The best thing about Halloween in PLG is... everything. We are near Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Safe Walk... its all fun. Maybe I'm biased because I have a little guy to dress up but I love Halloween.
On Monday, October 31st (of course!) kids from around Flatbush will come to PLG on Halloween for the SafeWalk - trick-or-treating on traffic-free streets with houses prepared for the onslaught. PLOG has a map of the walk, but for the more textually inclined, here it is:
Start at Rutland & Flatbush. Walk Rutland Rd. to Rogers Ave. Left on Rogers, Walk to Midwood St. Left on Midwood, Walk to Bedford Ave. Right on Bedford, Walk to Maple St. Right on Maple, Walk to New York Ave. Left on New York, Walk to Empire Blvd. End at New York & Empire @ the 71st Precinct.
But the SafeWalk is the end of a weekend of costume opportunities. On Saturday, Ghouls & Gourds makes its annual return to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Music, stilt-walkers, a costume parade and a carnivorous plant display, all in the beauty of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden which I don't get to often enough. I can even still find some serenity in the Japanese Garden because water always has a calming effect on me.
Prospect Park has a slate of activities spanning Halloween weekend. Boo at the Zoo will have a haunted barn, "spooky" creatures and face-painting. Is a haunted barn not enough? The Carousel will be haunted too. The regular calliope tunes will be replaced by spooky music and I'm sure the decorations will be tamely terrifying. The Lefferts Historic House will have scary stories and skeleton papercrafts.
But the highlight of Prospect Park's Halloween activities is the Halloween Walk and Carnival on Saturday. The heart of the action is at Nethermead, where the Carnival activities will be going on (and where our Gorilla Family got its picture taken last year). There's a haunted walk on Lookout Hill (I can't figure out where that is, sadly...) and there will be fun, games and food. There will also be food trucks parked on the Center Drive for less candy-cornish sustenance.
Walking to our car from the Farmer's Market, on Flatbush Avenue alongside Prospect Park, Sid and I spotted this baby racoon wandering around.
Actually, not so much wandering around as following us. Sadly, we couldn't keep it. I kept trying to coax it back into the park but to no avail. I'm actually worried for the little guy since it may wander into traffic or something and it appears to have been separated from its pack. (Are racoons pack animals? For the sake of this post lets say... yes.) He (she?) didn't look great. Kind of skinny, making a sound that was a lot like meowing for help and limping a little.
Two NYPD officers saw me dealing with the racoon and asked me about it and, after I pulled away, they turned on their lights and made a U-turn to get to the racoon.
I'm going to hope that means that there will be a happy ending.
Self-explanatory, I suppose, though in case you're wondering: the Vanderbilt Street playground is on the southwest side of Prospect Park, about a 15 minute walk from Parkside/Ocean. Should be well worth the trip.
There are a couple of events at Prospect Park next week that we think are worth checking out. First up, on Wednesday, August 4, there's a free screening of The Olmsted Legacy: America’s Urban Parks at the Celebrate Brooklyn Bandshell (enter the Park at 9th Street and Prospect Park West), at 8 pm.
This one hour documentary, which features Prospect Park, examines the formation of America’s first great city parks and the visionary role of Frederick Law Olmsted, the urban planner and landscape architect responsible for so much of the great work done in the late 19th century.
Then, on Sunday, August 8, Elizabeth Mitchell is performing at 4 pm, also at the bandshell. Mitchell bears the distinction of being the only artist performing children's music whose records I have bought more than once. She plays mostly traditional folk songs, with a few rock and other modern ditties thrown in for good measure, but even the new stuff has a classic, no-frills Smithsonian Folkways kind-of-sound. (You can hear samples of my favorite LP here from Amazon.)
We played her records over and over for my son when he was an infant and he responded by calming down even when his tuneless mother sang them.
That's right: kids under 12 ride (and, in the case of my son, scream bloody murder) for free at the Prospect Park Carousel, throughout August. You've got Astoria Federal Savings to thank for this one.
