Prospect Park is filled with numerous architectural features to add interest to the park. Some of these serve very simple purposes, such as providing shelter from the heat or a sudden storm. Arguably the most charming of these is the Peristyle, or Grecian Shelter, which was built in 1905. It was designed by famed architect Stanford White, who was responsible for other structures in the park. The Peristyle was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
Located in the southeast corner of prospect park, Prospect Park War Memorial is an 18-foot wall with six plaques spanning the memorial's width of 35 feet. The monument seeks to honor the residents of Brooklyn who fought and died in Europe during the First World War. Sculptor Augustus Lukeman placed the Angel of Death embracing a disarmed soldier within the larger monument which was designed by architect Arthur Pickering. William H. Todd donated the funds to make the monument possible.
Designed by renowned sculptor Henry Kirke Brown, this Prospect Park statue commemorates the sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). As president from 1861 to 1865, he shepherded the nation through the Civil War, while also issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and helping to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution through Congress. On the evening of April 14, 1865, less than a week after Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln was shot by southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. He died early the next morning. Following Lincoln’s assassination, the War Fund Committee of Brooklyn began a campaign to raise funds for the construction of a monument in honor of the slain president. In response, thousands of Brooklyn residents donated to the fund-raising effort through the purchase of one-dollar subscriptions. Dedicated on October 21, 1869, the larger-than-life-sized bronze statue of Lincoln rests on an elaborate granite pedestal decorated with bronze eagles and wreaths. It depicts the sixteenth President of the United States standing upright, holding a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation in his left hand and pointing to the phrase, “shall be forever free,” with his right. The statue was not only the first erected in the park’s history, but also the first erected of Lincoln in the country. Originally located in Grand Army Plaza, the statue was moved in the 1890s to the Concert Grove. In 2011, the Prospect Park Alliance and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation announced that it would be moved back to Grand Army Plaza, displacing the monument to Alexander J.C. Skene.
The memorial honors the life and work of Washington Irving (1783-1859). Born in New York City, he is considered one of the first great American authors. Irving is best remembered today for his short stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and “Rip Van Winkle.” In 1871, only a little more than a decade after Irving’s death, a bronze bust of the author was dedicated in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Created by sculptor James Wilson Alexander MacDonald, the bust combines a naturalistic facial depiction of Irving with the bare shoulder convention of classical sculpture. It sits on a granite pedestal shaped like an inverted pyramid.
The Boathouse on the Lullwater of the Lake is a two-story, classical Roman style building located on the eastern side of Prospect Park, Brooklyn in New York. Built in 1907, it served as a boathouse for many years but is now home to the Prospect Park Audubon Center. It is the first Audubon center in an urban park. It was named to National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The center's exhibits and free programs aim to educate children and the public at large about the park's natural diversity.
The Dongan Oak Monument marks the place where American troops chopped down an oak tree and used it to obstruct the road in Brooklyn, slowing down British advancement in the 1776 Battle of Long Island. This event saved countless American lives by giving them time to escape. The Monument was built in 1922 by Frederick W. Ruckstull, and it is made out of granite with a bronze eagle atop it and bronze plaque attached.
The Prospect Park Zoo is one of four New York City zoos as well as the New York Aquarium operated by the Wildlife Conservation Society. The other New York City zoos are the Bronx Zoo, the Queens Zoo, and the Central Park Zoo. Together they attract more than 4 million visitors each year. The Prospect Park Zoo features a variety of exhibits, activities, and special events. It is open 365 days a year.
Leffert Pietersen's family was one of the first families from Europe to settle in Brooklyn when they purchased 58 acres of land there in 1687. The original home built on the property was destroyed by Colonial troops after the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776. The house was rebuilt in 1783, and the family continued to live there until 1918. In 1918, the Leffert family decided to move out of the house and sell it to the city of New York, who preserved it by moving the house to Prospect Park where it still resides as a museum.
