Highlights from the Bob Levine Collection
February 18, 2019
You may recognize from past Throwback Thursdays that many of Prospect Park Alliance’s archival materials come from one person: Bob Levine. His collection spans more than a century of Brooklyn’s Backyard and includes thousands of archived postcards, photographs, maps and drawings of the park. But who is this collector extraordinaire?
Take a look at some of the highlights of the collection, selected by Bob Levine himself.
A Brooklyn native and Prospect Park enthusiast, Levine has, in his own words “circled Prospect Park.” He grew up on Ocean Parkway, lived as a young man along Ocean Avenue and is now settled in Park Slope. “I always loved nature,” says Levine of his connection to the park, “it just felt like a natural draw.” As a child in the 1960s, he played little league at the Parade Ground and explored the park’s vast nature trails. When, in his teens, he developed an affinity for collecting remnants of the past, it was only natural that Prospect Park was a subject he gravitated towards.
Levine initially made a connection with Prospect Park Alliance in the 1990s. At the time, he ran a program that helped autistic members of community find work. The Alliance had a call out for volunteers, and Levine and his group helped clean the Lake. Levine then made a connection with Alliance archivist Amy Peck to share his bounty of archival findings.
Today, Levine is still actively adding to his collection of Prospect Park historic materials, and much to the delight of Prospect Park Alliance and the park community, still contributing to the Prospect Park Archives.