To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Vaux, considered it their masterpiece? Simply titled Prospect Park , the illustrated book traces the park's history from its creation in the midth century to today. Written by David P. Colley, with photographs by Elizabeth Keegin Colley, the detailed account is the first ever monograph about Prospect Park, and it's sure to teach even the most frequent park visitors something new. We chose 25 of the most interesting and little-known facts to highlight here, but we're also giving one reader the chance to learn them all by giving away a copy of the book.
To enter, simply send your name and a photo of your favorite place in Prospect Park to tips curbed. Bonus points if you take the photo yourself. East Drive follows an old Native American trail that branched off of a larger path that ran between what are now Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. Even in the 19th century, Manhattanites had beef with Brooklyn. An guidebook of New York "urged visitors 'to flee the narrow, dirty and disagreeable place. Prospect Park was developed largely without interference from politicians because state laws allowed the the Brooklyn Park Commission, with James Stranahan as commissioner, to do whatever it pleased.
It didn't worry about cost overruns and spent a lot of public money on the park, making it extremely unpopular. Before the park was built, nearby farmers would let their animals roam freely on the land, and they had to be constantly rounded up and returned to their owners. This was a problem even after the park opened in In , 44 pigs, 35 goats, 18 cows, and 23 horses were impounded.
Olmsted may be given the most credit for Prospect Park, but it was Vaux who created most of the designs. He's responsible for the arches, the Concert Grove, bridges, and rustic shelters that blend into the landscape. He also created several other structures that have since been demolished.
Prospect Park's design was largely inspired by Birkenhead Park in England. Egbert Viele created an original plan for the park, which would have been built had the Civil War not halted construction, giving the parks commission time to review other designs.
He believed the profession of landscape architecture could improve the quality of life of America. In each of these categories, Olmsted developed a distinctive design approach that showed the comprehensiveness of his vision, his uniqueness of conception that he brought to each commission, and the imagination with which he dealt with even the smallest details.
Olmsted and Vaux ended their partnership during the economic downturn in His former position in Brooklyn was dissolved due to a financial crisis and he was retained only as consultant. He kept his post in New York until the beginning of , at which time he left for Europe. Upon his return to America, the center of his activities shifted to New England, and in he established his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, and his practice in Boston. As for Prospect Park, the team had made its memorable contribution in devising a magnificent and appropriate design and in directing its development up to the time of the depression, and it fell into the hands of others to further, to maintain, and to change — sometimes to spoil — the masterpiece that Olmsted and Vaux had created.
A decent start here, but the images, quotes, and textual information need to be edited to work together and provide a clear story. You must be logged in to post a comment. The first carousel was erected here in The adjoining Vale of Cashmere bad just been renovated a year or two earlier, with additions of pedestals bearing urns, some connected by balustrades, and a fountain sculpture in the pool, making for a strange combination of rustic and classic elements.
One other early building belonging to the rustic group was the picturesque Thatched Shelter, that stood midway between the second location of the carousel and Meadowport Arch. It had an H-plan and a steeply pitched roof pierced by dormers. Several rustic bridges were in the park. A large one of 35 feet was the Binnen Bridge over the waterfall near the old boathouse on the Lullwater.
Smaller examples were at the west end of the Ravine, lending a remote atmosphere. There were also more than 50 rustic seats of sassafras and cedar, and rustic bird houses.
The first permanent structures were the arches on the upper and east sides of Prospect Park. These were pedestrian underpasses, allowing visitors to cross under the roads thus avoiding the hazards of traffic. The tunnels were provided with seats to serve a second function as comfortable rain shelters. The masonry of both is composed of alternating blocks of yellow Berea sandstone from Ohio and reddish brownstone from New Jersey, and the interior vaults are of brick lined with planks.
East Wood Arch is the simpler, with a low raking parapet above a semicircular arch, a single cross-vault inside with benches at each end in shallow recesses. Endale Arch -- sometimes referred to as Enterdale Arch in early reports -- has a stepped superstructure rising to a raked coping wth a carved flower at the apex, and a pointed arch. These features, together with the banded stonework in two colors, show Syrio-Egyptian influence. There are two cross-vaults, originally with benches in their recesses, in Endale Arch.
