April 5, 2017 • 51 mins
In our second episode about Brooklyn's 150-year-old public park, we interview three guests, each with a unique knowledge of the park's history and its restoration in the last three decades.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Fry and I'm Tray C. V. Wilson and its Prospect
Park Week. So on Monday's episode, we talked about how
(00:22):
Brooklyn's Prospect Park went from an idea to a public
green space that's often lauded is the greatest achievement of
the Olmsted and Vox partnership. This year, the park is
celebrating its hundred and fiftieth anniversary and to help us
look at its history and it's importance in the community,
we have three different expert guests to share their insights
(00:43):
on the park. Our first guest is Charles Burnbaum, who
is the President, CEO, and founder of the Cultural Landscape
Foundation and The Cultural Landscape Foundation is a nonprofit that
helps people connect to the landscapes around them. Among the
many resources that the Foundation offers our city, regional and
National Park Service guides for cities all through North America,
(01:04):
including New York. We can find out more about the
organization at tc LF dot org. We'll give you that
you are l again at the end of the episode,
and we will have it in the show notes, which,
in case you've missed it, are now on the same
page as the episode for newly released episodes on our website. Yeah,
and Charles also worked at Prospect Park earlier in his career,
(01:25):
so he has a really, really rich understanding of it
as an integral part of Brooklyn's identity. So we'll jump
right into that interview. My first question for you, Charles
is how do you think that Prospect Park has really
shaped Brooklyn's identity and culture over the years. You know,
(01:46):
it is just a very interesting question because when I
think about the park shaping the city's identity, I would
actually say that it mirrors the city. And let me
explain what I mean by that. So when you when
you when I look at a land escape like Prospect Park, um,
I look at it as a palam test, as a
place that has layers of history. Um. And I'll come
(02:08):
back to the Revolutionary War maybe a little later in
this conversation. But if you think about the park itself
and the design of the park beginning with Olmstead involves
in eighteen sixty six, um, you know, and in that
period it kind of um. The city of course is
much more rural at that time Brooklyn and um, the
way in which the park meets the city is very rustic.
(02:30):
You know, it was influenced, um by Andrew Jackson Downing,
who was a great tastemaker who you know, probably would
have designed Central Park and Prospect Park potentially had he
not died in a riverboat, um in the Hudson River
in eighteen fifty two. So the first era is sort
of the rustic period. It's sort of like, you know,
a country outpost. Then you of course have um the
(02:51):
City Beautiful era, which is very ever present today. You
know when you see things like Grand Army Plaza and
the kind of boatart Bose Arts designs like the Boat
House and all of the sculptures and memorials by people
like Daniel Chester French and Alfrederic mcmoneys and others. And
so in the same way that New York City was
(03:13):
having the City Beautiful era like a lot of great
American cities after the World's Columbian Exposition. UM, you know,
the park echoes that, and then as you continue to
move along the park then moves into the w p
A era where it is it's very much about active
use and so as in the same way that we
look at kind of suburban developments in the US and
(03:34):
everyone having their own backyard world city, so had you know,
active parks with playgrounds and sports fields and you know
a bandshell, a zoo, all these things, um came in
during Robert Moses era UM in many of the New
York City parks, and it played out in a big
way in Prospect Park between the nineteen thirties and nineteen sixties,
and then as a mirror of the city, the park,
(03:57):
like New York City, went through a period of decline
in the sixties and f and d s until around
when the Prospect Park Alliance was founded and the renaissance
began for the park and the renaissance was beginning in
the city at the same time. And I would say
that the work in the park has gained steam in
the same way, um that the city has had a
(04:19):
great renaissance. And um, you know that to me is
kind of the interesting story where you have the rustic period,
the Bozart's period, active recreational decline, renaissance. It's the story
of the park, but it's also very much the story
of Brooklyn in the same way, and in terms of
Olmsted and Vox. How do you think Prospect Park compares
(04:39):
to their Central Park design? Well, you know, um, I
may have mentioned to you when we saw each other
the other time that um, you know, in the nineties,
I was working on four of the five parts of
the park that we're doing historic landscape reports, um for
things like the perimeter and the long Meadow. The long
Meadow was done by the late George Patton, who was
(05:01):
the landscape architect. The other four parts of the park
were being looked at by uh Anthony Walmsley and Patricia
O'Donnell and UM, you know, I remember we had a
historian at that time. Oh I believe might have lived
in Brooklyn. His name was Alphine and he was a
great landscape historian. He taught at Harvard and um, you know,
you know he used to Bemoan. At that time that
you know, people didn't know who Olmstead was, and by extension,
(05:24):
people certainly didn't know who Calbert Box was. So I think,
you know, specifically, when you think about how does this
park compare with Central Park, UM, this probably a little
bit more Calbert Box here. Um. You know, there's a
great um doodle that was done by Box. UM in
eighteen sixty five. And I remember when our historian Joy
(05:46):
Keston down unearthed this and it showed you that the
idea for the park as we know at its boundaries
UM was really UM something that Calbert Box saw and
it was a great departure from the earlier land by
the the engineer Egbert Whale. So so that was a
big deal first and foremost UM. Second, when we think
(06:06):
about it in relation to Central Park, I think the
big thing here is connectivity. That Central Park was really
created as a destination park UM for you know, Manhattan
really more than anywhere else Whereas I think when you
look at Prospect Park, that Prospect Park was part of
(06:28):
the Brooklyn park system. So for example Eastern Parkway which
meets the park. Uh, this is actually the first time
in our history that even the term parkway is used
UM and is created if you will buy Olmstead invokes
UM for this project. You know, in addition, this idea
of connecting as far away as the Brooklyn beaches like
(06:50):
Coney Island, the Palisades, Central Park, going across the East River. UM.
You know, this was UM an ambition, planning ambition that
had never been tackled before. And so I think that
one of the big differences between the two is Central
Park was a great park in a city, and Prospect
(07:11):
Park was a great park in a great city that
was conceived to be connected both within that borough of Manhattan,
but also connecting all the way to Central Park. And
I guess the last thing I would say about your
question is when you just kind of look at the
design itself, and you know, Omstit and Voggs had learned
(07:32):
a lot um you know working on Central Park, Um,
you know, but the acres that are Prospect Park, I
think what's extraordinary here is that um composition a lee.
There is a level of perfection here the Long Meadow,
for example, measures and when you um, when I look
(07:55):
at a landscape, I like to think about landscapes like
Prospect Park in the were body of work of Omestead
and Olmstead in vox And you know, the Long Meadow,
along with Central Parks, Great Lawn, Franklin Park in Boston,
and Washington Park in Chicago, those are the four grade
kind of if you will, country parks with a great
(08:17):
big meadow. And I would say, of all of those,
the Long Meadow and Prospect Park is probably the most iconic. Uh,
there's a reason why we're told. Rabinsky put that view
on the cover of his book of Clearing in the Distance,
And you could say the same about Prospect Park Lake
sixty acres. I mean, that's kind of you know, think
(08:37):
about how big that is, and to be able to
achieve a sixty acre lake in the city, and then
the ravine hundred and forty six acres, and when you're
in the ravine, you have escaped the city. And I
think that's one of the great things about Prospect Park
still today, is that there's so many parts of the
park where the city disappears. Uh. It's much harder to
(08:59):
do that in Central Park with the scale of of
the buildings that surround that landscape. And although that has
changed some in Brooklyn, UM, there are so many places
you can be in the park and you suddenly have
this epiphany thinking gosh, where have I gone? You don't
realize you're still in Brooklyn. And so I think all
of those things collectively distinguished the park. UM and I
(09:21):
think the fact that Omested and Box had been there before,
both in terms of park making. But I would say
also um understanding the politics of park making allowed them
to create something that words such as iconic and masterpiece
are often used to describe Prospect Park more than any
other homested and box landscape. And you've answered this a
(09:42):
little bit with that really illuminating answer. But what else
do you think sets this park apart, not just from
Central Park but other green spaces. Well, I would say
one one of the things about UM the Park is
that it is UM It's true the a cultural landscape
that when UM we look at what a cultural landscape is,
(10:05):
it is any landscape that is shaped by humankind. And
it can be what's called a historic design landscape the
e g. The work of Olmsted Involkes, but it could
also be a historic site UM because of an important
person or event. And you know, I just what I
find sort of remarkable is that you could be in
(10:26):
the middle of Brooklyn and you don't realize that there
are cultural life ways UM at the battle pass of
the Revolutionary War playing out in New York City, let
alone in what is now Prospect Park. So I think
on top of all of the significance as a masterpiece
of landscape architecture, UH and a world class designed by
(10:48):
Olmsted involves and others that have also contributed to the
park over time, that it's also a cultural landscape as
a place that saw troop movement during the Revolutionary War.
And so then again this might you have so many
good tidbits. Um, do you think that is maybe the
(11:09):
answer to this question or perhaps something else? What do
you think is the most important thing for people to
realize about Prospect Parks history? Well, I, I you're right,
I have to I've touched upon this a little bit,
and I would just say that you know, when, Um,
when I was studying landscape architecture in the late nineties, seventies,
early eighties. Um, you know, I have to remember in
the seventies, the Olmsted Renaissance was kind of just beginning.
