Like many of New York's greatest green spaces, the juxtaposition of Prospect Park's natural and manmade beauty is captivating. On this walk, we'll take you on a scenic path that winds through some Prospect Park's most picturesque landscapes, as well as its landmarked bridges, historic arches, and boulder spans.

Prospect Park is one of Brooklyn’s most treasured destinations with more than 10 million visitors each year. Since it opened in the mid-19th century, the park has been the site of celebrations, demonstrations, and everyday activities. From monuments and statues to pastoral vistas, this walk will guide you through Prospect Park's historic points of interest. More information about Prospect Park's history can be viewed here.

49 Eighth Avenue, 1960. The large building on the corner of 8th Avenue and Berkeley Place may only be 25 feet wide but has more than 6,500 square feet of space in its 4-plus stories. A fine example of Park Slope architecture with decorative metal work lining the mansard roof and the projected (oriel) window, the entire home has 42 windows. When the home was on the market in 2009 listings noted a ballroom on the parlor floor.

Brooklyn Riding and Driving Club, 1928. The Riding and Driving Club of Brooklyn, a fancy equestrian club, was established in 1889 by a group of elite Brooklyn men. The club commissioned the firm of McKim, Mead & White to design a Roman circus inspired building. Massive, with a curved front facade facing Prospect Park (fronting Plaza Street west of Vanderbilt Avenue), the facility was three interconnected buildings: the clubhouse, the riding ring and the stables. Here members had an indoor place to ride, practice dressage, harness and polo, and socialize with tony, like-minded neighbors. Aiming to create an exclusive community, the club originally limited membership to 200, but quickly doubled that number, a nod to its popularity and appeal (even though the $100 membership fee was not a paltry sum for most). The venture proved to be so successful that the buildings were reconfigured and added to by 1894. Frank Freeman was hired to design additions, pushing the club's campus all the way to Flatbush Avenue. The popularity of the club continued into the first two decades of the 20th century but the 1920s saw many changes for the club and its neighborhood. Interest in horse sports declined, as other entertainment pursuits flourished. The cost of upkeep to the now five buildings outpaced the revenue, particularly as the demographics of the community changes. With the wealthy leaving the neighborhood for the suburbs or Manhattan, the new apartment dwellers of the neighborhood were not interested in or could not afford this type of hobby. Finally closing in 1938, the facilities were sold soon after. The larger buildings were demolished for apartment houses, while the carriage house and motor garage were as garages until 1950s, before meeting their own end.

Vale of Cashmere, ca. 1913.

James S. T. Stranahan Statue in Grand Army Plaza, unknown date. Stranahan was a Congressman from New York between 1855 and 1857 and later was an influential municipal official in Brooklyn. He was president of the Brooklyn Park Commission and helped secure funds and political capital for the planned Prospect Park. As a trustee of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge Company, he presided over the dedication of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883. The bronze statue, designed by Frederick William MacMonnies with a pedestal by Standford White, was dedicated in 1891.

“90 Eighth Avenue, formerly the home of C. T. Christensen, and later of Timothy Lester Woodruff, Park Commissioner of Brooklyn and three times Lieutenant Governor of New York State. 1928.” Woodruff — a member of the Skull & Bones secret society at Yale — was major figure in the city’s Republican politics. As Park Commissioner, he was an advocate of bike paths, a full century before protected lanes along Prospect Park West became a local political flashpoint. The “for sale” sign advertises a “desirable apartment house site.” Indeed, the house was bought and razed later that year. Today, a ten-story apartment building occupies the site, which is part of the Park Slope Historic District.

The Army: Genius of Patriotism Urging American Soldiers On To Victory" group on the south pedestal of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch, ca. 1975.

Statue of Lincoln at its original location, the Prospect Park Plaza Entrance, ca. 1890.

General Warren Statue, date unknown. Gouverneur Kemble Warren was a New York-born Union Army General. After participating in a number of early Civil War battles, he was named Chief Topographical Engineer of the Army of the Potomac in 1863. Later that year, he was wounded at Gettysburg. Referred to as the "Hero of Little Round Top," he survived the war (and the humiliation of being relieved of his command during the 1865 Battle of Five Forks). His later career included building railroads near the Mississippi River in the Corps of Engineers. He died in 1882. He is one of three Civil War monuments in Grand Army Plaza. His statue was commissioned in 1896 by the G.K. Warren Post, No. 286, Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization. Created by German sculptor Henry Baerer, the memorial was dedicated on July 4, 1896. Baerer's likeness of the Warren is similar to an earlier statue erected at Gettysburg in 1888. The statue's pedestal is made from granite quarried at Little Round Top, the site of his heroic moment.