Planting on top of the tunnels masks passing vehicles. Both tunnels were started in and completed the following year. Meadowport Arch, balancing Endale on the west side of Long Meadow, was begun in and finished in Instead of cutting under the roadway perpendicularly, like its predecessor, it is set on a degree angle. This permits a double portal at the lawn end, forming two faces of a square pavilion set diagonally into the embankment. A single bay of semicircular cross-vaulting is buttressed at the corners by piers that sweep outward at the base and are capped by octagonal bonnets with finials.
The cornices arch in curves concentric to the extrados of the wide openings, a feature of seventeenth-century Mogul architecture in India, such as the Pearl Mosque in Delhi. The voussoirs alternate in smooth and rough-surfaced blocks of Ohio sandstone. A bench filled the recess facing the east arch but, as in the other examples, it has been removed.
The northwest end of the wood-lined tunnel has a single face of similar design. Three segmental-arch spans, four bays deep, constitute a bridge for Central Drive. The three sections serve as underpasses for pedestrians, equestrians, and the Ravine brook between. Nethermead Arches was built of Ohio sandstone with Quincy granite trim. A plain molding constitutes a necking below the springing of the arches, and cylindrical buttresses on square plinths and with pinnacles are set in front of the piers.
A parapet pierced by trefoils makes a railing for the upper carriageway and terminates in a monumental pedestal at each end.
The inner vaults are faced with hard brick laid in patterns and open laterally into one another. The last of the underpasses was built in Unlike the others, this tunnel is built of molded blocks of concrete, known as Beton Coignet, consisting of sand, gravel and Portland cement. Three colors are used, a brownstone red, ochre, and pale gray. The relief pattern of the sheathing inside the vault is rich and satisfying.
The external design is eclectic and somewhat precious in detail. Buttresses flanking the round arches are accented with urns at base and summit, once containing plants.
These have suffered from erosion and mutilation, especially on the south side of each facade. The French process provided a less expensive material than stone. Olmsted-Vaux plans of the late 's and early 's indicate that there were to have been additional pedestrian arches under or over the drives on the west side of the park, but only the ones described were built, all completed while the designers were still in charge.
Perhaps the most practical building in the park was the Well House, built in on the lake side at the foot of Lookout Hill. It is a rectangular building of banded croton brick and gray Ohio stone, with stone quoins and stone lintels over the windows and Tudor-arched doorway, and overhanging hipped roof.
It housed the steam machinery and boiler, that were connected with the pumping engines 60 feet below grade. The engines could raise , gallons of water a day into the reservoir built into the west end of the hill. From here the water flowed out of a simulated spring at the base of Quaker Hill and down a gully into Swan Boat Lake, thence through the Ravine to the Lullwater and into the Lake. The source of water was a well 70 feet deep and 50 feet in diameter at the bottom, the walls battering in 10 feet at the top.
It was in front of the boiler house, and a square smokestack 60 feet tall was attached to the rear corner. The digging of the Lake was accomplished in intervals. The last section was finished and filled with water 20 August The original use of the Well House came to a close with the advent of city water into the park about the turn of the century, after which the smokestack was torn down and the well covered over.
Lookout Hill reservoir was filled in during the 's. A building of all stone walls erected in was the Dairy and it was similar to its equivalent in Central Park. It stood in the Midwood, just north of Boulder Bridge over the bridle path. The Dairy was composed of two parallel wings having gables with bargeboards at each end in front, and a connecting unit with a dormer and cupola atop the steep roof.
It contained a large public room and smaller ladies' retiring room, both with fireplaces, and facilities on the first floor. Quarters for a family in residence were upstairs. The Dairy supplied light refreshments, including milk, chilled or warm from the cow, because cattle, and sheep as well, were pastured on the Green.
