Prospect Park (Brooklyn)

Prospect Park (Brooklyn)

Prospect Park is a 585-acre (2.37 km2) (237 ha) public park in the New York City borough of Brooklyn located between Park Slope, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Ditmas Park, Windsor Terrace and Flatbush Avenue, Grand Army Plaza and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It is run and operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and is part of the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway.

The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux after they completed Manhattan's Central Park. Attractions include the Long Meadow, a 90-acre (36 ha) meadow, the Picnic House, which houses offices and a hall that can accommodate parties with up to 175 guests; Litchfield Villa, the pre-existing home of Edwin Clark Litchfield, an early developer of the neighborhood and a former owner of a southern section of the Park; Prospect Park Zoo; a large nature conservancy managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society; The Boathouse, housing a visitors center and the first urban Audubon Center; Brooklyn's only lake, covering 60 acres (24 ha); the Prospect Park Bandshell that hosts free outdoor concerts in the summertime. The park also has sports facilities including seven baseball fields in the Long Meadow, and the Prospect Park Tennis Center, basketball courts, baseball fields, soccer fields, and the New York Pétanque Club in the Parade Ground. There is also a private Society of Friends cemetery on Quaker Hill near the ball fields, where actor Montgomery Clift is interred.