Prospect Park
Park · Prospect Park
Brooklyn, NY
Highlights
Prospect Park is Brooklyn's sprawling oasis, boasting lush landscapes, vibrant wildlife, and endless activities, making it the ultimate city retreat.
Prospect Park is Brooklyn's sprawling oasis, boasting lush landscapes, vibrant wildlife, and endless activities, making it the ultimate city retreat.
"A winter forage walk in Prospect Park served two stews: pork pozole and a vegan hominy stew, accompanied by cranberry juniper hand pies." - Nat Belkov
"Noted for funky enclaves, urban wilds, and Italian eats." - Rachel Chang Rachel Chang Rachel Chang is a travel and pop culture journalist who contributes to Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, Lonely Planet, and more. Travel + Leisure Editorial Guidelines
"Prospect Park is in many ways the Central Park of Brooklyn; in fact, it was designed shortly after by the same team of architects, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, and has many of the same features: sprawling meadows, walking trails, and picturesque bodies of water. In feeling though, it’s more rambling and less manicured than its touristed Manhattan counterpart. Prospect Park Woodlands is Brooklyn’s last remaining forest, with 250 acres of trees, turtles, chipmunks, 200 species of birds, and other fauna and flora. There's also basketball and tennis courts, a carousel, playgrounds, zoo, and a 3.35-mile loop for runners and bikers (they’re fast—watch out!). While there, make a trip to adjacent Brooklyn Botanic Garden, particularly lovely during cherry blossom season." - Melissa Liebling-Goldberg, Alex Erdekian
"It’s rare that one can actually climb on a 100-year-old work of art, but that’s exactly what you get to do when riding this Brooklyn treasure. “The Carousel in Prospect Park” was built in 1912 by Russian-Jewish immigrant Charles Carmel, one of the master carvers of wooden carousels during the Golden Age of the ride. The carousel in Brooklyn’s 585-acre public park is one of only twelve remaining Carmel designs in existence. In amusement innovator William F. Mangel’s shop, Carmel worked side by side with a venerable who’s who of carousel artists, including M.C. Illions and Solomon & Goldstein, who designed the famous Central Park Carousel. Together, these carvers helped develop what became known as the “Coney Island style,” noted for wildly flamboyant horses, often bedecked with jewels, gold and silver leaf. Carmel was particularly fond of outfitting his carved horses with fish scale armor, wooden horseshoes, realistically imperfect teeth, lolling tongues and sweet expressions. He drew inspiration from his many visits to the Prospect Park stables, which were located just a few blocks from his Brooklyn home. The Prospect Park Carousel — a menagerie of 53 horses, two dragon chariots, a deer, a giraffe and a lion — is made with real deer antlers, which were used because they ended up being stronger than any fabricated material. The horses have real horsehair tails, a rarity, since it was common for children to yank the hair off the horse while climbing aboard, which led to an industry trend of carved or cast horse tails. Many carousels of that time included fancy chariots; the Coney Island style favored dragon motifs. Though over a century old, this is actually not Prospect Park’s first carousel. The original was erected in 1874, and was horse-powered. It was moved to the West Woods in 1885 where it burned to the ground and was replaced by a second carousel which in 1935 also burned down. Upon the creation of Prospect Park’s Children’s Corner in 1952, the current carousel was brought to the park from Coney Island. The amusement ride has seen its share of ups and downs. During the 1970s and 1980s, the carousel — like the park itself and indeed much of New York City — slowly deteriorated. It was shut down completely in 1971 and 1983 because the vendor was unable to maintain the facility. When the Prospect Park Alliance was founded in 1987 with the goal of restoring and preserving Brooklyn’s expansive park and all its features, restoring the carousel was one of the group’s first projects. Sixty new renderings of Brooklyn and Prospect Park were painted on the rounding boards, based on old photographs. Ornamented with brass and 1,000 lights, the carousel returned to its former glory." - ATLAS_OBSCURA
"Sadly, you can go all summer in NYC without actually eating your BBQ outside. Take a break from consuming your pulled pork in fake, air-conditioned barn houses, and head to this Sunday’s big Prospect Park BBQ. Smorgasburg is bringing the smokers out for BBQ feasts by Bark BBQ, Sholay Indian BBQ, Monk’s Meats vegan BBQ, and more. Find the full lineup here. " - neha talreja
