attitude of the people, and in a little brochure on the subject printed recently by the Chamber of Commerce of Washington, the change is ascribed to the fact that "it is only in recent years that travel, culture and leisure have again called the attention of our people to the pleasure and cultivation to be derived from beautiful surroundings." It also calls attention to the fact that in this movement, which is spreading to all parts of the country," Culture and Business go hand in hand; and while Culture is striving to attain the ideal in the elevation and refinement of life, Business has been quick to appreciate the monetary value of beauty."

One of the evidences of the growth of this movement is to be found in the abundance of literature now printed on this subject. Another is in the number of men who have made thorough studies of city and village improvement, and who can be called in consultation professionally on these subjects of vital importance to every community.

The magnitude of the movement is further indicated by the fact that at the present time, the cities of Hartford, New Haven, Rochester, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans, St. Paul, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle have taken active steps to procure a systematic and artistic growth.

Nor is the movement confined to the United States. London has spent and is spending millions of pounds on the Victoria Memorial, which was recently dedicated, with elaborate approaches, formal parks, and architectural environments, and in cutting new streets and widening old ones. Paris, not content with the expenditure of $175,000,000 under Baron Haussman, is thinking of spending $236,000,000 on new artistic improvements. Rome, Berlin, Vienna, and other continental cities, which have given more thought to these subjects in the past than we Americans and to which we turn for so many of our ideas, are taking steps still further in advance by spending great sums on municipal beautification.

City Planning "Pays."

And when we realize that even Australia, Japan and Johannesburg in South Africa have Commissions or individuals working out for them schemes for the artistic growth of their cities, it is

apparent that the City of New York must bestir itself to keep pace with other communities in civic development. These communities know not only that these improvements satisfy a something in their natures which nothing else satisfies, but they also know that from the standpoint of a business investment," it pays." Provident city planning "pays" in three ways:

First, it makes a city more attractive and increases the value of real estate.

Second, it makes intelligent calculation of future needs and prevents expensive mistakes like those alluded to on page 114.

And third, it acquires property for municipal needs when there is liberty of choice and property can be bought at reasonable prices. One needs no more striking instance of the folly of procrastination than that afforded by the delay in the choice of a site for the New York County Court House. This was well expressed by Col. Henry W. Sackett, Chairman of our County Court House Committee in these words in the New York Tribune in January, 1912:

*

"Apparently the only threatened danger to the success of the New Court House Plan recommended by the Board of Estimate's sub-committee is the same one that has blocked the progress of similar efforts in the past. This is the raising of a misleading cry prompted by a false and shortsighted economy. The surprising part of it is that this cry should come now, as in previous instances, from those from whom, instead of opposition, sturdy furtherance might fairly have been expected.

"It was some sixteen or seventeen years ago that civic societies and men of disinterested public spirit, like Andrew H. Green, were urging the City officials to acquire not only the ground on which the new Municipal Building is being erected, but also the entire block north of City Hall Park on Chambers street from Center street to Broadway for the site of the Court House and other municipal buildings.

"All of the land could then have been purchased for a small part of its present value and for a sum that all would now recognize as a small burden for the City to assume. But so urgent and vehement were the protests made by the representatives of timid and unwise taxpayers that the project was postponed again and again, while the market value of the property was rapidly climbing higher.

* Our County Court House Committee consisted of Col. Henry W. Sackett, Hon. Charles A. Spofford and the Secretary.

"When the City did finally purchase the site of the Municipal Building it paid a heavy penalty for its delay. The value of the Chambers street property in the meantime has become so great as to compel the selection of a different location for the County Court House. The mischief caused by previous mistakes may now, however, be largely remedied if the City officials are cordially aided, instead of obstructed, in carrying out their present great project."

COLLECT POND SITE, NEW YORK CITY.
Origin of Name.

Allusion has been made on page 111 preceding to the objection. to the site selected for the new County Court House and Civic Center which was offered on account of the nature of the ground. The reason for this objection is that the site covers part of the site of the now obsolete body of fresh water known as the Fresh Water or Collect Pond. The origin commonly assigned to the name of Collect Pond is erroneous. D. T. Valentine, in his Corporation Manual for 1860, referring to the heaps of shell which the Indians are said to have left on the western slopes of the pond, says that they "gave to that promontory in early times the Dutch name of Kalchhook,' or, as translated, Lime-Shell Point.'" Valuable as Valentine's Manuals are, his Dutch is extremely unreliable, as appears, for instance, in his Dutch version of the Hymn to St. Nicholas in the Manual for 1851, which contains no less. than six errors in spelling. In old Dutch the name for the Collect Pond was the Kolch. From careless writing or careless reading of manuscript the word is frequently printed Kalch, which, perhaps, accounts for the erroneous translation. The word Kolch, spelled Kolk in modern Dutch, has two or three meanings, all relating to water. There are Kolks in Rotterdam, Delft and Delfshaven. These Kolks are parts of canals-long locks, or chambers between sluiceways. Aelbrecht's Kolk in Delfshaven has an historical interest for Americans, as it was the point of departure of the Pilgrims. Originally, however, the word kolk signifies an excavation filled by water caused by the inrush through a broken dike. From this it came to be applied to any pond or small lake, varying from a few yards to a mile or more in width. The kolks of Holland, in the latter sense of the term, are favorite resorts for fishing and for duck hunting in season. It is in this meaning of