The old menagerie was built to the north and east of the Dairy after Olmsted and Vaux had left the scene of tho park. The entire group was razed following completion of the new zoo in , the loss of the Dairy, at least, being regrettable. It is significant that the small area in Prospect Park conceived along the formal lines of European gardens -- as opposed to the vast balance, which is in the natural Chinese-inspired, English-park mode -- although labeled "Concourse for Pedestrians," was otherwise left blank on the original plan of That it was intended as a haven for music is indicated by the words "Music Stand" alongside the small island off shore.
The region referred to was elaborated in Olmsted and Vaux testified that they followed an Old-World precedent in their scheme here.
They proposed to combine the two types in Prospect Park. The Pedestrian Concourse is situated between two carriage concourses. The latter take care of listeners preferring the Italian manner, whereas the former required renovation to accord with north-European tastes. The middle section was divided into two plateaus by a curved terrace concentric to the shore line and centered on the music stand on the islet.
Trees were planted in uniform rows in the lower space; and beyond the stone piers and railings and stairs, on the upper terrace, there was laid out a fan-shaped system of walks radiating from the music source, with fountains at the intersections and a casual growth of trees in the interspaces. This henceforth was known as the Concert Grove. Sculptured likenesses of musicians were placed here, the group including busts of von Weber and Grieg on the east side, Mozart and Beethoven on the west, and that of Thomas Moore, poet, composer and concert pianist, in the center.
The United German Singers of Brooklyn presented the images of their countrymen, won as competition prizes during the 's.
At the farther end was built a typical Vaux chalet called the Concert Grove House. It resembled the contemporary Dairy, only it was frame instead of stone.
The building housed a restaurant and comfort station. Fifty feet to the south was erected a shelter called the Concert Grove Pavilion, completed in The Pavilion consists of eight cast-iron posts, modeled after Hindu columns of the early medieval period 8thth centuries , supporting a complex hipped roof with rounded corners, measuring 40 by 80 feet, having patterns on its surfaces and a cresting along the ridge.
Tables and chairs were placed under this oriental parasol for service from the restaurant. Thus in providing a pleasant retreat for strolling, parking space for carriages, benches, and seats around refreshment tables, the concert compound met all the listening delights of the Europeans; and it went even further: the music was available to boating parties drifting on the Lake.
However, Concert Grove has none of the axial rigidity of the Mall. Instead of being elongated and dividing the park, it is compact, and its radial plan is dynamic, thereby being better suited to the natural landscape theme of the garden as a whole. Apparently the acoustics around the insular Music Stand were satisfactory only over the water, and concerts soon moved out of the area. A temporary music pavilion was set up in the Lullwood in , and the permanent Music Pagoda was built near the Lily Pond in This octagonal structure has a high battered podium of rough stonework, above which rise slender posts slanting inward and connecting with the flaring roof.
The form suggests an ancient Chinese city gateway. With the establishment of the new Music Grove at the north edge of the Nethermead, its predecessor became known as the Flower Garden.
Concert Grove House was demolished in , and Concert Grove Pavilion later was vulgarized by the insertion of a brick snack bar in the middle. The skating rink built in obliterated Music Stand Island and a stretch of the shore. A curiosity dating from the Olmsted-Vaux period was a kiosk known as the Camera Obscura, situated at the west end of Breeze Hill.
It provided -- as its name signifies -- a dark chamber, in which was a white table five feet in diameter. On the table was projected an image reflected from a revolving mirror-lens arrangement in the roof. The view necessarily was limited to the vicinity. The Old Fashioned Garden later occupied the site. Another oddity of the early era was the Circular Yacht, a sort of water carousel, propelled by sails and oars, that revolved without really going anywhere. As one would expect, the Circular Yacht was not prominently displayed on the Lake but set afloat on the Pool, eventually dammed and enlarged into Swan Boat Lake.
Neither of the novelties survived into the twentieth century. The cost of the park during the seven-year administration of Olmsted and Vaux was tremendous. Prospect Park was the largest single investment made by the City of Brooklyn up to that time, and it is unlikely that any, before or since, has reaped such high dividends in profits of intrinsic value.
Olmsted and Vaux's sway of influence went beyond the park confines to related axes and areas. That most closely connected with Prospect Park is the plaza at its main entrance. The elliptical plaza received encouragement in through the gift to the City of a bronze statue to be erected here. Modeled by the late Brooklyn sculptor, H.
