncertainty of the conditions.
The commission was appealed to. The board was im- plored to galvanize some life into its repeated claims of intention. It was asked to show by its acts, as well as by its words, what it meant ; and was reminded that, "after the re- peated reiteration of its plans and purposes as regards these avenues, both the friends and most of the opponents of the county park undertaking had formerly accepted that ac- tion as final," and that it was now being currently reported "that the commission did not want the avenues, and that it had never intended to make them parkways."
From the records it appears that the elements of uncer- tainty as to these parkways were also acutely active within the Park Board rooms by or before the summer of 1899. At the meeting of August 1 of that year, Commis- sioner Shepard's motion was adopted requesting the land- scape architects "to make a special report on the proper
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location of an east and west parkway from Newark to the Orange Mountain, in the central part of the county."
1
The landscape architects of the department at this time were the Olmsted Brothers, who had succeeded landscape architects and engineers Barrett and Bogart, the Septem- ber previous. In December, 1898, following their appoint- ment, the Messrs. Olmsted had submitted two elaborate re- ports on the parkway subject-one December 24, the other December 31-of twenty-four pages of typewritten matter, and apparently covering most of the county. These reports were furnished in response to a resolution of the board of November 16, 1898, calling for "a report on parkways in general," and were, in outline, similar to the parkway feat- ures of the other tentative reports of the original five park specialists (their own report among the number) made to the first Park Commission in 1894 and early in 1895. These elaborate reports of 1898, however, although they treated of widely extended possible parkway locations, recommended special legislation for the acquirement of the requisite land ; favored the establishment of building lines on future park- ways. and desirable traffic restrictions, and the limiting of height of buildings. They also advocated "the extension of the East Orange parkway on to Weequahic," also to "the disposal works and to Eagle Rock," etc. Yet they made no reference whatever to the two great east and west avenue parkways already constructed, and which, as elaborated upon in that firm's own report of January 16, 1895, were then described as being "essentially parkways of a formal character," "on which, to make them all that is desirable for your purpose, it is only necessary" that "certain im- provements of detail should be made."
OBJECTIONS BASED ON TRAFFIC.
No reference or suggestion was made in any of the earlier expert reports as to "the needs-of-ordinary-traffic" objection to the avenues being improved as parkways; but, after the traction company's franchise promoters had systematically exploited this claim, it soon entered into the parkway side of
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the discussion. In the Olmsted report of December 31, 1898, the heavy traffic "on Park avenue from the East Orange parkway to Branch Brook Park" is noted as an "objection" which it is "impracticable to exclude," though "the inconvenience might be less and less as time goes on." ' The report concludes "that the large proposition of park- ways for Essex County is sure to lead to endless discussion."
Their special report of August 2, 1899, in response to the Park Board resolution, as above quoted, would, I think, have surprised the people of Essex County had it been made public at that time, or at any time during the five years fol- lowing while the contest over the parkways was in progress. This report, according to instructions, was to have "regard for the various available routes, and to the financial limita- tions" of the commission. After noting that "no entirely new east and west parkway appears to be practicable, except at the north end of East Orange, through Clinton and South Orange," or possibly "from the northern end of Branch Brook Park westward to the mountain through the southern parts of Bloomfield and Montclair," etc., the re- port refers to Park and Central avenues as follows :
"As the board has not yet put this policy-of taking con- trol of the avenues-into effect, there is still opportunity to reconsider the matter and to leave out of the parkway sys- tem either or both of these avenues. After a careful study of the existing conditions of the territory through which these two avenues run, it appears to us that the greater good to the greatest number of the citizens of the county directly interested, demands that Central avenue be left out of the parkway system, so as to be available for ordinary business traffic."
CORPORATION AGENTS SUPPORTED.
The reasons as then stated for this conclusion-surpris- ing in comparison with that firm's prior report quoted, and in view of the fact that this statement was directly in line with the "points" which the trolley franchise agents and promoters had been for months actively circulating-were
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that "serious inconvenience and hardship to the business and personal interests of the people" would result. The commission's "financial limitations" would, according to this report, make "the expense of developing and maintain- ing both Park and Central avenues unwarrantable."
"It would be impracticable," continued the report, "to extend Central avenue with a width of 100 feet to the south end of Branch Brook Park, as would certainly be desirable, even necessary, if it is to be used as a parkway." It was also stated, that "the western part of Central avenue has four right-angled turns in it, which are so extremely un- graceful and inconvenient as to almost condemn it," and "it is already encumbered on both ends with street railway tracks."
