Prospect Park

Prospect Park is a 526-acre urban park in central Brooklyn, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and completed in 1873. Olmsted considered Prospect Park his masterpiece, superior even to Central Park, and many landscape historians agree: the park's flowing meadows, dense woodlands, winding waterways, and seamless topography represent the pinnacle of 19th-century American park design.

The park's Long Meadow, a mile-long sweep of open grassland that is the longest unbroken meadow in any urban park in the United States, exemplifies Olmsted's belief that vast pastoral landscapes provide the most effective psychological relief from urban stress. The meadow's gentle undulations and framing treeline create an illusion of infinite space within the bounded park.

Prospect Park Lake, a 60-acre man-made lake at the park's southern end, supports populations of turtles, fish, herons, egrets, and over 250 species of birds recorded within the park. The Ravine, a forested gorge along a tumbling stream, is the only remaining forest in Brooklyn and one of the most naturalistic landscapes in any American urban park.

The park's facilities include the Prospect Park Zoo, the LeFrak Center at Lakeside (an ice skating and roller skating facility), the Audubon Center and Boathouse, Prospect Park Bandshell (hosting the annual Celebrate Brooklyn! performing arts festival), multiple playgrounds, athletic fields, tennis courts, and a network of bridle paths, pedestrian walks, and cycling routes.

The Prospect Park Alliance, a nonprofit conservancy, manages the park in partnership with NYC Parks, raising private funds to supplement city investment in maintenance, restoration, and programming. The Alliance has overseen major restoration projects including the revival of the Ravine's stream ecology, the restoration of the park's rustic shelters, and the creation of new nature education programs.

Prospect Park serves as Brooklyn's Central Park, but many Brooklynites would argue it surpasses its Manhattan counterpart in design quality, natural beauty, and community spirit. The park's meadows, woods, and waterways provide daily respite for millions of Brooklyn residents, fulfilling Olmsted's vision of the urban park as a great democratic equalizer where all citizens share in the beauty of the natural world.