Tag: Capital Projects

Prospect Park Awarded Parks Without Borders Funding

May 25, 2016

The Prospect Park Alliance proposal to improve Flatbush Avenue is one of eight projects citywide to receive funding through the NYC Parks’ Parks Without Borders Initiative. The Alliance will use this funding to create two new park entrances along Flatbush Avenue, to restore a third entrance near Empire Boulevard and Ocean Avenue at the Park’s Children’s Corner, and to fund additional park improvements.

“The Prospect Park Alliance is committed to making the Park open and accessible to all communities bordering the Park,” said Prospect Park Alliance President Sue Donoghue. “We are thrilled that so many community members came out in support of our proposal, and I want to thank Commissioner Silver and NYC Parks for their support and vision through Parks Without Borders.”

Parks Without Borders seeks to make parks more open by improving entrances, transforming underutilized areas, and creating vibrant public spaces. The City dedicated $50 million to the program, $10 million of which had already been allocated to parks throughout the city, while the remaining $40 million was voted on through a public input process that took place earlier this year. NYC Parks collected community input from thousands of New Yorkers both online and through in-person events. The Flatbush Avenue perimeter project in Prospect Park was the most highly requested project proposal.

“Parks Without Borders has engaged thousands of New Yorkers, who shared ideas for park improvements online and in person.  That’s proof positive of how excited New Yorkers are to increase accessibility and openness in their favorite parks,” said Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, FAICP. “Thanks to Mayor de Blasio’s OneNYC funding for this major placemaking initiative, we will positively transform New Yorkers’ experience of public space.”

In addition to Parks Without Borders funding, the Alliance has previously received $2.4 million from Borough President Eric L Adams and Councilmember Laurie Cumbo to renovate the Flatbush Avenue perimeter. Through this funding, the Alliance will restore and widen the pedestrian walkway, install new decorative fencing and add an allée of street trees along the park perimeter from Grand Army Plaza to the Children’s Corner, restoring the Flatbush Avenue perimeter to its original grandeur.

2016: The Goats have Arrived!

May 18, 2016

On Monday, the Prospect Park Alliance welcomed a herd of goats to restore woodlands damaged by Hurricane Sandy and other severe storms (including a 2010 tornado!) in the northeast corner of Prospect Park—one of the hardest hit areas, which lost more than 50 trees.

In the absence of trees, invasive plants proliferated, damaging habitat and causing erosion. Removing these weeds is a more complex task than you’d expect. “The area’s steep hillsides present unique challenges for staff and machinery, but are easily accessible to goats,” said Christian Zimmerman, Prospect Park Alliance Vice President of Capital and Landscape Management. 

Meet the goats on Sunday, May 22, at Fun on the Farm, an afternoon of goat-related fun!

The herd of eight goats—a mix of Nubian, Angora and Pygmy breeds—are prodigious climbers and aren’t picky eaters; they have four stomachs and can consume 25 percent of their bodyweight in vegetation each day. They’ll devour the weeds down to their roots, forcing the plants to use all their energy to grow new shoots, only to be eaten by the goats once again. The goats keep eating until eventually the plants do not have enough energy to grow back at all. The goats, contained behind eight-foot-high construction fencing, are provided by Green Goats, a goat farm in Rhinebeck, NY, that specializes in landscape restoration.

“Once their work is complete, we will then plant new native trees and shrubs, including red and white oaks, spicebush and service berry, which will help bring back important habitat for birds and other wildlife,” adds Zimmerman. Prospect Park is home to Brooklyn’s last remaining forest. The goats’ work is important not just to beautifying the Park, but also to fortify habitat and food sources for local fauna, including countless native and migratory bird species.

“Woodland restoration has always been an important focus for the Alliance,” said Sue Donoghue, Prospect Park Alliance President. “These goats will provide an environmentally friendly approach to our larger efforts, and help us make the Park more resilient to future storms.”

The Prospect Park Alliance received $727,970 in funding from the National Parks Service through the Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Assistance Grant Program for Historic Properties, administered by New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. The grant not only funds woodland restoration, but historic preservation work in this landscape, known as the Vale of Cashmere. The Alliance also received an additional grant for future work on Lookout Hill, for a total of $1.2 million in funding.

Sanden Wolff

Prospect Park Benefits from Participatory Budgeting

April 18, 2016

This year saw the best voter turnout in Participatory Budgeting NYC (PBNYC) history. Between Council Member Brad Lander’s 39th District and Council Member Mathieu Eugene’s 40th District alone, over 4,000 voters made their voices heard, and advocated for community projects to be completed using city funding. Voters resoundingly came out in support for Prospect Park and the Prospect Park Alliance by supporting three winning projects.

