Originally the terminal moraine and outwash plain of the receding glaciers of the ice age, the area around the Park was the site of the Battle of Long Island during the U.S. Revolutionary War and became known as Battle Pass where the highest point known as Prospect Hill jutted up approximately 200 feet (60 m) from sea level. In the nineteenth century the Park was mostly farm land; the cost of acquiring the Park land by the City of Brooklyn was upwards of $4 million. The actual cost of construction of the Park amounted to more than $5 million. Originally the Park was to straddle Flatbush Avenue and go past the later built Eastern Parkway. Planning of the Park was originally begun before the American Civil War in 1860 but stopped during the war. After the war in 1865 Olmsted and Vaux were hired and Vaux convinced the city that more lands to the east and nearer to Green-Wood Cemetery should be purchased including the area of the park known as Nethermead and the farm land where Prospect Lake was built.

Perhaps the most fascinating of Olmsted and Vaux's creations is the Prospect Park watercourse. All the waterways and lakes in Prospect Park were man-made. Originally engineered by Olmstead and Vaux to be a vast nature preserve recreating American wilderness areas as an oasis for urban residents, by the mid-twentieth century these landscaped waterways fell into a state of terrible disrepair. In 1994 the Prospect Park Alliance launched a 25-year, $43 million restoration project for the watercourse.

If one follows the water from its source the water in Prospect Park takes us on a course starting at the top of Fallkill Falls into Fallkill Pool past the Fallkill Bridge through the recently restored Upper Pool and Lower Pool, where migratory birds rest and marsh and other water plants can be found. Past the Esdale Bridge through Ambergill Pond one enters into a tree covered area then on to the smaller Ambergill Falls through Rock Arch Bridge past the gorge area called The Ravine. The design called for the trickle of water to be heard throughout the forest and this effect lasts on to the Nethermead Arches through the Binnen Water where a variety of waterlilies can be found. The watercourse then moves on to the Music Pagoda Bridge where performances of music were often given.


The waters then cascade beneath the Binnen Bridge to the Lullwater, upon the East bank of which stands the once again operative Boathouse (now Audubon Center & Visitor Center), and then under the Lullwater Bridge around the Peninsula — an area that is a sanctuary for birds where wild meadows can be found. Moving under the large Terrace Bridge the waters move to their final destination, entering into the sixty acre (24 ha) artificially built Prospect Lake that includes several islands. Once severely polluted, Prospect Lake is now home to over 20 species of fish and hosts an annual fishing contest; now, again, boats of visitors once more move across the Lake in Paddle Boats and the Independence, a replica of the original electric launch which took day-trippers around the Lake a century ago.

This trip along the watercourse demonstrates the revolutionary approach of Olmsted and Vaux in their re-creation of various types of natural water formations; not only did they plant a variety of trees, bushes and other plants, but they moved rocks, boulders and earth to recreate a variety of natural environments for the pleasure and stimulation of Brooklyn’s nineteenth century urban dwellers.