(11:34):
Um Frebrick Law Olmstead's own home and office studio in Brookline, Massachusetts,
had only become a National Park site in the nineteen sixties,
and it was designated. And you know, the reality is
that with modernism and other approaches to design, that the
omestead tradition, if you will, for the picturesque in places
(11:56):
like Prospect Park, um had been forgotten and it was
really you know, with the founding of the Central Park
Conservancy in nineteen seventy nine, and the Prospect Park Alliance
in nine eight. Um, you had, I believe it was
the founding of the National Association for Homested Parks. There
were major exhibitions at the Metropolitan and the National Gallery
(12:16):
in Washington, and UM, you know there's a reason why.
Of the about maybe a little less than two thousand
works of landscape architecture that are listed on the National Register,
about two hundred of those were designed by Homestead or
his successor firm. So you know, when I what's remarkable
(12:37):
to me is that there has been such a great
renaissance for Homestead and and and for parks like Prospect Park. UM.
I think that what we can now do today is
we can contextualize these We can understand what makes Prospect
Park one of the great homested bogs landscapes. And I
think that there are several things here. First of all,
(12:59):
I think we now realize that there were three homesteads.
You know that homes fits son and nephew Um, who
was his stepson. Um continued the firm's tradition. Omestead Jr.
Continues work well into UM, you know, the nineteen fifties,
and you know, to some extent. The Omsted brothers remained
very involved in New York City, uh in places like
(13:22):
for Try and Park, but in terms of Prospect Park itself.
When UM, when I started looking at this landscape as
a young student, I think that people thought places like
Central and Prospect Park where acts of God. That somehow
we just put a stone wall around it, we put
some pretty buildings in it, and that it was there.
(13:43):
And I think Omesteed and Vox, to their detriment at
that time, made it look so apt and so easy
that everyone thought just that they couldn't imagine that it
was a manufactured landscape in the same way that Brooklyn
Bridge Park or the Highline are today. And and that
was to their credit to create something. And it was
of course a resource that had a hundred and twenty
(14:06):
five years to grow in for better or worse, through
sometimes through proper stewardship, other times through neglect. And you know,
I think in the seventies people did think it was
potentially an act of God. They had um, they had
sort of a cultural amnesia that that Olmstead and Fox
had designed this UM And I think today when you
(14:26):
see the park, what's so exciting for me? UM when
I revisit it and to see the park um coming
back to life. I mean in the seventies, you know,
benches had no slats um viewing, UM shelters were just um,
literally slabs of concrete with no pavilion that remained, perhaps
(14:48):
it was lost to fire or arson or vandalism. That
the park. You really had to squint then, not to
see the tree canopy in decline, not to see the graffiti,
not to see the vandalism. And you know, we forget
that it took twenty five years to build these parks
or more, and it has taken the said fast leadership
(15:12):
of the Prospect Park Alliance, the Central Park Conservancy and
other groups throughout the country UM to bring these places back.
So I wandered there a little bit from your question,
and I think that I think the most important thing
for people to see as I began talking to you
about seeing the park as a mirror for the city,
(15:32):
and I think the park is also a mirror for
the culture. And you know, one of the things that's
exciting today is that when people go to the park,
there's such enjoyment and there's such understanding and respect that
it compels us all to be good stewards and how
we use the park um to the highest possible enjoyment
(15:53):
that we can have. And it's natural, its scenic, it's cultural,
it's recreational, UM and it all plays out in all
five acres today And so to me, that's the most
exciting thing that yes, it's a masterpiece of landscape architecture.
And you know, we can line up all of the
holms that involve scholars and they can tell us why
it is such a significant work. But UM, today it
(16:16):
is important because we get to see ourselves in this place,
we get to use it, and we also get to
know that there is no place like it. And UM,
you know that to me is it puts us within
this larger Palam says that I began with this larger
cultural story that we get to be a part of,
and especially for those people that live close by, if
(16:38):
they choose to, they get to be a part of
it every day. So UM, you know, I would say
the only thing that I would say other than UM
that has been changing is I think you know, maybe
ten or twenty years ago, if you were tourists going
to New York City and you know you're going to
the Metropolitan and you were going to Central Park and
you know, these days you're going to the high Line.
(16:58):
I think because of what's happened with Brooklyn as this
kind of um cultural destination, what I think is exciting
is that there are all new audiences of people who
are now being exposed to the park and seeing it
for the masterpiece, the internationally celebrated masterpiece that it it
(17:18):
should be, and it absolutely is worthy of being. As
we mentioned before we started that interview, and as Charles
also alluded to as he was speaking, he worked at
Prospect Park for a while in the nineteen eighties, and
so next up he'll talk a little bit about the
(17:39):
efforts that restored the park in the last thirty years.
But before we get to that, we're gonna pause for
a quick sponsor break. We are going to pick right
up with Charles's insight into the work of Christian Zimmerman
and Tupper Thomas, as well as others who have been
key figures and reinvigorating Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Well, you know,
(18:04):
for me, what I think is so interesting is that
the story of any great landscape has the story of
great patrons, and a patron can be someone who's philanthropic
UM that writes a big check and you know, the
Lakeside Center, for example, in Prospect Park is the benefit
of of that kind of patronage. It couldn't have been
(18:24):
done without those individuals that UM allowed such a magnificent
work of design between Todd and Billy and the Prospect
Park Alliance under Christians Immiment to happen. But you know,
patronage is also about UM being UM passionate, having a
political acumen. And that person can be at a municipal
(18:47):
level in the same way that Stranahan was who was
a patron and UM enabler for Olmstead Inbox when the
park was created. But it can also be someone like
Tupper Thomas and as someone who had the good fortune
of working with Tupper in the eighties and then UM
has followed her work both UM for you know, for
(19:08):
several decades at the Alliance and then her role as
an ambassador for the importance of great parks throughout the US.
What's remarkable to me when I think back to those
early days at the Alliance when it you know, it
was kind of a spit and glue operation when it
first started. UM that when you see someone like Tupper
(19:29):
who comes with a geography background for her to actually
um straddle the bureaucracy of New York City. UM when
when this was all starting UM, you know, and remember
this was not New York City. It didn't have um
the political capital and the the well the wealthy neighbors
(19:49):
that Central Park had when it first started. And I
think that what Tupper was able to achieve is UM
it's it's not just the story of the park that
we all get to enjoy today, it was actually building
the alliance itself. And then when you see people like
Christian Zimmerman, who you know, I remember when he first
(20:10):
started as an intern in the park and to see
the work that he's done alongside UM as a landscape
architect working on on the Lakeside Um project. UM. I
think it's just one of the most magnificent rehabilitations of
an urban park in the US in the last decade.
(20:32):
And I think it's because it recaptured, um, those inherent
qualities of what Olmstead involves had intended that had been
eradicated during the Robert Moses era. But then also UM,
hand in glove you have Todd Williams and Billy Sign
then working on a building that is thoroughly modern and
(20:53):
is seamlessly inserted into a landscape that had been denuded,
that had been diminished both in terms of its historic
and cultural and ecological values. And I think it's an exemplar.
And it is because of Tupper's initial leadership envision that
established the tone for that park. And it's the work
(21:13):
that then, several decades later, that someone like Christian gets
to work both inside the Alliance in concert with world
class architects to create something that is um appropriate for
a world class masterpiece work of landscape architecture. Next up,
(21:36):
I got to chat with Christian Zimmerman, who Charles mentioned,
and Christian is the Prospect Park Alliances vice President of
Capital and Landscape Management. In this interview, he not only
told Holly what his job is, but he also spoke
about how the Alliances team has approached their work on
revitalizing this park while also remaining mindful of its rich history. So, first, awfully,
(22:00):
you tell us exactly what a Capital and Landscape vice
president does well. The simple answer is I oversee everything blue,
green and being built um. The longer answer is I
oversee um all design and construction for the park. So
I have a team of architects landscape architects that do
(22:21):
that work, and then I also oversee horticulture, turf UM
the Landscape Management division if you well, that has natural
resources crew as well as our borer culture and they
deal with the water. So you can see why I
say blue green and being built. Yeah, I actually think
that's a pretty good distinct and fairly clear way to
to answer that question. Uh. And you've been at the
(22:44):
park for a while, and when you joined it it
was in really serious need of renovation, So I wonder
how much you looked at its initial designs and various
phases of design history in determining your plans for its
future at that point. Yes, so I started in. When
I came here, we didn't have a lot of information.
There were some annual reports um and large scale drawings.
(23:09):
But one of the first things that I was hired
to do was to with two other people's to research
and try and collect as much information on the park
that was possible. So we went to the Library of
Congress in d C. And we went up to Brookline, Massachusetts,
which is where Homestead's office and home was, and it's
(23:30):
a national park and and just tried to call through
all of that and see what we had for the park.