Brown, it was a standing likeness of Abraham Lincoln, nine feet tall. The figure wears a cape and holds a scroll of the Emancipation Proclamation, the right hand pointing to the words, "Shall Be Forever Free. Elevated on a foot granite pedestal, it was placed on the platform at the north side of the Plaza. The Lincoln statue was dedicated 21 October , and two years later a fountain was put into operation in the center of this open area.
Sidewalks contiguous to the park were to be gaslighted for public strolling "after the gates [of Prospect Park] are closed at night. The exception was in winter, when the frozen lake was illuminated and temporary houses erected to accommodate the numerous skaters who came there. In summer the external promenades, they felt, took care of the need for nocturnal exercise.
The separate Parade Ground was for a different sort of diversion, for observing rather than participating on the part of the public.
The State provided for the tract in , and the landscape architects submitted a plan at that time. The larger part of it became a "Green Sward," or lawn, for drills, and at the irregular west end was a graveled area for spectators.
The first scheme called for a couple of small structures to be built here, but in a single long building was constructed instead. It was a wooden affair of exposed framing in the manner of the Concert Grove House, with steep, picturesque roofs. The central pavilion was two-storied, for officers' quarters, and open shelters to either side each extended out 50 feet to a terminal block; that at the south end was a lavatory and that at the north a guard room.
The Parade Ground now has become an athletic field for bowling on the green, football, baseball and tennis. Olmsted and Vaux recommended that the city-owned land alongside Prospect Hill Reservoir -- no longer considered for inclusion in the park -- could be utilized for "Museums and other Educational Edifices.
The balance of the area to the south, between Flatbush and Washington avenues, became the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in It was not a permanent break, because 15 years later they were to collaborate again on a plan for Morningside Park, above th Street in Manhattan. Both of these structures can be found today, at the rear of the present groups.
Olmsted, in , was appointed Commissioner of the New York Department of Public Parks, and, in Brooklyn, due to the financial crisis, his former position was dissolved and he was retained only as consultant.
He kept his post in New York until the beginning of , at which time he left for Europe. Upon his return to America, the center of his activities shifted to New England, and in he established his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, and his practice in Boston.
As for Prospect Park, the team had made its memorable contribution in devising a magnificent and appropriate design and in directing its development up to the time of the depression, and it fell into the hands of others to further, to maintain, and to change -- sometimes to spoil -- the masterpiece that Olmsted and Vaux had created.
For the next 18 or 20 years, however, the general tenor of improvements in Prospect Park was channeled in the Olmsted-Vaux tradition. The oldest existing building put up after the designers had severed all connections with the park was utilitarian, and it fitted in with the plan of moving the commissioners into nearby Litchfield Villa. Reference is made to the two storied brick stable built in on the west side of the park opposite 7th Street, in the center of the present shop group, southwest of the quadrangle.
The walls are divided into three bays on the ends and six on the flank, originally with large windows or doors in the first story. The low hip roof was covered with slate. The stable provided for 20 horses and storage of a quantity of hay. A carpenter shop was erected west of it about the turn of the century, a "Queen Anne" style building with half-dormers breaking through the eaves, skylights in the flat middle plane of the roof, segmental arches to the voids, and brickwork set in checkered and chevron patterns.
A neighboring structure erected about coeval, with the stable was the great Conservatory, that attracted visitors from as far away as Boston for the Easter lily display in the form of a cross. Its function was taken over by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden greenhouses built in the latter half of the second decade of this century; and, although renovated in , the Prospect Park Conservatory was razed in because its upkeep was considered an unnecessary expense.
Public facilities in the park were first provided for ladies at the Dairy, finished in , and later in the appendage to the Promenade Drive Shelter site of the Peristyle off Parkside Avenue men could use the lavatory on the Parade Ground , and for both sexes in Concert Grove House.