Ebbets Field was the home to the Brooklyn Dodgers between 1913 and 1957. In the early 1900s, team owner Charlie Ebbets worked to create a more modern replacement for Washington Park, a wooden ballpark that could no longer accommodate the team and sport's growing fan base. Ebbets acquired bought parcels of land throughout the area, including a garbage dump called Pigtown--a reference to the practice of using urban garbage dumps as a place to raise and feed pigs. Construction of the stadium began in 1912. One year later, Pigtown had been transformed into Ebbets Field. Ebbets Field was one of the most iconic stadiums during baseball's golden age. It also hosted a succession of professional football franchises in the early years of the National Football League. The significance of Ebbets Field transcended the realm of sports when Jackie Robinson took the field on April 15, 1947, making him the first African-American Baseball player in Major League Baseball's modern age. After new team owner Walter O'Malley decided to move the team to Los Angeles, the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field on September 24, 1957. The stadium was torn down three years later. Walter O'Malley's decision to remove the beloved team from Brooklyn remains the most notorious example of an owner moving a professional team in American sports history. To this day, Brooklyn residents view O'Malley as a villain, although many baseball historians insist that the story is more complicated, pointing to examples where O'Malley attempted to keep the team in Brooklyn.
What was once an ash dump in the late 1800s is now dozens of acres of horticultural mastery and education. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden was founded in 1910. It is located in the Prospect Park neighborhood. The Garden would have never been built if not for state legislation that set aside 39 acres of land specifically for a botanic garden. It has expanded over the years to include a variety of facilities and programs that showcase the best in urban horticultural as well as educational resources. Today, the Garden spans 52 acres.
The Brooklyn Museum, housed in a 560,000-square-foot, neoclassical beaux-arts building, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country. Its world-renowned permanent collections range from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art and represent a wide range of cultures. The museum is also New York City's third largest in physical size and holds an art collection with roughly 1.5 million works. The museum building has undergone near constant renovations since its construction completed in 1926, and is a shining example of modern and historical integration.
The Central Library is the main branch of Brooklyn's Public Library. Located on the southeast side of Grand Army Plaza, the building was built in several phases beginning in 1912 and ending in 1955. The building houses The Brooklyn Collection and features a bronze entryway sculpted by Thomas Hudson Jones and C. Paul Jennewein, leading to a grand lobby. The Brooklyn Public Library's Central Library building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 for its architectural significance. The Central Library is the most-visited branch in Brooklyn and is in the midst of a multi-million-dollar, multi-phase renovation begun in 2018.
Created by renowned sculptor Frederick MacMonnies and esteemed architect Stanford White, the monument honors the life and military career of Henry Warner Slocum (1827-1894). A native of Onondaga County, New York and graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Slocum rose to the rank of major general during the Civil War and commanded troops at many of the conflict’s famous battles, including the First Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Battle of Gettysburg. After the war, he settled in Brooklyn, where he died in 1894. Shortly after his death, the City of Brooklyn decided to erect a monument in his honor. Consisting of a bronze life-sized equestrian statue on a granite pedestal, the monument was unveiled to the public at an elaborate, well-attended dedication ceremony on May 30, 1905. It originally stood on Eastern Parkway at Bedford Avenue. In 1922, deeming it a traffic hazard, the borough moved it to Fifteenth Street and Prospect Park West. Only six years later, the borough once again moved it, this time to its current location in Grand Army Plaza, the main entrance to Prospect Park.
Often referred to as "Brooklyn’s Arc de Triomphe," this monument has stood at the main entrance of Prospect Park since 1892. The monument was built with the support of the Grand Army of the Republic, the leading fraternal organization for Union veterans. The monument demonstrates the Beaux-Arts style of architecture that was common for monuments of this type. Its grand arch is adorned with statues and reliefs. The monument, like many other Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monuments throughout the country, honors the memory and bravery of Civil War soldiers and sailors, but it also reflects the civic pride and optimism of many Americans at the turn-of-the-century. The monument was dedicated in 1892, with many of the statues and reliefs finished over the next six years.
This Grand Army Plaza memorial commemorates the thirty-fifth President of the United States, John F. Kennedy (1917-1963). Born into a wealthy, well-connected Irish-Catholic family in Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard in 1940 and served in the South Pacific during the final years of the Second World War. Kennedy served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 and the U.S. Senate from 1953 to 1960. In the presidential election of 1960, he narrowly defeated Republican nominee, Vice President Richard Nixon. With his victory, Kennedy became the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic ever elected to our country’s highest office. On the afternoon of November 22, 1963, he was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald while traveling in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. Dedicated on August 24, 2010, the memorial consists of a bronze bust of Kennedy situated on a grey granite pedestal, both designed by sculptor Neil Estern. Etched into the front of the pedestal is the famous, inspirational line from Kennedy’s inaugural address: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
This monument commemorates physician, professor, and researcher, Alexander J.C. Skene (1838-1900). Born in Scotland, he served as Professor of Diseases of Women and Clinical Obstetrics at Long Island College Hospital (now the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center) for nearly three decades. In the late 1880s, Skene helped to found the American Gynecological Society, the first national organization in the world devoted to obstetrics and gynecology. Today, he is best known for his discovery of the para-urethral glands in the female genitalia, which were later named after him. Following Skene’s death, his colleagues at Long Island College Hospital formed a committee and began raising funds to erect a monument in his honor. The committee commissioned artist John Massey Rhind and architects M.L. and H.G. Emery to construct the monument, and selected Brooklyn’s Prospect Park as the appropriate site for its location. Dedicated in 1905 in Grand Army Plaza, the monument features a larger-than-life-sized bronze bust of Skene, dressed in a suit jacket and tie with an academic robe draping his shoulders. The bust sits atop a truncated Vermont white marble obelisk, which is partially built into a stele made of the same material. In 2011, the Prospect Park Alliance and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation announced that the monument to Skene would be moved to a new location within Grand Army Plaza to accommodate the relocation of the park’s statue of Abraham Lincoln.