Voters in both the 39th and 40th district helped the Prospect Park Alliance keep the Lake clean for years to come. Valued at $140,000, a new aquatic weed harvester was a top vote-getter, and will prove crucial in the Alliance’s work to remove unwanted vegetation from the Park’s Lake. To see the old “Lake Mess Monster” in action, check out this video about the Prospect Park Alliance, narrated by John Turturro.

Council Member Mathieu’s constituents voted to dedicate $80,000 to the installation of new community barbecue grills in the Park.

Additionally, the Park will soon be receiving new year-round, freeze-resistant drinking fountains for the Park Drive, valued at $175,000, thanks to voters in the 39th. Intrepid and thirsty winter cyclists and runners rejoice!

Thank you to all who participated in PBNYC this year. You truly made a difference, and have helped ensure that Prospect Park will conintue to bloom for years to come.

Park Improvements: West Drive

March 26, 2016

Look forward to smoother bike rides, walks and runs through Prospect Park! The New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) has announced that the two-mile West Drive will be repaved beginning Monday, March 28. Due to the nature of the work, the West Drive will be closed to cyclists, runners and walkers through Friday, April 15, weather permitting. 

NYC DOT will mill the existing paving before laying down new asphalt and restriping the Drive’s three lanes, from Grand Army Plaza to Park Circle, which will take place in segments with closures as the work proceeds. This work follows the recent improvements to the East Drive, which was repaved in 2012 and 2014.

The Prospect Park Alliance worked closely with NYC DOT to advocate for this project on behalf of Park users, who expressed strong interest in the repaving during community meetings and through a petition.

“The Alliance applauds the DOT for making this project a priority,” said Sue Donoghue, Prospect Park Alliance President. “This important work will ensure that the Park Drive is safe and usable for walkers, runners and cyclists for years to come.”

During the work, cyclists, walkers and runners are encouraged to use alternative routes. The West Drive has been closed to vehicular traffic since last summer. The public can stay up to date with the milling and paving schedule by visiting the NYCDOT website.

c. Michael Moran/OTTO

LeFrak Center at Lakeside Lauded with 2016 AIA Design Award

March 23, 2016

The Samuel J. and Ethel LeFrak Center at Lakeside has received numerous design awards since its creation, and that list is growing! The New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects recently named Lakeside one of its 2016 AIA Design Honor Award winners. The Center is also a National AIA Honor Award recipient, the highest honor in the field of architecture, as well as awards from the Municipal Arts Society and the New York Public Design Commission.

An exhibit featuring all 2016 AIANY award winners will open to the public at the Center for Architecture on April 15. This exhibit, located at 536 LaGuardia Place, will be open to the public through June 2016.

The Samuel J. and Ethel LeFrak Center at Lakeside is the largest and most ambitious project in Prospect Park since its creation nearly 150 years ago. Spanning 26 acres, this $74 million restoration by the Prospect Park Alliance transformed the southeast corner of the Park into a popular scenic and recreational destination. Designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, the center’s LEED Gold design blends seamlessly with the surrounding landscape, and is surrounded by acres of scenic beauty.

Since opening in 2013, the LeFrak Center has become a year-round community destination welcoming more than 200,000 visitors each year. The public can enjoy seasonal recreational activities, programming and special events, including ice skating, roller skating, boating, biking and free water play at the Park’s largest water feature, which was named New York Magazine’s 2015 “Best of New York.”

Martin Seck

Participatory Budgeting NYC 2016

March 15, 2016

Join Council Members Brad Lander (39th District) and Mathieu Eugene (40th District) to cast your vote for this year’s Participatory Budgeting NYC, a process that allows residents of these districts to vote on projects that make a difference in their communities. 

The projects up for a vote in Prospect Park include:

  • New “Lake Mess Monster” (aquatic weed harvester): Prospect Park Alliance needs a new aquatic weed harvester (aka “Lake Mess Monster”) to remove invasive plants such as duckweed from the Lake. Without it, these weeds harm the Lake’s fragile ecosystem and lessen the beauty of this water body. (Council Members Lander and Eugene)
  • Year-round, freeze-resistant drinking fountains along Park Drive: The water fountains in Prospect Park are not available to use during the winter months. This upgrade would upgrade five drinking fountains along the Park Drive to be freeze resistant and operational year round. (Council Member Lander)
  • New Dog Run at Parade Ground: To provide a space for dog owners to have access to a fenced-in space where their pups can exercise and socialize, a dog run is proposed for an unused space at the southwest corner of the Parade Ground. (Council Members Lander and Eugene)
  • Community Barbecue Sites: Prospect Park Alliance is looking to install new barbecue grills, which are similar in style to those at the Brooklyn Bridge Park Picnic Peninsula. (Council Member Eugene)

Voting opens Saturday, March 26, and concludes on Sunday, April 3, and takes place at various voting locations or you can request a write-in ballot. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to participate in this unique community-focused democratic process.

