. The new New York : a commentary on the place and the people . fulness of thecity and its business; the ghostly ships with their silversails are full of poetry and romance; the road flows on inserpentine windings through a mystery of light and is Brooklyns most beautiful parkway, and some day,when it is extended from the bridges to Coney Island, itwill be possibly the finest shoreway in all the world. One can see a future for these roads and drives andshoreways. The new city needs them as entrances andexits, even more than as pleasure grounds. Wide boule-vards in all directions, abo
. The new New York : a commentary on the place and the people . fulness of thecity and its business; the ghostly ships with their silversails are full of poetry and romance; the road flows on inserpentine windings through a mystery of light and is Brooklyns most beautiful parkway, and some day,when it is extended from the bridges to Coney Island, itwill be possibly the finest shoreway in all the world. One can see a future for these roads and drives andshoreways. The new city needs them as entrances andexits, even more than as pleasure grounds. Wide boule-vards in all directions, above ground and below it, arecrying necessities of transit. About the parks, however,one wonders and perhaps has doubts. Will the press ofbusiness and the crowds of people eventually crush themout ? In the boroughs of Queens and Richmond there arefew parks as yet established.^ The open country is stillexistent there in thousands of acres. But in crowdedManhattan it is very different. In the congested districts* Systems of parks have been planned for both. 1 \^^. in Pl. 79. — Palisades and the Hcdsox BREATHING SPACES 355 many of the little parks have been converted into bareplaygrounds where nothing green grows. It was a neces-sity. The tramp of many feet requires a , the park commissioners will tell you of thousandsof dollars worth of trees, shrubs, and flowers put out onparkways one day, and absolutely disappearing, root andbranch, before the next day. And, aside from wear andvandalism, gases with electricity and the close air of thecity are fighting against vegetation. Even the rain thatcomes to it is tinged with sulphuric acid by falling throughcity smoke; and that means destruction to almost every-thing — copper, glass, tin roofs, and growing life by year the trees in the smaller parks seem to lookmore haggard, the grass more bleached and sparse, theflowers more like half-starved house plants. Will theyeventually disappear and the parks be turne
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