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch, ca. 1904. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch is a Civil War memorial located at the entrance to Prospect Park in Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza. Designed by John H. Duncan with sculptures by Frederick MacMonnies, the granite arch began construction in 1889 and was dedicated on October 21,1892 to honor the Union soldiers who perished in the Civil War. Additional statuary groups and smaller bronze pedestals were added between 1892 and 1901.

Central Library, BPL Grand Army Plaza at Flatbush Avenue and Eastern Parkway Designed by Alfred Morton Githens & Francis Keally, 1941; sculptural elements: Thomas Hudson Jones and C. Paul Jennewein NYC IL, NR-P The original 1907 design for the BPL’s Central Building was the work of Raymond F. Almirall, the architect of the Pacific, Park Slope, Bushwick and Eastern Parkway Branches. The grand Beaux Arts design, inspired by contemporary libraries in Europe, with a domed roof and colonnaded entrance, was meant to fit in stylistically with the nearby Brooklyn Museum and Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch. Though construction began in 1911, the project was beset with political and financial troubles and stalled in 1929. In 1935, architects Alfred Morton Githens and Francis Keally were commissioned to redesign the building, incorporating the completed foundations and steel structure. The resulting Modern Classical, limestone-clad building features a concave front façade with a 50-foot-tall entrance portico and striking sculpted Art Deco ornamentation. It is one of Brooklyn’s most well-known and frequently used public buildings. The Central Building was designated a New York City Individual Landmark in 1997 and is listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places.

"What is it I associate so keenly with the summer smell and sensual keenness of Prospect Park? – Alfred Kazin The construction of Central Park prompted the city of Brooklyn to raise funds and political support for a park of its own. This effort was led by municipal official James S. T. Stranahan, who argued that such a park “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…”\[2] Prospect Park takes its name from Brooklyn’s second highest point, Mount Prospect, at the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Flatbush Avenue. The original site plan for the park included Mount Prospect. But in January 1865 Stranahan asked Calvert Vaux to survey the site. (Vaux and his colleague Frederick Law Olmsted designed Central Park.) Vaux opposed the Flatbush Avenue bisection of the park and immediately set about creating a new plan. He also convinced Olmsted to join him once again, and they submitted their recommendations the following year.

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.

Survey photograph showing the intersection of Plaza Street West, St. John's Place, and Flatbush Avenue; September 15, 1914. The photo was taken ahead of the construction of the IRT Eastern Parkway Line. Today, an there is an entrance to the Grand Army Plaza station immediately to the north of the fire hydrant in the foreground.

Meadowport Arch, ca. 1870.

With its breathtaking façade, sweeping grand lobby and vast contemporary and historical collections, Central Library is a Brooklyn icon. To read on about the Branch's history, see this page on the Brooklyn Public Library's website.

Towering over the northern entrance of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch was built between 1889-1892 in the Beaux-Arts style as part of Prospect Park Plaza, known today as Grand Army Plaza.

The Central Library has many inscriptions. The one to the right of the main entrances says: "Here are enshrined the longing of great hearts and noble things that tower above the tide, the magic word that winged wonder starts, the garnered wisdom that never dies." -Roscoe C. Brown

Statue of General Henry Warner Slocum in Prospect Park, ca. 1975. Seated in his horse, grandly gesturing to his troops, General Henry Warner Slocum is memorialized in Prospect Park in bronze. Slocum, a Union general who played decisive role in the Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, later became New York Congressman. He was also very involved in Brooklyn politics and civic life in the second half of the 19th century, as investor in local businesses, as Commissioner of the Department of City (Brooklyn) Works, and as an early advocate and investor in the Brooklyn Bridge. The statue of the man was unveiled on Memorial Day 1905. Created by Frederick MacMonnies, the bronze statue echos the tradition of equestrian military portraits. The life-size piece, in its highly visible location at Grand Army Plaza suffered some during the 20th century: the metal corroded, vandals stole a number of decorative features, and graffiti covered the pedestal. The monument underwent a large-scale renovation in 1989 under the Municipal Arts Society's Adopt-a-Monument program and continues to be regularly maintained.

