Tag: Prospect Park Alliance

6 Ways to Take Care of Prospect Park’s Lake

July 11, 2022

July is Lake Appreciation Month, and Brooklyn’s only Lake needs our help to stay healthy and vibrant. Prospect Park’s 60-acre Lake is home to a wide range of fish, amphibians, birds, and home to a variety of beloved park activities. We’re sharing 6 ways that you can help care for the Prospect Park Lake with each visit to the park.

  • 1. Admire the Wildlife from Afar: We all love to watch the turtles and ducks that live in Prospect Park’s Lake, but please admire them from a respectful distance and do not feed them. The animals of Prospect Park have systems in place to find food naturally, which keeps them healthy and safe. When we feed park wildlife, it can attract animals to places they wouldn’t naturally go and can harm these beloved park dwellers’ health.

 

  • 2. Fish Responsibly: Please protect wildlife habitats for everyone’s enjoyment by following fishing rules. Remember that all fishing is catch-and-release and is allowed in designated areas only, and adults need a license from the NYS DEC. When not disposed of properly, fishing line can entangle birds and other wildlife and result in injury or death. Remember to discard fishing line fragments and hooks in marked fishing line bins or trash cans to keep park wildlife safe.

 

  • 3. Carry-In and Carry-Out Your Trash: Carry your trash, and anything else you bring into the park, out of the park with you! Dispose of your litter at home where you can recycle and compost it. Ensuring that no trash, debris, or other items are left behind helps keep our Lake healthy and our wildlife safe.

 

  • 4. Keep Dogs Leashed: Four-legged friends are great park companions. Make sure their visit to the park is positive for the park wildlife and natural areas by following dog-walking rules and safety tips. Remember that off-leash hours are from 6 am–9 am and 9 pm–1 am at the Long Meadow (except ballfields), Nethermead and Peninsula Meadow (except woodlands). At Dog Beach, dogs must be leashed at all times except during off-leash hours.

 

  • 5. Enjoy the Lake from a Rental Boat: Keep in mind that swimming and private boats are never allowed in Prospect Park’s Lake. Approved boats are available to rent at the LeFrak Center at Lakeside. Following these rules helps keep park-goers as well as the animals and plants of the Lake safe.

 

  • 6. Stay Safe: Please remember that while the Lake is a cherished part of Brooklyn nature, it is not intended for swimming. Please take caution when near any waterbody and only swim at city pools and beaches where and when lifeguards are on duty.

Be a Park Champion! The health of Prospect Park as a whole impacts the quality of our Lake and the wildlife who call it home. Learn about the many ways that you can #BeAParkChampion and commit to do your part to keep Brooklyn’s Backyard vibrant and healthy.

Visit our Park Champion page to learn more about our stewardship activities, and take the Park Pledge! 

July is Lake Appreciation Month

July 6, 2022

Did you know? Prospect Park is home to Brooklyn’s only Lake, a 60-acre haven for numerous species of fish, birds, turtles, frogs and plants. The Lake also attracts plenty of human admirers, and this July, we hope you’ll join us in being a Park Champion as we celebrate Lake Appreciation Month.

Volunteer at the Lake
All July, Prospect Park Alliance has opportunities for you to lend a hand during Park Pitch In days! Join us for clean up projects on select Saturdays and Sundays—volunteers will be given grabbers, nets, and bags to help fish out trash from along the shoreline of our Lake. Appropriate for supervised youth ages 4-13, Teens and Adults. Sign up to volunteer.

Fish Responsibly
Fishing is permitted in the Prospect Park Lake, and we ask all who participate to be Park Champions and follow these simple rules:

Learn more on our Fishing page. 

Pledge to be a Park Champion
Prospect Park is essential to the health and wellbeing of millions of community members, and the hundreds of species of plants and wildlife that call Brooklyn’s Backyard home. Today, take an important step and pledge to Be A Park Champion, and enter to win great prizes.

Learn much more about being a Park Champion in Prospect Park.

Summer Movies Return for 2022 Season

Spend your summer nights in Prospect Park with SHOWTIME® In The Park, the free, outdoor movie series presented by SHOWTIME® in partnership with Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, Brooklyn Magazine and Prospect Park Alliance. The series will take place on Wednesdays in August on Prospect Park’s Long Meadow, and continues the longstanding “Summer Movies Under the Stars” series offered in Prospect Park for many years through the support of the Borough President.

