Synchronicity, I Guess August 28, 2008 – Posted in: Aberrant Normalcy
My friend and writer, Devin Poore, is a big history buff, especially about the Revolutionary War. So, since I’ve been living in Brooklyn as of late, I’ve been exploring the beautiful Prospect Park. The park was created by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux after they designed Central Park. Supposedly, they said that Central Park was their practice run, and Prospect Park their “masterpiece.”
I know what they mean. Whereas Central Park has very little in the way of actual woods (most of the park is made up of grassy fields), Prospect Park has acres of woodland. While walking I have seen hawks, birds of many colors, swan, geese, herons, and rabbits. I also ran across this Revolutionary War memorial yesterday:
 Curious, I looked at the date:
 Which just so happened to be the same date, August 27th, 1776, exactly 232 years ago. Sometimes life is cool that way. Excited (as these things tend to make me), I emailed Devin, who responded by sending me a link to this site, which talks about the battle fought there, for all you history buffs.
1 Comment
Devin September 03, 2008 - 13:54
Thanks for the photos, Matt. I hadn’t really thought much about the battlefields for the Battle of Long Island (or Battle of Brooklyn, depending on the source). I figured they would have suffered the fates of most historical sites in New York City: bulldozed to make way for a road or apartment complex.
David McCullough’s book 1776 is a great historical text/novel that deals with that battle quite a bit. It’s great reading even if only for the descriptions of what was once a wild and undeveloped Brooklyn.