THE WORLDS FAIR. THE ADVANTAGES OF PROSPECT PARK AS A SITE.






<PRE>
Brooklyn Union Argus - June 2, 1879
<!--<img src="/Image/News/Prospect.jpg">
We publish the above map which shows at a glance the great advantages as a 
location possessed by what is now spoken of as the Prospect Park site for the 
proposed World's Fair of 1883.  Concentric lines on a scale of two miles 
apart show the distances of four proposed sites from the common centre of the 
New York Post Office and City Hall; from which it will be seen that the site 
alongside of Central Park, the one at Carmanville, and the one at Port 
Morris, are respectively, five, eight and nine miles distant, while the 
entrance to Prospect Park is only a little over three miles; and that by 
rapid transit over the Brooklyn Bridge and Elevated Roads, which will be in 
operation in Brooklyn long before 1883, passengers will be carried from the 
heart of New York, that is, from any point below Madison Square, to the 
Exhibition Grounds - should the Prospect Park site be selected - in from 
fifteen to twenty-five minutes.  
The map further shows the unparalleled advantages possessed by Brooklyn's 
extended waterfront, but only indicates some of the dozen converging 
lines of street railroad which take up passengers from as many ferries 
and populous districts, and carry them to or very near the gates of the park.  -->

Before 1883 it is believed that seven rapid steam roads will be in operation.  
Three are in operation now.  The Brooklyn, 
Flatbush and Coney Island Road, popularly known as the Brighton Beach Road, 
runs from Hunter's Point ferries direct to the park, and the Manhattan Beach 
Company runs one branch from Greenpoint and another from Bay Ridge directly 
to the Prospect Park gates.  The map also shows several lines of railroad 
which pass by Prospect Park direct to Coney Island.  The advantages of the 
Prospect Park site are these:  

	First - 
Ample extent of grounds.  

	Second - 
These grounds are already graded, drained, provided with abundance of the 
purest water, beautifully planted and adorned, and from many points, and 
especially from Mount Prospect, presents the finest views of harbor, bay, 
rivers, islands, cities, mountains and ocean which can possibly be found in 
this vicinity. 
 
	Third - 
Its accessibility, as we have shown, will be unequaled.  

	Fourth - 
No site in the two cities can possibly equal this for 
healthfulness; it is on the highest ground in the two cities; the natural 
drainage excellent, and it is swept every day by the pure ocean breezes.  
Remembering the deaths which afflicted the country from malaria contacted 
at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, the healthfulness of this 
site must be very important argument in its favor.  

	Fifth - 
In consequence of the elevation of this site, and the cool winds which 
visit it from the ocean it is cooler by several degrees than any other 
part of the two cities.  This fact, and the further fact, that Coney 
Island and the Atlantic Ocean would be only fifteen minutes distant from 
the gates of the exhibition, would insure the success of the World's Fair 
in the three hot months of July, August and September.  Country people 
will not crowd into the hot city of New York in those three months if the 
exhibition is there, but if they knew that after spending six or eight 
hours in the fair, on the highest ground, fanned by cool ocean breezes, 
they could afterwards, in ten or twelve minutes, be at 
the ocean side, plunge in the surf and for a few hours gather health, 
strength, and pleasure amid the gay throngs around them, there need be no 
shadow of doubt in any mind that the World's Fair of 1883 would be crowded 
throughout the summer months, as well as in the spring and fall.

	And herein New York merchants and hotel keepers who are sagacious, will see 
their own profit; what they should want is such a reputation for the fair and 
for the site of the fair as well draw the whole country in a steady stream 
during the whole time the Fair is open.  This is what will fill New York with 
buyers and the hotels with lodgers - and even though Brooklyn should, as she 
no doubt will, derive pecuniary advantage, it will all flow back to New York. 
 
	For does not Brooklyn buy everything she wears and everything she eats, even 
her vegetables, in New York?  She buys in that city absolutely everything, so 
that every dollar spent in Brooklyn by visitors would be used within a week 
to buy merchandise in New York.  So it may truthfully be said that if the 
Prospect Park site, Coney Island and the ocean will draw visitors in July, 
August and September who would not dare to come if the site is in hot New 
York, then the interests of the New York hotels and merchants will coincide 
with the interests of Brooklyn, and the Prospect Park site will be approved.

Transcriber: Nadine Demczyszyn
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