Learn more + RSVP for Prospect Park movies: prospectpark.org/movies.

This year, the series extends to Fort Greene Park in July with partner Fort Greene Park Conservancy, offering nostalgic classics and feel-good fan favorites for all ages. The two-month series lineup will include the “West Side Story” remake by Steven Spielberg, “Crooklyn,” “Back to the Future,” “Spider-Man No Way Home,” and more. See below for the full lineup. The themes throughout deal with connectivity, perseverance, friendship, family (chosen and otherwise), self-empowerment, creativity and fantasy — just what we could all use this summer.

“SHOWTIME® in the Park has become one of the many summer events Brooklynites get excited for each year, and I’m looking forward to enjoying this year’s movie line-up in my new role as Borough President with my family. Supporting free and friendly community gatherings is critically important to me as the Chief-Promoter-of-Brooklyn and I hope more organizations emulate investing in such events so we can grow the number of activities around the year for families and individuals alike. Thank you again to Prospect Park Alliance and the Fort Greene Park Conservancy for your partnership,” said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

“We are thankful to the Borough President for continuing this long-cherished tradition of bringing our community together for free movie nights under the stars in Brooklyn’s Backyard, and to SHOWTIME® and Brooklyn Magazine for their support of this series,” said Deborah Kirschner, VP of Communications and External Relations for Prospect Park Alliance, the non-profit organization that sustains, restores and advances Prospect Park. “We also are delighted to partner with the Fort Greene Park Conservancy to expand the series to our sister park for another season of outdoor fun.”

The films will begin shortly after sundown at the north end of the Prospect Park Long Meadow, located nearest to the Grand Army Plaza entrance. The closest subway stations are the Grand Army Plaza and the Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum stops on the 2, 3 lines or the B41 bus lines.

Visit the SHOWTIME® table for a complimentary lawn chair while supplies last.

The following is the full lineup:

Fort Greene Park
For more information and to RSVP, click here. 

West Side Story (2021)
July 7
An adaptation of the 1957 musical, West Side Story explores forbidden love and the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds.

Selena
July 14
The true story of Selena, a Texas-born Tejano singer who rose from cult status to performing at the Astrodome, as well as having chart-topping albums on the Latin music charts.

Crooklyn
July 21
Spike Lee’s vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school teacher, her stubborn jazz musician husband and their five kids living in Brooklyn in 1973.

Clue
July 28
Six guests are anonymously invited to a strange mansion for dinner, but after their host is killed, they must cooperate with the staff to identify the murderer as the bodies pile up.

Prospect Park
For more information and to RSVP: prospectpark.org/movies.

Back to the Future
August 3
Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent thirty years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the eccentric scientist Doc Brown.

Ghostbusters (1984)
August 10
Three parapsychologists set up shop as a unique ghost removal service in New York City, attracting frightened yet skeptical customers.

Encanto
August 17
A Colombian teenage girl has to face the frustration of being the only member of her family without magical powers.

Spider-Man: No Way Home
August 24
With Spider-Man’s identity now revealed, Peter asks Doctor Strange for help. When a spell goes wrong, dangerous foes from other worlds start to appear, forcing Peter to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.

RSVP now to let us know you’re attending the summer film series at Prospect Park. This event is free and open to the public, and RSVPs are not required for entry. 

Please note that events will be cancelled in the case of inclement weather. Please visit prospectpark.org and  Prospect Park Alliance’s social media channels for up-to-date information. Any cancelled events will be rescheduled for the rain date of Wednesday, August 31.

For more information + to RSVP, visit: prospectpark.org/movies.

About Prospect Park Alliance
Prospect Park Alliance is the non-profit organization that sustains, restores and advances Prospect Park, Brooklyn’s Backyard, in partnership with the City of New York. The Alliance provides critical staff and resources that keep the Park green and vibrant for the diverse communities that call Brooklyn home. Learn more at prospectpark.org.