So the idea was really just doing a deep dive
into understanding what Proser Park was um its historical significance,
and what remained and what had changed. And have there
been any times in your ongoing works, particularly since you
(23:51):
did do so much research, where some design element or
idea from early in the park's history has struck you
as particularly surprising or innovat um. You know, there are
a lot of little gems in the park that that
surprised me when you when I walk around one of
them and it's not so obvious, but if you there's
(24:12):
a bridge called rock Arts Bridge. It's a tiny little
bridge we restored um in the ravine that had there
are nine ft of sediment. It came in and just
filled in this water course and we uncovered this bridge
and there's this tiny little opening where the water would
flow through. And that in itself isn't um so interesting.
But depending on when you walk on the path, so
(24:34):
like early in the morning when the sun rises coming
from the east, um, the light shining through that tiny
little opening, it just glows. It makes the the water
course glow, and that had to be kind of purposeful
how they oriented that bridge, um, and that works the
same way in sunset if you come from the other direction.
(24:57):
So there's interesting things like that. That's really lovely. Now
that's like a thing I have to do when I'm
in New York. Next, very early ago to Prospect Park.
Are there any elements of the original landscape design for
the park that you have maybe wanted to work on
but they just aren't really possible to recreate today or
(25:17):
aren't sustainable today. There was always a proposal about the
original design actually up to when they quit working on
the park on Sudden Box Um, they proposed a refectory,
a big dining hall in the middle of the park
and they really wanted that to be built. And that
never was built. And we couldn't do that now because
(25:38):
in its place as a large bridge that Calvert Box
had designed. So it just it would be an awkward
to do. I just can't put a dining hall on
top of a bridge. Um. You know, there's that I'd
love to build the dairy we had a dairy, like
Central Park has its dairy in the middle of the woods.
But that would be very difficult to do these days. Um,
(26:00):
in access it's a it's a woods now, so we'd
have to cut down a lot of trees and we
don't really want to do that. Yeah, I have to
wonder you. You make me think about whether or not
there are things that are on your wish list that
you think are possible that you're free to share with us,
or if that's all off limits until things get approved.
Oh no, I have a I have a laundry list.
(26:21):
I think I have about a hundred eighty million dollars
of capital easily. Um, there are a number of structures
I'd like to bring back. There was a sat shelter
that sat up um near Grand Army Plosit. It's this
beautiful little structure. They had these dotted all throughout the park.
And then these um what we're called summer houses. There
(26:41):
were these four rustic shelters along the lake. We've only
recreated one, and it would be nice to bring the
other three back. That's lovely. Do you have a favorite
of the projects that you've done already that you're especially
proud of in terms of of bringing back the park's
historic intent. Um, it would be the ravine storation. That's
bringing back the water course. So where we reconstructed actually
(27:05):
the ravine and to the bin and water. UM, three waterfalls,
these ponds stream, UM, just this, it's a beautiful water course. UM.
So that's probably and that's that's a probably the most
um special UM we followed. You know, we use historic
(27:26):
photographs to recreate these waterfalls and this water course. UM.
You know, we number everything, UM, you know, identify the
rocks through the photographs and put them back where they
were supposed to be. Some of them had fallen our erosion.
That's got to be a labor of love at that point.
I think when you're comparing photographs to what you're doing
(27:47):
on an ongoing basis, we do a lot of that. UM,
we do a lot of photo reference. So because we
don't have the original detail drawings, we only have the
large scale plans. So we read the annual reports where
it will say when you're reconstructing a bridge that it
was a you know, twenty five ft long bridge, six
wide and um made of black locust. And then you
(28:11):
look at the pictures kind of it. That's sort of
like a great uh puzzle work. Though I would think, UM,
and I have to wonder if your planning updates to
areas of the property, because I know you obviously have
to do it in phases. It's not like you do
everything at once. But I wonder how you're balancing honoring
the park's past with also honoring the needs of Brooklyn's
(28:33):
modern residents. We're you know, we constantly do that. Obviously.
You know, we have playgrounds in the park. Playgrounds, I mean,
there was a playground. It's different than what we consider
a playground on the North end. But you know, modern
playgrounds didn't really weren't part of the original design, so
we're not getting rid of playgrounds, so that's. Um. What's
(28:57):
kind of interesting is most of the intrusions or the
changes to the park from the historic are along the
perimeter and on the outside of the park drive. Um,
there are some buildings inside the park, but for the
most part, it's a pretty intact design from the omestead
(29:20):
and boxed period. And what I'm finding is that it
is because of the park of its size, it's very
accommodating to modern interventions. Um. You know, we have ball
fields on the Long Meadow. We're not going to get
rid of them, and we're doing them. But it's the
brilliance of the design. It It just kind of absorbs
(29:41):
new things and just makes it a part of the
park's design. So the idea for us is to um
as I say, and what almost had really believed in
is he didn't want objects on the landscape. He wanted
everything to be within. It was all a single piece.
So if you think of a painting, um, it all
blended together as opposed to things dotting on top of it.
(30:06):
So like a diamond ring on your finger, everything just
is a singular composition. And then finally, what do you
hope as you know, the park is celebrating its big
milestone anniversary this year, what do you hope that historians
and fifty years from now are writing about the park's landscape.
I'm hoping that the period that I've been a part
(30:28):
of it, that they see that is that we've done
well and that we honored the original design without keeping
it so precious that we didn't allow the park to evolve.
We you know, we let it evolve. Um, it is
a living, breathing landscape. But that they see that as
as our modern interventions, UM, we're done elegantly and in
(30:54):
keeping with the original intent of accommodating, you know, large
masses of people. That bridge description that he gave really
did put Prospect Park at Sunrise on my list of
things that I'm going to do next time I'm in
New York if I can manage it in any way,
(31:14):
because it sounds really beautiful. Our last interview is with
Tupper Thomas, who is often credited with saving Prospect Park.
We'll talk to her about taking on this daunting task
of trying to turn this massive, dilapidated park around. But
first we're going to pause for one more quick sponsor break. Alrighty,
(31:38):
we will pick right up with Tupper, who shares her
knowledge gleaned from three decades of work with the Prospect
Park Alliance with us. So first I have to ask you,
did you know about the long history of Prospect Park
before you became the founding president of the Prospect Park Alliance.
So um, I actually was first the first administrator for
(32:00):
Prospect Park, reporting to the Parks Department. So I started
that in with the plan that we would form something
like what we did, which was the Presci Park Alliance.
But before I started as the administrator, I didn't even
know that you didn't spell omestead with an a. You know,
(32:23):
so I had I had actually taken a course in
urban planning and had a background and omestead, but I
misspelled it throughout the entire course and nobody corrected it.
But um, but I did know the importance of omestead
in Brooklyn because of Eastern Parkway in the park. But
(32:45):
that's really all that I knew when I got started.
And I also didn't really know an oak from a
maple tree. My background was government and red tape and
how to get rid of it and things like that,
and community outreach work. So it was very exciting to
(33:07):
learn the history UH and by the time we started
the alliance in seven years later, I was steeped in
the Omestead and Vox histories of the park. And you
ended up helming a rather historic private public partnership when
you began with the alliance. Will you tell us about
(33:28):
sort of how that came together and how it ended
up existing. Yes, So, the Central Park Conservancy had been
the first such animal to be created, and that had
started in nineteen and that was the first time that UH,
(33:49):
a park actually became something you could give money to,
like a museum or a garden where you actually brought
the private sector into help bring in money, and having
it in Central Park made lots of sense. Two people
that sort of put the idea out there, but to
create that sort of an institution in Brooklyn was a
(34:11):
little more complicated. We uh we had really had to
think about who would be on that board, who would
really represent it, and even the name was really a
significant issue for Henry Christensen, who became our chair, and
I too to grapple with because Brooklyn was a very
(34:35):
different places. Was not the in spot that all of
everybody's children go to live in now, it was the
spot where your grandmother used to live, and so really
trying to create something that felt more like Brooklyn. We
we called it the Present Park Alliance and the versus
(34:57):
a conservancy because it really was an alliance of the
public sector, the private sector, and the community all working together.
So uh we we really took a while to get
it going. It took me four years just to find
Henry Christensen, which was a complicated thing, but to find
(35:19):
somebody who would share this entity, who was from Brooklyn,
who who had enough contexts and things that he could
really bring in and raise money and to put together.
And then he and I from to eight seven had
to put together aboard and sometime was It was a
(35:41):
much longer process than would normally be taken, but it
showed people across the country that it could be done
not just in the middle of Manhattan, in the wealthiest
section of the of the world, but could be done
in places like Brooklyn and then Pittsburgh and so on
and so forth. So we really sort of showed people
(36:03):
that you could do such a thing, um, and you
could create that out of um in a neighborhood that
was not necessarily the wealthiest community in this in the country.
And I think I read somewhere an interview with you
where you had said, like one of the trickiest things
was integrating the team in terms of people who had
(36:24):
come from the private sector in the public sector. Yeah,
so a public private partnership is is not necessarily comfortable. UM.
It means you've got to the government people and you've
got the not for profit staff. So the not for
profit staff tend to be he a little less and
(36:47):
they don't have permanent jobs, um, and they're very enthusiastic,
but they move around, you know, they don't stay with
you all the time. And then the parks department staff.