Helen and Hugh L. Carey and family posed in front of the Stranahan Monument during the Prospect Park Centennial celebrations, 1966.

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.

Montauk Club This club found its inspiration in the Palazzo Santa Sofia (Ca' d'Oro ) in Venice. It is built of brick and terra cotta, and a warm yellow color pervades the whole structure. Certain windows, reminiscent of the loggia of this Italian palazzo, are replete with flamboyant Venetian Gothic detail.

Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch, ca. 1977. This full-fledged triumphal arch bearing aloft a sculptured quadric is a symbol of civic pride as well as a memorial to the soldiers and sailors it honors. It makes the principal entrance to Brooklyn's most beautiful park and closes the long vista of Flatbush Avenue most effectively.

Rose Garden, Prospect Park, ca. 1916.

The House that Gum built! In the late 1860s, Thomas Adams carried out a series of experiments with chicle, which is extracted from Mexican Sapota trees, hoping he could make the rubber-like substance into toys, boots or bicycle tires. The trials were a failure. He was just about to throw the chicle into the East River when he remembered that his boss, who was the ex-dictator of Mexico, regularly chewed it. Experimenting by adding sugar, he created a better-tasting gum than any other available at that time. Adams and his son, Thomas Jr. began production of the gum in 1871 and in 1888 they opened a factory in Brooklyn, which was one of the largest of its kind in the world. With his gum fortune, Thomas Jr. built a mansion at 117 Eighth Avenue. This house, located across the street from the photo above, was designed as a double house in the Romanesque Revival style by C.P.H. Gilbert, with one entrance facing 8th Avenue and the other facing Carroll Street, it is decorated with stained glass windows and dragon ornaments. It was also the first on the block to have an elevator. The home pictured is similar in style and was constructed as its neighbor, though this building was demolished to make way for a new apartment building in the 1950s. The story around the neighborhood goes that one summer the family came home from vacation to find their calls for the servants went unanswered. When they went to look for them, it transpired that the elevator had stuck. The servants were all trapped, no one had heard their calls, and they were all dead inside the contraption! Residents of the building have claimed to hear voices crying in an Irish brogue, "Mary Mother of God help us!" Though there is little proof that this actually happened, it sure is an interesting tale. In 1897, Thomas Jr. sold his home for $75,000 and moved to New York City. Thomas Sr. retired from the business in 1898, leaving his sons in charge. On February 7, 1905, he died of pneumonia at the age of 87. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery.

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.

Walking in a winter wonderland… As the City continues to reopen there are many opportunities to enjoy the enchanting sights and sounds of the season. There are holiday train shows, ice skating, holiday markets, decorated department store windows, and more just waiting for you to discover and explore.

The Prospect Hill Water Tower, unknown date. The Prospect Hill Water Tower once stood at the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Flatbush Avenue. First built to supply nearby houses with water, by the late 1800s the towering 30-foot gothic structure had become a famed Brooklyn sight. It stood adjacent to Mount Prospect Reservoir, which no longer exists today, and afforded Brooklynites with a view that overlooked the the entire city. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the 20-feet deep Mount Prospect Reservoir contained “just about enough water to cook the breakfast of the people of Brooklyn for a week.” In fact, back when Brooklyn was an independent city, most drinking water was pumped from Long Island, into a large receiving reservoir in Ridgewood, Queens, and eventually fed into this reservoir. During water shortages, including an acute episode in January of 1893, the tower was pressed into service to relieve parched residents. In 1930, the Water Tower was demolished to make way for the expansion of the Brooklyn Public Library.