About TF Cornerstone
Founded by Tom and Fred Elghanayan in 1970 with the renovation of a small brownstone in Lower Manhattan, TF Cornerstone (TFC) now owns and operates nearly 10,000 residential units in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island City, and over 4 million square feet of commercial, office and retail space in NY, DC, VA and PA. With their rapid expansion into burgeoning Brooklyn markets and several momentous developments on the horizon, including 595 Dean St in Prospect Heights, TFC continues to build on its tradition of long-term investment and ownership by acquiring, developing and repositioning residential and commercial real estate. Learn more at tfc.com.

Additional program support provided by TF Cornerstone.

Re:New Initiative Returns for 2022

May 9, 2022

Prospect Park is the place to be for our community, which is why Prospect Park Alliance, the non-profit that sustains Brooklyn’s Backyard, is continuing the Re:New Prospect Park initiative for a second year. These efforts help serve our community to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the surge of visitors in the park.

Due to the pandemic, Prospect Park Alliance lost critical funding which resulted in a reduced workforce and resources. This combined with an increase in park visitors led to the park getting much more love than it can handle. However, thanks to the support of our community of donors and volunteers over the past two years, the park has been able to weather the storm, and the Alliance is placing much-needed funds to continue our Re:New efforts in time for our busiest season.

“Prospect Park has been so important for all of us these last two years. Our community has supported the park as volunteers, donors and advocates, and enabled us to sustain this essential green oasis,” said Prospect Park Alliance Interim President James Snow. 

“During the pandemic, it was made abundantly clear just how vital parks are to the health and wellbeing of this city,” said NYC Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue. “As we continue to recover, our priority is to ensure that parks in all neighborhoods are clean, green and safe. We are so grateful for the support of our partners at the Prospect Park Alliance who share in our commitment through programs like the Re:New Initiative.”

Critical support for this initiative is made possible through generous funding from Amazon, and many generous individuals and community members who make annual contributions to the Alliance. Learn more about Prospect Park Alliance membership.

Re:New Prospect Park Initiatives

Park Maintenance
Prospect Park Alliance has partnered with ACE New York, a non-profit that empowers the homeless, to provide additional maintenance resources to help clean the park on peak weekdays and weekend evenings through October. In addition, the Alliance has brought on board four groundskeepers to help supplement NYC Parks maintenance crews during this busiest time of year. The crew is partially funded via a grant from Amazon.

“Prospect Park is a local gem offering healthy outdoor recreation to Brooklyn families,” said Carley Graham Garcia, Amazon’s Head of Community Affairs in New York. “This creative initiative offers new job opportunities, while ensuring Prospect Park continues to serve our local neighborhood especially as we head into the summer months. Amazon is thrilled to renew this partnership for Summer 2022.”

To support these efforts, Prospect Park Alliance is encouraging park visitors to carry out their trash via promotional signage at all park entrances. The Alliance has also installed large trash receptacles in key areas of the park.

Park Improvements
The Alliance will continue the re-investment in the park to tackle important improvement projects through funding from our community of donors. Work will take place to improve pedestrian pathways, repair stonework at the Lakeside esplanade and locations throughout the park, install new picnic tables at the Wellhouse barbecue area, and improve drainage throughout the park—an increasingly critical tool in improving the resilience of the park against major rain and flooding events.

In 2021, the Re:New initiative successfully brought improvements to every corner of the park. The Lincoln Road comfort station received a complete makeover, new barbecues, furnishings and fixtures were installed at the popular Picnic House and Bandshell barbecue areas, new benches were added to the beloved Drummer’s Grove, and broken ornamental brickwork at the historic Boathouse terrance was repaired.

Volunteer Opportunities
Prospect Park Alliance has brought back the popular Re:New Volunteer Corps—a weekly volunteer program that tackles park improvement projects made necessary by the high volume of visitors. The crew works alongside Alliance staff to maintain playgrounds, painting over unsightly graffiti, weed areas overgrown with invasive plants and repaint park benches and railings.

In 2021, the Re:New Volunteer Corps was a great success and the crew worked on a variety of park improvement projects. Over the course of the season, they removed 2.6 tons of invasive vines and weeds; filled 250 holes on the Long Meadow; replenished all playground sandboxes; and sanded and painted 270 linear feet of hand railing, 121 benches, 46 entrance bollards, and the 10 storage containers on Center Drive.

