Prospect Park

Designed by the celebrated landscape architects who created New York City’s Central Park, Prospect Park is an oasis of greenery in the heart of Brooklyn. It is a favourite destination for tourists and a beloved spot to relax and get away from it all for city dwellers.

Spanning 585 acres, this beautiful park features a zoo, picnic and barbecue areas, several baseball fields, and tons of activities from skating to horseback riding. There is also an outdoor venue for concerts in the summertime as well as event spaces for weddings and parties. And there is plenty of lush green space for just spreading out a blanket and doing absolutely nothing at all!

Nature in the City

Prospect Park boasts some pretty spectacular attractions for nature lovers. The park’s Long Meadow lives up to its name, stretching almost a mile in length and providing the perfect place to kick back and relax. It’s often referred to as the longest unbroken meadow in any American park.

Park of the beauty of Prospect Park’s design is the abundance of water. Streams, waterfalls and pools wind their way throughout the park, leading to the 60-acre freshwater lake. There are also thousands of tree to admire in this picturesque urban park- over 30,000 in fact. Over half of these trees are woodland trees within the park’s natural areas which includes 250 acres of forest, which is the last remaining forest in Brooklyn.

There are plenty of small animals who call the trees and shrubs of this woodland their home. The Prospect Park Audubon Center houses educational exhibits where kids can learn about the plants and wildlife species in the park.

Activities

Basketball games. Catch-and-release fishing. Tennis lessons at the Prospect Park Tennis Center. Horseback riding in the summer and ice skating in the winter. For sporty types, there is no shortage of things to do at Prospect Park every day, all year round.

There are paved running lanes that are popular with runners, including a 3.35-mile running lane designed specifically for runners along Park Drive which forms a loop within the park. A map of the park with distances for runners can be downloaded from the Prospect Park official website.

Prospect Park is a wonderful spot for dog-owners. There are expansive off-leash areas during specific hours for dogs to run and play, and the dog beach is the perfect spot for your furry friend to cool off in the sticky summer heat!

The Prospect Park Bandshell

Home to the renowned Celebrate Brooklyn Performing Arts Festival, the park’s bandshell hosts dozens of live outdoor concerts in the summer season and attracts almost a quarter million visitors each year. The concert schedule features a wide variety of performers including edgy up-and-coming talent as well as well-known acts.

The Prospect Park Bandshell is also an outdoor movie theatre, featuring one of the biggest screens in the world at 21-feet high and 50-feet wide.

Cool Things to do for Kids

There are seven children’s playgrounds in Prospect Park to let your little bundles of energy run wild. The wildly popular Imagination Playground features a storytelling grove as well as a dragon that spouts water, and the Garfield Tot Lot was created just for toddlers in mind with lots of safe areas to play on and playground equipment designed just right for little arms and legs to manoeuvre. The Harmony Playground located near the Prospect Park Bandshell is music-inspired, featuring xylophones kids can get their hands on!

The Prospect Park Carousel is a must-see destination if you have little ones- or even if you don’t! The historic carousel which dates back to 1912 was restored in the 90s and features beautifully carved animals you can take a spin on. It’s a great place to host a kid’s birthday party in Prospect Park.

Other great destinations for kids in the park include the Lefferts Homestead Children's Historic House Museum and the Prospect Park Zoo, home to over 80 species of animals.

Visiting Prospect Park in Brooklyn

The main entrance to Prospect Park is located at Grand Army Plaza, which is bordered by Prospect Park West, Parkside Avenue and Flatbush Avenue.

Location: Brooklyn
Phone: 718-965-8951
E-mail: info@prospectpark.org

Click here to visit Prospect Park official website.