2025 Year in Review
2025 has been a banner year for Brooklyn’s Backyard, from restoring the iconic Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch, to hosting our first Lenape Pow Wow, launching a formal nature trail system, revitalizing the LeFrak Center at Lakeside, and receiving a transformative endowment gift to support our care of the park’s 350 acres of natural areas. It has been a year of many achievements, thanks to your support. Supporting our city’s open spaces has never been so vital, and we are thankful to all who have visited the park’s meadows, woodlands, playgrounds and playing fields, attended our public programs, volunteered your time, made a donation, and advocated for essential funding.
Check out our 2025 Year in Review to view all that your support makes possible:
Caring for Brooklyn Nature
This year the Alliance received the Shelby White Leon Levy Woodlands Endowment, a transformative $10 million gift which supports the expansion of our Landscape Management team and our care of the park’s 350 acres of natural areas. Always innovative, the Alliance implemented new strategies to help sustain our natural areas, including Brooklyn’s only lake, last remaining forest and 30,000+ trees. We began restoration of the site devastated by the 2024 fire in our woodland Ravine; and launched the park’s first formal nature trail system, inviting our community to explore five scenic woodland routes while supporting our environment. We deployed new techniques to enrich the park’s soil and help landscapes thrive, and planted 17,349 native trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants of 95 different native species. Lastly, we joined the fourth annual City of Forest Day, a city-wide initiative to steward our city’s urban forest.
Sustaining the Park
Through Re:New Prospect Park, the Alliance dedicates private funding for work traditionally undertaken by the City due to budget constraints. We restored the Lullwater Viewing Platform, a beloved view of Brooklyn’s only Lake near the Boathouse; renovated Picnic House and Harmony Playground restrooms, and supplemented the City’s trash management through a partnership with ACE New York, which provided additional cleaning crews in peak season. In addition, the Alliance relies on our community of dedicated volunteers who work alongside our professional staff. In 2025, 2,099 volunteers helped sustain our park, dedicating 16,093 hours of service, removing 632 bags of litter and planting 10,960 native plants. Our community also helped Prospect Park thrive by pledging to Be a Park Champion: carrying out litter, keeping pets leashed and staying on paths and learning about park stewardship.
Advancing the Park
This year, the Alliance embarked on many improvements to enhance visitor experience. We cut the ribbon on the restored Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch, which received the Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award, the City’s highest honor in the field. We presented to the community the design of a new pavilion that will complement the monument to Shirley Chisholm coming to the park in 2026, and finalized the designs for the Lincoln Road and Third Street Playground restorations. We relaunched the LeFrak Center at Lakeside, with a new and improved visitor experience, including site renovations, hiring our first LeFrak Center Director, and new operators for the rinks and cafe. We brought new food carts to the park from local cafes Poetica Coffee and Hibiscus Brew. We look forward to soon breaking ground on the restoration of the Ocean and Parkside Avenue perimeter, as well as the Vale in the northeast corner of the park.
Engaging the Community
At the heart of our work is deepening our community’s connections in the park. Through our public programming at Lefferts Historic House and nature education programs at the Audubon Center, we engaged 70,091 community members. A highlight of our season was the historic Second United Lenape Pow Wow, the first pow wow in the park since the 1970s and the second ever in New York specific to Lenape nations. We welcomed a new installation, Monuments to Motherhood, and performances with The Public Theater and Moliere in the Park. We furthered our impact on Brooklyn’s health through new initiatives, including a NewYork-Presbyterian mobile medical unit, and a DOE Summer Meals truck. Additionally, we offered a range of free programs including yoga, meditation, stroller and wellness walks, and programs with Outdoor Afro, NYC Bird Alliance, the Brooklyn Community Pride Center and the Bangladeshi Ladies Club.
We thank you for your support this year and invite you to make a resolution to stay involved in the coming year—make a donation to the Alliance, volunteer in the park or join an upcoming event. There are many ways to make a difference in your park.