About Prospect Park Alliance
Prospect Park Alliance is the non-profit organization that sustains, restores and advances Prospect Park, Brooklyn’s Backyard, in partnership with the City of New York. The Alliance provides critical staff and resources that keep the Park green and vibrant for the diverse communities that call Brooklyn home. Learn more at prospectpark.org. 

About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.

About ACE
ACE was founded in 1992 and provides job-readiness training, work experience, all around support, and much more to New Yorkers who have histories of homelessness, incarceration and addiction. At ACE, men and women overcome barriers through hard work to reach their goals of full-time employment, economic self-sufficiency, and family reunification. Over 3,000 men and women have secured full-time employment through ACE’s programs. Learn more at acenewyork.org.

c. Paul Martinka

Alliance Receives Top Honor at Lucy G. Moses Awards

April 22, 2022

At the 2022 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Awards, New York Landmarks Conservancy’s highest honors for preservation, Prospect Park Alliance received a top honor—The Preservation Organization Award. The Moses Awards recognize individuals, organizations, architects, craftspeople and building owners for their extraordinary contributions to preserving our City. As noted at the ceremony, the award is in recognition of the Alliance’s excellent stewardship for the collection of historic structures and sites in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

Watch the 32nd Annual Lucy G. Moses Preservation Awards online.

Prospect Park Alliance, the non-profit that sustains Prospect Park in partnership with the city, has a team of architects, designers, and landscape managers who are dedicated to preserving the original vision of the park as realized by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, while evolving the park to meet contemporary needs.

Among the Alliance’s previous preservation projects are the Prospect Park Carousel, the Boathouse, the Picnic House, the Bailey Fountain and more. “In each instance, the Alliance has recognized the value of these sites to connect community and honor history,” notes the Landmarks Conservancy’s Awards materials. “They have devoted resources, used original documentation to recreate lost architectural features, and have executed these projects to the highest standards. The picturesque results delight visitors and retain the park’s historic character.”

The Alliance has received three Moses Awards for preservation projects in the past decade: the Concert Grove Reconstruction (2012), the Wellhouse (2019) and Endale Arch (2020).

Learn about more projects coming up in the park on the Alliance’s Capital Project Tracker.

Many of the members of Prospect Park Alliance’s award-winning design and construction team. Left to right, back row: Jillian Pagano, Landscape Architect II; Alden Maddry, Senior Architect; Christian Zimmerman, Vice President, Capital and Landscape Management; Amy Peck, Archivist; Robert Garcia, Assistant Landscape Architect. Left to right, front row, Assya Plavskina, Construction Supervisor—Historic Preservation; Sarena Rabinowitz, Assistant Architect. 

NYLC_042022_MOSES AWARDS
c. Martin Seck

Celebrate Earth Day in Prospect Park

April 13, 2022

Join the celebration! This Earth Day season, join Prospect Park Alliance for nature exploration activities, open-air learning, volunteer activities, virtual learning resources, and stewardship to give back to our park and our planet. 

  • Volunteer
    • Prospect Park Alliance’s spring volunteer season is underway and there are many opportunities to lend a hand in Brooklyn’s Backyard. Work on essential park projects with Re:New Volunteer Corps on Tuesdays, help pick up litter with Green + Go Kits, and more! Register to be a Prospect Park Volunteer and see all of our upcoming opportunities at prospectpark.org/volunteer.
  • Nature Activities + In-Park Events
    • Join Prospect Park Alliance on Saturday April 23 for nature activities, education opportunities and more! Head to B’Earthday Bash to celebrate Earth Day, the Prospect Park Audubon Center’s 20th Anniversary, and the birthday of two legends: naturalist John James Audubon, and landscape architect and Prospect Park’s creator, Frederick Law Olmsted. Participate in  interactive activities for all ages, nature walks and a special exhibit on the 200th Anniversary of Olmsted’s birth. Learn about the environment in a special one-day session of University Open Air, with sustainability-focused free courses and workshops under the trees in Prospect Park.

What We’re Planting in the Park This Spring

Spring has sprung in Prospect Park! Prospect Park Alliance gardeners and volunteers are putting on their gardening gloves and preparing for our seasonal planting. This spring, our Landscape Management team is preparing to add 10,953 plants to the park, including: 171 trees, 338 shrubs, and 10,499 herbaceous plugs.