The Montauk Club, 1928. Described as “an architectural treasure on the slope” in the 1973 Park Slope Historic District Designation Report, the Montauk Club building was the headquarters of an exclusive gentlemen’s social club, whose founders included Gilded Age luminaries like Charles Pratt. The club was named after the Montauk Native American tribe, whose history is depicted in a continuous terra cotta frieze atop the third story, along the Eighth Avenue, Lincoln Place and Plaza Street facades. The massive Venetian Gothic clubhouse was designed by Francis H. Kimball, who took inspiration from the Ca' d'Oro, a 15th century Venetian palace on the Grand Canal. Kimball’s design includes Gothic Arches with intricate terra cotta ornamentation, surmounted by quatrefoils, and that most Venetian of features: a second floor loggia (covered exterior corridor), itself an element of a grand two-story bay facing Plaza Street. The Club was unusual for its acceptance of Jewish members and its inclusion of women in Club activities (though they were excluded from full membership until the 1960s). A separate “women’s entrance,” left of the main entrance led to a staircase to the second floor dining room. Today, that entrance leads to the residential portion of the building — the club continues to operate, but declining membership and rising costs forced members to convert and sell the upper floors and basement.

Crown Heights has a rich and diverse history. Though it began as farmland, it developed as a fashionable locale for the second homes of bourgeois Manhattanites. Eastern Parkway soon was studded with cultural institutions and mansions. Furthermore, the 20th century marked an influx of Jewish and later Caribbean immigration, with both communities infusing Crown Heights with new cultures and making their mark on the neighborhood.

Endale Arch, Prospect Park, ca. 1890. Located just 200 feet from Grand Army Plaza, Endale Arch was one of the first architectural elements built within Prospect Park. It was created by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux to serve as a passage from the busy surrounding city into the park’s peaceful Long Meadow. Today, the archway continues to provide a layer of protection for pedestrians in the park from vehicular traffic nearby. Completed in the late 1860s, the Endale Arch is comprised of alternating bands of black walnut and yellow pine. The function of this design avoids "the drip which would occur from the condensation of moisture,” according to the 1870 Annual Report of the Brooklyn Park Commissioner. Along with other arches in the park, this archway was first envisioned as a room with seats for people to hide from the scorching summer heat. As the New York Times put it in 1869, it was a place “where weariness may be lounged off."

“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.”

The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch, ca. 1907.

The Hampton Apartments, ca. 1905. While Prospect Park West was developing in the early 20th century, the housing stock was made up of attractive rowhouses and mansions. In 1902 real estate developer Carl J. Zimmerman changed all of that with his plans for an upscale apartment house. The Hampton was six-story brick and limestone structure with an elevator. It was designed by Schwartz & Gross, who would go on to become one of the city's most prolific apartment house designers (particularly on the Upper West Side). The Hampton remained one of the few large apartment houses on PPW for the next 20 years. The late 1920s saw an brief influx in the construction of these types of buildings and the Hampton was victim to that development. It was purchased by developer Samuel Wander, demolished in 1928, and replaced with a 15-story (plus penthouse) building the next year.

Prospect Park is the second largest public park in Brooklyn. Famous for its trees and manmade wetlands, the 596-acre park also contains the bulk of the borough's remaining indigenous forest. On this walk, The Great Outdoors: Prospect Park Edition, we'll guide you through the park's most leafy and green natural habitats, while also teaching you some history along the way.

Grand Army Plaza, ca. 1903. Grand Army Plaza was built during the original construction of Prospect Park in the 1860s, one of the first features of the park to be designed and completed. The plaza was designed by park planners Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted. Grand Army Plaza is also home to the Soldiers and Sailors Arch, which is similar in design to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France. Dedicated to Union soldiers, the arch was designed by John H. Duncan, whose proposal was selected from 36 applicants who submitted their plans for the monument. Construction began in 1889, and the arch was unveiled in 1892. The bronze statues that adorn the arch were added beginning in 1898. On top of the arch is a statue of three women in a four-horse chariot, leading the soldiers to victory. On the inside of the arch are reliefs of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant on horseback. The two large groups of figures on the south face of the arch are meant to welcome the soldiers and sailors home from war.

"St. John's Place, west from Eighth Ave., showing Grace Methodist Episcopal Church at the right, and the Memorial Presbyterian Church at the left, in the background." This 1928 looking west along St. John's Place is unobstructed enough that the photographer could capture the steeples of the two church at the next corner at 7th Avenue. The greening of these residential streets of Park Slope have made that same view today certainly more verdant but also less far reaching. This current lush view was likely created by the Park Slope Civic Council, which in the 1950s and 1960s advocated against urban renewal demolition, for historic preservation, and for the greening of the neighborhood through the planting of thousands of trees.

Parade honoring the pennant-winning Brooklyn Dodgers passes under the Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch at Grand Army Plaza, September 29, 1941.