12 DAYS OF BROOKLYN: Families in the Winter Wonderland

Day Four • 12 Views of Brooklyn

Painting by Ella Yang; see Who’s Who

BROOKLYN CHILDREN AND GROWNUPS are blessed to be able to play in beloved Prospect Park. The 585 acres include Brooklyn’s only lake, the lovely Lullwater. In 1861, after Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux had practiced up on Central Park on Manhattan, the great design team moved on to Brooklyn to start work on their masterpiece. There’s plenty of credit to go around,  but some say the true father of the park was James S. T. Stanahan, city parks commission from 1860 to 1885, who championed its creation and expansion. (Stanahan also favored the merger into New York City, which some grumblers still say was the very, very worst possible thing to happen to Brooklyn – until the Dodgers left town, that is.) This snow scene, like yesterday’s, dates from the spectacular snowfall of 2009. The artist who captured it, Ella Yang, explains, “We finally had enough snow to transform Prospect Park into a winter playground. I was taking a somewhat slippery walk through the Park when I ran across this family heading home after an afternoon of sledding. The sun was low and threw pinks, ochres and purples across the different snowy surfaces. Great fun to paint!”