the word that we find the perfectly natural origin of the name of our kolk on Manhattan Island, for it was just such a lake as the Dutch pioneers had at home. That it abounded in fish we have evidence in the law of 1734 forbidding, under penalty of a fine of 20s. for every offense, the use of "any hoop net, draw net, purse net, cod net, bley net, or any other net or nets whatsoever" in catching fish in the pond. And that there was good hunting on and round the pond in season we are assured from the knowledge of the game which abounded in the meadows (later called the Lispenard Meadows) on the west side of the pond and which continued even within the memory of the late Charles H. Haswell, author of "Reminiscences of an Octogenarian." From the name Kolk, the adjacent point or hook of land on the west side was called the Kolch Hoek or Kolk Hook. On the erroneous lime-shell theory of the name, this has sometimes been rendered as Chalk Hook. To say that "Kolk Hook Pond" derived its name from the hook is to put the cart before the horse; and to speak of the "Kolk Pond " is a redundancy of which, however, we have many instances in the conversion of Dutch names, as, for instances, Peeks-kill Creek. The transformation of the Dutch Kolk into the English Collect was very easy, for a native Hollander pronounces Kolk as if it had two syllables, Kol-luk, just as he pronounces Delft Del-luft. The anglicized name, Collect, seems to have been prophetic. The pond eventually became such a depository of refuse as to warrant not only the spelling Collect but also the accentuation of the last instead of the first syllable, for in the course of time it collected all the rubbish of the neighborhood. Near Old Haarlem, in Holland, is a place called Kolkje (meaning little Kolk) which was once a small lake but which has been filled up and is now used for a children's playground. The Kolk on Manhattan Island was also called by the Dutch Versch Water, which was literally translated by the English into Fresh Water.

Boundaries of the Pond.

The site of the Collect Pond is enclosed within an irregular line, beginning at the intersection of Lafayette, Center and Park streets, and following approximately Park street to Baxter street, Baxter to White, White to Lafayette, and Lafayette to the point

of beginning. The bend in the line of Baxter street near Leonard street and in Mulberry and Mott streets parallel with Baxter on the east is due to following the old Collect Pond shore line. Hence the origin of the name "Mulberry Bend." Just north of the present Pearl street the pond was contracted by a tongue of land dividing the pond into two unequal parts. The portion south of Pearl street was sometimes called the Little Collect Pond. Upon the neck of land between the two portions of the pond a powder magazine was built in 1728, and when Pearl street was first opened at this point it was called Magazine street. The principal outlet of the pond began near the Junction of Worth street, Park street and Baxter street, and flowed southeastward approximately along the line of Baxter street and Roosevelt street to the East River. It was called Old Wreck Brook. The bridge over it at what is now Park Row was one of the Kissing Bridges of the Colonial Period. Another outlet flowed northwestward from near White and Lafayette streets to Canal street and followed the line of Canal street to the Hudson River. The pond and both outlets were bordered by marshes. Those to the westward of the pond and northern outlet were very extensive and were long known as the Lispenard Meadows. [See plate 16.]

The Pond a Famous Landmark.

The Collect Pond was a famous landmark on Manhattan Island, and is frequently mentioned under one or another of its names in the Dutch and English records. For instance, in the minutes of the Court of Burgomasters, etc., of New Amsterdam, we find allusions to some one " residing beyond the Fresh Water" (1655), or to someone else who "brought a horse to the Fresh Water" (1655), or to "a parcel of land lying within the public enclosure near the valley beyond the Fresh Water" (1656), or to the regulation that "no Indians are to be harbored at night between the Fort and the Fresh Water," (1656) etc. And the English records are full of allusions to the Fresh Water and the Collect Pond.

If we were to adopt the opinion of the distinguished historian John Fiske, we should believe that the pond was indicated as the site of Norumbega as early as the middle of the sixteenth century. In this opinion we do not concur, but as a matter of curiosity quote from his "Dutch and Quaker Colonies" on this