In , six iron urinals were imported from Glasgow. Of the three set up for immediate use, two were at the Plaza entrance and the other near the 3rd Street entrance. They were supplied with running water and connected with the sewer. The earliest masonry building erected exclusively as a comfort station is between East Wood Arch and the later Boathouse. This "men's closet" -- as it was referred to in the Commissioners' Report of , when it was under construction -- is built of stonework resembling that of the contemporary Music Pagoda, which has been discussed.
The building has arches of red brick over doors and windows; it is cruciform in plan and somewhat depressed into the ground to render it inconspicuous, and it is crowned by a moderately steep hipped roof. The two foremost bridges in Prospect Park date from The first of these replaced Lullwood Bridge, the foundations of which were laid in , and the superstructure built two years later.
It had a middle span of 30 feet and two outer spans of 13 feet each, all of oak. The replacement is known as Lullwater Bridge, and it has stone abutments and a single arch of steel. Reliefs ornamenting the sides have been stripped off and the railings simplified.
It is for pedestrians only, having steps at each end. The second and greater structure is Terrace Bridge, which carries the traffic of Hill Drive across the straits connecting the Lake and Lullwater.
As its name signifies, Terrace Bridge was meant to be an integral part of the landscaping about the unrealized Refectory. A photograph of the first temporary span here, taken in the early 's, shows a rickety open framework of timber.
The later permanent bridge of is substantial, having abutments of brownstone. It has buttresses and bonnets to the piers suggesting forms of Meadowport Arch, and circular plaques on the sides of the stonework inscribed with the date of erection in large numerals.
The roadway over the gorge is carried on six steel arches side by side, the outermost enriched with spandrel panels. A parapet the length of the bridge is pierced by a row of little lobed arches. The scale of Terrace Bridge was prophetic of a grandeur that was to appear at and modify Prospect Park over the next 35 years. The architectural design was by John H.
Taking the form of a Roman triumphal arch, the monument was abreast of the times by being in the latest Neo-Classic style, then crystallizing in the renowned "White City" -- the exhibition halls of the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in As we have seen, the great elliptical plaza figured in Vaux's sketch of , and it subsequently became the setting for the Lincoln statue and a fountain.
The materialization of a triumphal arch with quadriga on top and army and navy groups below was not out of place here, and it was complemented by a pair of Doric shafts, capped with bronze eagles, stationed to either side of the park entrance, also by Duncan and MacMonnies. To further the impressiveness of the Plaza, the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White was called in to expand the scheme. The three men had served on the Architectural Commission for the World's Columbian Exposition and designed Agricultural Hall and the New York State Building; and, incidentally, they had become associated with MacMonnies and Olmsted at the fair, the sculptor having fashioned the Columbian fountain, and Olmsted having conceived the landscaping.
They devised curved sections of pierced wall of granite, each ending in pedestals supporting bronze urns, to form a unifying background. Inside the park, near the outer columns, were built two sided pavilions of the Tuscan order, also of granite, containing semicircular benches, and slab screens in six intercolumniations at the back.
These pavilions have low-pitched pyramidal roofs capped by bronze finials. The elegant ensemble was completed in Stranahan that was installed on a pedestal to the east side of Main Entrance Drive in , honoring the man who had taken the greatest interest in the park, and it is fitting that Mr. Stranahan attended the dedication. The second most important portal to Prospect Park is on Park Circle, at the south corner, nearest the Lake.
The principal motif here is a pair of bronze lifesize equestrian groups, each composed of two horses and a male nude rider, by MacMonnies. The horses in Brooklyn are wilder; their ruthless spirit challenges the tamers to remain mounted without benefit of saddles, and the tortured outlines of the forms approach the chaotic. The architectural setting on Park Circle again is by McKim, Mead and White, consisting of foot granite pedestals embellished with reliefs in both stone and bronze, walls concentric to the circle interrupted by pedestrian entrances flanked by broad urns, and square end pavilions with corner piers and distyle Greek Ionic columns in antis in each side, covered by low pyramid roofs.
The architects proposed four tall granite columns surmounted by bronze eagles to be stationed in back, but these were not included in the construction. The contemporary Willink Entrance, on Flatbush Avenue near the junction of Ocean Avenue and Empire Boulevard, was named after the family whose old home stood in this vicinity. McKim, Mead and White flanked the drive with twin granite turrets, 20 feet tall, having waist-high bases, plain cylindrical shafts, bonnets enriched with imbrication, and bronze urn finials.
