As beautiful as it is, and even though it is, along with the Brooklyn Bridge one of our most iconic Brooklyn landmarks, the Prospect Park Boathouse has had an eventful and occasionally endangered life.
It opened in 1907 for exactly the purpose its name suggests: boat rentals on the ground floor, and up a curved double staircase, a restaurant with terrace. When it was built, it represented a break with the original ideas of Olmsted and Vaux, the park’s designers; a number of their original rustic or rural fixtures were replaced with ‘classicist’ buildings like this one, designed by Helmle and Huberty, a leading firm of the time.
The ceilings of the boathouse have beautiful Guastavino tile ceilings. These days, the Boathouse is used as an event space, quite pricy, but at least contributing revenue to the Park’s Conservancy. Before that, it served for a few years as a visitor and interpretation center for the Audubon Society. There’s also a take-out cafe, offering tasty but pricy snacks and drinks.
But in 1964, for all its beauty, the Boathouse came within 48 hours of being demolished under orders from Robert Moses, who was then head of the Parks Department. No longer in use as a boathouse, and unmaintained for years, it was in perilous condition. Moses was removing a number of features from New York’s parks, and the Boathouse was on his hit list.
Fortunately, a public campaign emerged to stave off demolition, and pave the way for eventual restoration; the Boathouse re-opened in 1974, and is now both a New York City Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places—and always a pleasant place to sit and read or just to sit on a summer afternoon.
