Machate Circle, unknown date. Originally, this area of land surrounding Prospect Park’s entrance was known as Park Circle. It was renamed Machate Circle in 1989 to honor the life and service of anti-crime officer, Robert Machate, who was shot and killed in pursuit of a suspect in March of that year. Similar to the other park entrances, Machate Circle is part of a greater architectural narrative. It exemplifies the intent of park architects, Olmsted and Vaux, who designed the circle to be space of transition between the busy city and the bucolic escape offered by the park.

Storefronts on the north side of Fort Hamilton Parkway, west of East 4th Street; December 15, 1958.

"Horse Tamers", ca. 1975 This statue, titled "Horse Tamers," adorns the entrance to Prospect Park, representing the power of the mind over that of brute strength. The statue was created by Frederick MacMonnies, whose work can be seen all over the city. MacMonnies reportedly made plaster molds of live horses for this statue, to make it as realistic as possible. "Horse Tamers" was commissioned in 1894 and unveiled in 1899. It was one a few new sculptural works installed in and around the park in the 1890s, under the planning and direction of architect Stanford White. "Horse Tamers" did not have an easy journey to its current home, however. From MacMonnies' home in Giverny, France, where he lived in an artist's colony, a section of the bronze statue was damaged while shipping, then lost during a shipwreck. It was recovered and reworked by the artist before being dedicated in 1899.

Public School 130, ca. 1930. Constructed circa 1903, Public School 130, also called the Parkside School, was constructed during the planning and building of a spate of outer borough schools. At the start of the 20th century tens of thousands of New York school children were only receiving part-time education due to the lack of appropriate educational spaces. P.S 130 was constructed to provide full time schooling to the local neighborhood.

FDNY Engine 240 ARCHITECT: Peter J. Lauritzen DATE: 1895 STYLE: Romanesque Revival The Firehouse for Engine Company 40/Hook & Ladder Company 21 was built in 1895 as part of a campaign by Brooklyn Fire Commissioner Frederick W. Wurster to replace the old firehouses housing the volunteer fire companies in Brooklyn’s recently annexed districts with new up-to-date buildings suitable for modern equipment and full-time paid professional staff. This building was designed by the noted architect Peter J. Lauritzen. It is one of eight firehouses he designed for the Brooklyn Fire Department between 1894 and 1897 and is his finest in the Romanesque Revival Style, a style favored for Brooklyn firehouses of the period. The building’s imposing limestone and brick façade features an asymmetrical design, with a rusticated limestone ground story, round corner turret richly decorated with Romanesque motifs, a broad tripartite round arched window set off by a drip molding with label stops, a flat-arched double-window flanked by colonnettes, an elaborate arched cornice, and an asymmetric parapet.

453-457 Coney Island Avenue, 1961. These three storefronts, with their excellently appropriate mid century signage, now have different businesses and signs. Today the cornices of the buildings have also been painted a bit more colorfully than seen in this image.

Stretching from the southwest entrance of Prospect Park to the ocean shore of Coney Island, Ocean Parkway spans just under five miles across the borough of Brooklyn. In 1894, the parkway became New York City’s first dedicated bicycle path, and the very first in the United States!

Grocery at the northeast corner of Fort Hamilton Parkway and East 3rd Street, December 15, 1958.