This year, as Prospect Park Alliance celebrates the 150th anniversary of Prospect Park, we’re bringing you stories from members of the community about the role the Park has played in their lives. Interested in contributing your own? Submit your story and have a chance to become part of Brooklyn history. Portrait by Virginia Freire. 

“The first time I came to New York City was in 1957. I was eight years old, and I came up with my mother and grandmother for the Billy Graham Crusades. My mom and grandma got saved seven nights in a row, and I fell asleep seven nights in a row. On that same trip, we went to the last Brooklyn Dodgers game at Ebbets Field. I was completely taken by New York and Brooklyn, and knew that someday I’d be back here, because I wanted to be part of this. So that’s what I did.”

To say that Steve Hindy has been a “part” of what is going on in Brooklyn is somewhat of an understatement. After spending his childhood in West Virginia, Ohio, and Seneca Falls, NY, Hindy became a journalist and settled in New York City, where he worked for the Associated Press (AP). “I got it into my head that I wanted to cover a war,” says Hindy, “so I studied Arabic and headed to Beirut.” Over the following years, Hindy served as the Middle East Correspondent for the AP. While overseas, he married Ellen Foote, his high school sweetheart, and the couple had two children, Lily and Sam. After six years, the family returned, settling on 8th street in Park Slope.

It was in this house that the Brooklyn Brewery got its start. “In the Middle East, I had met Americans living in Saudi Arabia where they have Islamic Law, meaning no alcohol, so they all made their own beer at home.” Spurred to try his hand at home brewing, Hindy began producing beer from his 8th street kitchen. Together with his partner (and downstairs neighbor) Tom Potter, they established Brooklyn Brewery, producing their first commercial beer in 1988.

As the Brewery grew and gained notoriety, Hindy was getting to be a part of his Park Slope community. Having visited Prospect Park in the 1970’s, Hindy’s early impression was that the space was, “kind of forbidding. People were afraid of the Park, and it wasn’t very heavily used.” Hindy was part of the local dog-owner community, and began visiting the Park with others in early morning, emboldened by the safety in numbers. On one of these visits in the early 1990’s, Hindy struck up a conversation with Tupper Thomas, who at the time was the Prospect Park Administrator, and founder of the Prospect Park Alliance. Hindy recalls telling Thomas about the fledgling brewery, “Tupper loved the idea, said ‘oh you have to join my board.’”

Since then, Hindy has served on the Alliance’s Board of Directors, helping to steer the organization during decades of monumental change in the Park, helping to oversee projects like the construction of the Tennis Center. “In the last two decades, the Alliance has become an extraordinarily effective organization, and more importantly, a desirable form of community service for people living in Brooklyn.”

Hindy and the Brooklyn Brewery have made another recent contribution to the Park, a new beer called Long Meadow Gold, created as an homage to Prospect Park in celebration of the 150th anniversary. “Long Meadow Gold is brewed with a new yeast that we’re experimenting with, and has a really bright, lively flavor,” says Hindy, comparing the democratic quality of the Park to a beer. “Beer is a wonderful inexpensive beverage, accessible the same way the Park is for the public and available to everyone. We’re really excited to be a part of the 150th anniversary.” Try Long Meadow Gold at Smorgasburg in Prospect Park.

In addition to the Brooklyn Brewery and Prospect Park Alliance, Hindy has made his mark in the city through his involvement with other community organizations including the Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn and the Gowanus Canal Conservancy. Additionally, Hindy dedicates much of his time to working with Transportation Alternatives, the non-profit organization that advocates for better and safer bicycling, walking and public transit, and fewer cars. Hindy’s son, Sam Hindy, was killed in a bicycling accident in 2007. Ever since, Hindy has been a vocal proponent for pedestrian safety, supporting Vision Zero, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s action plan for ending traffic injuries and fatalities.

