all abandoned.

Prospect Park Pool

Prospect Park was designed by Garnet Baltimore, the first African American to graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. On February 19, 1903, the city bought the land from the Warren Estate for $110,000. The City Parks Commission hired Baltimore to design the park, paying him $2,000 in annual salary. He designed pathways, a pond, tennis courts, a bandstand, flower beds, and a scenic lookout from which visitors could see a 25-mile panorama of the Hudson River and Valley. The Warren home became a museum, and the Vail home became a snack concession.

Prospect Park is a unique gem in the middle of the city: it provides spectacular, 20-mile, panoramic vistas to the south, west, and north. Rare species of trees, like the Catalpa, European Beech, Hawthorne, and Magnolia grace its grassy expanses; and its history goes all the way back to Uncle Sam.

9 photos in this set.