Prospect Park South: A Wandering

This morning I took a spin around the southern edges of Prospect Park to burn off some extra energy before work. I am so delighted with this area, I have to tell you a little bit about it.

We live on the edge of Kensington and Prospect Park South. The mappers edged our building out of the PPS historic district on purpose, so I’m never sure where either neighborhood ends. But Kensington butts up against the corner, and PPS the southern edge, of Prospect Park; East Flatbush picks up at the corner of the park, and above it is Lefferts Gardens (map). Within three subway stops are historic homes, big brick dwellings, a few brownstones, and the genteel park, punctuated by small businesses on a few arterial roads.

Normally I could wander among the big Victorians for hours, but today I cut quickly across Church Avenue, where the old houses give way to large brick dwellings that line the parade grounds. An avenue runs through the parade grounds towards the park.

The parade grounds are a big, flat lawn divided by broad pedestrian paths into quadrants. A newish-looking concession stand guards the crossroads, and each quadrant contains several athletic fields. The southern fields are popular for soccer and football practices, and there’s a basketball court where boys like to shoot hoops. The eastern end contains a big playground named for Detective Melrose, which gets busy when school lets out, and the west end is where some admin buildings and park vehicles live. The northeast quadrant is usually full of geese. All the fields are graded beautifully smooth, but the surrounding structures, including tennis courts on the northwest corner, the batting cage, and the rambling admin and storage buildings, look sleepy or unkempt. So I see a strange mix of upkeep, neglect, and community use that makes me hope the area is stirring to life.

Past the parade grounds is the park, slightly shabby but well mannered, and a hundred times better than Central Park in natural grace. Its southern boundary is studded with architectural gems—gates on both corners with plazas out front and a lovely classical pavilion that overlooks the parade grounds. But the only activity in that part of the park is running and biking on the border road.

I think the park people want to change this. The border road runs between the park’s edge and the lake, where a new pavilion and skating rink are going in on the eastern side. The Lakeside construction site is hidden from the road, but along the shore you can see walks, light-posts, benches, and landscaping sloping down to the water. Now, this park has not a modern structure in it, but they’re building this thing very square out of concrete and steel. I have misgivings about this, as well as the dirt mounds taller than the gazebo where Andrew almost proposed to me. But precisely because all the buildings in that park are so different from each other, it might work. I’m not judging yet. I only wish the Lakeside project wasn’t going to be so tall compared to the trees.

In the rest of the neighborhood there are also signs of life. A monumental brick thing is coming down at Caton and St. Paul’s Place—presumably to make way for new construction. We’ve received notice that our rent is going up. And Cortelyou Road, a few blocks down, is visibly gentrifying as Kensington and Ditmas Park welcome Park Slope refugees in growing numbers.

I think we’re unlikely to see a gentrification that pushes families and minorities out. Because there’s so much residential brick and so few major avenues in this area, it can’t be overrun with the shops and boutiques of Williamsburg and Park Slope. It’s still mostly inhabited by families who won’t pay exorbitant rents. And the park is a piece of the community, not a status symbol.

So I love prowling the lower edges of the park and wondering what’s coming. It’s a beautiful place in a beautiful area, and it only improves as my eyes adjust to brick after Manhattan’s restaurant fronts and lights. We recommend this swath of Brooklyn to all our friends, and we love to show it off when they visit.