Prospect Heights - A Brookly Neighborhood

Grand Army Plaza, which Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed in the style of dramatic European plazas like the Parisian Etoile where the Arc de Triomphe is located, provides a grand, sweeping introduction to both Prospect Park and the neighborhood of Prospect Heights.

In addition, the neighborhood is home to a slice of Eastern Parkway, also designed by Olmsted and Vaux, a boulevard lined with luxury apartment buildings on its northern side and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and Brooklyn Public Library's Central Library at Grand Army Plaza on its southern side. Apartment buildings surround the area around the plaza, but the streets between Flatbush and Washington Avenues are quiet and tree-lined and feature stately, restored brownstones.

Like other central Brooklyn neighborhoods, Prospect Park is one of the neighborhood's greatest assets. Olmsted and Vaux designed this 585-acre jewel in the 1860s and in the last 25 years it has been restored to its original. Today Prospect Park is the destination for millions of people annually including weekend athletes, who walk, jog, roller blade, or bicycle along Park Drive traveling the same route that soldiers in the Continental Army under George Washington took in August 1776 as they fled the British. Children, who play on the parks playgrounds and soccer, baseball, and softball fields; picnickers, who celebrate birthdays and holidays with family and friends; ice skaters at the Wollman Rink; and visitors to the Prospect Park Zoo, Carousel, Lefferts Historic House, Picnic House, and Prospect Park Audubon Center & Visitor Center at the Boathouse. The 40-acre Parade Ground on the southeast side of Prospect Park features basketball courts, baseball, softball, and soccer fields, and tennis courts.