These parks have been called the lungs of London, and so important are they regarded to the public health and the happiness of the people, that I believe a proposal to dispense with some part of their extent, and cover it with streets and houses, would be regarded in much the same manner as a proposal to hang every tenth man in London....
The population of your city, increasing with such prodigious rapidity; your sultry summers, and the corrupt atmosphere generated in hot and crowded streets, make it a cause of regret that in laying out New York, no preparation was made, while it was yet practicable, for a range of parks and public gardens along the central part of the island or elsewhere, to remain perpetually for the refreshment and recreation of the citizens during the torrid heats of the warm season. There are yet unoccupied lands on the island which might, I suppose, be procured for the purpose, and which, on account of their rocky and uneven surface, might be laid out into surpassingly beautiful pleasure-grounds; but while we are discussing the subject the advancing population of the city is sweeping over them and covering them from our reach.
The _Evening Post_ repeatedly pressed the park project. Its editors had the more faith in it, they said, because while New Yorkers were somewhat slow in adopting plain and homely reforms, they were likely to engage eagerly in any scheme which wore an air of magnificence. They wouldn’t take the trouble to keep the streets clean, but they would spend millions to bring a river into the city through the Croton aqueduct, forty miles long. They wouldn’t sweep Broadway, but they would cover Blackwell’s Island with stately buildings, some of them not needed. Bryant had in this way prepared the ground when Downing, in 1849, also writing from London and using many of Bryant’s arguments, published his appeal in the _Horticulturist_. Downing, like the poet, had no clear or fixed idea of the limits that should be assigned the new park. The fundamental requirements, he said, were that it should be just above the limits of building, should be spacious, and should be reserved while the land was yet easily obtainable. Downing’s letter, followed in 1850 by an admirable series of articles, attracted much attention. But thanks chiefly to Bryant, the subject was now familiar to all interested in city improvement. In 1850 Fernando Wood ran for Mayor against Ambrose C. Kingsland, and both warmly advocated the establishment of a park. Kingsland, who was supported by the _Evening Post_, was elected, and on May 5, 1851, sent the Common Council a message recommending “the purchase and laying out of a park on a scale which will be worthy of the city,” but not indicating a definite site.