We're actually very dedicated people who loved actually working in
press of cares. You could transfer out if you didn't
(37:08):
want to be in work, um, but to be in
the park in the sort of that sort of situation
meant that you had people who really wanted to work
and wanted to to produce a beautiful park, but there
was an attitude difference between the two of them. And
it took really two or three years of little meetings
(37:30):
and special events and different kinds of parties and retreats
and that sort of thing to get people to understand
that both sets of people really wanted the park to
be a great place. And so it was probably one
of the most complicated processes, and we were helped along
(37:51):
by a number of wonderful organizations like the Funds for
the City of New York, who helped us get over
that that barrier. So it was it was a very
interesting part of the process, which I don't think exists
as a problem in present park anymore. And then, of
course it became the not for profit side of this,
(38:15):
and the ability to raise private dollars in a public
park really meant that we could do special programming, we
could hire people who could do special things that the
city couldn't necessarily do. So a huge you know, pretty
big natural resources crew or programs in the buildings that
(38:39):
we had just restored. But we really had a very
big commitment from government to get that going. It was
a significant amount of money was given to us right
off the bat. So we knew that we had the
ability to get things done from government because I think
(39:00):
otherwise the private sector wouldn't have felt so comfortable starting
to put money in. And so when you first took
on this massive project of restoring the park at a
time when it was really in a pretty rough state, uh,
and you have assembled this team, what was really the
biggest obstacle after that? The biggest obstacle was really actually
(39:20):
getting people to return to the park. It was a
beautiful piece of landscape that had simply been allowed to
uh fall apart. The buildings were shots, they were all
almost every building in the park was closed. Um. And
so we get we had the capital dollars just to
(39:43):
do this work given by the city for the basics,
you know, fix up the building and do this and
do that, and start doing some landscape work, but we
didn't have the public so It was a totally opposite
from the Central Park experience, where they had billions of
people coming and just going all over in the park
(40:06):
and running it down. We had nobody in the park
and they were there was fear and crime, and so
the issues were much more um uh. Not the obtaining
of the initial capital money, which we got really in night.
We got ten million dollars, which was a lot of
(40:27):
money then to get started. And then every year we
had a commitment first from the Cot administration and then
Giuliani and then I mean Dakins and Giuliani, So we
always were getting very good capital dollars to restore things
from government. But what we needed to do is get
(40:48):
people to come to the park, enjoy the park, and
then become involved, become volunteers, become fundraisers, become all of
these other things so that you could bring a real public.
But we only had um a little over a million
people visit a year in the first year, and you
(41:11):
know now we're way over ten millions. So it was
a big, big difference in the issues that proser Park
faces now versus what we were facing then was very different.
So the perception of crime, uh and the the fact
that people had stopped going to the park and stopped
building traditions around the park. Uh, And it took a
(41:35):
long time to get that programming going to encourage people
to come back. And as part of that, I mean,
a park is so central to the identity of the
place in which it exists. So I wonder what you
think is the park's most important legacy to Brooklyn's history. Well,
there's so many, Um, there's so many things. First of all,
it was it was what brought a great sense of
(41:59):
democracy into Brooklyn in the early days, so that you
had this beautiful public space that everyone could use, every
immigrants who arrived or every wealthy merchant. It was just
available and there, and it created senses of community from
(42:22):
all the way around the park. It gave the building
of Brooklyn a very big boost. But it you know,
and it continues to do so today. So it is
still the place where no matter how much money you
make or what you do, you walk in there and
you're just like all the other people. You're having a
(42:44):
great time. You're with your family, you're doing all these
things together, so you're you're really enjoying your um, your
time with the family and within your community, even though
the commune unity is enormous around Prospect Park, and now
it's becoming larger because people even come from Manhattan to
(43:08):
go to Prospect Park. So it's because it is so beautiful. Also,
it was created at the same time as the museum
and then a little later the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, so
we have these sort of cultural hub right there of
the garden, the park, the museum, the zoo just a
(43:31):
little ways away, the Children's museum, the Brooklyn Public Library.
So it created this place. And one of the things
that we noticed with great happiness is when Arnold Lehman
came to the Brooklyn Museum, he changed the way the
museum described itself by saying that it was next to
(43:54):
Prospect Park. Now that never would have happened in you know,
and whatever have said, oh and we're right nick to
Prosperent Park, they would have said, oh God. And you
know the other thing that we noticed is suddenly, when
you were selling your house, you know, the advertisement would
(44:18):
always say only a few blocks from Prospect Park or
right next to Prospect Park. And so that's when we
realized that the park was now an asset in the borough.
But I think That's why Howard Golden, the borough president
of Many you know in the nineties eighties and just
(44:38):
before that, put a big investment of capital money into
the park because you know, he had known the park
back in the day when it was great and uh
and had a positive impact, and then he had known
it without that. So I think we've got them even
more positive impact than we ever have had, for you know,
(45:00):
in the two thousand's we'd really um and hits our
mark with with with coming back, but then going forward,
I think we're probably the park is very influential on
very many neighborhoods now And since the park is celebrating
its hundred and fifty anniversary this year, I wonder what
you hope historians a hundred and fifty years from now
(45:22):
we'll write about the park. Yes, I love that question.
So a hundred and fifty years ago, you know, what
do people think this design that ownst Ebok came up
with is shockingly flexible that it has lasted this hundred
and fifty years with people being able to enjoy it
(45:47):
in the ways that people of the eighteen sixties and
the ways of the people in two thousand and seventeen
use it in very different ways, but it's totally used.
So the passive, the ability to just walk and beauty
and relax and feel it's all yours is still there
(46:08):
for people. But they can also play ultimate frisbee versus
tennis in the long net. You know, there were just
very different different activities that went on and uh in
the eighteen hundreds and now. So my hope would be
that in a hundred and fifty years they would be saying, well,
(46:31):
it was great that they formed this Prosser Park alliance
because it's really meant that the park never had to
go down hill the way it did several times in
the first hundred and fifty years. It is stayed consistently
fabulous all of this time for this hundred and fifty
(46:52):
and is still so flexible in its design that it
accommodates the people of the century. Uh. That flexibility of
the park space is not something I really would have
(47:14):
thought about before talking with Tupper, but it really does
speak to the elegance of his design really from day one.
So we want to wish Prospect Park a very happy
hundred and fiftieth anniversary. If you're in the Brooklyn area,
you can check out Prospect Park dot org to see
everything that the park has to offer, uh and the
events that are scheduled there. Our deepest gratitude to Charles Burnbaum,
(47:35):
Christian Zimmerman and Tupper Thomas for taking time to speak
with us about this amazing piece of what's really living history.
And again, if you would like to check out the
work that Charles does with the Cultural Landscape Foundation, including
their city guides, you can visit TCLF dot org. That
website offers a lot of really fun rabbit holes to explore. Oh,
they do programs all over North America where they kind
(47:56):
of give people an opportunity to learn about the lands
escapes in the public spaces and the architecture that they
live around all the time and maybe don't look at
It's a really cool foundation. Uh. And you can also,
of course visit Prospect Park at Prospect carc dot org.
As we said, there's a cajillion things that you could
do there and it's a big, beautiful space. Yes, I
(48:18):
have some listener mail for us I do. It's kind
of a short version of listener mail because this episode
runs a little bit long, but we got an actual
piece of mail mail from our listener D and D
wanted to request an episode because she is a descendant
of a person who survived the Sultana disaster and she
wanted us to do an episode on it. Um And
(48:41):
I felt a little bit bad because she wrote us
this very long letter and it's very impassioned with a
lot of information. But we have actually already done an
episode on the Sultana, I think almost three years ago.
Uh So I just wanted to use this as kind
of an opportunity to remind people you can actually search
our website anytime, uh and you will find out if
(49:02):
we have back episodes on a thing. Tracy has really
been kind of, uh, this amazing driving force in getting
all of our older episodes that were before she and
I were working on this podcast tagged properly so that
search will bring up things when you're actually looking for them,
uh uh and the Sultana is definitely one that comes up.
We do get a lot of questions about whether we
(49:23):
have an episode on a particular thing um or suggestions
for episodes that we already have and a thing that
I think listeners might not realize. Who let me stress
how much we love our listeners and we love hearing
for you. I get the answer to that question by searching,
and you can just cut out that middleman like you
do not have to wait for my sorry behind to
(49:46):
find the link because everything searchable on our website. You
can also google the name of the episode in the
words myssed in history and that'll bring stuff up. Um.
And we have an archive page that lists every single episode,
which is the thing I turned to you a lot,
uh to to get the links to episodes when folks ask, Yeah,
(50:06):
so stuff is easily searchable, you can find it, especially
like I said, now that it's got more robust tagging
that will allow easier finding of things. Yeah. We are
always always adding to that also, um so yeah. Yeah.
So the good news d is that we've answered your
requests in the past with a time machine. Yeah. Completely.
