Prospect Park Alliance in partnership with Turnstile Tours present a virtual exploration of Prospect Park’s waterways. In this virtual tour, we look closely at the ingenious drainage system and chain of manmade streams and ponds that terminate in Brooklyn’s largest lake, follow the park’s scenic watercourse, and go inside one of the most unique features of the park: the 1869 Wellhouse, the park’s last remaining building by park designer Calvert Vaux, which once housed the machinery that fueled the watercourse and was recently restored by the Prospect Park Alliance and converted into the first composting restrooms in a NYC park.
Virtual Program: Tackling Climate Change in Prospect Park
September 29, 2020
In this Climate Week NYC virtual program, learn how climate change has affected Prospect Park and other natural areas in New York City. Hear about the projections for the future, including how Prospect Park Alliance and the Natural Areas Conservancy is using the best available science to mitigate the negative effects of climate change and preserve our urban forests. Hosted by Turnstile Tours and featuring guests Howard Goldstein, Prospect Park Alliance forest ecologist, and Natural Areas Conservancy’s Justin Bowers, program manager for Natural Areas Restoration and the creator of Forest Identification and Restoration Selection Tool (FIRST), which helps forest restoration practitioners manage for and adapt to geographic and climate conditions.
Happy Earth Day! This year, people all around the world are celebrating a milestone—the 50th anniversary of this international day of action for our environment. While we cannot gather together, our environmental educators have organized a celebration with fun activities and programs that will bring the wonders of nature in Prospect Park to life no matter where you are.
Tune in at 11 am for The Trees of Prospect Park. Learn about Brooklyn’s last remaining forest with Turnstile Tours and Prospect Park Alliance forest ecologist Howard Goldstein in this live, virtual program.
Be a steward of Prospect Park and our community. If you visit the park this Earth Week, take our nature pledge to protect our natural areas and our community. And when you go out, please wear a face covering and practice social distancing. Help our essential workers by carrying out your litter.
Finally, this Earth Day, sustain the park that sustains you: right now your gift will go twice as far to sustain our community’s essential green space. We’re excited to announce that a pair of generous Prospect Park Alliance supporters have made a pledge: they will match all donations up to $20,000, dollar-for-dollar. Now is the perfect time to make your gift to support the park you love—when it will go twice as far and do twice as much to preserve this essential natural oasis.
And from all of us here at Prospect Park Alliance, happy Earth Day!
c. Martin Seck
Archtober 2019 Tours in Prospect Park
October 2, 2019
It’s Archtober, and NYC’s architecture and design month features hundreds of events, tours, and exhibitions. Four of these tours are taking place right in Brooklyn’s Backyard, and you’re invited! Presented in partnership with Prospect Park Alliance and Turnstile Tours, check out the month’s lineup:
Prospect Park Tour: Hidden Treasures
Sunday, October 6 , 10:30 am – 12:30 pm
Join Prospect Park Alliance and Turnstile Tours to explore some of the little-known corners of Prospect Park in this tour that uncovers some of the park’s hidden treasures. Once prime attractions, these areas are currently the focus of Prospect Park Alliance restoration efforts to revitalize the Park. The tour includes the Rose Garden and Vale of Cashmere in the park’s northeast corner, and well as a guided walk through Brooklyn’s last remaining forest, the 150-acre Ravine.
Prospect Park Tour: Art + Architecture
Friday, October 11 , 4 pm – 6 pm
Join Prospect Park Alliance and Turnstile Tours for a special Friday evening tour in celebration of Archtober. For over 150 years, Prospect Park has been a showcase of public buildings and artwork. This tour examines beautiful representations of Beaux-Arts, City Beautiful, New Deal Modernism, and LEED-certified park destinations.
Prospect Park Tour: Waterways + Wellhouse
Sunday, October 13 , 10:30 am – 10:30 am
Join Prospect Park Alliance and Turnstile Tours for a tour in celebration of Archtober. Prospect Park is a marvel of engineering, with a man-made watercourse weaving through forests and meadows to a 60-acre lake. Explore the restored watercourse as well as the 1869 Wellhouse, once the world’s largest well, now home to the first composting toilets in a NYC public park.
Prospect Park Tour: Exploring the East Side
Saturday, October 26 , 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm
Join Prospect Park Alliance and Turnstile Tours for a tour in celebration of Archtober. Explore Prospect Park’s East Side, including works in progress (Rose Garden, Flatbush Avenue perimeter), upcoming improvements (Lefferts Historic House), and recent and historic park treasures (Carousel, Lakeside and WPA art + architecture of the Prospect Park Zoo).
Spring is here, and Prospect Park Alliance and Turnstile Tours have an exciting schedule of new tours in the park! Discover hidden treasures, natural wonders and little-known tales on these interactive guided tours of Prospect Park in the heart of Brooklyn. Private group tours are available seven days a week, and public tours are offered every Sunday from April 28 through November 24. Prospect Park Alliance member enjoy 25% off park walking tours, learn more at prospectpark.org/join.