Hindy and his family moved to a house in Gowanus years ago, but they still find themselves back in Prospect Park.  “We used the park constantly when we lived up here, and we still use it all the time. We play in the Tennis Center and come to the Park to sit on a bench that is dedicated to our son. It’s on a hill where we used to have birthday parties for our kids, so that’s what we call Sam’s Hill.”  Looking around the Park on a recent spring morning, Hindy is reflective on the changes in the Park, “it’s amazing what’s happened here, and it’s been an honor to be part of the transformation.”

On April 1, Prospect Park Alliance President Sue Donoghue, NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver and other elected officials joined community members to kick off the celebration of Prospect Park’s 150th Anniversary, with a weekend of special events and festivities. This Opening Weekend celebration kicks off a full season of 150th anniversary programming marking this milestone, which includes special concerts, tours, an oral history project and exhibition with partners including the Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Public Library, New York Philharmonic, BRIC and Turnstile Tours.

“Prospect Park is one of New York City’s jewels and a landmark in the life of my family,” said Mayor de Blasio. “Celebrating the park’s 150th anniversary reminds me of being married there and the days I spent coaching baseball and taking my children to the playgrounds. On behalf of 8.5 million New Yorkers, I want to thank the Prospect Park Alliance and all the volunteers and organizations that help maintain ‘Brooklyn’s backyard,’ and urge anyone who hasn’t had the chance to pay it a visit.”
 
“Happy 150th birthday, Prospect Park!” said NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, FAICP. “This year marks a major milestone for ‘Brooklyn’s backyard,’and Parks is honored to be a part of the celebration. For thirty years, the partnership with Prospect Park Alliance has made it possible for such a beloved outdoor space to thrive and become the destination is it today. This year, there are plenty of opportunities to come together and enjoy this park we all hold so dear. We look forward to another 150 years of joining this community to care for Prospect Park.”
 
“Prospect Park’s history closely mirrors that of the city, and its upswings and downswings,” said Sue Donoghue, President of the Prospect Park Alliance, the non-profit organization that sustains the Park. “Prospect Park Alliance was founded at a time when the Park was in decline, and through a successful private-public partnership, today the Park is once again a cherished community haven. We are so thrilled to present a range of events this spring, summer and fall that will bring the community together to celebrate this important milestone.”
 
Prospect Park’s history closely mirrors the history of Brooklyn, which was chartered in 1834 and by the 1860s became the nation’s third largest city. This growth prompted civic leaders to spearhead the creation of Prospect Park as Brooklyn’s flagship park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who also designed Central Park. In 1866, ground was broken and in 1867, the Park Commissioners held an “Opening Day” event that attracted thousands of visitors. Since that time, the Park has served as Brooklyn’s Backyard, a haven for millions of community members from across the borough. Since 1987, the Park has operated through a private-public partnership between the City and Prospect Park Alliance, the non-profit organization that sustains, restores and advances the Park.

Prospect Park Anniversary Season 
This full season of programming is funded in part by Bloomberg Philanthropies. A calendar of highlights follows:
 
Opening Weekend
Friday, March 31 – Sunday, April 2
Join Prospect Park Alliance to kick off the 150th anniversary celebration of Prospect Park, Brooklyn’s Backyard, with a full weekend of special events and festivities. The fun kicks off Friday, March 31, when Lola Star brings her popular skating disco to the ice at the LeFrak Center at Lakeside. All weekend long, enjoy the start of the spring season with an Opening Day Parade and Fair, an exhibition 1860s ballgame, running and walking tours, and the first Smorgasburg of the season, including the launch of a special Brooklyn Brewery Prospect Park 150th brew: Long Meadow Gold.
 
Party for the Park
Thursday, May 11
Prospect Park Boathouse
This spring fundraising party for Prospect Park Alliance will celebrate the Park’s 150th! Enjoy music, light bites from some of Brooklyn’s top restaurants and cafes, and specialty cocktails from some of the borough’s top mixologists. The party will feature Butter & Scotch, Tooker Alley, El Atoradero, Insa, Littleneck, Lumpia Shack, East Wind Snack Shop, Hugo & Sons, No. 7 Restaurant, Four & Twenty Blackbirds and Ample Hills. Nitehawk Cinema will host a lounge with exclusive cocktails and film screenings celebrating the Park’s 150th.
 
