The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-06-30
WHERE'S THAT PARK?
A Reporters Quest for
the Picturesque Smith
Tract.
IT'S SOMEWHERE, ANYWAY
Perhaps 1t is In a Wood Where
a Bright Small Boy Was
Found.

The individual who starts out to dnd
Commissioners have decided TO locate in
the southwestern section Of the city
without being acquainted with its exact
locality is going to meet with consider
able difficulty. Announcement Of the
Commissioners is that the park will be
located between West Side and Bergen
avenues and Grant and Cedar avenues
on portion of what is, know as the Smith
tract. The first impression which the
announcements conveys is that the
new park is somewhere on
the west side Of the Heights
near the Greenville line. Accordingly
Greenville car is taken to Grant avenue,
and ten minutes walk across the hill
brings one to Bergen avenue. It looks at,
first as though there musthave been some,
mistake in describing the location of thef
proposed park. All along the west side
OF Bergen avenue. as far as the.eye can
see, there are comfortable looking houses
surrounded by attractive lawns dotted
with flowers, while stretching away be-
hind them to the west are tracts OF land
under cultivation.
No one whom a searcher for the now
park encountered yesterday, as he stood
at the corner of Bergen and Grant ave-
nues, had ever heard of Cedar avenue So
the searcher, thinking that there must be
some mistake, started west along Grant
avenue. As he proceeded his thought be-
came almost conviction, for he passed
row Of brick houses, then one OF frame
dwellings, and finally, after an interval
of vacant lots, drain pipe manufactory.
Then the vicinity began to lose all pre-
tensions to being part of a great city, and
when West Side avenue was reached had
assumed all the aspects OF rural sim
plicity.
AN AVENUE DEMORALIZED.
The humiliation of having to pass
under the Newark and New York Rail-
road seems to have knocked all the ann
bition out of the great West Side thor
oughfare. Up to that point 1t, tries very
hard to be respectable avenue, but after
emerging from under the railroad III
seems to become thoroughly demoralizad
and degenerates into dusty and uufor
Junate country road
1t is for that reason, perhaps, that it is
SO little resorted to. Its windings in and
out among the great shade trees which
guard it on both sides would make it one
of the most attractive drives in this
vicinity.
Still no one knows where Cedar avenue
is; at least, SO the site searcher believed
when, after thinking Grant avenue would
never end, he finally stood at the corner
Of that and West Side avenue, Iaopplng
his brow. The few persons he met dis
claimed all knowledge of the whereabouts
of the southern boundary Of the new
park.
One little bare-footed urchin hazarded
9 9 guess that it might be down that way
among the cedaIs. So down Jnab way
the searcher went, passing small franle
cottage. on the porch of which an ancient
agriculturaIist dozed in the shade, while
young man and maiden in, a hammock,
stretched between the tall trees, tried
very hard to disprove the old axiom that
two bodies cannot occupy the same space
at the same time.
After q short walk the searcher became
convinced that he must have found the
site at last, and mentally bowed to the
wisdom and appreciation OF landscape
beauty possessed by the Park Commis-
sioners. Ascending rising knoll crowned
with thick growth of chestnuts, ha
threw himself upon the velvet tnrf and
drunk in the picturesque scene which
opened before him like vast panorama.
A BEAUTIFUL SPOT.
Surely" he mused, mo better spot
could have been chosen for the peoples
pleasure ground. The view to Bergen
avenue was undisturbed, and thescountry
gently fell away to the west, broken here
and there by gentle undulations Of the
slope. On the south is deep grove Of
magnificent chestnuts and NAPLES, while,
clumps of the same trees are scattered
at irregular intervals over the entire
tract.
There was an odor Of new mown hays
in the air, and song birds were twitting
and chirping among the branches Of the
trees Two small boys came along after
a while, and although they did not know
where Cedar avenue was. they did know
where there was patch OF wild black
berries near by to which they officered to
conduct the site searcher fora considera-i
ton. Their kind offer was refused, and
| the searcher started for home As a Train
on the Newark and New York railroad
bore him swiftly from. the West Bergen
station, he wondered how many more
beautiful spots there were in that vicinity
unknown to the greater part of Jersey
Citvsa nnnulatian