Prospect Park to Break Ground on Lakeside Upgrade

Since 1961, Kate Wollman Rink in has provided an affordable seasonal ice skating rink for the residents of Brooklyn, but the rink has also been criticized by some as an unattractive and unnatural addition to the original design.

The Prospect Park Alliance now plans to improve the current facilities, and has closed Wollman Rink this winter as a team of architects and engineers undertake a $70 million project to expand and build upon the existing infrastructure in order to better accommodate the needs of the surrounding neighborhoods.

They also hope to recreate the vision of the park's first design team, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

The half-century old concrete and metal structure sits on Music Island, an area formally used for a longstanding Saturday afternoon concert series.

"It's the only outdoor rink in Brooklyn," said Eugene Patron, Press Director for Prospect Park, "But the building was never particularly notable."

Patron said that outdoor rinks like Wollman generally have a life expectancy of thirty years, and fifty-year old Wollman facility was starting show its old age.

"It was getting harder and harder to maintain," Patron said.

For nearly 150 years, Prospect Park has remained a haven of green space and a community gathering point in the middle of urban Brooklyn. The park's 585 acres include numerous trailheads, picnic areas and playgrounds as well as a tennis center, parade ground, the GreenMarket and of course the Wollman Rink. 

According to Albert H. Garner, Chairman of the Prospect Park Alliance, "The lakeside is so much more than just the building of something new and the restoring of something old. It will transform an entire section of our Park to better serve millions of visitors every year."

The finished facility, projected by Patron to be open for business by the 2012 winter season, will include a renovated 26 acres of parkland, five additional acres of Lake and three more of green space, a "green" building that will qualify for LEED certification, a new roller skating rink and replace the existing, winter-only ice rink with two new ice rinks, one open and one covered, which will create a longer skating season.

In addition, the lakeshore vista will be restored to its pre-1960 appearance, with access to the water's edge again provided by a curved, unobstructed shoreline. Music Island will be restored as a wildlife sanctuary and the soil-choked lakebed will be recovered, helping to correct shallow water deficits.

Tod Williams and Billie Tsien will spearhead the project on the architectural side. Recent projects by the team include the American Folk Art Museum in New York, as well as the Phoenix Art Museum and C.V. Starr East Asian Library at the University of California at Berkeley. Williams and Tsien's projects have received several awards and honors from the American Institute of Architects. Most recently, last year Todd Williams was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

As of Spring 2010, more than 70 percent of the total fundraising goal had been achieved, according to the Prospect Park Alliance's website. The money will come from a variety of sources, including the office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Federal dollars have also been raised through the efforts of U.S. Representatives Yvette Clark (D-Brooklyn) and Anthony Weiner (D-Queens/Brooklyn), as well as several other retired state and federal officials.

The official groundbreaking ceremony is schedule for December 15, and the first stage of the project—asbestos removal—has already begun.

Meanwhile, the rink will remain fenced off, however, forcing Brooklynites to travel elsewhere for skating activities.

Although Patron said that the neighborhood has been heavily involved with the project from its inception several years ago, at least one resident was disappointed to find the Wollman gates shuttered this winter.

Lexy Nistico, 25, lives right around the corner from the park in Windsor Terrace. "‪I was really bummed to see [the rink] closed," she said "because I plan on going ice skating for the first time in years and would have liked to go there."