It’s My Park! Day: Prospect Park 150
Saturday, May 20 
Prospect Park
Join Prospect Park Alliance and REI to care for your Park! On It’s My Park! Day, Alliance volunteers will participate in a citywide effort to care for our green spaces with brooms, shovels, rakes, and trash grabbers. In honor of Prospect Park’s 150th anniversary, the Alliance is aiming to have 150 volunteers in the Park on May 20. Stewardship work will include woodland restoration. Presented by REI.
 
New York Philharmonic Concerts in the Parks: Prospect Park 150
Friday, June 16
Long Meadow Ball Fields, Prospect Park
The New York Philharmonic partners with Prospect Park Alliance to honor the Park’s 150th Anniversary as part of the Philharmonic’s Concerts in the Parks, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer. The Philharmonic will feature Brooklyn-based musicians performing an opening act, presented as part of the Philharmonic’s Share the Stage program and in celebration of the Park’s 150th and the Philharmonic’s 175th anniversary.
 
The Means of a Ready Escape: Brooklyn’s Prospect Park 
On view July 13, 2017 – September 30, 2018 
Brooklyn Historical Society
In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Prospect Park, Brooklyn Historical Society and Prospect Park Alliance present an exhibition that celebrates the founding vision of the Park, traces its social and historical trajectories, and examines the important role that Prospect Park has played as “Brooklyn’s Backyard” for 150 years.
 
The Connective Project
July 7–17, 2017
Prospect Park
In celebration of the 150th Anniversary of Brooklyn’s Backyard, Prospect Park Alliance is bringing together artists, Brooklyn notables and the public to create a site-specific art installation, which celebrates the special meaning the Park has in the lives of millions of community members from across the borough and beyond. Funded in part by Bloomberg Philanthropies and NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.
 
BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival: Prospect Park 150th Celebration
Summer 2017
Prospect Park Bandshell
As part of the 150th celebration, BRIC and Prospect Park Alliance will host a special one-evening celebration of Prospect Park as part of the annual BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, featuring performances and special festivities in honor of the Park.
 
The Moth StorySLAM: Prospect Park 150
Thursday, September 7
Prospect Park Picnic House

Prospect Park Alliance and The Moth present a special Moth StorySLAM in celebration of the Park’s 150th Anniversary.  This open-mic storytelling competition is open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night’s theme: Anniversaries. Come tell a story, or just enjoy the show!

Ongoing Programs

 Prospect Park History Tour
Select Sundays at 10 am and select Friday evenings at 6 pm, April through October
Celebrate the 150th anniversary of Prospect Park on this special series of guided walking tours of this iconic park in the heart of Brooklyn. These tours will examine the Park’s many layers of natural and human history, from the landscape design to architectural eras visible in the built environment to stories about how people have enjoyed the Park over time. Presented by Turnstile Tours in partnership with Prospect Park Alliance.
 
Campfire Conversations
April 1, May 6, June 3
Lefferts Historic House, Prospect Park
Prospect Park Alliance and the Brooklyn Public Library kick off a new monthly event series as part of the 150th celebration of Prospect Park. The first Saturday of the month, enjoy live music, community conversations and refreshments around a roaring fire.
 
Our Streets, Our Stories: Prospect Park 150
All season long, share your Prospect Park story with Prospect Park Alliance and Brooklyn Public Library, which will be recorded for posterity in the Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection. The Alliance and Library are seeking 150 stories in celebration of the 150th: learn more at www.prospectpark.org/150stories.
 