For more information on Participatory Budgeting NYC, including voting locations and times, visit the Participatory Budgeting NYC website.

So make your voice heard, and have a say in improving your neighborhood!

Parks Without Borders: Flatbush Improvements

January 20, 2016

Mayor de Blasio and the Parks Department’s Parks Without Borders initiative will fund $50 million in improvements to city parks to make them more open, accessible and inviting to their surrounding communities. $10 million has already been allocated, but the remaining $40 million of funding is still available, and will be awarded to projects based on community input.

The Prospect Park Alliance has proposed to create a major new major entrance along Flatbush Avenue, and a second, smaller entrance just north of the Prospect Park Zoo. In addition, the existing Park entrance on Flatbush near Empire Boulevard would be reconstructed, ensuring a better Park experience for those visiting the Children’s Corner, which includes Lefferts Historic House, the Prospect Park Zoo and the Carousel.

These entrances would be important enhancements to currently planned improvements to Flatbush Avenue, which will broaden the sidewalk and add new street trees, benches and lighting,  

To make these added improvements a reality, we need your help! To voice your support, follow these steps:

  • Visit the Parks Without Borders website and click “Get Started” on the map.
  • Zoom in on the map to Prospect Park and click anywhere on the Flatbush Avenue border (the Park’s northeast border).
  • Select improvements including, “add new entrance,” “improve accessibility” and “repair paving.”
  • Describe what you would like to see in this area.
    • Sample text: “I support the Prospect Park Alliance’s proposal to create two new entrances, and reconstruct a third entrance on the Flatbush Avenue perimeter of Prospect Park. Prospect Park serves 10 million visitors each year and that number is likely to increase as Brooklyn and the neighborhoods surrounding the Park continue to grow. This important project will not only help beautify an area of the Park that is in desperate need of attention, but more importantly will open up a vital perimeter of the Park that has historically been difficult to access for residents and neighbors in communities bordering the Park.”
  • Click submit.

Thank you for taking an active stance in improving the health of Prospect Park and those it welcomes every day! Voting closes at the end of February, so make your voice heard now.

c. Tom Stephenson

The Painted Bunting: Flocking to the Park

December 15, 2015

This month, you may have noticed the influx of binocular-wielding, camera-toting bird lovers in the vicinity of the LeFrak Center at Lakeside searching for a rare and magnificent bird called the painted bunting, otherwise known as the bird that broke the Internet. This migratory member of the cardinal family is the first of his kind to be seen in Brooklyn in years, and has generated a significant amount of buzz thanks to his polychromatic plumage.

But the beloved painted bunting is hardly the first exciting species to temporarily call Prospect Park’s abundant lush woodlands, home. John Jordan, Director of Landscape Management for the Prospect Park Alliance, rattles off a list of impressive avian visitors, most recently some nesting great horned owls. “We regularly have red-tailed hawks and each year we get a great number of migrating – and sometimes nesting – songbirds coming through the Park,” he adds.

The Park’s woodland habitats do not exist by happenstance, but are the result of years of hard work by the Prospect Park Alliance’s Landscape Management and Design and Construction teams. In the late 1980s, when the Alliance was first founded, the Park’s natural areas were in a dire state. Decades of erosion and neglect had left the Park’s woodlands and waterways a poor habitat for wildlife. Over the past two decades, the Alliance has invested millions of dollars to revitalize the Park, planting hundreds of thousands of trees, plants and shrubs.

The LeFrak Center at Lakeside is an ideal example of this work. The project reclaimed three acres of wildlife habitat, including the site where the painted bunting was spotted – formerly a 300-space parking lot. Much of this restoration work is led by the Alliance’s Natural Resources Crew, which gives careful consideration to habitat value when deciding on plants to introduce to the landscape. “In addition to the aesthetic benefit, we think about how it adds to the health of the landscape and what creatures might utilize a plant for food, shelter or nesting,” said Jordan.

Prospect Park is designated as an Important Bird Area by the National Audubon Society. Thanks in part to its prime location along the Atlantic flyway, Prospect Park’s acres of forest attract migrating birds every year, drawn in by an abundance of food, and a variety of habitats. “Each of these bird species is drawn to different things,” explains Jordan. “The owls come for winter roosts in the tall evergreens; the woodland songbirds each occupy a different niche.” The woodlands provide especially varied and rich habitats for birds. “Some species hunt in the tree tops for insects, some scour the understory for berries, fruit, and seeds, and others forage along the forest floor.”

