Suburban Vision to Urban Reality: The Evolution of Olmsted and Vaux's Brooklyn Parkway Neighborhoods

Abstract

In the late 1860s, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux prepared a plan for Brooklyn that was intended to structure the development of a vast area of rural land. The plan proposed an extensive system of parkways linking public open spaces, which would serve as spines around which low-density suburban neighborhoods would be built. Two long and complexly designed parkways were built, Eastern Parkway and Ocean Parkway, and special platting was laid out for an envisioned neighborhood, but little development occurred around the parkways for forty years. This article looks at the evolution of built form around the parkways from before they were constructed until the present day, analyzing the development that actually occurred in relation to the original planning vision.