for residents of the area (then considered part of Bay Ridge and South Brooklyn), and its initial users were mostly Polish and Scandinavian immigrants who had arrived within the last two decades. However, development of the park was precluded by its irregular topography. By 1893, the city of Brooklyn decided to expand Sunset Park southward. A New York Times article that year observed that the park lacked amenities and was situated on high bluffs that could only be reached by ladders. Furthermore, the article stated that it would cost at least $500,000 to improve the park. In 1899, the city of New York constructed a six-hole golf course in Sunset Park, and started some other improvements such as installing retaining walls. Even so, the Eagle observed that the park was still lacking basic amenities such as benches or drinking fountains. The park was expanded southward to 44th Street in 1904. Other features added in the first decade of the 20th century included a new landscaping, a pond, a Neoclassical rustic shelter, and a carousel. Concerts started being held by 1906, and a grand staircase to Fifth Avenue was completed by 1910. The surrounding neighborhood, south of Green-Wood Cemetery and east of Fourth Avenue, was mostly undeveloped at the time. After the Fifth Avenue elevated line was extended south from 36th Street to 65th Street on October 1, 1893, development came rapidly. Residential construction boomed in the late 19th and early 20th century amid real estate speculation initiated by the construction of the park and the Fifth Avenue elevated line and, by 1909, there was significant development surrounding the park. With the news that the New York City Subway's Fourth Avenue Line would constructed in the area, two-story houses were constructed on the south side of Sunset Park. Two-story houses were the most common housing stock in this part of South Brooklyn at the time; the Eagle said that two-family houses were "particularly attractive to people who desire comparatively small apartments, but who object to living in flats, and they appeal to this class on account of their being more quiet, and possibly, more exclusive." The Fourth Avenue subway opened to 59th Street in 1915, further spurring the growth of the surrounding neighborhood as a low-rise middle-class area, and in particular the Finnish enclave directly south of the park. Works Progress Administration renovation In 1934, mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia nominated