Wall segments of base height, with benches set in front of the four sections, terminate at circular sentry boxes, spaced feet apart, and, from these, convex walls curve out to the street.
The round boxes originally had hinged doors and glazed windows. They relate to the octagonal granite police kiosks in the park, such as those near the Grand Army Plaza, Park Circle and 3rd Street entrances.
The sculptured animals were set on tall rectangular granite shafts in Perhaps the most inviting entrance is that at the obtuse angle of Parkside and Ocean avenues, also by McKim, Mead and White. A curved granite colonnade of two sections is divided by the driveway, and a walk enters park from the center of each unit. Square end piers are coupled with round Roman Ionic columns, and two pairs of similar columns are between. Screens run along the park side, with benches in front.
The colonnades support an open timber trellis clad with wisteria. The curve of the plaza continues beyond Ocean Avenue, forming a half-circle, but does not cross Parkside Avenue.
This entrance was realized in A companion to this pergola, built by the same designers and at the same time, is the Classic Peristyle, below South Lake Drive and across from the east end of the Parade Ground. It superceded Promenade Drive Shelter, of the late 's, a by foot frame structure covered by a canopy and appended to which was a small comfort station. The new pavilion consists of a low platform and a colonnade, with square corner posts and alignments of Corinthian columns between, four in each end and ten on the flank.
The supports are of limestone up to the capitals, which, with the entablature, are of whitish terra cotta. Architrave blocks are wedge-shaped, like voussoirs: of a flat arch, and the frieze is filled with a continuous relief of luxuriant foliage. Attic blocks, on axis with the columns, and intervening balustrades surmount the console cornice.
The Peristyle sometimes is called the Grecian Shelter, which is a misnomer inasmuch as all of its features are in the Renaissance manner. The monumental gateways opposed the Olmsted-Vaux tradition by introducing architectural features at the entrances, originally elaborated only by rows of evenly spaced trees -- continuous with those of the promenades that encompass the park -- and two small rustic pavilions on the Plaza to serve as shelters for people alighting from or waiting for cars.
The McKim, Mead and White gateway additions at least faced out, relating themselves to the city beyond, whereas the Peristyle is wholly inside the park, thus representing a different viewpoint. They were the work of the architectural concern of Helmle, Huberty and Hudswell.
Frank J. Their first building in Prospect Park was the Boathouse, on the east side of the Lullwater. It was built in to replace the old wood shed boathouse around to the north, at the mouth of the brook. Like the upper parts of the Peristyle, the new Boathouse was built in its entirety of white mat-glazed terra cotta, the roof covered with red tile. An arcade along the water front has engaged Tuscan columns set before the piers, and an entablature with triglyphs is surmounted by a balustrade.
The design was borrowed from the lower story of Sansovino's Library of St. Mark, of the sixteenth century, in Venice. The first story originally was open. Double staircases rose from the middle of the building to landings on the east wall, whence twin flights came together at a higher landing and a single flight continued to the second floor inside a semicircular well.
The stairs embraced a boat-renting office on the main floor, and there was an enclosed kitchen at the north end, and a soda fountain and ladies' rest room at the south. The second story was a dining hall, served by dumbwaiters in the two east corners. French doors opened onto the balustrated terrace. Twenty bronze lampposts with dolphin motifs are spaced along the broad flights of granite steps descending to the landing and continue around the ends of the building.
A flimsy open shed intruded upon the landing terrace in The second Helmle and Huberty building is the Tennis House, constructed in on the west side of Long Meadow, halfway between Swan Boat Lake and the park shops and stables.
It provided lockers for participants in the growing sport of lawn tennis, earlier using the basement of the carousel in Picnic Woods. Built of limestone and yellow brick, on granite foundations, and with terra-cotta vaults and a red tile roof, the Tennis House, like the Boathouse, is classic in style and achieves an intimacy with the park through being predominantly open.
