Morning journal and courier., 1893-06-16
OUR PUBLIC PARKS.

A Citizen Complains Of Evils at Fort Hale Park That Need Rectifying-A Beautiful Public Pleasure Ground and How it Is marred.
 June 18th, '93. l To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER: Noticing few days since an article In your Journal on the 'Parks of New Ha- ven," in which took great deal of inter- est, have waited for some time to see If some one would not take up the subject again, and help push along the apparently dormant feeling that seems to have come over the promoters of our almost newly born system of parks. A very few years since and it was all parks, and too much could not be done to locate and create parks for breathing places for our toiling population. We'll, in the showers of ex- citement and interest created, there were many sites purchased, and among others the "town poultry yard." otherwise named Fort Hale park. To this the government donated about twenty-thrse acres of land, including Fort Hale and its surroundings. And there it lays. A little money has been spent on it and that was the end of elaborating Fort Hale park, than which, more beautiful location cannot be found in the limits of New Haven or any other city in Connecticut.
 Easily approached at all times by water, and on one side by vessels of considerable draught, and on the land side by fine roads and by the electric railroad, we find this beautiful place easily accessible on all sides.
 To simply say 1t is beautiful does not ex- press 1t. It is grand; it is magnificent. The view from the southern shore, and more especially from the bluffs, are ex- ceedingly fine, and in fact from almost the entire portion of 1t Is surpassingly beau | tiful.
 The land view is equal to the marine ley and forest and meadow, dotted here and there by the homes of ! our rural neighbors, make very | magnificent landscape for the artist to l sketch or the poet write up in verse. It Is | pity, however, that such 8 beautiful location in every sense of the word should have such blotch of deformity on 1t. Old tumble down buildings that have evidently not been repaired since Adams | early childhood arc fast going to decay, { and the surroundings of these old rock ' cIloS WILL AtI4O phtCAcS O1 pOUdSO66 huU garden truck gives 1t the appearance of what Dutch hill used to be in New York with its pig in the parlor style variegstsd with focks of ducks and geese, whose con- stant presence gives 1t the appearance and hen yard" It is fact that 1t is almost impossible that anyone can sit down on the grass or scarcely anywhere, but his clothes gre daubed and intensely scented by goose chips. Ladies and children will not go there on this very ac count. Children enjoy playing in the grasl but when ladies find their children's clothes besmeared and scented with goose chips they will not go there, preferring to go te some less beautiful locality. The scenery with all it's attraction is not the only in ducement that can be offered to person, seeking for shore comforts and pleasures It has one of the safest and best bathing shores in the harbor. At any time in th' tide from about the center of the fort, tn whole distance to the bluffs the bathin, pisces are of easy access, and choosing tn locality child is in no danger from an, surf. The greater abruptness of the soutl side. makes it very fine bathing place fo ' adults.
 The lack of bathing houses entirely pre- vents the use of any part of the shore fo bathing purposes, and this fault or lack c appreciation from whatever source it come should in some way be corrected. We SC several thousand dollars expended 0 | Water street park, and thers is no con parison between it and Fort Hale parH no bathing, except possibly at plumb hig water. The view extends to Canal dock 2 ! high water and at low water a mud flat e1 , tends nearly to Canal dock, and yet thor sands of dollars are spent on it and p.ae
 tically nothing on Fort Hale park.
 II 1t seems to many that it is nothing bu | the quintesencs of cussedness that ore
 vents the park at Fort Hale from bein
 made the very finest park grounds in Ne
 Haven, or, in fact, on the coast of Cor
 necticut. As it is now, old rookeries an
 old cellars filled with green, slimy wate
 the paradise for the geese, old privie
 whose odors exceed nest of bobcats, pr
 vent any people from going there. It | no wonder the park commission would nt
 let the electric railroad go through it.
 They were ashamed for decent people 1
 see the deformity of the place as it is Th
 little rent the city receives from the ol
 tumble down buildings now there scarcel
 amounts to anything. Tue buildings shoul
 be torn down and from whatever is goo
 about them good commodious bathir
 houses should be made to convenience th | POo'Ao' AAo peok0o oA IcW haScA U"
 this park and not private company. I'll people pay for the park, and they shoul see that it is so improved and cared fo
 that it will be popular place of resort g it will be. At least three men with tea. should bs steadily at work improving fc Ipublic use. They should live on 1t an constantly, under the direction of the par ] commissioners be at work improving all beautifying it.
 The easy accessibility of this place make
 Fort Hale park prominently superior
 any or all other parks the city has bough
 and to hold it from convenients, free, pul
 lie use because there Is 10 appropriation (
 interest taken it is a very serious mistal
 and cannot be accounted for only frol
 personal and very selfish motives. Officer
 chosen by the people should have the be-
 interests of the people at heart, and nt
 from any outside influence to spite som particular one, rob the people of one (
 the fnest localities known as Fort Hal
 park, but which now is known as the tow
 hen yard in it's near vicinity. OxA11s.