Washington Park Washington Park covers about five acres between South Broadway, Nepperhan Terrace, and the New York & Putnam Railroad. It has entrances a few steps from Getty Square and the close and noisy New Main Street. It was chosen as the one piece of land in the heart of the town where the dwellers in dozens of narrow streets and hundreds of confined houses could find within a stone’s throw space enough for shady trees to sit under, and green lawns and foliage to rest the eyes and feet, and, yet more important, fresh and cool air to inhale during the summer heats. Washington Park is a hill and must be climbed, but the climb has been made an easy one, and its reward is the breezes that happen to temper the sultry days of July and August. In devising a scheme of treatment for Washington Park the first essential considered was an easy ascent to the high ground in the center, where the trees stand about the old Nisbet House; and the second, to provide for the circulation of a large number of visitors within the Park. Paths of moderate grade in all directions and communicating with a large area for seats under trees were laid out, so as to leave lawn spaces of ample extent and suave contours framed in plantings of trees and shrubbery. The most beautiful of these lawns was made by filling in the excavation made in 1900 for a playground. It was then believed that a playground was essential for the Park, but, subsequent experience having shown that no use to which it was likely to be put could justify the existence of so ugly an hiatus in the Park, it was filled in, proving to be a most useful and economical place for the reception of superfluous earth and rocks, it being the belief of the Commissioners that it is a mistake to try to crowd all the uses of a large park into a small one. Some other piece or ground, with areas of level surface and sufficient size for the sports of boys and girls, should be set apart for their use, so that the noise of their games mav not disturb those who come to seek quiet in the Park. No more useful gift to the city than such a piece of ground could be made by a wealthy philanthropist. A carriage entrance from the highest point of Nepperhan Terrace has been made to and around the house. In the front of the building the ground has been shaped for a garden of the old–fashioned rectangular type, to harmonize with the house, with box–edged beds to be filled in summer with gay flowers to make a spot of brilliant color contrast with the quiet greens of lawn and foliage. The grades of the ground and the lines of road and path in this Park have been so altered that the old Nisbet property is almost unrecognizable. No change from its former condition is so great as that along Broadway. The old wall on the property line supporting a sloping bank of grass, repellent to the eye and admitting no view into the grounds, has been removed and the ground graded back to expose the natural rocks supplemented with boulders dug up in the various excavations, all to serve as a support for the bank with its coverings of vines and shrubbery. The materials of this wall have been removed to Irving Park, there to be used to build the retaining wall called for by the plans of the landscape architect. The greater part of the work done this year has been carried out under the designs and supervision of Mr. H. A. Caparn, Landscape Architect.