The characteristic motif is the triple void, the centermost arched, a favorite with the influential sixteenth century Italian architect, Andrea Palladio, whose name it bears.
The casino quality of the Tennis House is not unlike that of the elegant mid-eighteenth-century Palladian Bridue in Prior Park at Bath, England, an entirely fitting accent for a natural landscape, according to high British taste of the period. Only to a slightly lesser degree can the same English monument be compared with the two preceding pavilions in Prospect Park.
Although the original designers would not have approved of their existence in this idylic retreat, at least there is basis for a respectable argument to be used in their defense.
Like the Tennis House, it is constructed of limestone and yellow brick and has a red tile roof. Wash rooms at either end are connected by a vaulted breezeway supported on each side by Tuscan columns in five pairs, set one behind the other.
Twin chimneys rise hipped roof and deep eaves overhang the Willink Comfort Station is less classical than its forerunners and forecasts the expiration of the the style from Prospect Park. Later buildings, at most, were to show isolated related details, and these not in very good scale with the buildings to which they were attached. Even during the quarter of a century preceding the First World War, there were improvements put into the park that were in no wise Neo-Classic.
Two examples were erected on the Peninsula, and both had a strong flavor of Olmsted-Vaux park architecture about them.
The first one was on the south shore, equidistant between the Landing Shelter and Well House. It was a cruciform frame building, with an octagonal superstructure providing clerestory lighting at the crossing.
This unostentatious clubbouse was built in , and it burned in , together with its cherished contents. Only the landing terrace in front remains. The miniature-boat enthusiasts were relocated in the abandoned Well House. Here was a low, sprawling shelter with gently sloping roofs and deep overhanging eaves, including a long breezeway between end pavilions, the gables of which jutted through the hipped roof. Despite the difference in roof pitch, the style of the structure related to that of Concert Grove House.
Its rustic parts were of cedar and the roofing was of chestnut slabs. Although built 15 years after its companion, the shelter disappeared first. Both are regrettable losses to the park. During the second decade of the century the stable quadrangle was built between the existing utility-conservatory group and West Drive, on a line with 6th Street. Although the largest structure erected in Prospect Park up to this time, its simple lines, low masses and semi-isolation make it an acceptable addition to the complex.
Its brick walls are articulated with arches; a porte-cochere leading into the courtyard and a small belfry lend interest to the design. Two fine classic monuments, that will reward our consideration before leaving this era, are located on the west perimeter of the park.
The first is at the entrance on Bartel-Pritchard Circle. It consists of a pair of giant pillars of such uniqueness as to be a noteworthy landmark. The source of inspiration was the little-known Acanthus Column of Delphi, a votive shaft dating from the beginning of the fourth century B. In using it for a model, Stanford White made the most of its best features and improved its proportions, achieving a more substantial foundation and a less topheavy summit.
The result is an exquisite form, which, if one did not know of its antique archetype, one would attribute it to a stroke of genius on the part of a designer of the classic-eclectic period.
Set on a high square plinth, each shaft is banded at the base, above which is a campaniform carved with a frieze of Greek anthemion. Four girdles of acanthus leaves alternate with four fluted drums and the whole is crowned by a flaring acanthus capital. A bronze tripod of utmost simplicity is atop the shaft; the sculptured caryatids supporting the urns in the original are eliminated without any suggestion of incompleteness.
Stanford White conceived the pillars in , the year he was killed, and one is prompted to look upon the granite uprights as a testimonial to his impeccable artistry. Six blocks to the north, facing 9th Street at Prospect Park West, stands the stele honoring the Marquis de Lafayette, French statesman and soldier, who took up the cause of American freedom during the Revolution.
The Lafayette Monument presents a lifesize image of the general in the round engaged to a low-relief background representing horse and groom. The bronze plaque was the work of Daniel Chester French , sculptor of the colossal Republic at the Chicago Fair, of the two allegorical figures of New York and Brooklyn from the Manhattan Bridge now at the entrance to the Brooklyn Museum, and later he was to execute the seated marble portrait in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. His tribute to Lafayette is elevated on a granite podium and enframed by Corinthian pilasters styled after the order of the first-century B.