Prospect Park comprises 585 acres of rolling meadows, waterways and woodlands in the heart of Brooklyn, and is home to the borough’s only lake and last remaining forest. This landscape, beloved by Brooklynites, is also an essential wildlife habitat and hosts 250 species of birds and other important flora and fauna. For over 30 years, Prospect Park Alliance has overseen the park’s natural areas, and major improvements have been made to the entire park ecosystem. This spring’s plantings continue this essential work to keep the park green and vibrant.

Many of the new trees will be planted as part of the Alliance’s Commemorative Giving program, an opportunity for the public to donate a tree to the park in honor of a loved one or for a special occasion. These additions help replace lost trees and ensure the ecological health of the park.

These trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plugs are destined for areas throughout Prospect Park. The southern shore of the Peninsula will receive native wetland plants in an effort to prevent the further erosion of the Lake edge and the expansion of the invasive phragmites, while creating a visually appealing native waterfowl habitat. At the Butterfly Meadow atop Lookout Hill, volunteers have done extensive work clearing the area of undesirable invasive plants to make way for more beneficial species.

One of the spring’s largest plantings will take place in the landscape surrounding the LeFrak Center at Lakeside. Alliance staff have been hard at work this winter experimenting with sheet mulching in anticipation of the new plant additions in the area. “It will be interesting to see how the sheet mulching works,” says Ecozone Gardener AJ Logan. “Even before we plant new things we are already seeing some of both our friends and foes of the plant world sneaking in around the edges of the cardboard.”

The plantings at Lakeside will include a variety of species well suited for our area, and selected for their ecological benefits within our ecosystem. One addition, the Red Chokecherry, (Aronia arbutifolia), is a native shrub in the rose family with attractive white flowers in the spring and intense red and orange foliage in the fall. Its pollen and nectar provide food for native pollinators, and its berries are a winter source of food for birds. Another, Sweet pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia), has fragrant, bottle-brush like blooms of white flowers that attract a variety of pollinators in the summer.

The most important way the public can help these new plantings? “I’d like for visitors to know that when people and pets go into the horticultural beds, they can easily damage plants, particularly young perennials, and can contribute to soil compaction and erosion,” says Lakeside Lead Eco Zone Gardener Corbin Laedlein. “Please don’t wander into the beds and keep your dogs leashed at Lakeside.”

The sentiment is echoed by Eco Zone Gardener Jesse Brody, “with continued hard work, time and resources, I’m hopeful that we can get the LeFrak greenroof back to its pre-Covid state of being a landscape that serves important ecological functions and appears more worthy of the public’s respectful treatment.”

Learn more about Prospect Park Alliance’s work to sustain the environment.

Alliance Launches Poetry Partnership with Writing the Land

February 23, 2022

Prospect Park Alliance is partnering with Writing the Land, which connects poets with land set aside for people and nature to foster collaboration between the environmental and creative communities. Prospect Park Alliance has partnered with Writing the Land to commission four poets to produce work about Prospect Park and share their work with the Brooklyn community: Black poet Rachelle Parker, and Native American poets Michaeline Picaro, Opalanietet and Ty Defoe.

This partnership is a stage for diverse voices to engage in a dialogue about the park and its history, an important part of Prospect Park Alliance’s community engagement work. The collaboration, while embracing the park as a whole, connects to the Alliance’s Re-Imagine Lefferts initiative, currently underway, which seeks to re-envision the mission and programming of the park’s historic house museum to recognize its role as a site of slavery and to elevate the voices of the enslaved Africans who lived and worked the land, and the Indigenous people that were forced to leave their ancestral lands at the time of Dutch colonization.

“Our partnership with Writing the Land fits incredibly well into the work of the Alliance,” says Maria Carrasco, the Alliance’s Vice President of Public Programs. “Poetry is empowering and the perfect vehicle for engaging our community in contemplating the viewpoints of traditionally unheard voices. The spoken word can provide members of our community with new ways of thinking, and hopefully will encourage them to actively participate in social change and civic engagement here in the park and beyond.”

