latter line it is proposed to drive dolphins or pile clusters 75 feet apart and to connect them with floating booms in order to provide an enclosure within which canal boats going up and down the river may be assembled into fleets or separated for individual destinations. The total area thus enclosed between the booms and the shore would be about 2,200 feet long and from 175 to 275 feet wide. The proposed line, it was stated by the representative of the State Engineer and Surveyor, would be identical with that established by the New York Harbor Commission in 1857, and by the Commissioners of Central Park in 1868. The map also showed an extension of the proposed line southward to Fort Washington Point for an extension of the canal boat port if further accommodations were needed. The representative of the State Engineer and Surveyor stated that the proposed advancement of the pierhead line was not absolutely necessary, as they could establish the port of call within the present line, but that the State Engineer in this application was looking forward to future requirements.

A representative at the New York Produce Exchange advocated the location, saying that it was approved by all the canal boat. interests in town.

There were three speakers in opposition, namely, the Secretary of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society; Mr. Reginald P. Bolton, a Trustee of the Society and Secretary of the Washington Heights Taxpayers' Association; and Mr. Cornelius Kahlen, an owner of property on Inwood Hill.

The Secretary of this Society said that whatever objection he interposed should be regarded as subordinate to the actual needs of the City's commerce, for it had to do not with the physical necessities of the City, but rather with the appearance of the environment of Inwood Hill; but if the exigencies of public necessity did not require the location at that point, the Board was asked to give consideration to the effect it would have on the adjacent part of the island. It was recalled that for several years, this Society and the Hudson-Fulton Celebration Commission had been urging upon the City authorities the establishment of a public park upon Inwood Hill and that it was highly probable that some of this area would be taken for that purpose. The extension of

Riverside Drive along the hill was a certainty, as was the eventual construction of the Hudson Memorial Bridge across Spuyten Duyvil Creek. Furthermore, this was a purely residential section, and the proposed "port of call" would be a disfigurement of the prospect which ought to be avoided if possible. The Secretary asked the representative of the State Engineer if the port of call could not be located with equal advantage south of the southern end of Riverside Park at 72nd Street, but the engineer was enable to answer for lack of personal familiarity with the subject.

Mr. Bolton and Mr. Kahlen objected on similar grounds, but added the physical consideration that the tide was very swift at that point, especially when the ebb-tide and the current of the river united in their impact against the head of the island. No conclusion was announced at the hearing.

Dock and Warehouse Project.

Another project of a commercial nature affecting Inwood Hill was announced in the newspapers of December 22, 1912, in connection with the sale of the James McCreery homestead site to the Inwood Dock, Warehouse and Markets Company, a corporation organized in Ulster County. The plot sold is bounded by the Hudson River on the west; the line of 218th Street on the north, the line of 14th Avenue on the east and the line of 216th Street on the south. It lies on the extreme northwestern part of Inwood Hill, in the angle formed by the junction of the Ship Canal with the Hudson River, and adjacent to the approach of the Hudson Memorial Bridge. The representative of the dock company announces that "the work of clearing the top of the hill of timber will soon be under way, and ground will be broken for the construction of the docks and warehouses in the spring, with the intention of having them completed within a year from that time. The barge canal, it is expected, will be finished then, and the company expects to profit from the increased traffic that will ensue. It is possible that the State may establish a barge canal terminal in that vicinity."

The beginning of the shearing of Inwood Hill of its natural beauty is thus foreshadowed. Had the City acquired this prop

erty for park purposes, as urged by this Society for many years, the disfigurement which seems destined to visit that now charming locality would have been prevented.

FORT GEORGE PARK, NEW YORK.

Its Creation Again Urged.