(50:30):
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You can also find us across the spectrum of social
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That's when we were just talking about being searchable, uh,
You can also visit our parents site, which is how
(50:51):
stuff works dot com and type in almost anything you're
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and UH. You can visit our parent site, how stuff
(51:13):
works dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Fry and I'm Tray C. V. Wilson and its Prospect
Park Week. So on Monday's episode, we talked about how
(00:22):
Brooklyn's Prospect Park went from an idea to a public
green space that's often lauded is the greatest achievement of
the Olmsted and Vox partnership. This year, the park is
celebrating its hundred and fiftieth anniversary and to help us
look at its history and it's importance in the community,
we have three different expert guests to share their insights
(00:43):
on the park. Our first guest is Charles Burnbaum, who
is the President, CEO, and founder of the Cultural Landscape
Foundation and The Cultural Landscape Foundation is a nonprofit that
helps people connect to the landscapes around them. Among the
many resources that the Foundation offers our city, regional and
National Park Service guides for cities all through North America,
(01:04):
including New York. We can find out more about the
organization at tc LF dot org. We'll give you that
you are l again at the end of the episode,
and we will have it in the show notes, which,
in case you've missed it, are now on the same
page as the episode for newly released episodes on our website. Yeah,
and Charles also worked at Prospect Park earlier in his career,
(01:25):
so he has a really, really rich understanding of it
as an integral part of Brooklyn's identity. So we'll jump
right into that interview. My first question for you, Charles
is how do you think that Prospect Park has really
shaped Brooklyn's identity and culture over the years. You know,
(01:46):
it is just a very interesting question because when I
think about the park shaping the city's identity, I would
actually say that it mirrors the city. And let me
explain what I mean by that. So when you when
you when I look at a land escape like Prospect Park, um,
I look at it as a palam test, as a
place that has layers of history. Um. And I'll come
(02:08):
back to the Revolutionary War maybe a little later in
this conversation. But if you think about the park itself
and the design of the park beginning with Olmstead involves
in eighteen sixty six, um, you know, and in that
period it kind of um. The city of course is
much more rural at that time Brooklyn and um, the
way in which the park meets the city is very rustic.
(02:30):
You know, it was influenced, um by Andrew Jackson Downing,
who was a great tastemaker who you know, probably would
have designed Central Park and Prospect Park potentially had he
not died in a riverboat, um in the Hudson River
in eighteen fifty two. So the first era is sort
of the rustic period. It's sort of like, you know,
a country outpost. Then you of course have um the
(02:51):
City Beautiful era, which is very ever present today. You
know when you see things like Grand Army Plaza and
the kind of boatart Bose Arts designs like the Boat
House and all of the sculptures and memorials by people
like Daniel Chester French and Alfrederic mcmoneys and others. And
so in the same way that New York City was
(03:13):
having the City Beautiful era like a lot of great
American cities after the World's Columbian Exposition. UM, you know,
the park echoes that, and then as you continue to
move along the park then moves into the w p
A era where it is it's very much about active
use and so as in the same way that we
look at kind of suburban developments in the US and
(03:34):
everyone having their own backyard world city, so had you know,
active parks with playgrounds and sports fields and you know
a bandshell, a zoo, all these things, um came in
during Robert Moses era UM in many of the New
York City parks, and it played out in a big
way in Prospect Park between the nineteen thirties and nineteen sixties,
and then as a mirror of the city, the park,
(03:57):
like New York City, went through a period of decline
in the sixties and f and d s until around
when the Prospect Park Alliance was founded and the renaissance
began for the park and the renaissance was beginning in
the city at the same time. And I would say
that the work in the park has gained steam in
the same way, um that the city has had a
(04:19):
great renaissance. And um, you know that to me is
kind of the interesting story where you have the rustic period,
the Bozart's period, active recreational decline, renaissance. It's the story
of the park, but it's also very much the story
of Brooklyn in the same way, and in terms of
Olmsted and Vox. How do you think Prospect Park compares
(04:39):
to their Central Park design? Well, you know, um, I
may have mentioned to you when we saw each other
the other time that um, you know, in the nineties,
I was working on four of the five parts of
the park that we're doing historic landscape reports, um for
things like the perimeter and the long Meadow. The long
Meadow was done by the late George Patton, who was
(05:01):
the landscape architect. The other four parts of the park
were being looked at by uh Anthony Walmsley and Patricia
O'Donnell and UM, you know, I remember we had a
historian at that time. Oh I believe might have lived
in Brooklyn. His name was Alphine and he was a
great landscape historian. He taught at Harvard and um, you know,
you know he used to Bemoan. At that time that
you know, people didn't know who Olmstead was, and by extension,
(05:24):
people certainly didn't know who Calbert Box was. So I think,
you know, specifically, when you think about how does this
park compare with Central Park, UM, this probably a little
bit more Calbert Box here. Um. You know, there's a
great um doodle that was done by Box. UM in
eighteen sixty five. And I remember when our historian Joy
(05:46):
Keston down unearthed this and it showed you that the
idea for the park as we know at its boundaries
UM was really UM something that Calbert Box saw and
it was a great departure from the earlier land by
the the engineer Egbert Whale. So so that was a
big deal first and foremost UM. Second, when we think
(06:06):
about it in relation to Central Park, I think the
big thing here is connectivity. That Central Park was really
created as a destination park UM for you know, Manhattan
really more than anywhere else Whereas I think when you
look at Prospect Park, that Prospect Park was part of
(06:28):
the Brooklyn park system. So for example Eastern Parkway which
meets the park. Uh, this is actually the first time
in our history that even the term parkway is used
UM and is created if you will buy Olmstead invokes
UM for this project. You know, in addition, this idea
of connecting as far away as the Brooklyn beaches like
(06:50):
Coney Island, the Palisades, Central Park, going across the East River. UM.
You know, this was UM an ambition, planning ambition that
had never been tackled before. And so I think that
one of the big differences between the two is Central
Park was a great park in a city, and Prospect
(07:11):
Park was a great park in a great city that
was conceived to be connected both within that borough of Manhattan,
but also connecting all the way to Central Park. And
I guess the last thing I would say about your
question is when you just kind of look at the
design itself, and you know, Omstit and Voggs had learned
(07:32):
a lot um you know working on Central Park, Um,
you know, but the acres that are Prospect Park, I
think what's extraordinary here is that um composition a lee.
There is a level of perfection here the Long Meadow,
for example, measures and when you um, when I look
(07:55):
at a landscape, I like to think about landscapes like
Prospect Park in the were body of work of Omestead
and Olmstead in vox And you know, the Long Meadow,
along with Central Parks, Great Lawn, Franklin Park in Boston,
and Washington Park in Chicago, those are the four grade
kind of if you will, country parks with a great
(08:17):
big meadow. And I would say, of all of those,
the Long Meadow and Prospect Park is probably the most iconic. Uh,
there's a reason why we're told. Rabinsky put that view
on the cover of his book of Clearing in the Distance,
And you could say the same about Prospect Park Lake
sixty acres. I mean, that's kind of you know, think
(08:37):
about how big that is, and to be able to
achieve a sixty acre lake in the city, and then
the ravine hundred and forty six acres, and when you're
in the ravine, you have escaped the city. And I
think that's one of the great things about Prospect Park
still today, is that there's so many parts of the
park where the city disappears. Uh. It's much harder to
(08:59):
do that in Central Park with the scale of of
the buildings that surround that landscape. And although that has
changed some in Brooklyn, UM, there are so many places
you can be in the park and you suddenly have
this epiphany thinking gosh, where have I gone? You don't
realize you're still in Brooklyn. And so I think all
of those things collectively distinguished the park. UM and I
(09:21):
think the fact that Omested and Box had been there before,
both in terms of park making. But I would say
also um understanding the politics of park making allowed them
to create something that words such as iconic and masterpiece
are often used to describe Prospect Park more than any
other homested and box landscape. And you've answered this a
(09:42):
little bit with that really illuminating answer. But what else
do you think sets this park apart, not just from
Central Park but other green spaces. Well, I would say
one one of the things about UM the Park is
that it is UM It's true the a cultural landscape
that when UM we look at what a cultural landscape is,
(10:05):
it is any landscape that is shaped by humankind. And
it can be what's called a historic design landscape the
e g. The work of Olmsted Involkes, but it could
also be a historic site UM because of an important
person or event. And you know, I just what I
find sort of remarkable is that you could be in
(10:26):
the middle of Brooklyn and you don't realize that there
are cultural life ways UM at the battle pass of
the Revolutionary War playing out in New York City, let
alone in what is now Prospect Park. So I think
on top of all of the significance as a masterpiece
of landscape architecture, UH and a world class designed by
(10:48):
Olmsted involves and others that have also contributed to the
park over time, that it's also a cultural landscape as
a place that saw troop movement during the Revolutionary War.
And so then again this might you have so many
good tidbits. Um, do you think that is maybe the
(11:09):
answer to this question or perhaps something else? What do
you think is the most important thing for people to
realize about Prospect Parks history? Well, I, I you're right,
I have to I've touched upon this a little bit,
and I would just say that you know, when, Um,
when I was studying landscape architecture in the late nineties, seventies,
early eighties. Um, you know, I have to remember in
the seventies, the Olmsted Renaissance was kind of just beginning.
