Brooklyn · Kings County
Prospect Park Lake
NYC Parks
- Location
- Prospect Park, eastern shore accessible from Ocean Avenue entrances
- Size
- 60 (within 526-acre Prospect Park) acres
- Hours
- Prospect Park hours
- Type
- NYC Parks
Prospect Park Lake is Brooklyn's only lake, a 60-acre body of water at the southern end of Prospect Park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux as the centerpiece of their masterwork. Pedal boats can be rented at the LeFrak Center.
The lake supports a remarkably diverse ecosystem for an urban water body, including largemouth bass, painted turtles, snapping turtles, wood ducks, night herons, and great egrets. The lake's islands provide protected nesting habitat for colonial waterbirds.
The Prospect Park Boathouse on the Lullwater, a sheltered arm of the lake, is one of the finest Beaux-Arts park buildings in the city. The Audubon Center within the boathouse is the nation's first urban Audubon education center.
Olmsted and Vaux designed the lake to appear much larger than its actual size by using curving shorelines, islands, and planted peninsulas to prevent visitors from seeing the entire water body at once, creating an illusion of wilderness.
Prospect Park Lake demonstrates Olmsted and Vaux's genius for creating landscapes that feel natural but are entirely designed, a 60-acre illusion of wild nature in the heart of Brooklyn.