June 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 18

Community Center

Back To The Future
Lakeside at Prospect Park brings year-round recreation and increased access to green
space to Brooklyn residents while restoring some original features of one of the area's
most-loved parks
By Samantha Bartram

ubbing the recent, massive overhaul of a portion of Brooklyn's Prospect Park a " renovation " is perhaps an understatement. " It was a
300-space parking lot, " says Christian Zimmerman, vice president of
capital and landscape management for Prospect Park Alliance (PPA). " There
was no green space at all. [The lot] serviced that side of the park for picnicking,
summer programs and the skating rink in the winter. "
PPA, working with the New York
City Department of Parks and Recreation, decided the spot was long
overdue for an upgrade, and in February 2011, contractors broke ground
on what is now known as Lakeside at
Prospect Park. The $74 million project has completely transformed the
26-acre parcel, which is now suitable
for year-round recreational use.
Going Old-School
While Lakeside at Prospect Park
certainly breathed new life into the
area previously known as Wollman

Rink, the project could be viewed as
a bit of a throwback to simpler times.
" Originally this area was a carriage
concourse designed by [Frederick
Law] Olmsted and [Calvert] Vaux
as a place to gather near the Concert
Grove for events, " Zimmerman explains. The grove and its accompanying Music Island and Esplanade were
central features of the late 19th-century park, which its designers envisioned as a space for Brooklyn residents to come together, whether for
musical concerts or ice skating on the
lake. Nearby were the Concert Grove

Michael Moran

Lakeside at Prospect Park's regulation-size
hockey rink sits beneath this impressive
canopy, the underside of which is carved
with a silver pattern inspired by the movements of figure skaters.

Parks & Recreation

| J U N E 2 0 1 4 | W W W. N R PA . O R G

House and Concert Grove Pavilion,
which served as a restaurant/comfort
station and tea house, respectively.
Around 1960, the area was completely overhauled with the construction of Wollman Rink, which offered
ice skating in the winter and ample
parking, but not much else. " [The
parking lot had] destroyed [Prospect
Park's] most formal Olmsted and
Vaux feature element, " Zimmerman says. " When we were making
decisions [about the renovations],
the question was, if we were going
to build a new [skating] rink, do we
build it in the same place or look for
a new location? The consensus was,
let's build it in the parking lot, which
will allow us to restore the Olmsted/
Vaux landscape design. "
Indeed, contractors were able to reclaim about five acres of lake that had
previously been filled in to accommodate the parking lot. Music Island was
rebuilt within that re-excavated area,
the granite walls along parts of the esplanade have been reconstructed, and
fresh plantings of native trees, shrubs
and other plants have been installed.
The building to which Zimmerman refers is perhaps the most ambitious part of the Lakeside project.
The L-shaped structure is built from
rough-hewn green granite and set into
the topography of the park. The casual observer might regard the structure
simply as old stone walls set slightly
into the hillside, and the use of green
roofing - plantings of sedums, grass-

June 2014 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of June 2014 - Parks & Recreation