Brooklyn Brewery – Prospect Park 150th Brew: Long Meadow Gold
In celebration of the Park’s 150th, Brooklyn Brewery brewed Long Meadow Gold, a beer that captures the countless long afternoons of fun in Prospect Park, and turns them into a crisp pale ale packed with laidback vibes that could only come from Brooklyn. A portion of all sales will benefit the non-profit Prospect Park Alliance to sustain, restore and advance the Park. Long Meadow Gold will be available at Smorgasburg Prospect Park which takes place Sundays on Breeze Hill in Prospect Park starting April 2.
 
Programs and prices are subject to change. For up-to-date information, please visit our events calendar.

This year, as Prospect Park Alliance celebrates the 150th anniversary of Prospect Park, we’re bringing you stories from members of the community about the role the Park has played in their lives. Interested in contributing your own? Submit your story and have a chance to become part of Brooklyn history. Portrait by Virginia Freire. 

She’s met John Turturro and Steve Buscemi, ice skated with Molly Shannon, and has given Rosie Perez a lift in her golf cart. One time Michael Bloomberg bought her a drink at Peter Luger Steakhouse. But Margaret Ring is a Brooklyn celebrity in her own right. “People say ‘Marge is a legend.’ I talk to everybody, I talk to every person who walks into this park.” And after just a few minutes of walking through Prospect Park with her, it’s clear she’s not joking.

A lifetime in Brooklyn and twenty years in the Park—working at various times at the Carousel, the former Wollman Rink and the Parade Ground—means Ring carries her own celebrity status. “You can’t go anywhere with her,” laughed friend and Prospect Park Turf Crew Supervisor Karen LeRiche. “Everywhere she goes, people know her and want to talk to her.”

“I’m that sixth-degree person,” agreed Ring, “you give me one person and I know somebody that knows somebody. No matter where I walk into, that happens.”

Perhaps unsurprising, since the Ring family have flourished in this corner of the world for many generations, “My parents, my grandparents, my great grandparents, were all from Brooklyn. Before there was air conditioning, my grandfather slept out in Prospect Park in the summers.” Ring’s uncles worked for in Prospect Park, planting trees in the 1940’s, and her parents got engaged in Prospect Park, on the Long Meadow. Her father, who according to Margaret “people said was the most handsome man in Brooklyn,” was an umpire on weekends at the Parade Ground. “He introduced us to the Park. On Sundays after the baseball games we would go through the woods here, he would take us up and down the trails.”

Growing up around the Park—biking, playing softball and spending hours in the playgrounds—Margaret has witnessed firsthand the transformation of Prospect Park. “As a kid, I walked from Grand Army Plaza home alone through the Park maybe one or two times. I said, ‘wow, this is beautiful’ but I didn’t see a single person in the Park, it was kind of scary.” Brooklyn’s flagship park, which opened to the public in 1867, has seen it ups and downs, but during a citywide fiscal crisis in the 1970s, it fell into serious disrepair. Dilapidated structures, untended greenery and unsafe conditions led to a precipitous drop in visitorship. The community outcry that followed was directly responsible for the founding of Prospect Park Alliance in 1987.

Ring began working for the Prospect Park Alliance in 1997, as the organization was growing and undertaking increasingly ambitious projects aimed at improving the Park and increasing visitorship. “I tell everybody, if it wasn’t for the Alliance, we wouldn’t have a Park as nice as this. Even in the 20 years I’ve been here, I’ve seen changes.” A project she particularly cherishes is the restoration of the Park woodlands, “even when it was bad, it was still beautiful, but when they finished the Ravine, I tell you, I cried. I took my father through, and he cried too. You couldn’t walk through it in the ’70s.”

As much as any restoration project has improved the Park, so has the work of Margaret Ring and other Alliance and Parks staff who serve the public. They not only contribute to the positive change that has come to pass in the Park in recent decades, but also help sustain the Park’s authentic Brooklyn identity. “You treat people as if they’re your grandparents, your brothers and your sisters, that’s very important,” said Ring. “I had the good fortune to play in this park as a child, and I still do. It’s wonderful to work in a place this beautiful.”

Do you have a Prospect Park story? Share with us and have a chance to become part of Brooklyn history!