(11:34):
Um Frebrick Law Olmstead's own home and office studio in Brookline, Massachusetts,
had only become a National Park site in the nineteen sixties,
and it was designated. And you know, the reality is
that with modernism and other approaches to design, that the
omestead tradition, if you will, for the picturesque in places
(11:56):
like Prospect Park, um had been forgotten and it was
really you know, with the founding of the Central Park
Conservancy in nineteen seventy nine, and the Prospect Park Alliance
in nine eight. Um, you had, I believe it was
the founding of the National Association for Homested Parks. There
were major exhibitions at the Metropolitan and the National Gallery
(12:16):
in Washington, and UM, you know there's a reason why.
Of the about maybe a little less than two thousand
works of landscape architecture that are listed on the National Register,
about two hundred of those were designed by Homestead or
his successor firm. So you know, when I what's remarkable
(12:37):
to me is that there has been such a great
renaissance for Homestead and and and for parks like Prospect Park. UM.
I think that what we can now do today is
we can contextualize these We can understand what makes Prospect
Park one of the great homested bogs landscapes. And I
think that there are several things here. First of all,
(12:59):
I think we now realize that there were three homesteads.
You know that homes fits son and nephew Um, who
was his stepson. Um continued the firm's tradition. Omestead Jr.
Continues work well into UM, you know, the nineteen fifties,
and you know, to some extent. The Omsted brothers remained
very involved in New York City, uh in places like
(13:22):
for Try and Park, but in terms of Prospect Park itself.
When UM, when I started looking at this landscape as
a young student, I think that people thought places like
Central and Prospect Park where acts of God. That somehow
we just put a stone wall around it, we put
some pretty buildings in it, and that it was there.
(13:43):
And I think Omesteed and Vox, to their detriment at
that time, made it look so apt and so easy
that everyone thought just that they couldn't imagine that it
was a manufactured landscape in the same way that Brooklyn
Bridge Park or the Highline are today. And and that
was to their credit to create something. And it was
of course a resource that had a hundred and twenty
(14:06):
five years to grow in for better or worse, through
sometimes through proper stewardship, other times through neglect. And you know,
I think in the seventies people did think it was
potentially an act of God. They had um, they had
sort of a cultural amnesia that that Olmstead and Fox
had designed this UM And I think today when you
(14:26):
see the park, what's so exciting for me? UM when
I revisit it and to see the park um coming
back to life. I mean in the seventies, you know,
benches had no slats um viewing, UM shelters were just um,
literally slabs of concrete with no pavilion that remained, perhaps
(14:48):
it was lost to fire or arson or vandalism. That
the park. You really had to squint then, not to
see the tree canopy in decline, not to see the graffiti,
not to see the vandalism. And you know, we forget
that it took twenty five years to build these parks
or more, and it has taken the said fast leadership
(15:12):
of the Prospect Park Alliance, the Central Park Conservancy and
other groups throughout the country UM to bring these places back.
So I wandered there a little bit from your question,
and I think that I think the most important thing
for people to see as I began talking to you
about seeing the park as a mirror for the city,
(15:32):
and I think the park is also a mirror for
the culture. And you know, one of the things that's
exciting today is that when people go to the park,
there's such enjoyment and there's such understanding and respect that
it compels us all to be good stewards and how
we use the park um to the highest possible enjoyment
(15:53):
that we can have. And it's natural, its scenic, it's cultural,
it's recreational, UM and it all plays out in all
five acres today And so to me, that's the most
exciting thing that yes, it's a masterpiece of landscape architecture.
And you know, we can line up all of the
holms that involve scholars and they can tell us why
it is such a significant work. But UM, today it
(16:16):
is important because we get to see ourselves in this place,
we get to use it, and we also get to
know that there is no place like it. And UM,
you know that to me is it puts us within
this larger Palam says that I began with this larger
cultural story that we get to be a part of,
and especially for those people that live close by, if
(16:38):
they choose to, they get to be a part of
it every day. So UM, you know, I would say
the only thing that I would say other than UM
that has been changing is I think you know, maybe
ten or twenty years ago, if you were tourists going
to New York City and you know you're going to
the Metropolitan and you were going to Central Park and
you know, these days you're going to the high Line.
(16:58):
I think because of what's happened with Brooklyn as this
kind of um cultural destination, what I think is exciting
is that there are all new audiences of people who
are now being exposed to the park and seeing it
for the masterpiece, the internationally celebrated masterpiece that it it
(17:18):
should be, and it absolutely is worthy of being. As
we mentioned before we started that interview, and as Charles
also alluded to as he was speaking, he worked at
Prospect Park for a while in the nineteen eighties, and
so next up he'll talk a little bit about the
(17:39):
efforts that restored the park in the last thirty years.
But before we get to that, we're gonna pause for
a quick sponsor break. We are going to pick right
up with Charles's insight into the work of Christian Zimmerman
and Tupper Thomas, as well as others who have been
key figures and reinvigorating Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Well, you know,
(18:04):
for me, what I think is so interesting is that
the story of any great landscape has the story of
great patrons, and a patron can be someone who's philanthropic
UM that writes a big check and you know, the
Lakeside Center, for example, in Prospect Park is the benefit
of of that kind of patronage. It couldn't have been
(18:24):
done without those individuals that UM allowed such a magnificent
work of design between Todd and Billy and the Prospect
Park Alliance under Christians Immiment to happen. But you know,
patronage is also about UM being UM passionate, having a
political acumen. And that person can be at a municipal
(18:47):
level in the same way that Stranahan was who was
a patron and UM enabler for Olmstead Inbox when the
park was created. But it can also be someone like
Tupper Thomas and as someone who had the good fortune
of working with Tupper in the eighties and then UM
has followed her work both UM for you know, for
(19:08):
several decades at the Alliance and then her role as
an ambassador for the importance of great parks throughout the US.
What's remarkable to me when I think back to those
early days at the Alliance when it you know, it
was kind of a spit and glue operation when it
first started. UM that when you see someone like Tupper
(19:29):
who comes with a geography background for her to actually
um straddle the bureaucracy of New York City. UM when
when this was all starting UM, you know, and remember
this was not New York City. It didn't have um
the political capital and the the well the wealthy neighbors
(19:49):
that Central Park had when it first started. And I
think that what Tupper was able to achieve is UM
it's it's not just the story of the park that
we all get to enjoy today, it was actually building
the alliance itself. And then when you see people like
Christian Zimmerman, who you know, I remember when he first
(20:10):
started as an intern in the park and to see
the work that he's done alongside UM as a landscape
architect working on on the Lakeside Um project. UM. I
think it's just one of the most magnificent rehabilitations of
an urban park in the US in the last decade.
(20:32):
And I think it's because it recaptured, um, those inherent
qualities of what Olmstead involves had intended that had been
eradicated during the Robert Moses era. But then also UM,
hand in glove you have Todd Williams and Billy Sign
then working on a building that is thoroughly modern and
(20:53):
is seamlessly inserted into a landscape that had been denuded,
that had been diminished both in terms of its historic
and cultural and ecological values. And I think it's an exemplar.
And it is because of Tupper's initial leadership envision that
established the tone for that park. And it's the work
(21:13):
that then, several decades later, that someone like Christian gets
to work both inside the Alliance in concert with world
class architects to create something that is um appropriate for
a world class masterpiece work of landscape architecture. Next up,
(21:36):
I got to chat with Christian Zimmerman, who Charles mentioned,
and Christian is the Prospect Park Alliances vice President of
Capital and Landscape Management. In this interview, he not only
told Holly what his job is, but he also spoke
about how the Alliances team has approached their work on
revitalizing this park while also remaining mindful of its rich history. So, first, awfully,
(22:00):
you tell us exactly what a Capital and Landscape vice
president does well. The simple answer is I oversee everything blue,
green and being built um. The longer answer is I
oversee um all design and construction for the park. So
I have a team of architects landscape architects that do
(22:21):
that work, and then I also oversee horticulture, turf UM
the Landscape Management division if you well, that has natural
resources crew as well as our borer culture and they
deal with the water. So you can see why I
say blue green and being built. Yeah, I actually think
that's a pretty good distinct and fairly clear way to
to answer that question. Uh. And you've been at the
(22:44):
park for a while, and when you joined it it
was in really serious need of renovation, So I wonder
how much you looked at its initial designs and various
phases of design history in determining your plans for its
future at that point. Yes, so I started in. When
I came here, we didn't have a lot of information.
There were some annual reports um and large scale drawings.
(23:09):
But one of the first things that I was hired
to do was to with two other people's to research
and try and collect as much information on the park
that was possible. So we went to the Library of
Congress in d C. And we went up to Brookline, Massachusetts,
which is where Homestead's office and home was, and it's
(23:30):
a national park and and just tried to call through
all of that and see what we had for the park.
So the idea was really just doing a deep dive
into understanding what Proser Park was um its historical significance,
and what remained and what had changed. And have there
been any times in your ongoing works, particularly since you
(23:51):
did do so much research, where some design element or
idea from early in the park's history has struck you
as particularly surprising or innovat um. You know, there are
a lot of little gems in the park that that
surprised me when you when I walk around one of
them and it's not so obvious, but if you there's
(24:12):
a bridge called rock Arts Bridge. It's a tiny little
bridge we restored um in the ravine that had there
are nine ft of sediment. It came in and just
filled in this water course and we uncovered this bridge
and there's this tiny little opening where the water would
flow through. And that in itself isn't um so interesting.
