Eastern Parkway (Brooklyn)
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- This article refers to Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, New York: there is also an Eastern Parkway in Louisville, Kentucky, also designed by the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted.
| Eastern Parkway | |
|---|---|
| U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
 |
|
| Location: | Brooklyn, New York City |
| Built/Founded: | 1870 |
| Architect: | Frederick Law Olmsted; Calvert Vaux |
| Added to NRHP: | September 26, 1983 |
| NRHP Reference#: | 83001689 [1] |
| Governing body: | State |
Eastern Parkway is a major boulevard that runs through a portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The road begins at Grand Army Plaza and extends east, running parallel to Atlantic Avenue, along the crest of the morraine that separates northern from southern Long Island, to Ralph Avenue. There, it turns to the northeast, still following the morraine, until it terminates at Evergreen Cemetery [2] where the morraine takes a steep climb towards a peak at Ridgewood Reservoir.
The section between Grand Army Plaza and Ralph Avenue consists of a central bidirectional avenue of six lanes, two small parallel side streets, and several medians with trees, benches, and paths for pedestrians and cyclists. The bike paths are part of the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway which runs through Prospect Park to Ocean Parkway, and east through Forest Park (Queens). East of Ralph Avenue, the parkway is reduced to four lanes, heading in a northeast direction towards the Jackie Robinson Parkway.
According to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Eastern Parkway:
The world's first parkway was conceived by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1866. The term parkway was coined by these designers as a landscaped road built expressly for 'pleasure-riding and driving' or scenic access to Prospect Park (also designed by Olmsted and Vaux). To these ends, commerce was restricted. The parkway was constructed from Grand Army Plaza to Ralph Avenue (the boundary of the City of Brooklyn) between 1870 and 1874. Olmsted and Vaux intended Eastern Parkway to be the Brooklyn nucleus of an interconnected park and parkway system for the New York area. The plan was never completed but their idea of bringing the countryside into the city influenced the construction of major parks and parkways in cities throughout the United States." [3]
The success of the special statutory commercial restrictions on this and other urban parkways inspired later, more general zoning schemes in New York and elsewhere. It was planned as an important urban design element to create an amenity for a good neighborhood.
Like some later roads on Long Island, Eastern Parkway was designed to use land that was idle because it was high, rocky, and unsuited to farming. The presence of the road, however, made the area desirable for residences for people whose income derived from elsewhere. Thus it became inhabited in the next few decades, while land on the slopes to south and north continued to be used for farms into the 20th century.
In addition to Grand Army Plaza and Prospect Park, other attractions and notable buildings along Eastern Parkway include the Brooklyn Public Library central branch, the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, 770 Eastern Parkway and the Jewish Children's Museum. The parkway is the route of the West Indian Day Parade, a festive annual celebration taking place around Labor Day.
[edit] Notes
- ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2007-01-23).
- ^ Google Maps
- ^ New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
