Prospect Park
A Brooklyn park in winter
(Photos/words © urban75, Dec 2006

Prospect Park is a 585 acre public park in Brooklyn, situated between Park Slope, Kensington, Windsor Terrace and Flatbush Avenue, Grand Army Plaza and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Designed by Central Park designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the park opened on October 19, 1867 although landscaping work wasn't completed until 1873.

The park's attractions include a 90-acre Long Meadow - the largest meadow in any U.S. park - a zoo and Brooklyn's only forest and lake.


Creating the park was a huge project, with Olmsted and Vaux moving and planting trees by the score, creating watercourses and shunting topsoil all over the shop in a truly vast landscaping and engineering project.


Once farm land, the Park land was acquired in the nineteenth century for around $4 million by the City of Brooklyn, with the cost of construction adding over $5 million to the total.


Chilling in the park.




Looking out across a meadow.


Stone bridge in the park.


The impressive main entrance to Prospect Park at Grand Army Plaza is dominated by the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch, which looks a bit like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.


The arch serves as a memorial to the fallen sailors and soldiers of the Civil War and was created by John H. Duncan, with the sculptures on top being sorted by Frederick MacMonnies.

The Memorial Arch was built between 1889-92 and cost $250,000 at the time.







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