When it is borne in mind that every one of the condi- tions referred to as "reasons," were, in 1895, when the Olmsted's first report was made, precisely the same as when this report was submitted-excepting that at the latter time the corporations were using their power to secure the avenue franchise, and thus prevent the parkway-both the text and tenor of this last report seems the more surprising. In other respects there had been, during the four intervening years, no change. The "serious inconvenience and hardship to the business and personal interests" were, in 1895, just as apparent, save the pecuniary interest of the traction com- pany in the coveted franchise, as in 1899. The "financial limitations" of the commission were not so strained, with its new $1,500,000 appropriation, but that new and costly parkways, like the one in East Orange-which would have its southern parkway connection at Central avenue perma- nently destroyed by the abandonment of that avenue to the trolley interests-could, as recommended in the report, be extended. The plan "to extend Central avenue to the south end of Branch Brook Park" had never been officially con- sidered ; nor, so far as I know, had it ever been suggested in the plans for making Central avenue a parkway. Nor had . the "ungraceful turns" or the short stretch of trolley tracks at the western part of the avenue ever before been deemed of
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serious importance, or matters that could not be readily, and with comparatively small expense, adequately and satisfactorily treated.
This Olmsted report was received and was before the Park Board for consideration on August 8, 1899. I am not aware that its contents have before this ever been made public. Soon after the report was received, and remained in secret in the Park Board archives, one of the traction company's representatives, with a smiling countenance, stated to me that the Park Commission had "an expert's report, which was decidedly against Central avenue." That the com- mission for some reason concluded it was not desirable to give out the report appears from the board's official action. At the meeting of March 5, 1901, in passing upon the matter for the annual report, it was agreed "that the Olmsted Brothers' report in regard to Park and Central avenues," should be included ; and then, at the meeting of March 19, on motion of Commissioner Shepard, seconded by Mr. Murphy, the "motion of March 5, which included in the annual report the report of Olmsted Brothers in regard to Park and Central avenues," was rescinded, and a motion of Mr. Shepard, that that report be omitted, was then adopted.
A PARK BOARD HEARING.
When, during the latter part of 1899, and early in 1900, it was found that the Board of Frecholders was, on the parkway subject, immovable, an effort was made to secure from that board, if possible, its official approval of the transfer made by the East Orange authorities March 15, 1897, and thus have the full control of the East Orange portion of each of the avenues vested in the Park Commis- sion. The Park Board gave a hearing, March 1, 1900, on this question. A large and representative delegation was present. The commission was reminded of "what were con- sidered the promises to the East Orange committee three years before," and of "the condition of unrest that was growing out of the delay, in the absence of some action or
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earnest of its intention." This, it was urged, should obtain in a request to the freeholders to complete the East Orange transfer, so that that portion of the avenues could be im- proved. The commission complied, and, on March 20, 1900, adopted a suitable resolution toward carrying the desired object into effect.
On May 22 following, the Road Committee of the Board of Freeholders gave a hearing on the commissioners' re- quest. About fifty persons were present. Able present- ments for the parkways were made by Messrs. E. O. Stanley, A. P. Boller, F. H. Scott, H. Wallis, C. G. Kidder, G. F. Seward and others. W. Whittlesey and one other speaker openly favored a trolley on Central avenue. The opposition was, for the most part, however, under the usual cover. One of the speakers declared "there was nothing to show that the park commissioners were not willing for a trolley line to be constructed, should they take the avenue for a park- way." Another opponent was most solicitous about "ordi- nary traffic matters."
APPLICATION REFUSED.
The sequence of the meeting was, that the Road Com- mittee, on the advice of Counsel Joseph L. Munn, reported to the full board adversely, and against granting the Park Board's application, notwithstanding the fact that a con- ference between that committee and the commission had been held with the object of coming to an understanding in the matter. Counsel Munn's opinion, as quoted by the committee, was that, "under the law, the Board of Free- holders had no right to make such a transfer ;" but, "by the consent of all the municipalities through which the avenues ran, the board might make the transfer without leaving itself liable." The committee in turn gave as its reason for adverse action that the authority of the board "under the provisions of the park act, to take the action now requested is so far doubtful that such action should not be taken under the conditions referred to."
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