Grand Army Plaza - History

History

The 1861 plan for Prospect Park included an elliptical plaza at the intersection of Flatbush and Ninth avenues. In 1867, the plaza was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux as a grand entrance to the Park to separate the noisy city from the calm nature of the Park. Olmsted and Vaux's design included only the Fountain of the Golden Spray and the surrounding earth embankments covered in heavy plantings. The berms still shield the local apartment buildings and the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library from the noisy traffic circle that has developed. By 1869 the Abraham Lincoln statue by Henry Kirke Brown was north of the plaza fountain's stairs, and the statue was moved to the lower terrace of the park's Concert Grove in 1895.

The original 1867 fountain was successively replaced by an 1873 lighted fountain, an 1897-1915 fountain for exhibitions, and the 1932 Bailey Fountain renovated in 2006. In 1895, three bronze sculpture groups were added to the 1892 Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch. When the nearby 1896 Brooklyn Public Library was built, it was hoped that a new station on the BMT Brighton Line could be built almost directly under the building, but the $1 to 3 million cost was too much.

In 1926, the plaza, previously known as Prospect Park Plaza, was renamed Grand Army Plaza to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the foundation of the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army and other military services who served in the American Civil War.

For the history of the four plaza fountains, see Grand Army Plaza fountains.