Love the painted bunting? Join Alliance naturalists at the Prospect Park Audubon Center for bird watching and other nature programs on weekends and during the Winter Recess. The Brooklyn Bird Club also leads early morning bird walks and monthly explorations of the Park. Learn about upcoming bird watching events, and check out our Visit the Park section for more information about birding in Prospect Park.

Neighborhood Play: Stroud Playground

The Prospect Park Alliance contributed its design expertise to revitalize Stroud Playground in neighboring Crown Heights, which is an important community amenity as well as outdoor space for two public schools, PS 316 and MS 383. The $5.1 million project is part of Mayor de Blasio’s Community Parks Initiative, a citywide plan orchestrated by NYC Parks to renovate parks in communities with the greatest need through capital funding, programming and strategic partnerships, and also received funding from Council Member Laurie Cumbo.

“The Alliance brings decades of expertise in designing award-winning playgrounds in Prospect Park to this project,” said Alliance President Sue Donoghue. “It is important to share this knowledge with surrounding communities to strengthen and revitalize New York’s diverse green spaces.”

Stroud marks the Alliance’s first major design project outside Prospect Park. In order to further this partnership, the Alliance has also committed to providing pro-bono design services to transform two additional CPI projects in 2016 and 2017. Cumulatively, these three projects will represent a total commitment valued at $700,000 of in-kind support.

The Alliance developed a new design that fits many amenities into a compact, one-acre space. In a public forum held last December, the community voiced a strong desire for basketball courts, play spaces, ample lighting, and areas for parties and picnics. These elements are incorporated into the design, along with new play equipment and water features, shaded seating areas and picnic tables, handball courts, a jogging track, a turf field with misting spray and a quiet garden that can serve as an outdoor classroom.

“One of the most important parts of the renovation is how we are opening up the playground to the surrounding neighborhood,” said Justine Heilner, Alliance Senior Landscape Architect. “The design removed chain-link fencing to create a more accessible and engaging space, and new trees will be planted along the perimeter to create a green and inviting entranceway.”

Environmental sustainability and cost efficiency also played a major role in the redesign. The project will reuse some of the existing materials for benches and paving. Energy efficient lighting will be installed, and nearly 30 new trees will be planted. The Alliance and NYC Parks are also working closely with the Department of Environmental Protection on storm water management strategies. Rain gardens, porous paving and underground detention tanks will absorb storm water runoff not only from the playground itself but also the surrounding streets.

Stroud Playground construction begins in September 2017 and expected to take approximately one year to complete.

PPA Profiles: Christian Zimmerman

September 17, 2015

This year, Christian Zimmerman, the Alliance’s chief landscape architect celebrates his 25th anniversary with the Alliance. During his tenure, he has overseen the dramatic transformation of Prospect Park after decades of deterioration and decline.

As Vice President of Capital and Landscape Management, he leads a talented team of architects, landscape architects, horticulturists, arborists and ecologists. He is a passionate steward of the Park and deeply devoted to the democratic vision conceived by the Park’s creators Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux nearly 150 years ago. Nationally recognized for his historic preservation work, Christian was named an American Society of Landscape Architects Fellow in 2010.

Originally from North Dakota, he discovered his true calling as a landscape architect while studying horticulture at North Dakota State University. After earning a degree in Landscape Architecture at the University of Idaho, Christian moved to New York in 1988 where he began working as a landscape designer for the New York City Parks Department at the Olmsted Center. It wasn’t long before he joined the fledgling Prospect Park Alliance at a critical moment in its development.

Since that time, he has overseen a number of award-winning, innovative projects, from the restoration of the woodland Ravine (Brooklyn’s last remaining forest), to the Zucker Natural Exploration Area. Most significantly, Christian played a key role in the restoration of 26 acres in the southeast corner of the Park into one of the Alliance’s most popular and celebrated projects, Lakeside.

In his time restoring and preserving Prospect Park’s iconic terrain, the Park has returned to its place as one of Brooklyn’s most treasured destinations. In the early 1990s, when the Park’s neglected landscapes were considered unsafe, Park usage was at a low, with only 1.7 million visits each year. Since that time, the Park has returned to its place as one of the country’s premier green spaces, and now welcomes nearly 10 million visits each year. No matter the number of visitors, the Park remains a peaceful respite.

“You can always find a place to feel away from the city,” he said. “That’s the genius of the design.”

Despite overwhelming success stories, he still sees a lot of work to be done. “We’ve only restored 150 of 585 acres,” he explained. “We’ve done a lot, but there’s so much more to do. There are endless opportunities.”

With the completion of Lakeside, Christian and his team will now focus on the Park’s northeast corner, including woodland restoration in the Vale of Cashmere and the restoration of the Oriental Pavilion and Flatbush Avenue perimeter.

Learn more about future restoration projects.