“Writing the Land is excited to expand our work with traditional land trusts to more diverse organizations that protect land,” says director of Writing the Land, Lis McLoughlin, PhD. ”Prospect Park is an amazing resource for its community and beyond, and we were delighted to find they were very open to using poetry as a way to highlight the great work they do. Our poets are looking forward to building bridges between the park and those who love and use it.”

The poets will spend the next several months visiting the park and creating poems inspired by the land, which will culminate in a reading in the park in October. Prospect Park poets will be featured performers, and they will give a sneak peek of some poems they are preparing for the Writing the Land Anthology to be published in December.

From left to right: Michaeline Picaro, Opalanietet, Rachelle Parker, Ty Defoe

Michaeline Picaro is a member of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation Turtle Clan. As a traditionalist with knowledge of medicinal plants, Picaro is currently seeking to further her expertise and is enrolled at Chamberlain College to receive her nursing BSN to further assist the Turtle Clan with nursing needs and assessments. Picaro is also a co-founder of the Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm which creates jobs and works toward food sovereignty. She is a co-founder of Ramapough Culture and Land Foundation, which preserves and restores the economic, social, cultural, sacred and environmental assets of the Ramapough Munsee ancestral lands.Picaro carries the Clan Mother title and is a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Narragansett Indian Tribe and preservationist for ceremonial landscapes.

Opalanietet is a member of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribal nation of New Jersey.  Since graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Opalanietet has performed in workshops and productions at renowned New York theatrical institutions including New Dramatists, LaMaMa E.T.C. and New York City Opera at Lincoln Center. In 2012, Opalanietet founded Eagle Project, a theater company dedicated to exploring the American identity through the performing arts and Native American heritage. Opalanietet is currently studying for his doctorate in Theatre & Performance Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center.

Rachelle Parker is a Nassawadox-born, Brooklyn-bred writer. She was selected the winner of the Furious Flower Poetry Prize, was awarded third prize in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award and was a finalist in Rhino Founders’ Prize. She was recognized in the Arts By The People – 2021 Moving Words. Her work appears in About Place Journal, The Adirondack Review, Taint Taint Taint Magazine and she is a contributor to the anthology The BreakBeat Poets: Black Girl Magic. Her photography also debuted in Orion Magazine.

Ty Defoe is an Indigiqueer citizen of the Oneida Nation and Anishinaabe Nations. Defoe is a writer, interdisciplinary artist, and Grammy Award winner. Defoe aspires to an “interweaving and glitterizing approach to artistic projects with liberation and environmentalism.” Defoe’s global cultural arts highlights include the Millennium celebration in Cairo, Egypt; International Music Festival in Ankara, Turkey; and Festival of World Cultures in Dubai. The artist’s accolades range from the Global Indigenous Heritage Festival Award, Jonathan Larson Award, Helen Merrill Playwriting Award 2021, and Cultural Capital Fellowship with First People’s Fund 2021.

Black History Spotlight: Otto Neals’ Peter & Willie

February 17, 2022

Otto Neals, a Brooklyn resident and one of the first Black artists to have work featured in a New York City park, has a remarkable knack for bringing stories to life. Neals is the sculptor behind Peter & Willie, the beloved statue of a boy and his dog in Prospect Park’s Imagination Playground, located along Ocean Avenue just south of the Lincoln Road entrance to the park. Since its installation in 1997 as part of the Alliance’s complete reconstruction of this playground, Peter & Willie has been a source of joy, fun and inspiration to countless families.

Neals has discussed his inspiration for the piece and his connection to Peter and Willie, the two protagonists of Ezra Jack Keats’ stories The Snowy Day and Peter’s Chair. In a 2021 interview with Current News, Neals recalled fond memories of reading Keats’ work with his kids, but being puzzled by the story of a Black boy told by a white author and illustrator.

Christian Zimmerman, Vice President of Capital and Landscape Management for Prospect Park Alliance, oversaw the project and worked closely with Neals. “Prospect Park Alliance and the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation wanted to recognize the storybook characters from Keats’ work, so we had a competition to select an artist for the job,” Zimmerman recounts, “and the select committee was really taken by Otto’s concept.”

