Prospect Park, Brooklyn: the original Olmsted-Vaux plan of 1866-1867.

DESIGN FOR
PROSPECT PARK
AS PROPOSED TO BE LAID OUT FOR
THE CITY OF BROOKLYN.

OLMSTED VAUX & CO
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS

1866-1867

Scaled to the nineteenth-century carriage rather than to the man on foot, Brooklyn nevertheless shows a striking processional aspect. The terminal spaces are the Hudson River and the ocean. Midway, Prospect Park provides a dramatic change of pace and scene, while boulevards and avenues on both sides of it give form to the urban landscape.

1859

1859

The population of Brooklyn had risen from 48,000 in 1840 to almost 280,000 in 1859. For years Brooklynites had wanted more parks to relieve what Walt Whitman had described as the "swarmingness of the population." In 1859 the State Legislature appointed a Brooklyn Board of Park Commissioners who a year later proposed a site for Prospect Park. In 1865, Olmsted and Vaux were hired to design the park and supervise its construction. Partly because Olmsted and Vaux were able to define the park's size, shape and location more completely in this second major commission, Prospect Park has often been cited as the purest example of their art.

Courtesy of the New-York Historical Society

Tree Moving Machine, Prospect Park, ca. 1871

This specialized piece of equipment was created for landscaping operations in Prospect Park.

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