This statue honors Gouverneur Kemble Warren (1830-1882), who served as a general in the Union Army during the Civil War. A native of New York and graduate of West Point, he ordered federal troops to take control of Little Round Top on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg just before Confederate forces launched their assault on the position. Warren’s decision most likely saved the Union Army from catastrophe. At the Battle of Five Forks in early April 1865, Major General Philip Sheridan, angered by what he perceived as Warren moving too cautiously, relieved him of his command. A court of inquiry, however, largely exonerated Warren’s actions fourteen years later. In 1896, the G.K. Warren Post No. 286 of the Grand Army of the Republic in Brooklyn commissioned a statue in honor of its namesake. Designed by German-born sculptor Henry Baerer, the over-life-sized bronze statue depicts Warren standing in full military garb, holding a pair of field binoculars and gazing into the distance. Dedicated in Grand Army Plaza on June 26, 1896, the statue rests on a pedestal made of roughly-hewn granite from Little Round Top.
Inspired by the Ethical Culture Movement began by Columbia University professor Felix Addler in the late 19th century, the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture was established in 1906. The society's headquarters is located in this neo-Jacobean style mansion designed by William B. Tubby. The historic building was constructed for the family of William J. Childs in 1900. Childs was an investor who helped to create the holding company that marketed the Bon Ami brand of cleaning powder--a product that once dominated the market and is still sold in stores. The society acquired its current headquarters in 1938. Although there are not regular public tours, the Society welcomes visitors.
A posthumous gift from French-born Brooklyn resident Henry Harteau, this monument honors the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), a French nobleman and military officer who fought for American independence. Inspired by the ideals of the American Revolution and seeking glory on the battlefield, he sailed to the American colonies in early 1777. Despite being only nineteen years of age and having no battlefield experience, Lafayette secured a commission as a major general in the Continental Army. Two years later, with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, he helped convince French King Louis XVI to send additional military aid to the American colonists. In 1781, Lafayette helped trap British General Charles Cornwallis’ army at Yorktown. Dedicated in Prospect Park in May 1917, the monument consists of a bronze relief set into a pink granite stele. Designed by renowned sculptor Daniel Chester French and based on a painting of Lafayette by Jean-Baptiste Le Paon, the relief depicts the French nobleman standing in military uniform with his horse and an African-American groomsman behind him. The stele was designed by distinguished architect Henry Bacon.
Designed by architect Stanford White and located at the foot of Lookout Hill in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, the Maryland Monument commemorates the bravery and sacrifice of a contingent of Maryland soldiers at the Battle of Long Island during the American Revolution. During the fighting, American forces stationed on Guan Heights were overwhelmed by advancing British and Hessian troops. As their brothers in arms retreated north to Brooklyn Heights, a Maryland unit of about 400 men under the command of Lord Stirling provided covering fire and counter-charged the advancing enemy forces. The Maryland contingent accomplished its mission, but at a high cost, losing more than 250 men. Over one hundred years later, the Maryland Society of the Sons of the American Revolution donated a monument to commemorate the bravery and sacrifice of the "Maryland 400" during the Battle of Long Island. The monument—a twelve-foot-tall granite column resting on a marble pedestal and topped with a bronze Corinthian capital and a marble sphere—was unveiled during an elaborate ceremony on August 27, 1895, the 119th anniversary of the engagement.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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This walking tour makes a loop through Prospect Park and includes a variety of monuments, museums, historic buildings, and other points of interest. Highlights include monuments related to the Battle of Brooklyn and a variety of war memorials as well as iconic Brooklyn public spaces, museums, and the Prospect Park Zoo.
