Arch Puppets: When Grand Army Plaza Had a Puppet Lending Library | Virtual Program | Thursday, January 21

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January 21, 2021 12:30 pm EST

Join us as we explore one of the most curious chapters in the history of Prospect Park, the four years (2005–2009) during which the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Grand Army Plaza housed a free lending library of puppets! Our guest will be master puppeteer Theresa Linnihan, who operated that puppet library and performance space. The library was forced to move due to the arch’s leaky roof, but now the Prospect Park Alliance is preparing for a major renovation, so we thought this would be the perfect time to talk to the last tenant of the arch! Theresa will share stories, images, and puppets from this important community resource, which lives on in its current home at Brooklyn College.

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Portal to Prospect Park: Restoring the Endale Arch | Free Virtual Program | Friday, January 29

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January 29, 2021 12:30 pm EST

Prospect Park Alliance recently completed the restoration of the Endale Arch, one of the original portals to the park designed by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted. Get an insider’s look at the restoration process, which required years of research, incredibly skilled craftspeople, and painstakingly detailed work to bring the arch back to its original splendor. We will be joined by Sarena Rabinowitz, Assistant Architect, Design & Construction at the Alliance about the years-long, multi-phase process to restore the full arch, and Curtis Barnhart of Barnhart Restoration & Design, which did the restoration work on the stunning interior. We will also go live to the arch itself to see these wonderful details up close. This program is offered in partnership with the Prospect Park Alliance, and the arch restoration was generously funded by the Tiger Baron Foundation, with additional support from Council Member Brad Lander through District 39 participatory budgeting.

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Winter Birding with the Brooklyn Bird Club | Free Virtual Program | Tuesday, February 2

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February 2, 2021 12:30 pm EST

While winter can seem like a slow time for birdwatching, many migratory species can be seen in New York only at this time of year. Join us for a discussion with experts from the Brooklyn Bird Club, where they will share some of the notable species currently found in the city, how to identify them, and tips for where to to find them. We will also have a birder joining us live from the field showing some of these spots in Prospect Park.

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Hockey History of New York City | Episode 179

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With the National Hockey League scheduled to resume play soon (pandemic permitting), we are looking at the history of hockey in the New York metro area with our resident hockey historian Andrew Gustafson. We will look at high, low, and curious moments in the histories of the Rangers, Islanders, and Devils, but also look the forgotten clubs like the Raiders, Wanderers, and Americans (and how the latter almost moved to Brooklyn), and the many amateur, minor-league, and college clubs that have competed in the region over the past 125 years.

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Happy Hour Non-Profit Fun-Raiser | Episode 177

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Close out 2020 with us as we celebrate all of the amazing museums, non-profits, and cultural institutions that we have featured on our virtual programs this year. We will have special guests from several different organizations that will share brief updates on their work and what they are looking forward to in 2021, including the Street Vendor Project, Think!Chinatown, Makerspace, South Street Seaport Museum, Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, Gowanus Dredgers, Lilac Preservation Project, Prospect Park Alliance, Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka, and the Reher Center. Check out all of the non-profits that have participating in our programs this year, and please consider making a year-end donation.

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Guastavino’s New York | Episode 176

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In 1881, Spanish engineer Rafael Guastavino arrived in New York City and unveiled his new technology for building self-supporting vaulted tile ceilings. These ceilings are now iconic elements of many New York landmarks, and the city is home to more than 250 of them, more than any other city in the United States. On this virtual tour, we’ll look at many of the ceilings up close, in both grand public buildings and out-of-the-way places, including in Prospect Park, Grand Central Station, Ellis Island, and the Municipal Building, as we discuss this engineering marvel.

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“Pop-Surreal” Art and Tile Demo with Artist Ralph Almeida | Episode 171

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Originally from Connecticut and of Portuguese descent, New York-based artist Ralph Almeida creates colorful and imaginative “pop-surreal” works of ceramic and acrylic art that combine many influences – of indigenous and modern artists, the ancient and contemporary, nature and spirituality, and his own background as a textile designer. Ralph is perhaps best known for his painted decorative tiles, and he will walk us through a hands-on tile demo and some of his favorite projects, from tiles inspired by the stained glass windows of the Museum at Eldridge Street, to special commissions for people’s homes to decorative face masks.

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Veterans Day in Prospect Park: Commemorating the Great War | Episode 160

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A statue of a soldier who stands clutching his gun and looking off into the distance as an angel begins to wrap her wing and arm around him

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More than 2,800 Brooklynites were killed in World War I, and Prospect Park quickly became one of the borough’s key points of remembrance and commemoration. On this virtual walking tour for Veterans Day, we will explore some of the memorial sites in the park and they people they memorialize, including the memorial trees along Prospect Park West, Bartel-Pritchard Square, and the striking 1921 memorial by Henry Augustus Lukeman. We will also discuss the ways in which the park was mobilized and transformed as a result of the war.

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Prospect Park Waterways | Free Virtual Program | Episode 152

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Prospect Park Well House A one-story brick structure with windows and an ornamental portico painted in pastel colors and brown with trees in the background

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Join us for a virtual exploration of Prospect Park’s waterways. We will look closely at the ingenious drainage system and chain of manmade streams and ponds that terminate in Brooklyn’s largest lake, follow the park’s scenic watercourse, and go inside one of the most unique features of the park: the 1869 Wellhouse, the park’s last remaining building by park designer Calvert Vaux, which once housed the machinery that fueled the watercourse and was recently restored by the Prospect Park Alliance and converted into the first composting restrooms in a NYC park.

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