But depending on when you walk on the path, so
(24:34):
like early in the morning when the sun rises coming
from the east, um, the light shining through that tiny
little opening, it just glows. It makes the the water
course glow, and that had to be kind of purposeful
how they oriented that bridge, um, and that works the
same way in sunset if you come from the other direction.
(24:57):
So there's interesting things like that. That's really lovely. Now
that's like a thing I have to do when I'm
in New York. Next, very early ago to Prospect Park.
Are there any elements of the original landscape design for
the park that you have maybe wanted to work on
but they just aren't really possible to recreate today or
(25:17):
aren't sustainable today. There was always a proposal about the
original design actually up to when they quit working on
the park on Sudden Box Um, they proposed a refectory,
a big dining hall in the middle of the park
and they really wanted that to be built. And that
never was built. And we couldn't do that now because
(25:38):
in its place as a large bridge that Calvert Box
had designed. So it just it would be an awkward
to do. I just can't put a dining hall on
top of a bridge. Um. You know, there's that I'd
love to build the dairy we had a dairy, like
Central Park has its dairy in the middle of the woods.
But that would be very difficult to do these days. Um,
(26:00):
in access it's a it's a woods now, so we'd
have to cut down a lot of trees and we
don't really want to do that. Yeah, I have to
wonder you. You make me think about whether or not
there are things that are on your wish list that
you think are possible that you're free to share with us,
or if that's all off limits until things get approved.
Oh no, I have a I have a laundry list.
(26:21):
I think I have about a hundred eighty million dollars
of capital easily. Um, there are a number of structures
I'd like to bring back. There was a sat shelter
that sat up um near Grand Army Plosit. It's this
beautiful little structure. They had these dotted all throughout the park.
And then these um what we're called summer houses. There
(26:41):
were these four rustic shelters along the lake. We've only
recreated one, and it would be nice to bring the
other three back. That's lovely. Do you have a favorite
of the projects that you've done already that you're especially
proud of in terms of of bringing back the park's
historic intent. Um, it would be the ravine storation. That's
bringing back the water course. So where we reconstructed actually
(27:05):
the ravine and to the bin and water. UM, three waterfalls,
these ponds stream, UM, just this, it's a beautiful water course. UM.
So that's probably and that's that's a probably the most
um special UM we followed. You know, we use historic
(27:26):
photographs to recreate these waterfalls and this water course. UM.
You know, we number everything, UM, you know, identify the
rocks through the photographs and put them back where they
were supposed to be. Some of them had fallen our erosion.
That's got to be a labor of love at that point.
I think when you're comparing photographs to what you're doing
(27:47):
on an ongoing basis, we do a lot of that. UM,
we do a lot of photo reference. So because we
don't have the original detail drawings, we only have the
large scale plans. So we read the annual reports where
it will say when you're reconstructing a bridge that it
was a you know, twenty five ft long bridge, six
wide and um made of black locust. And then you
(28:11):
look at the pictures kind of it. That's sort of
like a great uh puzzle work. Though I would think, UM,
and I have to wonder if your planning updates to
areas of the property, because I know you obviously have
to do it in phases. It's not like you do
everything at once. But I wonder how you're balancing honoring
the park's past with also honoring the needs of Brooklyn's
(28:33):
modern residents. We're you know, we constantly do that. Obviously.
You know, we have playgrounds in the park. Playgrounds, I mean,
there was a playground. It's different than what we consider
a playground on the North end. But you know, modern
playgrounds didn't really weren't part of the original design, so
we're not getting rid of playgrounds, so that's. Um. What's
(28:57):
kind of interesting is most of the intrusions or the
changes to the park from the historic are along the
perimeter and on the outside of the park drive. Um,
there are some buildings inside the park, but for the
most part, it's a pretty intact design from the omestead
(29:20):
and boxed period. And what I'm finding is that it
is because of the park of its size, it's very
accommodating to modern interventions. Um. You know, we have ball
fields on the Long Meadow. We're not going to get
rid of them, and we're doing them. But it's the
brilliance of the design. It It just kind of absorbs
(29:41):
new things and just makes it a part of the
park's design. So the idea for us is to um
as I say, and what almost had really believed in
is he didn't want objects on the landscape. He wanted
everything to be within. It was all a single piece.
So if you think of a painting, um, it all
blended together as opposed to things dotting on top of it.
(30:06):
So like a diamond ring on your finger, everything just
is a singular composition. And then finally, what do you
hope as you know, the park is celebrating its big
milestone anniversary this year, what do you hope that historians
and fifty years from now are writing about the park's landscape.
I'm hoping that the period that I've been a part
(30:28):
of it, that they see that is that we've done
well and that we honored the original design without keeping
it so precious that we didn't allow the park to evolve.
We you know, we let it evolve. Um, it is
a living, breathing landscape. But that they see that as
as our modern interventions, UM, we're done elegantly and in
(30:54):
keeping with the original intent of accommodating, you know, large
masses of people. That bridge description that he gave really
did put Prospect Park at Sunrise on my list of
things that I'm going to do next time I'm in
New York if I can manage it in any way,
(31:14):
because it sounds really beautiful. Our last interview is with
Tupper Thomas, who is often credited with saving Prospect Park.
We'll talk to her about taking on this daunting task
of trying to turn this massive, dilapidated park around. But
first we're going to pause for one more quick sponsor break. Alrighty,
(31:38):
we will pick right up with Tupper, who shares her
knowledge gleaned from three decades of work with the Prospect
Park Alliance with us. So first I have to ask you,
did you know about the long history of Prospect Park
before you became the founding president of the Prospect Park Alliance.
So um, I actually was first the first administrator for
(32:00):
Prospect Park, reporting to the Parks Department. So I started
that in with the plan that we would form something
like what we did, which was the Presci Park Alliance.
But before I started as the administrator, I didn't even
know that you didn't spell omestead with an a. You know,
(32:23):
so I had I had actually taken a course in
urban planning and had a background and omestead, but I
misspelled it throughout the entire course and nobody corrected it.
But um, but I did know the importance of omestead
in Brooklyn because of Eastern Parkway in the park. But
(32:45):
that's really all that I knew when I got started.
And I also didn't really know an oak from a
maple tree. My background was government and red tape and
how to get rid of it and things like that,
and community outreach work. So it was very exciting to
(33:07):
learn the history UH and by the time we started
the alliance in seven years later, I was steeped in
the Omestead and Vox histories of the park. And you
ended up helming a rather historic private public partnership when
you began with the alliance. Will you tell us about
(33:28):
sort of how that came together and how it ended
up existing. Yes, So, the Central Park Conservancy had been
the first such animal to be created, and that had
started in nineteen and that was the first time that UH,
(33:49):
a park actually became something you could give money to,
like a museum or a garden where you actually brought
the private sector into help bring in money, and having
it in Central Park made lots of sense. Two people
that sort of put the idea out there, but to
create that sort of an institution in Brooklyn was a
(34:11):
little more complicated. We uh we had really had to
think about who would be on that board, who would
really represent it, and even the name was really a
significant issue for Henry Christensen, who became our chair, and
I too to grapple with because Brooklyn was a very
(34:35):
different places. Was not the in spot that all of
everybody's children go to live in now, it was the
spot where your grandmother used to live, and so really
trying to create something that felt more like Brooklyn. We
we called it the Present Park Alliance and the versus
(34:57):
a conservancy because it really was an alliance of the
public sector, the private sector, and the community all working together.
So uh we we really took a while to get
it going. It took me four years just to find
Henry Christensen, which was a complicated thing, but to find
(35:19):
somebody who would share this entity, who was from Brooklyn,
who who had enough contexts and things that he could
really bring in and raise money and to put together.
And then he and I from to eight seven had
to put together aboard and sometime was It was a
(35:41):
much longer process than would normally be taken, but it
showed people across the country that it could be done
not just in the middle of Manhattan, in the wealthiest
section of the of the world, but could be done
in places like Brooklyn and then Pittsburgh and so on
and so forth. So we really sort of showed people
(36:03):
that you could do such a thing, um, and you
could create that out of um in a neighborhood that
was not necessarily the wealthiest community in this in the country.
And I think I read somewhere an interview with you
where you had said, like one of the trickiest things
was integrating the team in terms of people who had
(36:24):
come from the private sector in the public sector. Yeah,
so a public private partnership is is not necessarily comfortable. UM.
It means you've got to the government people and you've
got the not for profit staff. So the not for
profit staff tend to be he a little less and
(36:47):
they don't have permanent jobs, um, and they're very enthusiastic,
but they move around, you know, they don't stay with
you all the time. And then the parks department staff.
