Long Meadow, Prospect Park, unknown date.

This Italianate mansion, located just inside the entrance at Prospect Park West and 5th Street, was built for Edwin C. Litchfield between 1855 and 1857. A prominent Brooklyn real estate developer and landowner in present-day Park Slope, Litchfield was responsible for the expansion of the Gowanus Canal from a tidal creek into a shipping channel

John Howard Payne Memorial Bust, ca. 1968. Here once stood a statue of John Howard Payne, an American actor and playwright of the mid-19th century. The statue was installed here in 1873 and remained until 1974, when it was relocated to the Home Sweet Home Museum in East Hampton, New York. The Home Sweet Home was Payne's childhood house, now a museum dedicated to the playwright. The name of the museum comes from a popular song written for one of his plays. Payne was born in 1791. He wrote his first play as a teenager, and attended Union College for a time. He left school to begin earning a living. He had his first staring role at the age of 18 and the play was a major success. Payne performed in London, Paris, and New York. Later in life, he became an advocate for Native American rights and served as the American Consul in Tunisia.

Girls celebrate May Day in Prospect Park's Long Meadow, May 1, 1919.

Prospect Park's Long Meadow stretches nearly a mile along the west side of the park. The area is decidedly flat, meant in design to serve as a buffer between the neighborhood west of the park and the park's wilderness-like interior. Olmsted sought to enact a pastoral quality in this portion of the park. Serving fully to meet this need was a resident flock of sheep. They provided entertainment for children, cropped, and fertilized the meadow's lawn, all while invoking the image of a serene and rustic landscape.

50 Prospect Park West, 1972. Financier Henry Hulbert built his grand Romanesque Revival mansion in 1889. Designed by one of Brooklyn's architects to the wealthy, Montrose W. Morris, the mansion was rendered in a gleaming white limestone, unlike the dark red and brown tones of most Romanesque Revival buildings. The home also features a number of telltale Morris features including extensive stained glass, wrought iron, and carved detail. A number of schools and cultural organizations have called the asymmetrical building home since the mid-century. Since 1995 it has been home to the lower school of Poly Prep.

Manual Training School, September 9, 1930. Constructed in 1904 in the classic H-shape that Snyder devised, the Manual Training School is a Renaissance Revival style building. Originally housing a school which filled the niche between a trade school and a technical school, the structure is best known as John Jay High School, which it became in the 1960s. During its time as John Jay, the school earned a reputation as the place the Board of Ed. sent its troubled students. The high school closed in 2003 and has been reopened in the educational complex model of current NYC public high schools in which the building houses a number of smaller, professionally focused schools.

“The corner of Prospect Park West and 9th Street at the entrance to Prospect Park. Two women with a baby carriage are visible to the right and a mailbox and an apartment builidng \[sic] are visible to the left. Ca. 1915." The building at left is no. 138 Prospect Park West. Streetcar tracks turning left at 9th street are part of the Smith Street Line, between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Ninth Avenue Depot at Prospect Park Southwest.

Long Meadow, ca. 1900.

Meadowport Arch, ca. 1870.

The Tennis House, Prospect Park, unknown date. Built by Helmle, Huberty and Hudswell — the same architects who constructed the Prospect Park Boathouse — the Tennis House was constructed in 1910 to provide lawn-sport players with lockers and shelter. While it still stands today on Long Meadow’s west side, it no longer serves the same purpose, having been converted for Park Landscape management.

Lafayette Memorial, unknown date. Marshal Joseph Joeffre of the French War Commission unveils the memorial to the Marquis de Lafayette; May 10, 1917. Daniel Chester French's bronze sculpture, a gift of Henry Harteau, depicts Lafayette, his groom James Armistead Lafayette, and his horse. The memorial's carved dedication omits James Armistead Lafayette, an African American born into slavery in Virginia who later served the Continental Army as a spy during the Revolutionary War. After the war, Lafayette, a staunch abolitionist, interceded to secure Armistead's freedom. In a gesture of appreciation, Armistead adopted the surname Lafayette as a free man.

Meadowport Arch, date unknown. Located along Prospect Park’s West Drive between Union Street and Montgomery Place, Meadowport Archway opens out onto the 75-acre Long Meadow. This Victorian Orientalist double-archway was designed by park architects, Frederick Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, and completed by 1870. The arch has since been landmarked and registered as a National Historic Place. In the 1980s, the arch was restored with its original cedar planking.

Nellie's Lawn, ca. 1890.

Swiss Thatched Cottage, unknown date. This cottage was one of many small rustic shelters with thatched roofs that were once scattered throughout Prospect Park. Constructed in the 1860s by Olmsted and Vaux, the cottage was a popular spot for scenic picnics. The cottage burned down in 1937 and was not rebuilt.

Long Meadow, Prospect Park, ca. 1913.

“Beth Elohim Temple House. Temple exterior, September 16, 1929." Congregation Beth Elohim was founded in 1861 as a Reform breakaway from Congregation Baith Israel, first meeting on Myrtle Avenue, and later worshiping in renovated church buildings on Pearl Street (1862) and State Street (1885). In 1908, the congregation purchased land for a purpose-built and permanent home at the corner of Garfield Place and Eighth Avenue in Park Slope. The Classical Revival synagogue was completed in 1910, with a verse fragment from the Book of Isaiah carved above the sanctuary entrance: “Mine house shall be an house of prayer for all people.”

Family Picnic A family enjoys a picnic, in the shade, on the grass.

Long Meadow, Prospect Park, ca. 1913. Long Meadow was originally called "The Green" when Olmsted and Vaux first developed Prospect Park. The nearly one-mile long stretch of open green space was Prospect Park's main site for lawn tennis and croquet.

Litchfield Villa, unknown date. This stucco mansion, located just inside the entrance at Prospect Park West and 5th Street, was built for Edwin C. Litchfield between 1855 and 1857. A prominent Brooklyn real estate developer and landowner in present-day Park Slope, Litchfield was responsible for the expansion of the Gowanus Canal from a tidal creek into a shipping channel. In 1855, Litchfield hired acclaimed architect Alexander Jackson Davis to construct an Italianate estate for his family. In addition to the hilltop mansion, Davis also built a coach house, greenhouse, and chicken house (none of which remain today). When completed in 1857, the structure was named Grace Hill, after Edwin's wife Grace Hill Hubbard Litchfield. In 1869, the Litchfields reluctantly ceded their home and its grounds to the City of Brooklyn, but were granted permission to lease the property until 1883. Those 50 acres of Litchfield land now constitute over five percent of the park's present acreage. In 1882, Litchfield's Brooklyn Improvement Company — the firm that oversaw the Gowanus Canal project — moved into the former NY & LI Coignet Stone Company building at Third Avenue and 3rd Street (adjacent to the present-day Whole Foods). In 1883, a year after Grace Litchfield's death, Edwin Litchfield moved abroad and his villa was passed on to the City Park Commissioners. The Litchfield Villa, as it is now known, is now the Brooklyn borough headquarters of the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation and also the home of the Prospect Park Alliance.

Litchfield Villa ARCHITECT: A.J. Davis DATE: 1856 STYLE: Italianate This romantic mansion commanding a small hill in Prospect Park is one of the finest “Italian Villa” style houses in the country. Unique in plan, the two irregular shaped towers and a tall slender turret are all attached to the main building and combine to form a picturesque architectural composition. One of the unusual features of this mansion is to be found in tops of the columns of the colonnade in which the Classical decorations are replaced by our native plants, corn and wheat.