Our tour season will kick off April 28 with these new themed excursions:
Hidden Treasures of Prospect Park: Explore some of the little-known corners of Prospect Park in this tour that uncovers some of the park’s hidden treasures. Once prime attractions, these areas are currently the focus of Prospect Park Alliance restoration efforts to revitalize the Park. The tour includes the Rose Garden and Vale of Cashmere in the park’s northeast corner, and well as a guided walk through Brooklyn’s last remaining forest, the 150-acre Ravine. This tour takes place on the first Sunday of each month.
Waterways and the Wellhouse: Prospect Park is an engineering marvel, designed around an ingenious drainage system and a chain of manmade streams and ponds that terminate in Brooklyn’s largest lake. This tour will follow the park’s scenic watercourse and delve into how Prospect Park Alliance maintains and supports this complex system. The tour will end with a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most unique features of the park: the 1869 Wellhouse, the park’s last remaining building by park designer Calvert Vaux, which once housed the machinery that fueled the watercourse and was recently restored by the Alliance and converted into the first composting restrooms in a NYC park. This tour takes place on the second Sunday of each month.
Park Art and Architecture: For over 150 years, Prospect Park has been a showcase for beautiful public buildings and artwork, with representations from eras including Beaux-Arts, City Beautiful, the New Deal Modernism and contemporary LEED-certified projects. This tour will examine some of the fine architectural details and ongoing restoration work, from the era of Vaux and Olmsted to the present day. This tour takes place on the third Sunday of each month.
Family Fun in Brooklyn’s Backyard (includes Zoo and Carousel admission): Prospect Park is an oasis for people – and animals! Park lovers of all ages can discover the native habitats and inhabitants of the park, and explore the past and present of recreation, animals and ongoing conservation efforts of Prospect Park Alliance. This tour includes an interactive scavenger for children and adults, and ends at the park’s Children’s Corner, with a special visit to Prospect Park Zoo and tickets to ride the historic Carousel. This tour takes place on the fourth Sunday of each month.
It probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that Prospect Park is a popular destination for weddings.Couples who love the park and want a slice of nature in their Brooklyn nuptials choose the Prospect Park Picnic House and Boathouse as the place to tie the knot every year. But this was not always the case. The first Prospect Park wedding, which took place in the park’s former Rose Garden in 1923, caused quite a stir.
Let’s go back to the 1870s, the early days of Prospect Park when famed designers Olmsted and Vaux were first plotting out the features of the park. The area, known now as the Rose Garden, was first conceived as a children’s playground, with a carousel powered by a real horse, seesaws and swings. Despite the attractions, the playground was not a popular destination. The area’s geographic features made it too hot and exposed to be a playground. It was, however, an excellent climate for growing roses. And so the park’s Rose Garden came to be.
In the 1890s, the landscape was transformed into a botanical destination. Three water basins—reconstructions of which are still visible at the site—filled with aquatic plants and fish were installed by the design firm of McKim, Mead and White. The landscape was planted with an assortment of exotic flowers and roses, and in 1901, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle exclaimed, “some of the roses are larger than teacups,” adding, “there can be no finer sight in the domain of floriculture in the United States.”
In 1923, local residents Elizabeth Hoyt Senarens and Owen Morton Gunderson applied for a permit to be married in Prospect Park. The Park Commissioner issued the first permit of its kind for a wedding to be held at 7:45 am, “so that there might be no interruption from a crowd of romping children or unsympathetic grownups.” The wedding was considered a novelty and a scandal, and was widely covered in the press by publications such as Brooklyn Life, Brooklyn Standard Union, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and even The New York Times.
The bride, Elizabeth Senarens, explained to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that, “she had always yearned for roses and even as a little girl had thought the Prospect Park rose gardens the most romantic place for a wedding in the world.” But the media attention surrounding the nuptials took its toll when the couple’s pastor decided at the last minute that he would not officiate the wedding. In an interview with the Times, the reverend was quoted saying, “I never did consent to perform the ceremony in the park,” and that when he learned the details he, “refused at once.”
The Rose Garden in a vintage postcard, c. Prospect Park Archives/Bob Levine Collection
The couple had difficulty finding another pastor to perform their ceremony, until finally Rev. Ernest J. Marvin of the Fenimore Street M.E. Church agreed on the condition of anonymity. The press did not honor this request, publishing his name as the minister who presided over this historic first wedding in Prospect Park.
The morning of the wedding came, according to the Standard Union, “blowing a chilly breeze… not at all conducive to romance.” Police were on hand to contain the throngs of curious onlookers, and the wedding proceeded, attended by the family and friends of the wedding party, newspaper reporters and photographers, and a “few stragglers on their way to work,” as per a report from the Times.
Today, the former Rose Garden is entering a new phase, as Prospect Park Alliance begins plans to reimagine this northeastern area of the park that has seen little use in past decades. In recent years, the Alliance has invited the community to help shape the future of this area through community visioning and feedback surveys. Thanks to the input of the local community, Alliance architects are now in the process of designing a space that will serve the entire community, and encourage many more memorable occasions for years to come.
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Join the Earth Day Sustainer Challenge!
As spring arrives, Prospect Park blooms once again. Become a monthly Sustainer by April 22, and Thigpen Hill Family Fund will give $20,000 to match your gift each month for a year—that’s 12 matches in a row!