We're actually very dedicated people who loved actually working in
press of cares. You could transfer out if you didn't
(37:08):
want to be in work, um, but to be in
the park in the sort of that sort of situation
meant that you had people who really wanted to work
and wanted to to produce a beautiful park, but there
was an attitude difference between the two of them. And
it took really two or three years of little meetings
(37:30):
and special events and different kinds of parties and retreats
and that sort of thing to get people to understand
that both sets of people really wanted the park to
be a great place. And so it was probably one
of the most complicated processes, and we were helped along
(37:51):
by a number of wonderful organizations like the Funds for
the City of New York, who helped us get over
that that barrier. So it was it was a very
interesting part of the process, which I don't think exists
as a problem in present park anymore. And then, of
course it became the not for profit side of this,
(38:15):
and the ability to raise private dollars in a public
park really meant that we could do special programming, we
could hire people who could do special things that the
city couldn't necessarily do. So a huge you know, pretty
big natural resources crew or programs in the buildings that
(38:39):
we had just restored. But we really had a very
big commitment from government to get that going. It was
a significant amount of money was given to us right
off the bat. So we knew that we had the
ability to get things done from government because I think
(39:00):
otherwise the private sector wouldn't have felt so comfortable starting
to put money in. And so when you first took
on this massive project of restoring the park at a
time when it was really in a pretty rough state, uh,
and you have assembled this team, what was really the
biggest obstacle after that? The biggest obstacle was really actually
(39:20):
getting people to return to the park. It was a
beautiful piece of landscape that had simply been allowed to
uh fall apart. The buildings were shots, they were all
almost every building in the park was closed. Um. And
so we get we had the capital dollars just to
(39:43):
do this work given by the city for the basics,
you know, fix up the building and do this and
do that, and start doing some landscape work, but we
didn't have the public so It was a totally opposite
from the Central Park experience, where they had billions of
people coming and just going all over in the park
(40:06):
and running it down. We had nobody in the park
and they were there was fear and crime, and so
the issues were much more um uh. Not the obtaining
of the initial capital money, which we got really in night.
We got ten million dollars, which was a lot of
(40:27):
money then to get started. And then every year we
had a commitment first from the Cot administration and then
Giuliani and then I mean Dakins and Giuliani, So we
always were getting very good capital dollars to restore things
from government. But what we needed to do is get
(40:48):
people to come to the park, enjoy the park, and
then become involved, become volunteers, become fundraisers, become all of
these other things so that you could bring a real public.
But we only had um a little over a million
people visit a year in the first year, and you
(41:11):
know now we're way over ten millions. So it was
a big, big difference in the issues that proser Park
faces now versus what we were facing then was very different.
So the perception of crime, uh and the the fact
that people had stopped going to the park and stopped
building traditions around the park. Uh, And it took a
(41:35):
long time to get that programming going to encourage people
to come back. And as part of that, I mean,
a park is so central to the identity of the
place in which it exists. So I wonder what you
think is the park's most important legacy to Brooklyn's history. Well,
there's so many, Um, there's so many things. First of all,
it was it was what brought a great sense of
(41:59):
democracy into Brooklyn in the early days, so that you
had this beautiful public space that everyone could use, every
immigrants who arrived or every wealthy merchant. It was just
available and there, and it created senses of community from
(42:22):
all the way around the park. It gave the building
of Brooklyn a very big boost. But it you know,
and it continues to do so today. So it is
still the place where no matter how much money you
make or what you do, you walk in there and
you're just like all the other people. You're having a
(42:44):
great time. You're with your family, you're doing all these
things together, so you're you're really enjoying your um, your
time with the family and within your community, even though
the commune unity is enormous around Prospect Park, and now
it's becoming larger because people even come from Manhattan to
(43:08):
go to Prospect Park. So it's because it is so beautiful. Also,
it was created at the same time as the museum
and then a little later the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, so
we have these sort of cultural hub right there of
the garden, the park, the museum, the zoo just a
(43:31):
little ways away, the Children's museum, the Brooklyn Public Library.
So it created this place. And one of the things
that we noticed with great happiness is when Arnold Lehman
came to the Brooklyn Museum, he changed the way the
museum described itself by saying that it was next to
(43:54):
Prospect Park. Now that never would have happened in you know,
and whatever have said, oh and we're right nick to
Prosperent Park, they would have said, oh God. And you
know the other thing that we noticed is suddenly, when
you were selling your house, you know, the advertisement would
(44:18):
always say only a few blocks from Prospect Park or
right next to Prospect Park. And so that's when we
realized that the park was now an asset in the borough.
But I think That's why Howard Golden, the borough president
of Many you know in the nineties eighties and just
(44:38):
before that, put a big investment of capital money into
the park because you know, he had known the park
back in the day when it was great and uh
and had a positive impact, and then he had known
it without that. So I think we've got them even
more positive impact than we ever have had, for you know,
(45:00):
in the two thousand's we'd really um and hits our
mark with with with coming back, but then going forward,
I think we're probably the park is very influential on
very many neighborhoods now And since the park is celebrating
its hundred and fifty anniversary this year, I wonder what
you hope historians a hundred and fifty years from now
(45:22):
we'll write about the park. Yes, I love that question.
So a hundred and fifty years ago, you know, what
do people think this design that ownst Ebok came up
with is shockingly flexible that it has lasted this hundred
and fifty years with people being able to enjoy it
(45:47):
in the ways that people of the eighteen sixties and
the ways of the people in two thousand and seventeen
use it in very different ways, but it's totally used.
So the passive, the ability to just walk and beauty
and relax and feel it's all yours is still there
(46:08):
for people. But they can also play ultimate frisbee versus
tennis in the long net. You know, there were just
very different different activities that went on and uh in
the eighteen hundreds and now. So my hope would be
that in a hundred and fifty years they would be saying, well,
(46:31):
it was great that they formed this Prosser Park alliance
because it's really meant that the park never had to
go down hill the way it did several times in
the first hundred and fifty years. It is stayed consistently
fabulous all of this time for this hundred and fifty
(46:52):
and is still so flexible in its design that it
accommodates the people of the century. Uh. That flexibility of
the park space is not something I really would have
(47:14):
thought about before talking with Tupper, but it really does
speak to the elegance of his design really from day one.
So we want to wish Prospect Park a very happy
hundred and fiftieth anniversary. If you're in the Brooklyn area,
you can check out Prospect Park dot org to see
everything that the park has to offer, uh and the
events that are scheduled there. Our deepest gratitude to Charles Burnbaum,
(47:35):
Christian Zimmerman and Tupper Thomas for taking time to speak
with us about this amazing piece of what's really living history.
And again, if you would like to check out the
work that Charles does with the Cultural Landscape Foundation, including
their city guides, you can visit TCLF dot org. That
website offers a lot of really fun rabbit holes to explore. Oh,
they do programs all over North America where they kind
(47:56):
of give people an opportunity to learn about the lands
escapes in the public spaces and the architecture that they
live around all the time and maybe don't look at
It's a really cool foundation. Uh. And you can also,
of course visit Prospect Park at Prospect carc dot org.
As we said, there's a cajillion things that you could
do there and it's a big, beautiful space. Yes, I
(48:18):
have some listener mail for us I do. It's kind
of a short version of listener mail because this episode
runs a little bit long, but we got an actual
piece of mail mail from our listener D and D
wanted to request an episode because she is a descendant
of a person who survived the Sultana disaster and she
wanted us to do an episode on it. Um And
(48:41):
I felt a little bit bad because she wrote us
this very long letter and it's very impassioned with a
lot of information. But we have actually already done an
episode on the Sultana, I think almost three years ago.
Uh So I just wanted to use this as kind
of an opportunity to remind people you can actually search
our website anytime, uh and you will find out if
(49:02):
we have back episodes on a thing. Tracy has really
been kind of, uh, this amazing driving force in getting
all of our older episodes that were before she and
I were working on this podcast tagged properly so that
search will bring up things when you're actually looking for them,
uh uh and the Sultana is definitely one that comes up.
We do get a lot of questions about whether we
(49:23):
have an episode on a particular thing um or suggestions
for episodes that we already have and a thing that
I think listeners might not realize. Who let me stress
how much we love our listeners and we love hearing
for you. I get the answer to that question by searching,
and you can just cut out that middleman like you
do not have to wait for my sorry behind to
(49:46):
find the link because everything searchable on our website. You
can also google the name of the episode in the
words myssed in history and that'll bring stuff up. Um.
And we have an archive page that lists every single episode,
which is the thing I turned to you a lot,
uh to to get the links to episodes when folks ask, Yeah,
(50:06):
so stuff is easily searchable, you can find it, especially
like I said, now that it's got more robust tagging
that will allow easier finding of things. Yeah. We are
always always adding to that also, um so yeah. Yeah.
So the good news d is that we've answered your
requests in the past with a time machine. Yeah. Completely.
(50:30):
If you would like to write to us, you could
do so at History podcast at how Stuff Works dot com.
You can also find us across the spectrum of social
media as missed in History, and you can ask questions
or or submit requests that way. You can visit us
at our website, which is missed in History dot com.
That's when we were just talking about being searchable, uh,
You can also visit our parents site, which is how
(50:51):
stuff works dot com and type in almost anything you're
curious to learn about in the search bar and you
will get undoubtedly a wealth of information. So come and
visit us at Miston history dot com, where we have
episodes of every show ever, as well as show notes,
which now Tracy mentioned earlier are consolidated as part of
the show page. They're no longer two separate pages, uh
and UH. You can visit our parent site, how stuff
(51:13):
works dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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