Grand Army Plaza

Grand Army Plaza is an 14.26-acre elliptical plaza at the main entrance to Prospect Park, where Flatbush Avenue, Eastern Parkway, and Prospect Park West converge. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux as the ceremonial gateway to their Brooklyn masterwork, the plaza is one of the grandest civic spaces in the United States.

The plaza's centerpiece is the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch, an 80-foot triumphal arch completed in 1892 that honors the Union forces who fought in the Civil War. Modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the arch is crowned by a dramatic bronze sculptural group depicting a quadriga (four-horse chariot) driven by a winged figure of Columbia.

The plaza also features the Bailey Fountain, a grand sculptural fountain depicting Neptune and Triton surrounded by allegorical figures representing Wisdom and Felicity. The fountain, created by sculptor Eugene Savage, was dedicated in 1932 and is one of the most photographed landmarks in Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn Public Library's Central Branch, a monumental Art Deco building completed in 1941, faces the plaza from its eastern edge. The library's gilded entrance screens and limestone facade create a powerful architectural presence that complements the civic grandeur of the plaza itself.

Grand Army Plaza hosts a popular Saturday farmers market, the largest in Brooklyn, operated by GrowNYC. The market draws shoppers from across the borough for seasonal produce, artisanal foods, and baked goods, and has become a beloved community institution.

Grand Army Plaza is to Brooklyn what the Arc de Triomphe is to Paris: a monumental civic space that announces the significance of what lies beyond. Olmsted and Vaux intended the plaza to prepare visitors for the pastoral experience of Prospect Park, and the transition from urban grandeur to naturalistic landscape remains one of the great spatial sequences in American urban design.