The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-09-12
THE CITY'S PUBLIC PARKS
THE JVoNDERTUL GROWTH OF THE
 CITY IN MANY DIRECTIONS.

| C4 LN NII M LI4hECAAO4cs
 Improvements at Edgewood Park This
 season-New Rustic Bridge Built and
 Much Grading Done-Tho Grading of
 Edgewood Avenue--The Rapid Growth
 of the Western Part of the City-Derby
 Avenue and Yale Field-The old Turn
 pike-Win Soon be a Free Highway | Street Railway Improvements.
 New Haven's parks, beautiful now and already appreciated, will fully jus tify in years to come the far sighted ness and public spirit which impelled men to secure them while the city had not o'erleaped it's old boundaries so far as to make the requirement of land for outlying parks too expensive an opera ton to be practical. East Rock park, grand and imposing, with its beautiful drives and it's increasing number of fine drives, thanks to the public spirit or l such men as the late MessrS. Henry Farnam and James E. English, and our townsman, F. Hayes Trowbridge, and others, no doubt, who will go and do 1 likewise, is boon to New Haven, de- spite it's present comparative inaccessi- bility to the multitude for lack of mod ern means of inexpensive locomotlon Fort Hale and Fort Wooster parks are every day more and more appreciated as the summers go by. West Rock has a grand future before it as a delightful resort for the public and EdgeWood i park, already a beautiful spot and be- | ing made more so by slow degrees, but as fast as the public funds for the pur- pose will allow will be greatly appre- ciated at an early day owing to it's proximity to the city and the ease with which it can be visited by the masses by means of the three lines of electric cars which make it so easy Of access. This years expenditure of money on 1 this park has been small, but has re- suited in the building of a rustic bridge by which the beautiful rustic canopied structure not far from the West Chapel street entrance to the park is ap- preached. The new bridges location is quite close to the West Chapel street entrance to the park and is about sev- l entyfive feet long. The visitor to the 1 park on foot or on bicycle or in car riage passes over the bridge and by a pretty, devious, winding route is soon l enabled to pass under this bridge in taking the trip on the park roads. The visitor finds already many furlongs of well laid out and we'll kept drives in | tbiS md " 6 l,,111 1,s a have been planted to help beautify the surroundings and finds also well made and we'll kept walks and foot paths quite to his or her taste. The park commissioners have also this summer had considerable work done in the shape of grading and levelling on the l low lands near the Edgewood avenue part of the park, while pond holes and low spots have been filled in and neatly l graded.
 Moreover, the inhabitants of the west. 4 ern part of the city in the wonderfully growing Edgewood avenue section are much pleased over the quite extensive work of grading and curbing which has l been done this summer on Edgewood avenue. This work, commencing at MANLY liiS iitliC 1Iey pctlh5 8iilGu lliC avenue with its detour incloses and had previously been laid out and graded, mas been extended for blocks, so that now the avenue is graded and curbed to within g few blocks of West river. The aforesaid inhabitants are, how ever, very Tegretful that the grading and curbing will not be completed this season, a state of things which they attribute to the fact that the job is being done by days work and not by contract, they feeling satisfied that had the job been let out by contract the work would now all have been finished clear to the river and to the borders of Edgewood park and at less cost to the city As it is now the appropriation will not suffice to complete the work this season.
 The growth of the western part of farm section, in the last few years, has been phenomenal and amazes odl l New Haveners on their return to the city after having been away from the city a few years. It is not exactly a case of the wilderness being made to blossom as the rose" but the land which was pasture land and farm land a few years ago is now we'll studded with fine houses, most of which cost from $4000 to $100000 or more to build, and all of which are credit to the city
 South of Edgewood park, just across the river and abutting the park, is Yale field, a beautiful level tract of land, and here also a remarkable growth is in progress. On this tract, which was recently laid out and inter- seeted with streets at an outlay of much money, many New Haveners are building homes all of an attractive class On this tract number of new houses have just been erected and oth- CTS are in process of completion. Among the latter is one by Frank Leonhart of the Mayer, Strouse & Co. manufactory, which fronts on Derby avenue and is a very attractive place. E. F. Clements, who is employed by the Consolidated road, has a house nearly completed on