In 1896, and again in 1899, through the instrumentality of this Society, a bill was introduced in the Legislature establishing a public park on the site of old Fort George at what were then the northern termini of Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the latitude of 195th Street, but neither bill became a law. In 1899, the City Engineer, at the request of the Society, designated this place on the City plan as " Fort George Park," but the park has never existed except on paper. This locality now called Fort George which is not to be confused with the other Fort George which once existed at the southern extremity of the island comprises the northern end of a hill commanding a fine prospect across the Harlem River on the east toward University Heights; over Sherman's Creek and the flat lands toward the north; and across the valley of Broadway toward Inwood Hill and Washington Heights on the north and west. At the period of the Revolution this was called Laurel Hill. It was the scene of hotly contested fighting at the time of the capture of Fort Washington, November 16, 1776. After it was captured by the British, they strongly fortified it and called it Fort George. The same topographical relations which gave Laurel Hill its strategic advantage from the military standpoint make it to-day most desirable for a public park. Of late years, however, it has been the scene of a pleasure resort with "merry-go-rounds" and other meretricious attractions, which have been regarded as nuisances in the neighborhood. In 1912, a citizen secured an injunction restraining the proprietors from keeping their amusement resorts open all night, on account of the noise and the class of patrons attracted. The strong desire to eradicate the amusement resorts now there and to establish a public park in their place was manifested in the renewed movement led by the Morris Heights Taxpayers' Association, the Washington Heights Taxpayers' Association, the

Public Recreation Commission, and other civic bodies including this Society. If the City takes the place over and avails itself of the opportunity presented by the low price for which the land can be bought, it will be making a bargain. The section is growing fast, and in the next five years there will be little land to spare, if any can be bought for such a purpose at all.*

MORNINGSIDE PARK, NEW YORK.

Remains of Fortification Endangered.

On June 4, 1904, the Women's Auxiliary of this Society erected a tablet upon the remains of the defensive tower of the War of 1812-15 standing in Morningside Park, New York, on the south side of 123d Street, 55 yards east of Amsterdam Avenue. A description of this tower is given on pages 28 35 of our Report for 1905. As the fortification has recently been called, erroneously, Fort Horn, it may be said in passing that so far as known,. it had no name. It was one of a series of fortifications beginning at Mill Rock in the East River and extending across the island. to the Hudson River. Two neighboring fortifications on the west did have names. Twenty yards north of 124th Street and 120 vards east of Eleventh Avenue was a stone fort named Fort Laight, after Lt. Col. E. W. Laight. From Fort Laight a line of entrenchments ran westward to the precipitous bank of the Hudson River. In this line was a bastion which was called Fort Horn, after Major Horn, who superintended the construction of the works in the vicinity of Harlem.

In

Since the street was cut through the hill upon which the remains of the 123d Street tower are located, the latter have been on the edge of a rock bluff about 45 feet above the sidewalk. the fall of 1912, the rock ledge began to crumble away as the result, it is believed, of the shocks from the subterranean blasting for the new aqueduct which runs under the park. When apprised of this condition off affairs Park Commissioner Stover asked Professors Berkey and Johnson of Columbia University to examine the rock geologically and they reported that it was badly fissured.

* On June 5, 1913, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment gave a hearing on the subject. On June 9 an extensive conflagration destroyed the amusement resorts and gave renewed impetus to the park movement.

It is possible, therefore, that the rock must be removed; in which case, we have recommended that the superincumbent masonry of the fort be re-erected on the same site as nearly as possible, and the tablet replaced, as a means of preserving the identity of the place. The tablet reads as follows:

"This tablet marks the remains of a stone tower, a part of a line of fortifications extending from the Hudson to the Harlem River, built for the defense of New York by its patriotic citizens during the War of 1812-1815.

Erected by the

Woman's Auxiliary to the American Scenic
And Historic Preservation Society,

A. D., 1904."

While the opinions of two of Columbia's faculty may mean the doom of the old fort, it is interesting to recall that it was built through the co-operation of one hundred students of Columbia and other persons in the City. The students marched in a body from the campus, then at College Place, to 123d street. Others went there by ferry. The Committee of Defence which had charge of the erection of this and other fortifications was headed by Mayor De Witt Clinton.

PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS GENERALLY.

Report of New York Public Recreation Commission on Chicago Playgrounds.

In this and previous Reports we have emphasized the idea that the use of different parks depends upon their location, purpose and traditions; that all parks are not to be used alike; and that some should be reserved for quiet retreats, undisturbed by boisterous games. This, however, should not be taken to mean that we believe all public parks should be so reserved. On the contrary, we are heartily in accord with the growing movement for the establishment of public playgrounds and athletic fields.

What the City of Chicago has done in this direction is set forth in an interesting manner in a report made in the summer of 1912, by the Public Recreation Commission of New York City to the Board of Park Commissioners of the City, as follows;