Imagination Playground is a hub for imagination and creativity. “It is a very special type of playground, and not a playground in the traditional sense. There aren’t any swings or moving play equipment. It is really intended for children 6 and under, and it’s about (embracing) storytelling,” Zimmerman expressed. Neals’ proposed vision for Peter & Willie fit seamlessly with this intention.

Once installed, the sculpture was immediately and wholeheartedly embraced by the community. “The bronze piece’s original patina was a deep dark blue…and if you rub bronze, eventually the patina goes away. The very first place the deep blue disappeared was on Peter’s ears,” Zimmerman recalls. “Otto designed it in a way that was so accessible that children would sit down next to Peter and tell him secrets. They would whisper in his ear, and have conversations with Peter. They still do!” From the boulder the characters are perched upon, to the scale of the characters themselves, each element of Peter & Willie’s stature is intentional and has informed the community’s long standing connection to the piece and to Imagination Playground.

As a self-taught artist, Neals has said, “My talent as an artist comes directly from my ancestors. I am merely a receiver, an instrument for receiving some of the energies that permeate our entire universe and I give thanks for having been chosen to absorb those artistic forces.” Neals is committed to creating art for his Brooklyn community, and has succeeded in providing inspiration and art in Brooklyn’s Backyard.

Neals and Zimmerman and the project’s contractor in 1996 en route to select the boulder where Peter and Willy sit today. Photo courtesy of Christian Zimmerman.

Now in his 90s, Neals continues to inspire artists in Brooklyn and beyond to create community-centered work and has provided generations of families and kids with joy and fun through Peter & Willie. The piece is an honorary Literary Landmark in partnership with the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation and is a steadfast cherished destination and source of inspiration in Brooklyn’s backyard.

Learn more about the Park’s 7 playgrounds and things to do with children. 

c. Corbin Laedlein

Winter Work—Prepping for Spring Plantings at Lakeside

February 16, 2022

If you’ve visited the area around the LeFrak Center at Lakeside recently, you may have noticed Alliance gardeners hard at work and wondered, “what’s going on?” For weeks, dedicated staff and volunteers have been laying down cardboard and piles of leaves in an attempt to nip a persistent spring problem in the bud.

“In some areas we’re fighting a battle against the weeds and their seeds,” says Corbin Laedlein, Lakeside Lead EcoZone Gardener. Lakeside’s planted landscape is carefully managed to sustain wildlife and support the native ecosystem—but invasive and opportunistic plants can quickly outcompete the beneficial species. To combat the unwanted plants, Laedlein is overseeing large-scale “sheet mulching,” a technique being employed by the Alliance’s Lakeside gardeners in preparation for new plantings in the area come spring. “The main weeds we are suppressing are Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), Bedstraw (Galium aparine), Vetch (Coronilla varia) and Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense),” says Laedlein.

The Lakeside EcoZone team, which includes Laedlein and EcoZone Gardners Jesse Brody, AJ Logan and Christopher Pierce, first conducted a good deal of prep work to clear the targeted areas of these invasive plants and their root systems, then placed  a layer of cardboard to fully cover the soil. A layer of freshly-fallen leaves from park trees, gathered by Prospect Park’s Turf Crew, provided a layer of mulch to spread on top of the cardboard. By spring, the materials will have begun to decompose, and the gardeners will poke holes through the cardboard where new seedlings will be planted—ideally without the competition of the weeds, and benefiting from the fresh mulch.

By employing an eco-friendly weed-suppression method, Lakeside gardeners are avoiding the application of harmful chemicals in the park—an important goal for the Alliance’s Landscape Management team. In recent years, similar innovative thinking has seen the introduction of goats to clear invasive plants on steep slopes and ladybugs to tackle a harmful lace bug infestation. “Sheet mulching is super labor-intensive work,” says Laedlein, “and this large project couldn’t have been accomplished without the Alliance’s Lakeside EcoZone Gardeners, Alliance Volunteers, the City Cleanup Corps and the Prospect Park Turf Crew.

   

The spring plantings will include trees, shrubs, grasses and herbaceous perennials drawing on the original palette of plants chosen for Lakeside, plus a few new additions. This includes Whorled Milkweed (Asclepias verticillata), Foxglove Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) and Sweet pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia) to name a few—plants chosen for their resilience and ecosystem benefits.

Learn more about how Prospect Park Alliance is sustaining the environment.