Prospect Park Alliance Archives

Growth of Brooklyn and Plans for Prospect Park

In the 18th century, Brooklyn was one of six villages dotting the western end of Long Island.  In 1814 Robert Fulton’s ferry service contributed to the expansion of East River commerce and linked the growing town with its neighbor and competitor, New York City.  Chartered in 1834,  Brooklyn became the new nation’s third largest city within thirty years. The resulting crowds and unsanitary conditions prompted the first American attempts at urban planning, with public green space seen as a health necessity more than an aesthetic one.  At the same time, new concepts concerning the role of public parks in America were gaining popularity. In 1858, designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux completed Central Park in Manhattan. Soon a movement grew in Brooklyn for a park of its own. James T. Stranahan, a business and civic leader, spearheaded the endeavor as head of the Brooklyn Parks Commissioners, overseeing the Park’s creation from inception to completion.  In the early 1860s, Stranahan argued that a park in Brooklyn “would become a favorite resort for all classes of our community, enabling thousands to enjoy pure air, with healthful exercise, at all seasons of the year…”

Photo Credit: View of site chosen for Prospect Park. First Annual Report of the Commissioners of Prospect Park, 1861.

Prospect Park Alliance is the non-profit organization that sustains the Park in partnership with the City of New York. We provide the majority of the staff and resources that keeps the Park green and vibrant. In this slideshow, learn about the origins and work of the Alliace.

1970s

New York City was in the midst of a fiscal crisis and Prospect Park was serious disrepair, with only two million visits a year in 1979—the lowest number in Park history. A group of concerned citizens began lobbying for localized stewardship of the Park, leading to the appointment of Tupper Thomas as the first Prospect Park Administrator in 1980. 

Over the Park's 150-year history, much of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's vision for the Park has been mantained. While the fields, forest and lake of Prospect Park remain, many of the Park's original structures are lost to history. 

The Dairy

The Dairy, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux as part of the original design of the Park, was located on Sullivan Hill, just across from the Long Meadow. This cozy farmhouse attracted Park picnickers who stopped by to purchase sandwiches and glasses of fresh milk provided by the half-dozen cows that grazed on Long Meadow grasses. Pre-pasteurization, fresh milk was a near-delicacy for Brooklyn residents, accustomed to a gray, watery variety of milk produced by most city cows. In 1935, the Dairy, in disrepair, was removed by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses.

Ever enjoyed the shade of a tree on a summer’s day in Prospect Park, or marveled at the beauty of the springtime cherry blossoms or colorful fall foliage?

Essential to the character of the Park, the trees that occupy these 585 acres and the areas they inhabit were no accident. As part of his sweeping vision for the Park, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was deliberate in his planning for the trees in Prospect Park.

When Prospect Park opened to the public in 1867, it instantly became a beloved destination for millions of visitors. Hundreds of postcards featuring the Park were produced and sent, accompanied by handwritten messages—often on the front of the card, as was the custom in that era. Each of these cards is a time capsule of 19th-century life. Here, read a few of the postcards collected in the Prospect Park Archives.

“This is where Minnie plays tennis from Decoration Day to Thanksgiving. Perhaps she is even in this picture.” 1905

Summer is synonymous with picnics in Prospect Park, and our visitors can be seen laying out blankets and busting out a healthy spread, much as they have done for the 150-year history of the Park. Prospect Park Alliance is paying tribute to the occasion with a history of picnicking in the Park—a time-honored Brooklyn tradition, and a luxury not afforded to 19th century visitors of Central Park.

Excerpted from Prospect Park: Olmsted & Vaux's Brooklyn Masterpiece, Princeton Architectural Press, 2013

Since its creation, Prospect Park has attracted visitors looking to bask in the sheer pleasure of the Park. For some, this means enjoying a walk or a picnic, while for others the Park is a place to let loose some energy. A few of the athletic pastimes enjoyed by 19th-century visitors—biking and running—are familiar to us today, while others like lawn tennis, archery and miniature yacht-racing are a stretch of the modern imagination.

In 2016 and 2017, Prospect Park Alliance hired a few seasonal employees—the goats. These goats are not the first domesticated creatures kept in the park by any means.

Sheep
At the turn of the twentieth century, it was common practice to use sheep to maintain grass in urban parks. In Prospect Park, a flock of sheep grazed the Long Meadow, with lambs so tame that they ate from children’s palms. Prospect Park’s flock of sheep was a fixture into the 1930s, and served both aesthetic and practical purposes. As a design element, the sheep lent a fairy-tale air replete with tending shepherds and dogs, while they kept the Long Meadow cropped and fertilized. 

The Parade Ground, a venerated location in Brooklyn baseball history, was originally constructed without baseball in mind. Parade grounds were an important feature in most American communities at the time, and hosted local and state militias for military drills and dress parades which attracted thousands of curious bystanders. 

Around the sport’s inception in the late 1830s and early 1840s, small ball clubs began popping up in Brooklyn, and in July 1846, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle sent journalist and sometime-poet Walt Whitman to cover the sport. He wrote, “In our sun-down perambulations of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing “base,” a certain game of ball. We wish such sights were more common among us… Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs…the game of ball is glorious.”

Image: Currier & Ives

In November 2018, Prospect Park Alliance announced that a monument to Brooklynite Shirley Chisholm will be erected at Prospect Park’s Parkside entrance.

Chisholm was the political trailblazer who was both the first black U.S. Congresswoman and the first woman to seek the Democratic presidential nomination. When it arrives, Chisholm’s monument will join the ranks of Prospect Park’s statuary, with the distinction of being the park’s first to depict a real (not fictional) woman, and the city’s sixth overall. From composers to former U.S. presidents, meet some of the statues already gracing these 585 acres.

On June 13, 2020, thousands of friends and neighbors will gather on the Park’s scenic Peninsula for Prospect Park Soiree. Guests are encouraged to wear their most festive attire, including show-stopping toppers—fabulous hat and headpieces to celebrate Prospect Park. We dug into the Prospect Park Alliance Archives to find some hat inspiration!

At the Centennial celebration in 1966, this reveler makes the case for a simple straw boater.

 While we love a warm-weather wedding, the winter season in Prospect Park can provide the perfect backdrop for the day you say, "I do." 

Summer is synonymous with picnics in Prospect Park, and our visitors can be seen laying out blankets and busting out a healthy spread, much as they have done for the 150-year history of the Park. Prospect Park Alliance is paying tribute to the occasion with a history of picnicking in the Park—a time-honored Brooklyn tradition, and a luxury not afforded to 19th century visitors of Central Park.

Excerpted from Prospect Park: Olmsted & Vaux's Brooklyn Masterpiece, Princeton Architectural Press, 2013