Throughout June, PLG Arts will be presenting shows of DAYDREAM: A 45-minute "Midsummer Night's Dream at the Imagination Playground in Prospect Park every Saturday at 11 and every Sunday at 3. The show is directed by Rohana Elias-Reyes and is free to all, with open seating in the playground. There will also be post-show art-making activities for children. We'll be bringing Sid sometime this summer even though, at 22 months, he falls outside of PLG Arts' recommended age range of "3 to 103."
Since this post is mostly a rewritten press release, I hope you don't mind when I quote a review of the show directly from the release:
NYtheatre.com calls the
show "can't miss children's theatre that Shakespeare lovers will truly
appreciate," and with more magic, music, and puppets than ever, PLG Arts
5th annual production of DAYDREAM will have kids and their parents
spotting Puck in the playground and fairies in the fountain. A group of
construction workers comes to rehearse a play in Prospect Park's
Imagination Playground and stumble into a battle between the King and
Queen of the Fairies. Magic, puppets, hard hats & safety vests –
what more could any Brooklyn kid want? (Those from other boroughs
welcome!) Stick around afterwards for the free craft activity or bring
your kids' bathing suits for a splash in the dragon fountain after the
play.
Visit: www.PLGArts.org or call 718-393-7733 for more
information.
While we're talking about Prospect Park amenities, there's one amenity that we have yet to find in any fundraising literature: the wooded areas on the east side of the park are notable gay cruising spots. We here at Hawthorne Street feel that the Prospect Park Alliance would do well to better identify these areas. That way, wandering moms with Baby Bjorns wouldn't be so surprised when they happened upon naked men, and tourists looking for a quick BJ would know where to go. What do you think?
A couple of weeks ago, we attended a house party here in the neighborhood to raise awareness of Prospect Park's Lakeside project. Prospect Park chief Tupper Thomas and several others from the Park were there to talk about the current plans. Work began on phase one—restoring part of the lakefront—in December, and the full project is expected to take several years to complete. When it's done, I'm telling you now it's going to be s-w-a-n-k. When Tupper et al unveiled an animated rendering that took viewers on a tour of the built space it gave me goosebumps.
In addition to restoring and redesigning green spaces near the lake, the project will include two skating rinks, a family-friendly cafe open year round, a new promenade, and—most exciting of all—a summer water park for kids. You know how the dancing fountains at the Brooklyn Museum are kid magnets? Well, imagine something like that but not deadly. Members of the Park's design team are currently visiting water parks around the world to get ideas.
The whole thing is terribly exciting and we urge you to give Prospect Park all of your money right now to help make it happen. The Park has already raised $50 million and needs about $15 to $20 million more for the complete plan. Every little bit helps.
On Saturday, June 19th, Hawthorne Street is going to sponsor our first ever PLG Family Day at Prospect Park, so save the date to pick up trash with your neighbors!
In the mean time, Prospect Park can always use volunteers to help keep litter in control. Right now they're looking for volunteers to work alongside staff members "distributing literature, garbage bags, etc. to park users in BBQ and picnic areas. The shifts are 8:00a.m. to noon and noon to 4 p.m." To help out, call the Park at (718)965-8960 or email volunteers (at) prospectpark.org.
The death toll includes "Two dead opossums, one blackbird, the duck, one turtle and seven or
eight dead fish" according to parkgoer Ed Bahlman. In addition, one of the Prospect Park swans, John Boy, appears to have been made ill - though I'm not sure that anyone with significant veterinary credentials has weighed in to show that the illness is anything more than coincidental to the appearance of chicken guts.
Putting aside the Brooklyn Papers' alarmist tone, I'm not sure there is anything to see here (other than some disgusting piles of guts). The article concludes with a spokesman from the park who notes that “Sick animals are pretty common after the long winter. It is very unlikely that the 60-acre
watercourse, which is constantly flowing, is contaminated.”
Recent Comments