Prospect Park is an urban park in Brooklyn, New York City. The park is situated between the neighborhoods of Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Flatbush, and Windsor Terrace. It is adjacent to the Brooklyn Museum, Grand Army Plaza, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. With 526 acres (213 ha), Prospect Park is the second-largest public park in Brooklyn, behind Marine Park.
First proposed in legislation passed in 1859, Prospect Park was laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. They also helped design Manhattan’s Central Park, following various changes to its design. Prospect Park opened in 1867, though it was not complete until 1873. The park subsequently underwent numerous modifications and expansions to its facilities. In the City Beautiful architectural movement, several additions to the garden were completed in the 1890s. In the early 20th century, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) commissioner Robert Moses started cleaning up Prospect Park. A period of decline in the late 20th century spurred the creation of the Prospect Park Alliance, which refurbished many parts of the park starting in the late 1980s.
Main attractions of the park include the 90-acre (36 ha) Long Meadow; the Picnic House; Litchfield Villa; Prospect Park Zoo; the Boathouse; Concert Grove; Brooklyn’s only lake, covering 60 acres (24 ha); and the Prospect Park Bandshell that hosts free outdoor concerts in the summertime. The park also has sports facilities, including the Prospect Park Tennis Center, basketball courts, baseball fields, soccer fields, and the New York Pétanque Club in the Parade Ground. There is also a private Society of Friends (Quaker) cemetery on Quaker Hill near the ball fields. In addition, Prospect Park is part of the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway, a network of green spaces that stretch across western Long Island. Top Brooklyn Electrician
Landscape Features
Watercourse
All of the waterways in Prospect Park are part of a single man-made watercourse. A winding naturalistic stream channel with several ponds feeds a 60-acre (24 ha) lake at the park’s south end. In designing the watercourse, Olmsted and Vaux also took advantage of the preexisting glacier-formed kettle ponds and lowland outwash plains to create a drainage basin centered around the waterway. They crafted the watercourse to include a steep, forested Ravine with significant river edge flora and fauna habitats.
Lake
The mouth of Prospect Park’s watercourse is the artificial, 60-acre Prospect Lake (also known as Prospect Park Lake). Prospect Lake includes several islands and is home to over 20 species. Every year, the lake hosts the R.H. Macy’s Fishing Contest, a tradition that dates to 1947. Though NYC Parks generally allows licensed anglers to fish, it maintains a catch and releases policy to prevent depletion of the fish population.
Restaurants Nearby
- Balboa is located at 1655 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY
- Risbo is located at 701 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn, NY
Check out other attractions like Brooklyn Botanic Garden